Damn it, I'm in the garbage book I wrote

Chapter 517: After all sentient beings are exhausted, Bodhi can be achieved

As mentioned before, there are three lines rising and falling in Jinling City.

The first one is the confrontation between the aristocratic families and the emerging bureaucratic system. Although the new bureaucratic system did have the upper hand in the first stage, look at Xia Lin's description of them - it is a management method and organizational system in which power is divided and layered according to functions and positions, and rules are the main body of management, also known as bureaucracy.

However, under the current framework dominated by imperial power, the new officials are not able to take on the responsibilities and obligations they should bear. They will still try their best to gather forces and form cliques for personal gain, just like their former colleagues.

To put it bluntly, whoever controls the manpower and financial resources controls the court.

This does not need to be described in too much depth, this is roughly what it means. Under this logic, there is actually no essential difference between the new officials and the old aristocrats. Xia Lin uses them to fight against the old aristocrats who originally monopolized human resources. This is just to pull the gentry group out in advance to start a war with the aristocratic family group. Because they are competing for the same position, they are natural enemies.

But the problem is that this is actually a strategy of driving a tiger to devour a wolf. The gentry group is also Xia Lin's enemy. This method can only be used to eliminate more of the other enemy's manpower at certain specific times. In fact, the benefits obtained by civilian players are less than 20%, and 80% of them are reaped by this new group.

This should have been considered a failed reform, but 20 percent of the civilian population still completed the transition. So Xia Lin wrote in his summary: This was a phased victory, but the results achieved did not meet expectations. The struggle is long and difficult, and comrades still need to work hard.

The second problem that Jinling City and even the Wei Empire are facing right now is capital flight.

A large number of wealthy people began to abandon their industries in Jinling City, converted into hot money and began to migrate to the north. This is a double-edged sword that must be resolved.

On the one hand, it is to supplement the ecological niche of industry and commerce; on the other hand, it is to adjust the industrial balance between the north and the south in the shortest possible time.

This may be relatively complicated, but to put it simply, the entire Wei market will be in chaos.

The north is Li Yuan's territory, and a large amount of hot money, or cash, flows into it. The automatic balance of market rules has more than once explained one thing: as long as there is too much of something in the market, its value will inevitably decrease. This is true for commodities and money.

In other words, there is less money in Nanjing. When the currency in circulation decreases, the people's monetary income decreases, and their purchasing power decreases, leading to falling prices and deflation. Long-term monetary tightening will inhibit investment and production, leading to higher unemployment and economic recession.

When they arrived at Li's side, they opened the door of Chang'an in the morning and found a mountain of gold piled outside.

Everyone would think this is a good thing when seeing this, right? But within three days, Li Yuan would start to lose a lot of hair.

Because of the influx of a large amount of money, the relative value of the currency itself will decrease. Things that used to cost one tael of silver may now cost three taels of silver. This will inevitably cause chaos in the entire commercial market, and ultimately lead to a general, continuous and irreversible increase in the prices of major domestic commodities.

Because money will not be reduced, it will continue to circulate in the market, and prices will soar, but the problem is that there is only so much that can be created by labor...

In the end, both sides die together, that's what it means.

Relatively speaking, Jinling's problems are better than Li Yuan's. After all, there is a throughput giant in its budding industrial stage lurking next to Jinling.

As for the third line, it is the question of whether military power should be centralized, or simply put, it means reducing the power of the feudal lords.

The frequent rebellions in recent years are essentially closely related to the feudal system of the Wei court at the beginning. The most critical issue in consolidating power and reducing the power of the feudal lords is not the army, but the tax system.

Take Jiangnan Road as an example. Its tax system is relatively loose. It is based on regions and will give certain tax reduction and exemption policies according to the development trend of a certain place. However, there will still be many landlords and powerful people who will use various means to evade taxes, resulting in less than three-tenths of taxes being collected. The remaining seven-tenths of taxes will be evenly distributed among the people.

As for this method, Xia Lin adopted a very radical method, that is, he tried to reduce or exempt agricultural taxes in Jiangnan Road, and transferred agricultural taxes to commercial taxes for equal distribution. Tax reductions and exemptions were carried out according to the actual area of ​​arable land. The more arable land there was, the smaller the reduction would be. Finally, if the accounts were not balanced, the person first responsible for the local government would be killed.

A total of twenty-one were killed. Now the accounts are balanced every year and everyone is very happy.

But not every place is as unreasonable as Jiangnan Dao. Most places are still very "reasonable". If the landlords cannot collect taxes, it must be because the people are not being exploited. If you are not being exploited, why don't you give more money to the country?

