My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 617 Qualitative Change
The reigns of Emperors Wen and Jing were all in vain!
What concept?
Not to mention whether the late emperor, who had been regent for several years and reigned for three years, was willing to accept his failure of "resetting all his achievements to zero and starting all over again";

The mere fact that Emperor Taizong had served for twenty-three years in vain, as if he had never existed on the throne of the Han dynasty, was something the late emperor would absolutely not accept.

—In feudal times, the succession to the throne, the initial political capital of the next generation of monarchs, and the legitimate source of their ruling position always came from the previous generation of monarchs.

Emperor Xiaohui was able to ascend the throne and become emperor because he was the son of Emperor Taizu Gao and was personally appointed as the crown prince by Emperor Taizu Gao.

The reason why the former young emperor Liu Gong was able to ascend the throne was also because the former young emperor was the son of Emperor Hui and the crown prince appointed by Emperor Hui.

As the rightful heir to the throne, Emperor Xiaohui, the former young emperor, still relied heavily on the political prestige and capital inherited from his predecessor.

Not to mention the lineage of Emperor Taizong Xiaowen, who is rumored to have "illegitimately ascended the throne."

Emperor Taizong's illegitimate accession to the throne at least mitigated the impact of the first half of the 23-year reign of Emperors Wen and Jing.

But the late emperor was not the living saint in the eyes of the people!

He was both a chessboard warrior and a rascal, yet he was able to ascend the throne entirely thanks to the legacy of Emperor Taizong and the blood flowing through his veins.

If Emperor Taizong were to work for nothing, not only would he be furious, but the late emperor, who was still sitting on the throne of the Han dynasty, would also be at a loss.

—The source of legal legitimacy is gone!
—The foundation of the legal system has been 'wasted'!

Even more seriously, the legacy of Emperor Taizong Xiaowen, the emperor with the most unique succession in the history of the Western Han Dynasty, did not only affect Emperor Xiaojing, the successor, but also every subsequent emperor in Emperor Taizong's lineage.

Only when Emperor Taizong Xiaowen extended his benevolence to birds and beasts and his virtue to all living beings could the people of the world allow his descendants to sit on the throne of the Han dynasty for generations to come.

Once this concept is broken, Emperor Taizong will no longer be a living saint who is benevolent to all under heaven. Then the accusation that Emperor Taizong's lineage obtained the throne illegitimately will no longer be just a rumor, but an objective reality that will be put on the table.

Therefore, the grain price that year was seriously 'excessive'.

The excessive actions of Emperor Taizong Xiaowen almost wiped out his entire political achievements during his reign overnight.
At that time, the Han dynasty, which had a history of less than fifty years, was almost forced to regress by twenty-six years due to the actions of the marquises who inflated grain prices.

Such excessive behavior naturally led the court to turn a blind eye, and the emperor himself would no longer turn a blind eye.

Considering the above three points, the meritorious nobles generally made the decision to give up.

There's no need to sacrifice long-term interests and offend the crown prince for short-term gains;

—We just made a fortune pacifying Wu and Chu, and we're flush with cash. There's no need for us to be eyeing these paltry sums.
—Grain prices have gone too far, and the imperial court is about to take action. There's no need to provoke them.

With these three factors combined, the vast majority of meritorious officials backed down and went off to comfortably enjoy the fruits of their victory in quelling the Wu-Chu Rebellion.

Correspondingly, there are naturally a small group of fools who are clueless and, even with the above three key elements, still insist on opposing Liu Rong.

Calling them stupid isn't entirely accurate.

Because at that time, what truly drove them to rebel against Liu Rong and against the price stabilization of grain was not their greed or low intelligence.
Rather, it was their circumstances at the time that forced them to do so.

Looking at these people's assets, or rather their income, it's not hard to understand their motives for opposing Liu Rong.

—The person who could stand up and oppose Liu Rong on the issue of stabilizing grain prices could not possibly be a meritorious marquis who participated in suppressing the Wu-Chu Rebellion.

Because everyone who participated made a fortune and didn't care about the money from the grain at all.

Secondly, those who would go against the crown prince in order to inflate grain prices and earn a profit of a few hundred thousand coins must be the most incompetent among the meritorious marquises who lack the ability to make money through shady means, have few other sources of income, and rely heavily on the taxes of their fiefdoms.

Their quality of life for the year depends almost entirely on how much money they could make from selling the previous year's grain.

