The Moon in the Qin Dynasty

Chapter 602: Corvée (Part )

Pavilion level: The pavilion has a pavilion chief, pavilion assistant, pavilion marquis (who is responsible for assigning corvée labor and collecting money and grain), pavilion seeker (who is responsible for arresting thieves), pavilion father (who is responsible for cleaning the pavilion), pavilion soldiers, and the pavilion chief is in charge of the subordinate villages.

Li level: The li has a lizheng, elders, duzai, lijianmen, lili, and lizu. The lizheng is in charge of the ten and five subordinates.

Ten and five levels: squad leader, squad leader. The squad leader is in charge of ten subordinate households, and the squad leader is in charge of five subordinate households. Within the ten and five, each household supervises each other.

This is no longer just the royal power going to the countryside, but the royal power going to the family. Even Ying Zheng, who has such a strong desire for control, is extremely satisfied.

Of course, those below the township level only receive symbolic salaries, which are relatively small, with only some rice every month, which is mainly honorary in nature.

But people are like this, power itself is the best food. As long as people are given power, even if they cannot seek personal gain, even if there is no salary and they have to bring their own food, they will be willing to do it and be willing to do it.

No matter what, life is different once you enter the system. Being respected is a benefit in itself.

Besides, although they are just grassroots officials and do not receive much salary on the surface, they actually have a lot of hidden benefits. Power itself will naturally seek benefits for itself. They will live better than ordinary civilians and be truly decent people.

This is also the main reason why Ying Zheng was not in a hurry to annex other countries. Even though papermaking and printing technology greatly improved administrative efficiency and greatly lowered the threshold for learning, public schools were also being actively built.

However, it still takes time to train grassroots officials. It is a pipe dream to rely on scholars to fill the whole country in the past ten years. And it may not be reliable, or it is absolutely unreliable to rely on these people alone.

This is also why we actively train elite soldiers in the military and then transfer them back home.

Without these elite soldiers loyal to the royal family returning home to guard the place, the grassroots would inevitably get out of control.

There is also a real need for those who are familiar with Qin laws and various regulations to return to their hometowns to educate the people and change customs.

The world is not yet unified, it is being annexed at a very fast pace, and drastic changes are constantly taking place. I don't know how many people from other countries have different intentions. If the grassroots get out of control, the country's demise will not be far away.

No matter when, only by laying a solid foundation can you build a tall building.

For various reasons, soldiers who have made merit in the army and are awarded titles, even the most entry-level titles, are now popular. At least they can become a decent person when they return home, so people naturally flock to them.

Some people do business that will get them killed, but no one does business that will make them lose money. The world is bustling with people because of profit, and the world is bustling with people because of profit.

Everything can be done with half the effort if you tempt others with benefits.

However, the Qin Dynasty's annexation was too smooth in recent years, and its achievements were too easy to achieve. After all, it was because of its good "internal strength".

This also means that there is no need to use so many soldiers.

Not everyone is wanted for conscription now because the population is too large. If you don't have some skills, forget about being selected into the team for foreign wars.

Although they cannot be said to be martial arts masters joining the army, they are all absolutely strong men. Moreover, they are all familiar with military life, dare to fight and kill, have a strong desire to make meritorious deeds, and are all excellent soldiers.

Of course, there are also martial arts masters who join the army. They are generally promoted faster and are mostly the backbone of the army. However, the ideological education and management of such people will be stricter.

Now that so many people are not needed for ordinary military service, many people's military service has been directly converted to forced labor and miscellaneous tasks.

For corvée labor, except for fine labor, other corvée labor can be replaced by money, and the price is determined according to the type of corvée, specific event and time. Of course, you can also hire someone to perform corvée labor on your behalf, as long as the requirements are met (age, physical condition, etc.).

This is why it is not that wealthy families cannot afford to support slaves. The service time of slaves is doubled! To support a slave, most of the time is spent in service. The money required to support it is not a small number, plus there is also a double head tax!

It is easy to change from a freeman to a slave, but it is difficult to change back again. How to get the master to allow you to become a freeman is not the government's business. It is a matter between the slave and his master.

However, with the permission of the master, the slave could become a free man, but he had to pay a large sum of money to the government. Once you became a free man, you would be given a household and land.

Although all the land and homesteads were taken back when they were converted into slavery.

This kind of transfer of citizenship for various reasons is usually for people who are bought or hired, and they are considered slaves. Usually, they will agree with their masters on the conditions for regaining their freedom in the future. The government also allows them to become civilians by paying a purchase price, but where they will be registered depends on the money.

Ying Zheng turned a blind eye to this. After all, local grassroots officials also needed income. Within the scope of their power, they were allowed to earn some extra money as long as they did not exceed their authority and break the law.

There is another type, which is slaves. They are basically criminals who have committed crimes and have been reduced to slaves.

This type of slave is an official slave, usually awarded to meritorious officials, or temporarily registered under the name of a Shaofu to serve and work.

The biggest problem for those who want to become free citizens again is how to get the consent of their master. If they are rewarded, then there is still hope. But if they are always registered under the name of the Shaofu, then there is basically no hope. It is too difficult. How much money and favors are needed to get approval from all levels?

