Late Han Zhao Tang

As March arrived, the spring rains fell as expected, the ice and snow melted, the Wei River rose, and waves surged.

A pontoon bridge spanned the Wei River, and two thousand soldiers and officials marched north across it. Zhang Bi, along with his mother Alahai, went to his fief in Yunzhong Commandery, and Zhang Yu, with his sons, saw him off at the Wei River Bridge.

"Now that we have reached the Wei Bridge, I humbly request that Your Majesty detain us!"

Zhang Yu patted Zhang Bi's strong arm and said, "The two thousand soldiers are under your command. You should treat them well and cherish them. When Yunzhong is at peace, I will have Bingzhou transfer the household registration to Yunzhong County."

With his son stationed far away on the frontier, Zhang Yu could not be said to be unfit to command troops. Therefore, after careful selection, he chose two thousand soldiers and officers from Bingzhou with Xiongnu backgrounds from among the veterans who had risen through the ranks, and sent them to accompany Zhang Bi to his fiefdom.

After all, Zhang Yu was enfeoffed in Yunzhong, where the majority of the people were Southern Xiongnu. Without soldiers and officials familiar with Xiongnu customs accompanying him, Zhang Yu could hardly feel at ease. Moreover, Zhang Bi had just arrived in the country and needed a reliable and loyal force to consolidate his position and to have trusted confidants at his disposal.

As for the money and food to support Yunzhongguo, Zhang Yu temporarily allowed Bingzhou to bear the expenses for two years. Starting from the third year, Yunzhongguo was to be self-sufficient, as Zhang Yu had requested beforehand.

Dressed in a sturdy uniform, Zhang Bi said with high spirits, "Yunzhong is the ancestral home of my Tang dynasty. Today, as I take up my post in Yunzhong, I will surely secure the border and relieve my father's worries."

Zhang Yu's voice was soft, revealing a hint of worry. He said, "The Xiongnu are unruly and difficult to tame. Remember the saying that you must use both kindness and force. If you don't know how to win over the Xiongnu chieftain, you might as well have your mother arrange a marriage for you. With a marriage alliance, you can establish a foothold on the frontier."

"Father, rest assured, my father-in-law has sold his property and led his troops to accompany us. With his martial prowess, the Xiongnu dare not disobey!" The young man, unaware of his father's hidden worries, laughed and said, "It's not too late to arrange a marriage alliance after the Xiongnu have subdued me. If we arrange a marriage alliance first, wouldn't they look down on us?"

Lü Bu, over forty years old, had no sons of his own, but treated Zhang Bi as his own son. When Zhang Bi went to his fiefdom, in order to protect his daughter's status as a queen and considering returning to his hometown, Lü Bu petitioned Zhang Yu for permission to accompany him with five hundred troops. Considering the complex situation in his former county of Yunzhong, Zhang Yu agreed to Lü Bu's request.

Although Lü Bu was fickle, that was during a chaotic time. Now that Lü Bu had submitted to the Tang Dynasty, his purpose in leading his troops north was merely to boost his son-in-law's morale, so Zhang Yu did not suspect anything.

"It's good that you have a plan!"

Seeing that his son had a plan, Zhang Yu was quite impressed and said to his men, "Although my second brother's words are rough, he has a plan. If you are to be enfeoffed in the future, you should ask my second brother for advice."

"Easy to say!"

Zhang Bi waved his hand and said, "When my younger brothers go to their fiefs, I will send each of them five hundred fine horses."

"Now that you've made this bold statement, just don't come to me complaining about money and provisions in the future," Zhang Yu said jokingly.

Since there was no conflict of interest, Zhang Bi and his brothers could be described as being friendly and respectful to each other, with no conflicts whatsoever.

"hey-hey!"

"Wishing my second brother/second younger brother a swift and successful journey!"

"Father, elder brother, and all my younger brothers, please wait!"

With his father and brothers seeing him off, Zhang Bi gracefully mounted his horse.

Lü Bu stepped forward to bid farewell to Zhang Yu, saying, "Your Majesty, please wait. I will protect Erlang on this journey!"

"I'll let Lao Fengxian have it!"

"Don't dare!"

Lu Bu gave a brief military salute, then mounted his horse, cracked his whip, and caught up with the advancing troops.

Watching the departing figures, Zhang Yu felt quite melancholy. Zhang Bi's location in Yunzhong wasn't far, but the princes he would be seeing off in the future would be traveling thousands of miles to remote places like Liaodong, Nanzhong, Hehuang, the Southeast, and Jiaozhi. He feared he might not see his children again for years, or perhaps never again in his lifetime!

"Prince!"

"My son is here!"

Zhang Luo moved closer to Zhang Yu and respectfully asked, "What are your orders, Father?"

"If you ascend the throne and your second brother rebels, what are your plans?" Zhang Yu asked calmly. "Ah~"

Zhang Luo was startled; he had never considered such a thing. His father had suddenly asked him this question as his second brother was being enfeoffed; what was his father trying to investigate?
After pondering for a long time, Zhang Luo said, "I will send an envoy to persuade my second brother and see if he can see the error of his ways. If he remains obstinate, I will have no choice but to send troops to conquer him and capture him alive to prevent brothers from killing each other!"

Zhang Yu remained silent. He was still dissatisfied with the Crown Prince's style of handling matters, as it always had an overly gentle feel to it.

Let's go home!

"promise!"
-
When Zhang Yu returned to Chang'an Palace, Xun You and Zhong Yao were already waiting for him in the Zichen Hall.

“Your Majesty, a memorial from Governor Li of Yangzhou has just arrived, concerning the rebellion in Yangzhou,” Xun You said.

