Prime Minister of Great Qin

Chapter 131: Qin Ting's Misfortune! (seeking subscription)
"Lost Field." Ji Heng whispered, very calmly.

He had guessed what was going on.

Fusu said: "It is indeed a loss of land."

"If you speak according to a new word coined in the local area, it's called annexation."

"What is annexation?"

"The wealthy and powerful clan devoured the land of the people, just like a big country in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States swallowed up a small country."

"Since Shang Yang's reform, Daqin has returned all the land in Qin to the public. Therefore, Daqin has completely shifted from the original "first lease of grain" and "Zuoyuantian" to "false civilian public land", that is, leasing state-owned land to landless farmers for production Then, the state will give seeds, cattle, etc. support to the farmers who borrowed the land.”

"The land will be rewarded for military service."

"Shangjun also specially set two rules."

"The first one is inheritance by demotion, that is, the son can inherit the land and title granted by his father due to his meritorious service, but if he has to descend to two levels of inheritance, then the corresponding land and residence will be reduced accordingly."

"In addition, if the father and son are not in the same place, they cannot inherit."

"The second rule is death and death."

"That is, after the grantee dies, except for the part of the land inherited by his son, the excess land will be returned to the state, and the state will distribute it separately."

"That's why."

"The law of Qin does not allow the sale of land."

"It's the annexation of the old land, which rarely attracts attention."

"However, in recent years, officials, aristocrats, and rich merchants in Guanzhong have taken advantage of various opportunities such as famine, migration, and the Caoqu Project to buy arable land in the head of Guizhou, and the land of the people has continuously flowed into the hands of the powerful, noble, and rich. Afterwards, many of them have been reduced to farming households, no different from slaves back then."

Fusu looked solemn.

He knows the pros and cons of it.

After Guishou lost all his land, he would only become poorer.

This in turn leads to poverty among the people.

Ji Heng poured himself a glass of wine, and just listened calmly.

Fu Su looked at Ji Heng in surprise, and continued: "When I noticed that there was an annexation of fields in the local area, I paid more attention and went to the fields to inquire from time to time, but I really didn't expect that many of the local Qianshou sold their land voluntarily. .”

Fusu sighed softly, and said helplessly: "They must not know that Daqin's land cannot be bought and sold, but right now there is a shortage of young people in the area, and most of the civilian households in Guanzhong have military merits, so there are not many fields. Farming is not enough, and the official land rent will not be less, nor will it be easily waived, so the merchants and nobles noticed the local plight, and these people bought the land of private households at a low price under the pretext of helping them pay the rent. .”

"Private purchases have become more frequent over the years."

"Many fields in Guanzhong have fallen into the hands of merchants, nobles, and some officials."

"What worries me even more is that the annexation of land originally took place in the Kanto region, but now it has begun to spread in the central part of the Guandong region. I am afraid that the annexation of the Kanto region will be even worse, especially when the wars in the world have ceased, and the lands of the nobles of the six countries have all been abolished. I don't know how many counties there are. The county's aristocratic families and merchants and rich merchants made their fortunes and made their fortunes."

"The households have lost their land and have only a meager amount of money and food, but how long can these money and food last?"

"In the end, I am afraid that I will go back to the old way and continue to sell my own fields. After going through this several times, most of the land in the world will fall into the hands of merchants, officials, and powerful families."

"Will it be the people plowing the land that will be lost? What will be lost is clearly the foundation of the people's hearts."

"It's an imperial river and mountain."

Fusu had a righteous face, his eyes were full of anger.

Ji Heng took a few glances indifferently, but shook his head, and said, "You have too little view on land annexation."

"Mister, please advise." Fusu cupped his hands and said.

Ji Heng said: "With the continuous appearance of ironware, the production of private households has been greatly improved."

"The well field system in the past is becoming more and more intolerable in the world."

"It was also from this time that the Qimin family registration appeared in the world. This seems to be to control the country's population for management, but it is actually for the convenience of taxation. The real purpose of this system is to change taxation. From this time on, the world has changed from The past tribute system is constantly changing to normal land taxation."

"This change first started in Qi."

"Qi's reform was 'Legacy and Decline', followed by Jin's 'Zuo Yuan Tian', and then Chu's 'Shu Tu Tian', 'Measured and Xiufu' and so on."

"Qin's reform from tribute to land tax is called 'Chuzuhe'."

"Since the Warring States period, the six countries in the Kanto region, to be precise, the entire world, including Qin, have begun to see land annexation."

"It's just that in the Warring States period, countries were forced by swords and soldiers, and they often ruled during wartime. The aristocrats of each country had the right to govern their own fiefs, so the fields in their fiefs were no different from their own land. Naturally, there was no need to forcefully buy civilian land. At that time Merchants are rich, even if they can buy and sell private land, but the amount is too small to attract attention."

"Furthermore."

"Businessmen have a low status and dare not make a big statement."

"Once discovered by the local family, they will be conscripted for service, so land annexation is not violent."

"The same goes for Qin."