If they sell it too cheaply, they'll have to endure a year of hardship and borrow a lot of money.

If they sell at a higher price, they can be as self-sufficient as possible for a year, or even borrow less money.

Only by driving up grain prices and selling the grain obtained from the taxes of the feudal states at an extremely high price could they have a chance to avoid borrowing money and even pay off some of their debts.

That's why they were willing to take such a huge risk in an attempt to seize that seemingly once-in-a-lifetime 'opportunity'.

Then there are some self-righteous opportunists.

They most likely did not participate in suppressing the Rebellion of the Seven States of Wu and Chu, and they did not have enough money to allow them to be financially independent and enjoy a comfortable life.
At the same time, they have some money, or rather, a considerable credit line, which allows them to borrow a lot of money.

Then, with this money, they acted like businessmen and stockpiled grain during that 'feast' that year, then drove up grain prices, trying to buy low and sell high to make a huge profit from the price difference.

Given the extremely high risks involved, it's not hard to deduce that these people are likely incompetent individuals burdened with debt, enormous expenses, and relatively limited income.

All these factors combined lead to the conclusion that the meritorious nobles whom Liu Rong identified and subsequently purged under the guise of stabilizing grain prices were actually the most useless parasites within the Han dynasty's meritorious noble class.

They preferred to accept the hereditary demotion of their titles rather than go to the battlefield to contribute to the ancestral temple and the state.

They would rather suffer infamy than cut into the food supply and squeeze food from the mouths of the poor.

Liu Rong was very fortunate that he could easily identify and rightfully eliminate this group of people.

After these people were eliminated, the remaining nobles and marquises were naturally all elites who were 'skilled at making money'.

As mentioned above, the nobles and marquises used every means to make money, including exploiting the labor of the people in their fiefdoms and manipulating prices to profit from the difference.

Of these methods, the one with the largest and most stable profits, and which is also the easiest to achieve, is to act as a protector for merchants.

Of course, unlike the later perception of a protector who takes money and does things without interfering in specific business, the nobles who acted as protectors of merchants basically "swallowed up" the merchants and their entire fortunes.

From then on, the merchants became servants of the Marquis, and their property became the capital for the Marquis to make even greater profits.

From the moment a merchant pledges allegiance to a lord, the sole purpose of his existence is to use his family fortune as capital and his skills as leverage to generate a continuous stream of profits for the lord.

During this time, some of the meritorious marquises would leak out between their fingers—after all, these marquises were 'big spenders,' so it was normal for their fingers to be a little wider.

Both sides got what they wanted—the merchants could do business with peace of mind, and the marquis got a lucrative and trouble-free income channel. The two sides hit it off and it was a win-win situation.

Having understood these points and reviewed the changes in the Han Chinese merchant class after Emperor Taizong donated grain and titles, let's return to the main topic.

—Emperor Taizong, in order to save money and support the army, did not hesitate to sell his titles for money;
The women in the palace were all bare-faced, their skirts barely trailing on the ground, emphasizing frugality and thrift. The late emperor was slightly less so; he wasn't stingy to that extent, but he wasn't generous either.

The two emperors, father and son, almost passed the baton to each other, and solidified the Han dynasty's originally empty and impoverished treasury.

The purpose was so that if one day they were to fight the Xiongnu, they wouldn't have to ask the common people for money again.

As a result, Emperor Wu of Han, almost without any surprise, failed to live up to the expectations of his father and grandfather—especially his father, Emperor Jing of Han.

Emperor Wu of Han did indeed drive the Xiongnu north, but he did not achieve complete success.

In his later years, he suffered a series of defeats, and when he issued an edict of self-reproach at Luntai, he essentially gave back all the foreign victories he had achieved during the Wei-Huo era.

At the same time, whether it was the continuous victories during the Wei-Huo period or the repeated defeats afterward, the enormous wartime financial burden was almost entirely placed on the shoulders of the people.

Later generations often mocked that animals would instinctively stop reproducing when the living environment was harsh.

However, during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, this highly ironic joke became a reality.

It's not that ordinary people don't want to have children;
Rather, it's not that they can't afford to raise them, that they can't keep them alive, or that they can't

Land consolidation intensified, causing the 100 mu of land granted to each household by Emperor Gaozu of Han to plummet to less than 40 mu per household during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han.

People had one child after another, but they also starved to death, died of disease, or even drowned or abandoned one child after another.

