this novel is healthy

Chapter 2164 Land Annexation [Free]

[PS: This is mainly some nonsense, so I’ll give it to you for free]

"Yeah!" Liu Xu nodded. He could fully understand what Qi Sheng said. The grassroots level is always the most difficult place to deal with.

Almost all the unified dynasties in Chinese history have collapsed, and none of them could survive the 300-year cycle. The specific reasons seem to have been analyzed very clearly. The core reason is that land annexation has caused a large number of ordinary people to lose their land and could only serve as tenants for the landlords.

This caused the small peasant economy to become extremely fragile and unable to withstand any economic risks. Once a natural disaster, even a small-scale one, occurred, it could lead to a total collapse and ultimately the collapse of the entire dynasty.

Some people may think that this is not the case, as if the only dynasties that were destroyed because of peasant uprisings were the Qin Dynasty, the Sui Dynasty, and the Yuan Dynasty. The rest were destroyed because of Wang Mang's usurpation of the Western Han Dynasty, the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty were destroyed by warlords' fighting, and the Two Jin Dynasties, the Two Song Dynasties, the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty were all destroyed by foreign invasions, which had little to do with peasant uprisings.

But once you look through the facts and see the essence, you will find that these unified dynasties that were destroyed by other reasons may not have the obvious reason of peasant uprisings. Because peasant uprisings are the biggest and final manifestation of the collapse of the peasant economy. Once the crazy peasant uprisings across the country, it means that the land in the world has been annexed to the extent that no ordinary peasant can survive, so there will be peasant uprisings that are enough to destroy the entire dynasty.

As for other dynasties that did not seem to be destroyed by peasant uprisings, it was because land annexation had not yet reached the level of completely collapsing the entire peasant economy, but it was also on the brink of collapse, and thus ended in other forms of non-peasant uprisings.

On the surface, the Western Han Dynasty was destroyed by Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han Dynasty. In fact, it was because almost all the land of the Western Han Dynasty had been completely annexed by local powerful people. A large number of landless and landless farmers became an extremely serious hidden danger. The Green Forest Uprising and the Red Eyebrow Uprising that appeared in the later period of Wang Mang were the best proof that the common people could not survive.

At that time, too many people could not survive under the rule of the Western Han Dynasty, so they hoped that a ruler with outstanding virtue and talent who could redistribute the land would come to power and bring vitality to the landless farmers. This is why Wang Mang established the well-field system as soon as he ascended the throne, so that all people could have land to cultivate.

It was not because Wang Mang was some GCist time traveler, but because the society at that time had reached a point where it would completely collapse if the land was not distributed. Wang Mang came to power because of the distribution of land. If he had not distributed the land, he would have been finished.

It is a pity that Wang Mang, who usurped the throne, naturally lacked military prestige. In addition, there was resistance from the local Liu clan, and he himself had obvious shortcomings, which ultimately led to the failure of Wang Mang's reform.

Later, when Liu Xiu came to power, the first thing he did was to measure the land, that is, to re-measure the land and take back those lands that had been forcibly annexed by various powerful families and had no official deeds... As for those lands with official deeds, Liu Xiu did not dare to touch them, otherwise there would be chaos in the world.

This is also the reason why the Eastern Han Dynasty only lasted for more than 100 years. This was because the land measurement was not as good as the forced land distribution after the war. There was too little land to quench the thirst of the people, and it was all annexed after more than 100 years. Therefore, the demise of the Western Han Dynasty was actually due to land annexation.

Speaking of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it seemed that the Eastern Han Dynasty perished in the Three Kingdoms War, but in fact, what really destroyed the Eastern Han Dynasty was the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Millions of peasants who could not survive first began to rebel, which led to the collapse of the Eastern Han Dynasty. As a result, the dynasty had to give power to local tyrants and let them have military power.

A big reason why Cao Cao was able to win in the end was that he was able to cultivate land... He used all the uninhabited land that had been vacant after the Yellow Turban Rebellion to cultivate land, and eventually the entire Wei Kingdom had no shortage of population and food.

