Spoiler History: Starting from the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 707: Bloody Battle
Looking at the data of the Song Dynasty listed by later generations, Emperor Ming laughed out loud.

Then he turned to his eldest son and said:

"Even if Biao'er reads the theory of wealth, he must remember the disaster of the Song and Yuan dynasties."

“You must know that agriculture is the foundation of the country.”

Seeing his son bowing to show that he understood, Zhu Yuanzhang nodded with satisfaction.

He had just been shocked by the news of the Ming Dynasty's impoverishment and had lost his composure for a while, but what he said now reminded him of the lives of the common people.

The Southern Song Dynasty is certainly not as good as the Northern Song Dynasty, but the Yuan Dynasty is even worse than the Southern Song Dynasty!

If financial and commercial affairs are promoted and eventually no one is left to farm, wouldn't that be a repeat of the old disaster?

What does it matter if he has a lot of money? Can Jia Sidao go to the Mongols or Japan to buy food?
In the end, won't we still have to rely on the public land system to seize the land of those big landlords to make up for the country's deficit?
After asking himself, Emperor Ming became more and more determined that agriculture is the foundation of the country, and only agriculture can be the foundation of the country!

But then again...

"I've heard the term landlord many times, and it's more appropriate than the word tyrant."

"They compete with other countries for land and profits, which makes the country suffer and the people poor while enriching themselves alone!"

"If you ask me, when all the landlords are gone, our Ming Dynasty may be able to last for another thousand years!"

No one else could respond to this, so only the Crown Prince could speak up and say:
"Dad, then wouldn't our family become the landlord?"

This remark made Zhu Yuanzhang glare at his son:
"Our Zhu family and the Ming Dynasty rise and fall together, so why should we differentiate between us?!"

This sounded correct, but Zhu Biao always felt that something was not quite right.

But Zhu Yuanzhang was reminded of this again:
"I don't know where our descendants will go after the country is destroyed."

……

In the Guangzheng Hall in Bianliang, Qian Chu kept silent.

But Li Yu already had resentment towards Zhao Kuangyin. Even though he had some feelings for Zhao Kuangyin because of their fight against the King of Jin, it was impossible to completely eliminate it. So he simply asked directly:
"Your Majesty, how come the Song Dynasty is divided into the Northern and Southern Songs? And there are only a hundred counties left?"

Zhao Dezhao also looked up, he didn't quite understand this either.

Before this, my father and Lord Zhao had briefly mentioned that the enemy had moved southwards, causing the Song Dynasty to be divided into north and south, but they simply glossed over the reason for the division.

Originally, this question had been put aside for the time being, but at this time the light curtain said something incomprehensible such as "physical combing" and "physical equal distribution of land", so it's no wonder that others were curious.

In response to Li Yu's question, Zhao Kuangyin was silent for a while and said lightly:
"Even if the capital was captured and the country was destroyed, some members of the royal family fled south and survived. What is there to say?"

It can be felt that the emperor is in a bad mood, but Li Yu is curious at this moment:

"What about you, sir...oh no, what about the descendants of King Jin? Are they like me today?"

Li Yu felt that Zhao Guan was staring at him for a long time with a rather strange look, and finally shook his head and said:

"Like you? Oh, I know you don't want to be a citizen of Song, but you and I are both citizens of Xia after all, so I will follow the etiquette and treat you with courtesy."

"But how could Mongolia know this?"

"This light curtain briefly said before that my descendants were carried by the ministers and thrown into the sea, and in addition, 100,000 Song people also jumped into the underworld."

The tone was still nonchalant, but Li Yu suddenly felt a chill down his spine.

He was angry that Emperor Zhao had refused to allow Jiangnan to be independent despite his efforts to please him, but at this moment he suddenly realized that if they were not of the same language and race, Emperor Zhao Song would not have had such patience.

Li Yu suddenly remembered the tragic scene of the foreign race destroying the country, and just when his mind was in a mess, he heard the prime minister Zhao Pu whispered:
"Great unification means that the six directions are in harmony and the nine provinces are connected." "Only when the world is united can we resist foreign invaders and strive to be the first in the world!"

Of course Li Yu had also read "Han Shu". When he heard this, he was suddenly speechless.

