A live-streamed Chinese language lesson under the sky—the ancients were taken aback.

The speaker on the sky continued, her tone still calm, but her pace slowed slightly as she untangled a thread that spanned a thousand years.

"In subsequent dynasties, although the political center was mostly in the north, the economic and cultural center was in the south."

But this also brought about a new problem: the division between the North and the South.

In order to support itself, the imperial court had to rely on the Grand Canal to continuously transport grain and taxes from the south to the north.

If the canal transport is disrupted, the empire will be paralyzed.

The comments started scrolling.

That's why canals are so important.

Politics is in the north, the economy is in the south, connected by a canal.

Isn't this just a replica of the mid-to-late Tang Dynasty?

……

"We will discuss this issue in detail in the chapter on the Ming Dynasty."

She paused for a moment, "The Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty moved the capital from Nanjing to Beiping. The emperor guarding the country's gate was a bold move, but it also put unprecedented pressure on the canal transport. The entire empire's manpower and resources were all tied up in one canal."

This problem, by the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, had become one of the major factors dragging down the treasury.

Bianjing (Kaifeng)

Zhao Kuangyin was discussing matters with Zhao Pu.

"She's right." Zhao Kuangyin put down his teacup. "Our Great Song Dynasty established its capital in Bianjing because of the convenience of the Grand Canal. Guanzhong can no longer support an empire, and Chang'an is no longer suitable as a capital. But the Grand Canal is a double-edged sword. It's convenient, but if it's cut off, the court will be trapped like a turtle in a jar."

Yingtian Prefecture.

Zhu Yuanzhang sat on the throne in the Fengtian Hall. He chose Yingtian Prefecture as his capital because it was located in the heart of Jiangnan, with abundant food supplies and a prosperous economy.

He suddenly heard the phrase "The emperor guards the nation's gate."

He turned his head to look at Zhu Di, who was sitting to the side, staring intently at the sky.

"Fourth brother," Zhu Yuanzhang said.

Zhu Di snapped out of his daze: "Father?"

"Tianmu says that the Yongle Emperor moved the capital to Beiping. Who was Yongle?"

Zhu Di was taken aback. He hadn't thought about this question before. He looked up at the words on the sky again: "The Emperor guards the nation's gate."

His fiefdom was in Beiping. He suddenly understood something, but he wasn't sure.

He simply suppressed the thought and shook his head at his father: "I don't know, it should be one of my eldest brother's descendants."

Zhu Yuanzhang looked at him suspiciously, but didn't ask any more questions.

He simply made a mental note of Yongle, the relocation of the capital, and the pressure of the Grand Canal.

The unspoken words on the sky continued unabated.

"Following up on the economic issue, we continued to ask: From whom did these funds and grain come?

In other words, is the land system that supports this crumbling empire still functioning properly?

The answer is, of course, no.

"This battle completely shattered the land system of the Tang Dynasty."

Two keywords appeared on the screen: Equal Field System and Rent-Labor-Tribute System.

"Let's first look at the land system before the An Lushan Rebellion."

In the early Tang Dynasty, the equal-field system was implemented. Simply put, the state distributed land to farmers according to population. Each adult male was allocated 100 mu of land, of which 20 mu were permanent land that could be passed down to his descendants, and 80 mu were per capita land that had to be returned to the state for redistribution after his death.

This system was accompanied by the rent-labor-tax system, where rent was the payment of grain, labor service was the payment of corvée labor, and taxes were the payment of cloth.

What is the core of this system? It is that the state owns the land, and the state knows who is farming the land.

The state controls the population by controlling the land, and in turn, controls the population to collect taxes and conscript soldiers.

A dynamic diagram then appeared on the screen: a cyclical arrow connecting the state, land, and farmers.

"But this system has two fatal premises."

First, the state must have a large amount of wasteland to distribute. In the early Tang Dynasty, after the chaos at the end of the Sui Dynasty, the population had decreased sharply, and there was plenty of wasteland.

Second, the state must have accurate household registration records, including who has been allocated land, how much tax they should pay, and how much service they should perform.

Before the An Lushan Rebellion, these two premises were already slowly crumbling.