In the past, it didn’t matter if you couldn’t pay the money or if your master didn’t want to agree, you could join the army. When there were not enough soldiers, slaves were allowed to join the army, and they could also become free through merit, or even receive a title or reward. But now it’s no longer possible. There is no shortage of soldiers at all. In order to combat slavery, including voluntary slavery, slaves are prohibited from joining the army, and all military service is converted to forced labor and menial labor.

Now, if slaves want to become free, they can only rely on policy preferential treatment and go to remote areas to develop, and then they can be pardoned as free people. To put it bluntly, they are forced to immigrate and exile to remote areas for the purpose of development. To be honest, the death rate in the places where they are exiled is really high.

As for being employed in name but actually being a slave, that is also acceptable.

However, if you are a commoner, you will be responsible for your own land and have to pay land tax, which is also a big problem.

The best choice is foreign slaves! That is, people who don't have a Qin household registration. But it's limited to those who buy it themselves. Those caught by the government will be registered.

If you buy it yourself, you don't need to register it. In name, the other party is a free person and is employed in the form of employment. They are not Daqin people, do not have Daqin household registration, and do not need to be converted into slaves!

However, their numbers are limited after all, and buying these de facto slaves is very expensive.

Besides, it's easy to waste money.

Because the loophole was quickly plugged.

The Qin Dynasty stipulated that as long as foreigners were free people, willing to join the Qin Dynasty, could speak Qin language fluently, had no communication barriers, had no illegal or criminal behavior, and were willing to abide by the customs and rules of the Qin Dynasty, they could apply for a household registration!

Although they were also arranged to go to remote areas, between becoming a farmer of the Qin Dynasty and becoming a slave, no fool would choose the latter.

If you can't speak Qin language, it's inconvenient to use, and after a long time, you will definitely speak Qin language. But if you really stay in Qin for a long time and learn Qin language, you will immediately run to the government to ask for immigration.

The increase in household registration is a political achievement and local officials will not stop it, even if the owner has strong connections and can find ways to get the government to refuse. However, this is a serious violation of regulations and disciplines after all, and once it breaks out, the cost will outweigh the gain.

Besides, it is possible to sneak into other administrative regions, but the relationships with the local tyrants make it difficult to cover other counties.

A clever ghost said, since the Qin Dynasty requires that foreigners entering the country must not commit any illegal or criminal acts, then wouldn't it be better to just find some random crime for the slaves and leave a record for the government?

Unfortunately, if someone without a Qin hukou committed a crime in Qin, no matter how minor the crime was, they would be directly demoted to slavery and put on the slave register. Of course, serious crimes would result in exile as a slave or execution.

This plugs the loophole.

Also, although you don’t have to perform corvée labor without a Qin household registration, you are not protected by the Qin either. If you die, you die. If you are killed, you are killed. You have no rights.

Moreover, they could be captured directly by any Qin people and sold to the government, and the government also accepted slaves.

It is okay if you don't want to sell them. Once they are caught, you can go directly to the government and register them as slaves. Then they will be yours, and you can just let the slaves serve the government normally or pay money in the future.

This set of combos completely eliminates loopholes.

No one wants to spend a lot of money to buy a slave in order to save labor service, only to have the slave disappear within a few days for various reasons. It is better to just follow the rules.

Of course, this does not mean that foreigners have no human rights in Daqin. Foreigners need to apply for temporary identity certificates when entering Daqin through normal channels.

You will be required to register your personal information, the reason for entering Daqin, how long it will take, etc. You will be given a limit on the date you are allowed to live in Daqin. Of course, you can extend it after the expiration, but the maximum time for a single extension cannot exceed one year. You must leave Daqin first and then re-enter to apply for it. You will have to pay a small amount of residence tax per day for the time you live in Daqin.

Even envoys from other countries have to register when entering the country. The rules are the same, but they don't have to pay taxes.

There is only one exception, that is, hostages from foreign races or foreign countries who come to Daqin. Their information will also be registered, but there is no time limit. They only need to update the information frequently and do not have to pay taxes.

With this temporary identity card, you have human rights and cannot be arrested or killed at will.

There must be some clever people who would think of issuing temporary identity certificates to foreign slaves and then employing them.

Then this is not a slave. Referring to the above point, if you go abroad once a year and come back, it would be strange if you don’t run away, and it would be strange if you don’t transfer your citizenship to Daqin. Now Daqin is a real beacon of world civilization!
No one would expect a captured foreign slave to be loyal to his buyer, right?

Besides, the Qin Empire is now vast, and the round trip is no joke. Add to that the housing tax, and it’s really not worth it.

Under the current circumstances, if you are not a wealthy family, you really cannot afford to keep dedicated servants. The best you can do is hire them on a time-based basis.

This was also done intentionally by Ying Zheng in order to give ordinary civilians more opportunities to earn more, but to prevent them from being completely swallowed up. The restrictions were mainly imposed on the wealthy.

(End of this chapter)