In 1263, the prefect of Lin'an and the transport commissioner of western Zhejiang jointly proposed to buy public land.

Jia Sidao highly praised this plan and presented it to Song Lizong, saying that it could obtain 10 million acres of fertile farmland and an income of 6 to 7 million, which could not only fully meet the military pay but also have a surplus, avoid the need for grain purchases, pay the troops, stop the minting of paper money, stabilize prices, and stabilize the wealth of the rich, thus bringing five benefits to the country.

For Song Lizong, the temptation was too great to refuse.

In the end, Song Lizong overcame opposition from some officials and landlords, and with the participation of Jia Sidao, the prefect of Lin'an, and the Zhejiang West Transport Commissioner who took the initiative to sell their good farmland as official land, the public land law was officially implemented.

As for what happened later, we all know that the public land system was only implemented for twelve years before it was ended, and the Southern Song Dynasty died completely after this brief struggle.

If we look closely at the details of the public land system, it is not difficult to understand why it was difficult to implement.

First of all, in terms of the buyers of land, the Public Land Law targeted the big bureaucrats and landlords who owned the most land. The amount of land they could hold was restricted according to their official rank, and at least one-third of the excess land had to be sold to the government as public land.

This can only be said to be a beautiful thought. In fact, Jia Sidao overestimated the prestige of the Southern Song government and underestimated the power of the big landlords when they banded together.

At the beginning, this land limit based on grade was difficult to implement, so it quickly turned into a form of government purchase, that is, anyone who owned more than 200 acres of land had to sell one-third of the land to the government.

Since the big landlords cannot be robbed, only the small landlords can be robbed. However, for the small landlords, if they are robbed, they will immediately go to the people to get their money back, so the final result is quite unsatisfactory.

The second biggest problem is the price of buying land. It is not determined by the area but by the rent of the land. Even so, the Southern Song government has no money to give you.

For those with more than 5,000 mu, they were given half a cent of silver, five cents of official edict, three cents of ordination certificate, and three and a half cents of Jiaozi. For those with less than 1,000 mu, they were given half of Jiaozi and half of ordination certificate. In short, they had no money.

Putting aside the price which was no different from robbery, and putting aside the delivery which was no different from robbery, the direct result of this action was the proliferation of certificates of ordination and imperial edicts.

It is not known whether the number of people who served the Buddha increased after the proliferation of certificates of ordination, but the number of people exempted from taxation did increase significantly. The proliferation of certificates of ordination and the increase in officials for the public land system made the problem of redundant officials even more serious.

Another thing is that the public land system is not very effective in some places where it is implemented.

When it was first proposed, the booklet wanted to implement the public land system in Liangzhe, Jiangdong and Jiangxi, but in the end the opposition was too intense, so it was only implemented in the six counties in western Zhejiang.

In this way, the final fate of the public land law is not difficult to guess.

The first designated targets were the large landowners, who naturally objected strongly.

The small landowners who subsequently lost out on the harvest naturally also strongly opposed it.

The small landlords whose lands were seized passed the pressure on to the common people, which also caused strong opposition from the common people.

The increased number of officials, the proliferation of certificates of ordination and imperial edicts made this policy unsustainable and therefore unsustainable.

The essence of the public land system was not very new. It was essentially a product of the contradiction between the feudal state power and the landlord class. The Southern Song government wanted to bleed the landlord class to get rid of the economic crisis and resist the Mongol conquest.

And this was the last struggle of the Southern Song Dynasty in the face of foreign invasion.

In 1268, five years after the implementation of the Public Land Law, Mongolia officially began to promote the war to destroy the Song Dynasty. It surrounded the city of Xiangyang at all costs, forcing the Southern Song Dynasty to compete in national strength.

In this battle, Kublai Khan deployed all his personal troops and went to Central and West Asia to borrow craftsmen and soldiers from the Khanates he had trouble with. In the end, he formed a coalition of nearly fifteen nationalities.

At this time, the Southern Song Dynasty was still busy arguing over trivial matters with the big landlords, while fiercely squeezing out every last grain of rice from the small landlords and poor peasants.

The final outcome is not difficult to predict.

(End of this chapter)