The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 573 The Collapse of the Empire's Economic System

In the fourth year of Taichu, thanks to abundant rainfall, fewer locusts, and improved crops, the Liaohe Plain had a bumper autumn harvest.

Fist-sized potatoes, bright yellow corn, and heavy rice filled the granaries of every prefecture and county in Liaodong. The clerk in charge of grain grinned slyly. On the nearby grasslands, the cattle and horses were thriving. Civil affairs officials reported that the number of large livestock had more than doubled compared to last year.

Liaodong is enjoying good weather and good harvests.

It was as if God was blessing the ill-fated time traveler, or as if the God Zhenwu was blessing the troubled Da Qi, and wanted to give the emperor a surprise.

However, just when everyone thought that everything was getting better and that the empire was slowly getting better, misfortune struck again.

In early September, in the core area of the Great Qi regime, in places such as Tieling and Qinghe, farmers rebelled against the farmers' association.

Those farmers who were originally honest and firmly supported Da Qi hid the harvested potatoes and rice in their own cabinets and buried them in the backyard cellars, refusing to hand them over to the farmers' association. According to the farmers' association's surplus grain requisition system, ordinary farmers need to hand over about 70% of their annual harvest to the farmers' association free of charge.

The farmers' association sent people into each household to forcibly requisition food, but was met with resolute resistance from many farmers. Some veterans also joined the resistance.

Eventually, this led to large-scale peasant rebellions in Tieling and other places.

The reason why the empire exploited the people in the old areas so heavily was that several major wars in recent years were in the north, such as the war with North Korea, the war with the Rakshasa demons, and the military action to retaliate against Japan.

The food and fodder must be sent ahead before the army moves.

Food and fodder are the decisive factors supporting the campaigns to the east and west.

In fact, in order to maintain the intensity of the empire's war - that is, to have the ability to launch three local wars at the same time - the people in Liaodong and the interior of the country needed to tighten their belts and save every grain of food to supply the front-line troops.

In addition to the protracted war, the people also had to bear the agricultural consumption caused by industrial accumulation and the construction of Tianxin City in Huguang.

It consumes huge amounts of manpower and material resources, and in the end, it is passed on to ordinary farmers.

When Emperor Wu Ding was in power, he had reduced the burden on farmers many times and implemented a policy of light taxes and levies. However, under logistical pressure, Sun Chuanting and others continued to increase taxes until the people could no longer sustain it.

The State of Qi existed for only fifteen years. During this short period of time, at least five large-scale peasant uprisings against the empire broke out, and there were countless small-scale rebellions.

The closer the time traveler gets to his imperial ambitions, the heavier the burden on the people becomes, until there is a total collapse.

Fortunately, Liu Zhaosun had adapted to collapse from the beginning. For him, it was just a test.

Here, making the people suffer even more is not just a dream or a line from a movie or TV drama, but a pressing political and economic reality.

Whenever it was late at night and he had finished his passionate love affairs with his concubines, Liu Zhaosun would ask himself and comfort himself by saying that all empires throughout history had developed in this way: Britain, France, Russia, and the Qi Dynasty were no exception.

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It was not until the Renzong era more than a hundred years later that the imperial declassified archives provided the world with an understanding of the main causes of the peasant uprisings during the reign of Taizu.

This top-secret file mentions that Deng Changxiong, commander of the Second Corps, who was ordered to go to Tieling in May of the fourth year of the Taichu era (1636) to quell a peasant uprising, wrote to the retired emperor about the peasant uprising in the province, stating:

"The main cause of this uprising (the Tieling uprising), as in other prefectures and counties within the Great Wall, was dissatisfaction with the surplus grain collection system and the farmers' associations' excessive levies and brutal implementation of surplus grain."

The "surplus grain collection system" was a military policy implemented by the Great Qi during the early years of the Wuding Emperor's reign, later known as the "grain apportionment system." Although Emperor Wuding portrayed an ideal world of universal equality and universal food security to the people at the beginning of his reign, such a utopian world was, in reality, impossible to achieve, at least not within Liu Zhaosun's lifetime (which would have been two hundred years).

Once theory and reality conflict, reality will use its powerful force to distort the theory and make the theory adapt to reality.

This is an irrefutable truth.

The grain-collecting teams sent by the Great Qi Dynasty to various farmers' associations to collect grain usually used violence to forcibly confiscate the grain from the farmers, including their food rations for survival and seeds for sowing in the next year.

The empire's war never stopped, so the collection of taxes could not be slowed down. Although Korea and Southern Ming paid huge amounts of silver, grain and various materials to Da Qi every year, for such an ever-expanding war machine, that annual tribute and materials were just a drop in the bucket.

Moreover, the troops sent by the empire to the four provinces of Korea basically had negative returns. The cost of occupying Korean territory was far higher than the local people could pay for the Qi army. Therefore, to be precise, before harvesting Southeast Asia and Japan, the empire will have to harvest the domestic people for a long time, and this harvest is not limited to the rich.

When the state treasury is insufficient, the people will be abused. The surplus grain collection system naturally aroused strong dissatisfaction and resistance from farmers everywhere, triggering countless riots.

In short, the collectivization of agriculture in the Great Qi Empire (that is, the establishment of farmers' associations) and the surplus grain collection system were a ruling movement, which was essentially nothing more than the domestic colonization of farmers.

Through the "Qi Dynasty Land System", agricultural products were ensured to be evenly distributed across the country and flowed continuously into the country's granaries and farms, providing material support for the empire's warlike spending and laying the material foundation for the industrial revolution led by workshops and schools.

To put it simply, it means sacrificing tens of millions of farmers in exchange for the so-called kingly hegemony of the time traveler.

The farmers of Da Qi are not stupid. Since the crops they grow with great effort belong to Da Qi and the empire, then what is the meaning of our existence? To be cannon fodder on the battlefield?

Are you after the few steamed buns that were allocated to you, or the iron medals issued by the army?

More and more farmers slaughtered their cattle and horses, smashed their shovels and farm tools, burned their seeds and crops, and gave up everything, hoping to die.

Of course, Sun Chuanting dealt with these "lazy people" in a very rough way. He directly sent them to Sakhalin Island to reclaim wasteland and to Siberia to dig potatoes.

In just a few years, as a result of Sun Chuanting's operations, the empire's farmers lost their enthusiasm for production, and there were insufficient agricultural tools and crop seeds.

The consequence was a great famine in the third year of Taichu and a great riot in the fourth year of Taichu.

The court's grand plan of gathering farmers together to cultivate the land, using steam engines to irrigate and cultivate, and increasing production also fell through.

The cruel reality was a loud slap in the face to the Ministry of Revenue, especially Sun Chuanting. Could it be that the "Land System of the Qi Dynasty" was wrong?
Could it be that the foundation of the empire's rule is not solid enough?

Does this mean that Emperor Wuding’s rule has no legitimacy?
Sun Chuanting knew very well that no matter who he hit, he should not hit the retired emperor in the face. If he did, who knows how many people would die.

Ma Shiying said that the collection of surplus grain has a huge impact and cannot be cancelled.

As a result, more grain-collecting teams were sent out.

The farmers were forced to give up their last bite of food.

Then, a larger-scale riot broke out.

(End of this chapter)