Do you know: I am Qi Heng

"Young Master Qi is used to a life of luxury; how could he know the hardships of ordinary people!"

Wang Anshi shook his head and said, "The problem of excessive redundancy is not so easy to solve, and the burden on the people is also very heavy."

This approach alleviates the burden on the people and also eases the government's financial difficulties, making it a win-win solution.

"Has Wang Duzhi ever considered that many of the current systems of the Great Zhou were established at the beginning of the dynasty? Why were there no problems then, but problems now?" Qi Heng asked.

Wang Anshi said calmly, "Everything must be done according to the times. How can we generalize about the situation at the beginning of the dynasty when the population was small and there were not enough officials?

"That's right, you can't generalize!"

Qi Heng smiled and said, "In my opinion, the world is like a pie. In the past, there were few people eating it, and the pie was divided in large quantities. Even if someone took something from someone else, it wouldn't cause that person to starve to death. So the world was very stable, and there weren't any major conflicts."

However, when the world is at peace, the population grows rapidly. The portion that originally belonged to the common people is now being eaten by more and more people. In addition, there are others taking food from the people's mouths, so there is even less food for the common people.

Many of the problems facing the imperial court are similar; those people are not only robbing the common people, but also the imperial court.

With increased expenditures across the court, there weren't enough cakes to go around.

I can understand Wang Duzhi's method as the court stepping in to help the people restrict those who steal their bread. The bread that should have been stolen by others was taken by the court and the people, which seemed to be a win-win situation.

But those who could have taken the cakes from the people would certainly not agree, especially since Wang Duzhi wanted them to return the cakes they had taken from the imperial court.

All the problems in the world are actually just the uneven distribution of benefits.

When the world is in chaos, after a long period of war and many deaths, a great deal of profit is released.

A new dynasty can redistribute benefits and establish rules.

But human nature is inherently greedy; no one is willing to eat only what is rightfully theirs, and they will inevitably compete for what belongs to others.

Population growth is also a major issue.

To put it simply, at the beginning of each dynasty, the common people were able to be allocated a considerable amount of land.

Suppose a couple is allocated 100 acres of land. As the population grows, the imperial court will not have enough land to allocate.

A couple who originally owned 100 acres of land had five sons. If they were to pass the land on to their sons, each son would only receive 20 acres.

If these twenty acres are passed down to the grandchildren, how much will be left?

Even if it could be passed down normally, it wouldn't be enough after a few generations, not to mention that landlords and powerful families would use various means to seize land.

Ancient times relied too heavily on agriculture, but grain production was low. As the population grew, even the most brilliant emperors could not prevent the change of dynasties.

Unless population growth is limited, or food production can be increased dramatically.

Otherwise, there is no way to change this.

Whether or not land was annexed, the difference was simply whether one died sooner or later.

It can be said that every time the world was in chaos and dynasties changed, it could be considered a period of adjustment.

It may be cruel, but it is the truth.

This is a problem that agrarian civilizations must face.

The large population of the Qing Dynasty was indeed related to the so-called wise rulers of several generations, but it was also greatly related to the influx of high-yield crops and the increase in grain production.

Otherwise, the land cannot support such a large population, and even a wise ruler cannot conjure up food.

The Great Zhou Dynasty is far from reaching that point; the population has not yet reached the limit that the world can bear. It is mostly caused by human factors.

In other words, it refers to the exploitation of the lower classes by the upper classes.

Wang Anshi's idea was excellent: the imperial court should step in to ease the exploitation of the people by landlords and gentry, and then give a portion of the benefits that the people should have been exploited by the landlords and gentry to the imperial court. In this way, both the people and the imperial court would benefit.

Then they would find a way to get the landlords and gentry to give up some of their profits, so that the imperial court would have money.

With money in the imperial court, the problem of excessive bureaucracy can be temporarily alleviated.

All I can say is that the idea is good.

But ultimately, the money comes from the people, and the landlords and gentry will certainly find ways to deal with the situation after their interests are harmed.

They dared not directly oppose the imperial court, so they could only resort to various methods to exploit the people.

This is actually somewhat similar to factories in later generations. Involution leads to increasingly thinner profits, so the only option is to find ways to save costs in all aspects.

Labor costs are also a significant factor.

As a result, some companies have emerged that are able to operate without making a profit or even incur a loss.

However, once the company grows in size and employs more staff, all that's needed is to establish various strict rules and regulations to punish employees.

The principle is the same: the imperial court tries every means to reduce the exploitation of the people by landlords and gentry, while also making them give up some of their vested interests.

Then they'll just find other ways to exploit the people to make up for it.

Those at the bottom are always the ones who suffer.

Wang Anshi had to admit that Qi Heng's words made a lot of sense, but he was not so easily persuaded.

"As long as the imperial court does a good job of supervision and restriction, these situations can be avoided."

"How easy is that? Everyone has selfish desires. The world is so big, how can the imperial court supervise it?" Qi Heng retorted.

"If you don't do something, you'll never get anywhere; just identify the problem and solve it!"

Wang Anshi said, "If we really follow your advice, then we don't need to do anything; we can just wait for the Great Zhou to perish!"

Qi Heng shook his head and said, "In my opinion, reforms must be carried out from top to bottom. The problem of redundant officials is also the first problem to be solved. Solving the problem of redundant officials will also be a purge of officialdom."

Only when the administration is improved can Wang Duzhi's ideas be truly implemented!

"How easy is it to say that?"

Wang Anshi's tone softened slightly as he said, "If it's feasible, I know I must first solve the problem of the three redundancies!"

"Does Wang Duzhi know about Emperor Taizong of Tang encouraging widows to remarry?" Qi Heng asked.

"Why did you bring this up?" Wang Anshi frowned.

In order to increase the population, Li Shimin encouraged widows to remarry.

However, for officials who had been taught Confucianism since childhood, encouraging widows to remarry in their localities was considered highly immoral.

Although there were no restrictions on widows remarrying at that time, due to various factors and the obstruction of their husbands' families, remarriage was not common.

Upon learning this, Li Shimin linked the performance evaluation of officials with population growth.

In order to get promoted, officials would naturally crack down on those who prevented widows from remarrying, and at the same time, they would also investigate cases of concealing people.

This is also an important reason why the population grew rapidly in the early Tang Dynasty.

However, this approach was difficult for a Confucian scholar like Wang Anshi to accept.

"Once the problem of official corruption is solved, and some of the court's policies are linked to performance evaluations, local officials will naturally be more likely to strictly implement them in order to get promoted!" Qi Heng said.

"ridiculous!"

Wang Anshi questioned, "If we do this, the entire court will be filled with people blinded by greed. It would be better not to change the policy!"

Qi Heng sighed deeply; this was the crux of the problem.

How can someone who wants to get things done and adheres to their own moral principles possibly outmaneuver those self-serving officials?

In the eyes of others, propriety and morality are their weapons.

For people like Wang Anshi, propriety and morality were their bottom line.