Land consolidation became increasingly serious, with powerful landlords holding thousands of acres of land, yet still paying taxes based on the number of people registered in their household registers.

Farmers' land was confiscated, but they still had to pay taxes, so many people fled, and household registration became increasingly inaccurate.

With the outbreak of the An Lushan Rebellion, eight years of war ravaged the country, causing a sharp decline in population and turning the household registration system into a complete mess.

The imperial court had no idea who was still farming, where the land was located, or how much tax should be collected.

"What's even more fatal is that after the An Lushan Rebellion, in order to restore tax revenue as quickly as possible, the imperial court implemented a policy of drinking poison to quench thirst: the Two-Tax System."

His tone became more forceful as he continued, "In 780 AD, Prime Minister Yang Yan implemented the Two-Tax System, whose core principle can be summarized in eight characters: 'Expenditure equals income, and there is no distinction between male and female.' It no longer cared whether you were a male or an elderly person, or how many people you had in your allotted land or permanent land; it only cared about how much property you currently owned, and taxes were levied based on your property."

This sounds fair, but it's essentially a formal announcement that the equal-field system is over, and land consolidation is now up to you.

[It's over, the foundation is gone.]

The government no longer cares who owns the land; it only asks you for money.

Therefore, farmers in the mid-to-late Tang Dynasty really could not survive.

……

"The peasants of the mid-to-late Tang Dynasty were thus caught in a double predicament. On one hand, powerful landlords relentlessly annexed their land, leaving them with less and less land, while the taxes became heavier and heavier."

On the other hand, there was the rampant extortion and levies imposed by the imperial court and regional military governors. Because the state apparatus was still running and the war was still ongoing, all the expenses would eventually fall on their shoulders.

What were their choices? They either sold their land and became tenant farmers, fled into the mountains and became refugees, or took up arms and became rebel soldiers.

Therefore, the peasant uprisings and military revolts in the mid-to-late Tang Dynasty were never accidental.

It was an inevitable consequence of the collapse of the land system.

"And this problem was not solved in the Tang Dynasty."

The mess it left behind was taken over by the Song Dynasty.

The founding emperor and his ministers of the Song Dynasty faced a completely different situation. The equal-field system was dead, as was the land tax and labor service system. The state had no land and could not redistribute it. What to do?

Four words appeared on the screen: "Do not suppress mergers and acquisitions."

The answer from the Song Dynasty was to ignore it.

"Not suppressing mergers and acquisitions" means not restricting land sales and mergers.

This is extremely rare in the history of dynasties.

Before the Song Dynasty, the Han and Tang Dynasties both attempted to use state power to intervene in land distribution.

By the Song Dynasty, it was publicly stated that "this dynasty will not establish a land system," meaning we would no longer concern ourselves with land matters.

The consequences were complex. On the one hand, the unbridled annexation unleashed the productivity of the land, with large landowners investing in water conservancy and improving farming practices, which actually increased agricultural efficiency.

On the other hand, a large number of farmers lost their land and became tenants or vagrants, bringing social contradictions to an extreme.

The frequency of peasant uprisings in the Song Dynasty ranked among the highest in Chinese history, and the root cause lies here.

Was the Song Dynasty simply giving up?

What will happen to the farmers if the land is left unattended?

There were many peasant uprisings during the Song Dynasty.

The consequence of not curbing mergers and acquisitions is an explosive increase in the wealth gap.

……

"Although the problem of land annexation has always existed, previous dynasties treated it as a 'disease' that needed to be treated, even though it could not be cured.

The fiscal reforms following the An Lushan Rebellion were tantamount to declaring, "We will not cure this disease," and instead inventing a new way of life to "coexist" with the disease.

This new approach increased tax efficiency in the short term, but removed the last institutional shackle that suppressed mergers and acquisitions.

Therefore, land annexation was no longer an occasional social ill in later generations, but rather a structural incurable disease that, under the protection of law, periodically eroded the foundations of dynasties.

Zhao Kuangyin shook his head helplessly. He stripped the military officers of their power and allowed them to acquire land.

In his view, it was better for military generals to buy more land, hire some singers and dancers, and live out their days in peace than for them to hold military power and covet the throne.