But what should the common people do if they have no money? They owe it. What if they can't pay it back? They mortgage it. Their houses, children, fields, forests, and even a pair of shoes can be mortgaged. What about those who have lost their fields and children? The government doesn't care. Who told you to owe money? Isn't it natural to pay back your debts?

As for whether this kind of thing will drain the people dry.

Oh, don't worry, this has been done for hundreds of years, there will be no problem.

As for these three mountains, even Xia Lin cannot move them now. There are not enough people to go with him. Even if he succeeds, it will only be a flash in the pan in the end.

"Ugh……"

After An Zi finished reading the thick stack of situation analysis and report written by Xia Lin, he felt extremely depressed and gloomy. He tilted his head back and sighed, feeling as if a huge rock was pressing on his chest.

"How about it, Anzi, how do you feel after watching it?"

"You're still laughing! You can still laugh!?" Anzi was very puzzled. He saw a report with such sad content, but he didn't expect that the person who wrote the report could still smile so frivolously. He must be heartless!

"Hey! Anzi, you're wrong. We should face future conflicts with an optimistic attitude. If even we can't smile, do you think there is still hope?"

"Can……"

"Have you heard the story of Yugong moving the mountains?"

An Zi was silent for a moment: "But in the end, it was not Yugong who moved the mountain, but the gods."

“We have our own gods too!”

"Where? Who is it?"

Xia Lin walked to the window, opened it, and pointed at the night view of Jinling City outside: "Look, they are right there, working from sunrise to sunset and resting from sunset to sunrise."

As the words came out of his mouth, Anmus felt a sudden chill running through his body, extending from his scalp to his tailbone and all the way to the soles of his feet.

"You think that's okay?"

"Why not?" Xia Lin asked, holding the window frame and looking back, "Do you think it's not possible?"

"I...but looking through history books, peasant uprisings have never really achieved anything. Sometimes, people's livelihoods have been in decline, and sometimes they have needed a hundred years to recover."

"Yes, that's right. But isn't it because the essence of all the rebellions so far has not changed? For most people, it's just that one emperor has been replaced by another. But that's not what I want."

"you……"

Anmus was really shocked. The person in front of him who was making top anti-traitor remarks was obviously the one who protected the Wei dynasty. The contrast was too great.

"I know what you are wondering about." Xia Lin sat back down. "It's like an egg. Breaking it from the outside is destruction, while breaking it from the inside is rebirth. I cannot allow any external force to break it. I have been protecting this land for my entire life."

"Two lifetimes?"

"It's okay, you can say it's your eighth lifetime."

An Musi pursed his lips: "It feels like you said something dirty."

"No, don't get me wrong, boys can't be so sensitive." Xia Lin stepped forward and patted An Zi's shoulder: "If you are too sensitive, you will be easily defeated. It's embarrassing to be defeated."

"what?"

"Just understand it."

After that, Xia Lin walked to the window again: "So Anzi, I don't want you to act with the dregs of your legalist school. In the current situation, even if you are skinned alive, you can't turn the tide. You have to survive and keep your life. Only by keeping a dog's life can you have a chance to turn the world upside down. I know, I know you will definitely say that reform will eventually require sacrifices, but it also depends on whether the sacrifice is worth it. It's really not worth it for you to die like this."

Xia Lin lowered his eyes and looked at the report on the table. He patted the pile of papers and said, "This is a malignant sore on the nation. It is difficult to get rid of it. We can only treat it bit by bit. You want to die? Isn't that just being a deserter?"

"You fart!"

"Then you are just trying to be a deserter!"

Xia Lin pointed at the starlight and candlelight outside: "You fucking rushed out to deliver it, you carried the banner of protecting the law, and then you fell, and then what? What can you say to people? You say you are a man, and then what? Even the fucking fishermen are not as good as you at delivering it. They can catch 8 taels of crucian carp with a 10-jin nest, and what about you? A hundred-plus jin of people delivered it, and in a few years the emperor would issue a 3-liang imperial edict to confer you the title of Loyal and Brave Marquis? You can't even get the posthumous title of Wen Zheng, do you know that?"

An Zi fell silent. He lowered his eyelids and took a deep breath: "So what do you think we should do?"

"I don't know. It depends on you. You can overturn the verdict. But you turned against me right away. Who do you have behind you? Let's put it this way. Even if the emperor comes back, you won't get any benefit. It's better to save yourself or those tens of thousands of mouths. What would you choose if you were the emperor?"

"Can……"

"Of course there is a way, Anzi." Xia Lin stepped forward and began to comfort him: "If you don't want me to interfere, that's fine, but you have to be careful about how you do things. Go to court tomorrow, state the matter, and then make your attitude clear. We can discuss the rest later."

(End of this chapter)