Why did the emperor rebel?

Chapter 592 Where do people come from?

It should be said that the situation of the land occupied by the army alone is already very difficult, but what is even more difficult is the private cultivation of land.

In fact, the existence of private land reclamation is also one of the main reasons why the military settlements have rotted so far.

The so-called privately reclaimed land is part of the unregistered land after the original farmland was hidden, and the other part is simply newly reclaimed wasteland.

For most side players, the former is more profitable, but the latter is safer.

Normally, reclaiming wasteland should be a good thing for the country.

As a farming nation, at least until now, there is only a shortage of fields, not an overabundance of fields.

It is true that the border area is vast, and it is not like Jiangnan, where almost all available fields have been reclaimed.

In the border areas, there are still large wilderness areas that can be reclaimed.

But the problem is that reclaiming wasteland is not just about finding a piece of land and cultivating it.

The so-called slash-and-burn farming means that if you want to turn a piece of wasteland into arable farmland, you have to pay a huge price.

First of all, it is necessary to level the land, move baskets of earth from high places to low places to fill it up, and then build out the field ridges. The large clods of soil must be broken up and the grass roots must be carefully removed to complete the first step.

Then, in order to enhance the fertility and grow crops, loads of manure should be picked up to the field, supplemented with sun-dried plant ash, sprinkled on the field finely, and then plowed deeply with an ox cart.

Finally, and the most difficult thing, is to dig canals from the nearest embankment to divert water and irrigate the fields. Only in this way can one mu of arable land be basically formed.

If these things are done by ordinary people, let alone several strong laborers, it will take at least two or three years of hard work to complete them.

However, even so, the land obtained in the end is only one mu of bad land that can barely be cultivated.

To turn a bad field into a good field, it must go through several years of sowing, careful cultivation, and good care.

For ordinary people, reclaiming barren land is a terrible thing. It often takes a lifetime, and they are so tired that they lose their lives before they can reclaim three to five acres of fertile land, which is really valued as a family property.

However, for the side generals, it was much easier to reclaim the wasteland.

The subordinates are all big soldiers, if they are sent out to work, it will be over!

Ordinary people reclaim wasteland and worry about what to eat tomorrow, but the frontier soldiers are paid by the court, and they go out to work when they are full every day, which is considered practice.

The result is that the army, which was obviously good, turned into a laborer who reclaimed wasteland in the end. Not only were the soldiers tortured too much, but their time was spent on reclaiming wasteland, and the drills were wasted. .

This kind of thing is also not uncommon at the border.

When Tian Ken came out, or the people under the ground made too much noise, they would transfer orders with the soldiers in the battalion to patrol and guard the city, and nothing would happen.

In the end, the imperial court gave a large sum of money to support the frontier army. The ordinary soldiers were exhausted every day, but their fighting strength did not rise but fell, and they often fled.

As for those fields, they were naturally taken into the bag by the border generals and changed their appearance. Once some money was sent to the local government, they turned into formally registered civilian fields.

Even, sometimes there is no need to send money. For the local government, as long as they are willing to register and pay taxes on time, it is a political achievement.

It should be noted that a very important criterion for evaluating local officials is whether the number of local acres and the annual grain production have increased.

New fields are added every year, which is a dream come true for magistrates. As for how it came about, of course they turned a blind eye to it.

But the more this is the case, the more private land reclamation has intensified.

Moreover, what is even more inexplicable is that since privately cultivated land does not need to pay taxes, although it is very difficult to cultivate, once it is reclaimed, in many cases, the frontier army is often more willing to cultivate privately cultivated land.

Because in this way, they can get more food than farming military settlements. After all, military settlements have high taxes, and a considerable part of them needs to be turned over to the imperial court for unified arrangement.

The promotion of military settlements is nothing more than fields and people.

The occupation of military settlements has reduced the number of fields, and the flood of privately cultivated fields has reduced the number of frontier troops in farming military settlements. Without land and people, it is natural for military settlements to gradually collapse.

Once the military settlements have reached the point where they exist in name only, military expenditures on the border will be entirely dependent on the state finances.

Therefore, it is necessary to rectify the army.

After reading the first half of the memorandum, the elders also reached a consensus by coincidence.

However, how to do it in the end is indeed difficult.

So, after closing their eyes for a while to digest the situation of the military settlement, the elders turned over the description of the current situation of the military settlement, and turned their attention to the second half, which is also the highlight of this time, that is, how to rectify the military settlement. erosion.

Seeing that everyone had almost digested it, Yu Qian did not hesitate, and continued following the progress of everyone.

"Aiming at the status quo of the military settlements, the Ministry of War has conducted many ministerial meetings, and finally roughly finalized the rectification regulations that you see now."

"In a nutshell, this charter is divided into three major steps."

"The first and most important step is to clear up the farmland. The Ministry of War is expected to join forces with the Metropolitan Procuratorate to send [-] imperial envoys and censors to various places to measure military farmland, official farmland, and civilian farmland, as well as the status of their fields. , carry out a unified Qingzhang."

As soon as this sentence was finished, many ministers below immediately raised their heads, with some surprises in their eyes. They had known for a long time that the Ministry of War would make a big move this time, but they didn't expect that it would be such a big move when they came up.

The first person to react was Wang Wen from the Ministry of Officials. He frowned and asked.

"Sixty imperial envoys and censors? Where did the Metropolitan Procuratorate get so many people?"

He didn't question whether so many were needed, because judging from the current corruption situation in the military settlements, if you want to thoroughly investigate, you have to plow carefully one by one.

There are hundreds of large and small pass cities on the border. Even if sixty censors are scattered, the area that each person is responsible for is still very large.

But the problem is that the imperial court simply cannot transfer so many officials.

Among the six subjects and thirteen departments, among the standing staff, there are about 120 censors. After the first half year of the Beijing inspection, a group was severely dismissed, and now there are only about 90 or [-] people.

But it should be noted that these censors are all dispatched. Among the eight or ninety people, at least seventy or more will go to various places for inspections. This is the daily management of the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

If it is said to stop, then the entire imperial court will lose control of the place, which is absolutely impossible for the imperial court to accept.

Even the remaining small part is in charge, most of them are responsible for the daily work of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and then they are used for temporary deployment in various places.

So, sixty censors are to be transferred all at once, where do they come from?
(End of this chapter)