"What's the situation?"

"Your Majesty, since Your Majesty's decree was issued to the southeast, Liyang Prefecture has ordered mutual accusations..." Xun You slowly said, "In the two months since the campaign against the rebels began, a large-scale search for people has been conducted, and land taxes have been widely reported. Except for Tang'an Prefecture, the government knows the number of households and land."

The situation changed after Zhang Yu issued an edict to Li Song in January, ordering him to enforce the law strictly, use the local people to fight against the villains, and send troops to suppress them.

Li Song recommended local scholars in Yangzhou who were willing to cooperate, such as Lu Xun, Zhu Ran, and Quan Cong, former officials of the puppet Han regime. With these people eagerly offering their suggestions, Li Song compiled a plan to suppress the rebels.

For example, a denunciation order was issued, and anyone who reported the ringleader would be exempted from punishment; the assessment was re-examined, and the number of bandits captured was linked to the search of household registrations, land ownership, and other relevant data as performance targets. All the powerful families who rebelled were relocated to Lingwu and Wuwei prefectures, totaling approximately two thousand households.

As for Tang'an Prefecture, it was roughly within the original Jian'an Prefecture. Due to the Tang Dynasty's unification of Jiangdong, Jian'an was renamed Tang'an. Most of the counties in Tang'an Prefecture were located in what is now Fujian Province, and included a large number of Yue people from the mountains. Therefore, the imperial court only conducted a general search and did not investigate the population and land ownership in detail.

"Compared to the initial 320,000 households, how many households are there in Yangzhou now?" Zhang Yu asked.

"The number of men and women reported is 100,000 more than before, and the amount of land allocated is more than 100,000 hectares." Zhong Yao handed over the memorial reported by Li Song and said, "Not only that, but Li Yangzhou has relocated 10,000 families of Yue people from the mountains to Huainan and settled them in Jiujiang County. Therefore, from last year to the present, Yangzhou has allocated 150,000 to 160,000 more men and women, and reclaimed more than 50,000 hectares of land."

"Bosong is doing a great job in Yangzhou!"

Looking at the comparison data, Zhang Yu said with satisfaction: "At its peak, the Former Han Dynasty had 8,275,360 hectares of cultivated land. The Later Han Dynasty had 7,321,700 hectares of cultivated land, about 80% of the Former Han Dynasty. Although our dynasty's population is only about 20% to 30%, the number of cultivated land is far more than 200 hectares. With the current widespread demand, the number of households and land will surely increase."

One of the best things about Zhang Yu during his war to unify the country was that he preserved a lot of archives from previous dynasties. After Cai Yong compiled these archives into his historical writings over many years, Zhang Yu was able to compare historical materials from different periods of the Han Dynasty during his governance.

As Zhang Yu perused historical records, he became increasingly convinced that the Western Han Dynasty was better governed than the Eastern Han Dynasty. The reasons for this were not only the so-called Qiang rebellions and territorial expansion, but also concrete data on cultivated land. The Eastern Han's peak cultivated land was during the reign of Emperor He, while the Western Han's was only 88% of the Western Han's peak.

By the time of Emperor Shun of Han, cultivated land had decreased to over 6.9 million hectares and continued to decline. By the time of Emperors Huan and Ling, cultivated land had dwindled to just over 6 million hectares. As cultivated land declined, the Eastern Han Dynasty's finances dwindled year by year, leading to financial difficulties in its later years due to the lack of new sources of revenue.

Now that Zhang Yu has unified the world, the population is over 16 million, but the cultivated land is less than 3 million hectares. While this data seems good, according to the research of all the officials, the land data is still too low. Therefore, it is imperative to conduct a nationwide population survey and land measurement.

“Your Majesty, the Governor of Lizhou has been governing Yangzhou for nearly a year, and so far his efforts have been quite effective. However, Yangzhou is now almost at peace. It would be better to transfer the Governor of Lizhou back and send another Prefect to take up the post,” Zhong Yao suggested.

Zhang Yu nodded slightly and said, "According to the Prime Minister's words, issue an edict to summon Li Song to lead troops back to the capital, and order Zhuge Liang to survey the land and collect the people this year, and divide Ezhou from Yangzhou and Jingzhou. In addition, the Ministry of Personnel will recommend candidates for governors of Ezhou and Yangzhou."

"Yes!" Zhong Yao replied.

After a pause, Zhang Yu asked, "The imperial court has promulgated the system of six subordinate officials. I wonder what the feedback has been from the governors and prefects?"

“Your Majesty,” Zhong Yao said, “although there were no officials in the Six Ministries in the past, each prefecture and county had corresponding officials to handle affairs in order to facilitate cooperation with the Six Ministries. Therefore, the implementation of the Six Ministries system is simply to standardize the titles and ranks of officials.”

Since Zhang Yu established the Six Ministries of the Ministry of Personnel, in the process of implementation, corresponding officials gradually emerged in the prefectures, counties, and districts. However, the names of the officials responsible for coordinating with each prefecture and county were not uniform. Therefore, in order to facilitate the formation of a system, a unified official system was implemented at the beginning of the year.

Zhang Yu said, "Prefectures, counties, and districts are divided into large and small, so the officials of the Six Ministries should also be differentiated. This matter should be supervised by you."

"Yes!" Zhong Yao replied.

"Your Majesty, according to the report from the Governor of Nanzhong, Huang Quan, the Prefect of Yuexi Commandery, has subdued the Yi people, repaired the county and city, and opened the yak road. Now all the counties in Nanzhong have submitted to your rule!" Xun You reported. (End of this chapter)