The Jin Dynasty is even more ridiculous. It seems like the Jin Dynasty was the result of a foreign invasion, first there was the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, and then there was the Invasion of the Five Barbarians.

But in fact, it was because the Jin Dynasty was ruled by powerful families, and they naturally sat on the side of the powerful. They did not restrict the annexation of land by the people. All the land in the entire Jin Dynasty basically belonged to the powerful and the gentry. Ordinary people completely lost their land and could only serve as tenants for these powerful and the gentry. All the population and land were actually in the hands of the powerful and the gentry, and the Western Jin Dynasty lost the space to recruit soldiers from good families in the people... What's even more outrageous is that after these powerful and the gentry had annexed most of the land in the Central Plains, they actually set their sights on the land of the Xiongnu and Xianbei people who moved to Liangzhou and Youzhou, and wanted to annex the land of these nomadic peoples, and let them serve as tenants for them, raising horses and cattle for them and sucking their blood.

Good man, if this isn't rebellion, why would you do that?
It seems that the Tang Dynasty had little to do with land annexation. It was An Lushan who destroyed the Tang Dynasty.

But this is just a historical illusion, because the Anshi Rebellion is so famous that everyone subconsciously thinks that it was the Anshi Rebellion that destroyed the Tang Dynasty. But in fact, the Anshi Rebellion was just a turning point for the Tang Dynasty. It was Huang Chao's peasant uprising that really destroyed the Tang Dynasty. After all, Zhu Wen, the destroyer of the Tang Dynasty, actually followed Huang Chao at the beginning.

In fact, even if you believe that the Anshi Rebellion destroyed the Tang Dynasty, the root cause of the Rebellion was still land annexation.

Because the Tang Dynasty was the result of the rise of the Guanlong aristocracy, it was impossible for the Tang Dynasty to carry out a land revolution, let alone restrict land annexation. In fact, a large number of people in the Tang Dynasty were basically slaves of the major aristocratic families, and there were basically no self-cultivating farmers since the founding of the Tang Dynasty.

Wasn’t the Tang Dynasty afraid of peasant uprisings?

At the beginning, the Tang Dynasty was indeed not afraid, because the Tang Dynasty had a unique system of fubing. Although the Tang Dynasty did not give ordinary farmers the opportunity to own land, it was able to give fubing independent land. As long as you were a fubing, you could own your own land to cultivate, and you could also get a lot of policy support.

But as a price to pay, every soldier had to train in military skills during the slack season, and if war broke out, they would bring their own equipment and dry food to fight for the court.

The superiority of the Fubing system was now fully demonstrated. On the one hand, the cost of using the Fubing was very low. They only needed policy support, and the Fubing would bring their own dry food and equipment to fight. The cost was surprisingly low compared to the Han Dynasty.

Secondly, the government soldiers can also take the initiative to help suppress local peasant rebellions. As long as there is an elite force of government soldiers in each place, there will be no chaos in that place, and any rebellion will be directly suppressed by the government soldiers in the first place.

Originally, the Tang Dynasty's model was very advanced. Most of the land was still given to the aristocratic families for annexation, and only a small portion of the land was left to maintain the land for the government soldiers.

But guess what happened in the end?
That's right, after the aristocratic families had annexed all the land of the self-cultivating farmers that could be annexed, they were insatiable and immediately set their sights on the land of the local soldiers... Then the local soldier system collapsed completely. The local soldiers that were invincible during the Zhenguan period were completely abolished in the early Kaiyuan period.

After all, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang was a capable man. He wanted to save the palace soldiers, but he was alone and it was impossible for him to suppress the aristocratic families from encroaching on land... So Emperor Xuanzong slapped his head and the policy of Jiedushi was introduced.

The land of the Fubing was swallowed up by the noble families because the Fubing had no administrative power and no one to protect their interests. So if the Fubing were given administrative power and military men were appointed as Jiedushi, would these damn noble families no longer be able to swallow up the land of the Fubing, and the Fubing system could be maintained?

genius!

(End of this chapter)