In the later years of Emperor Jing of Han's reign, it took only five years for the Han population to grow from 36 million to 40 million.

In five years, the number of people has increased by four million.

800,000 per year;
However, during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, it took a full thirty years for the Han population to grow from forty million to fifty million.

Thirty years, ten million people.

Each year, it's only a little over 300,000.

The population base is clearly getting larger and larger, and the population growth should clearly be getting faster and faster.
However, the existence of Emperor Wu of Han caused the population growth rate of the Han Dynasty to be halved in a short period of time.

If this is not enough to prove that Emperor Wu of Han was warlike and that the people of the Han Dynasty, especially the lower classes, suffered greatly during his reign, then there would probably be no suffering in the world.

We'll bring everything back to square one.

—By learning from Emperor Wu of Han, what should Liu Rong be careful about?
The most pressing issues are naturally people's livelihoods and curbing land annexation.

Only by ensuring the basic survival needs of the lower classes and effectively curbing the series of social problems caused by land annexation can the Han population grow rapidly at a rate of at least 800,000 per year—or more than 4 million every five years.

In feudal times, especially during the imperial era of ancient China, population was the most fundamental source of national strength.

A larger population means higher central government revenue, a larger bureaucracy, a more efficient administrative system, and a stronger military.

The number of troops, the quality of recruits, the combat effectiveness, and the administrative strength that a regime of ten million people can provide are not on the same level as those of a regime of fifty million people.

For example, at the end of the Warring States period, each of the great powers controlled millions of people. Even though they could easily raise armies of hundreds of thousands of people, they were just sending farmers who could carry hoes to the battlefield to fight against spears and halberds.

Once defeated, especially if completely annihilated, it often means the death of a generation, and it takes decades or even centuries to recover.

When Qin unified the country and controlled a population of over 30 million, it was able to send large armies of 400,000 to the north and 500,000 to the south, while also maintaining basic local armed forces to safeguard internal security.

The same applies to the Han dynasty.

During the reign of Emperor Gaozu of Han, the population of the Han Dynasty was 15 million. It took a lot of effort to assemble an army of 200,000 men, which made Prime Minister Xiao, who was in charge of supplying logistics and provisions in Chang'an, so worried that he would pull his hair out.

Today, the Han Dynasty, with its population of 30 million, can not only support a standing field force of nearly 100,000 people, but also mobilize more than 500,000 combat troops and several times that number of logistical support troops at any time according to actual needs.

And the quality is guaranteed!

Emperor Taizu Gao assembled an army of 200,000 men, which was almost like conscription; every man was brought to the battlefield!

However, during Liu Rong's reign, even if the Han dynasty needed to assemble an army of 500,000 men, plus a million laborers to transport grain, they would still carefully select and review candidates at each level, choosing the best among the best.

During the reign of Emperor Gaozu, those who could easily become soldiers under the emperor's command based on their gender and age would be competing with others for a spot as a grain transport laborer in Liu Rong's current reign!

This is the qualitative change brought about by the population of feudal regimes, especially the feudal regimes of China.

Liu Rong's goal was to increase the Han population to around 60 million within his lifetime—over the next thirty years—at a rate of four million every five years.

At the same time, development should be carried out on the Korean Peninsula, the black soil of Northeast China, or the area along the Lingbei-Changsha-Huainan line, leaving the Han people with enough resources to support 100 million people without exacerbating land annexation.

Liu Rong was well aware that a population of 100 million was a qualitative turning point for a feudal dynasty.

When a feudal dynasty in China is able to effectively govern and stably operate a population of 100 million, the next evolution of Chinese civilization will inevitably follow.

Liu Rong couldn't say for sure what the specific direction of evolution would take.

Perhaps it will be a steam revolution;

It could also be an ideological reform.

Ultimately, however, it represents a positive evolution that has led to the progress and development of Chinese civilization.

This grand goal is extremely difficult for Liu Rong—and for the Han Dynasty at that time.

Putting aside everything else, the sheer amount of land and resources to support 100 million people, along with the administrative system to govern them, is enough to make Liu Rong lose trillions of brain cells over the next few decades.

But corresponding to this incredible difficulty is an incredibly attractive reward.

Even if Liu Rong were to enable the Han dynasty to support its 60 million inhabitants during his lifetime, it would still be enough to elevate Chinese civilization to a new level below his own!

For this new milestone, Liu Rong was willing to dedicate his entire life...

(End of this chapter)