"When the annexation of the land in Qin land deteriorated slightly in the future, Shang Yang came out again, beheaded thousands of old nobles from the relevant old clans, and completely wiped out the land annexation that had arisen in Qin land at that time. Agriculture suppresses merchants, rewards farming wars, and restricts merchants, so land sales are almost completely controlled."

"It can never be an incident."

"However, in the middle and late Warring States period, various countries changed their laws one after another."

"Land turned into private ownership."

"It was at this time that the buying and selling of land in the Warring States period gradually became a disaster for all countries. However, at that time, there were endless swords and soldiers, and the precarious situation, so land annexation was still restrained. But as you said, as the wars in the world stopped, they began to settle down. How can a powerful nobleman who has been deprived of his fief accept it humbly?"

"As a result, land annexation has gradually become popular in the world."

"However, Daqin prohibits the sale of land, and there is no law related to the sale of land. Therefore, these sales contracts cannot be recognized by the government. The government knows this. The nobles of the six countries are powerful, and the merchants and riches don't know? So at that time the world Although the trend of buying and selling fields has begun to spread, it is far from getting worse."

"True success begins with an edict."

heard.

Fusu was taken aback immediately.

edict?

Isn't this issued by the emperor?
When did Daqin issue an edict to allow land sales?

All of a sudden, Fusu seemed to think of something, and there was a look of surprise in his eyes.

He said in a condensed voice: "The head of Guizhou's order from Shitian?"

Ji Heng nodded.

"Sir, did you say something wrong?" Fu Su frowned and said, "Your Majesty issued this decree not to allow the sale of land, let alone to admit that the land is privately owned. It was just that the imperial court was a little dissatisfied with the land rent collected from the Kanto. There are a lot of shady people who want to find out the situation in the fields in the Kanto region, so this decree was issued."

"This is actually a decree to verify land and levy land taxes."

"Indeed."

"The imperial court also used this to encourage the people to open up wasteland, and promised to grant these fields to the head of Guizhou."

"But that has nothing to do with permitting land sales."

"How could the imperial court do such a short-sighted thing?"

Fusu couldn't believe it.

He knew something about making Qianshou from Shitian, so he didn't agree with this statement.

Ji Heng smiled and said, "Even so, so what."

"If the imperial court continues with a decree, and the subordinates will implement it according to the facts, the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties will not perish."

"It is people who enforce the system!"

"The binding power of the system on people is limited."

"As long as the interests are big enough, any system can be trampled on."

Fusu's face darkened.

Ji Heng laughed lightly, and continued: "The world was initially settled, and the Qin law had not been uniformly implemented at that time, and the old law was still followed in the Guandong, that is, fields can be bought and sold."

"At that time, the people of the world were at a loss. They knew nothing about the laws of Qin and the government of Qin. The only thing they could hear was the endless abuse and cursing of the great Qin by the powerful local nobles."

"In addition, the world has been afraid of Qin for a long time."

"The people of Kanto are afraid of Qin."

"So it is easy to be bewitched by the local powerful nobles."

"When the government comes down to check the fields, they will deliberately hide it and not report it."

"But Qin Ting saw that the land rent collected from top to bottom was getting less and less every year, so he issued the "Order to Make the Head of Guizhou Realize the Land". After the issuance of this decree, land annexation in the world has become common practice."

"the reason is simple."

"Qin Ting gave the jurisprudence of the merger."

"The imperial court knows that there are hidden and unreported land in the local area, and also knows that there are certain land annexations in the local area. They want to use this to let the local area report the land truthfully. On the one hand, they want to reduce the burden on the people, and on the other hand, they want to collect more land rent from the nobles. But you have to be clear, Qin Ting does not know who concealed the report and who was annexed to the land."

"That order immediately created a problem."

"The fields that were hidden in the past are still hidden by people, but the fields in the original account have given the nobles a reason to annex them. Because they are 'self-knowledge fields', they can directly seize and plunder all the fields that did not belong to them. Occupying it under my own name, and then realized the change of ownership of this part of the field."

Fusu's face changed slightly.

Ji Heng said indifferently: "Qin law stipulates that people without land are jobless and tired, and will be punished as prisoners of various hard labor. However, the Great Qin Dynasty has ruled the world for several years. No one in the world knows the suffering of corvee. Therefore, the people who lost their land are not Those who dare to say that they have no land, and because the aristocrats are powerful, they dare not easily report their loss of land."

"In the end, these Guizhou heads clearly had no land, but they had to pay extra rent for 'non-existent' land."

"The aristocrats who 'buy land' report more land property, which will inevitably lead to an increase in their own land rent and taxation. However, there were many hidden and unreported fields before the Kanto, so they will only intensify their annexation in order to make up for the extra rent they paid. These fields."

"thus."

"The winds of local land annexation are intensifying."

"The government decree issued by the Qin court did not lead to annexation, but the officials below may not be so when they implement it."

"Qin Ting gave the jurisprudence of annexation, if there are conditions, who would not be greedy?"

"This is a field!"

"Now you know where the disaster of losing the land came from."

(End of this chapter)