Spoiling History: Starting from the Three Kingdoms

For Li Shimin, the memorials of Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui were rigorous.

Speaking only from his own level, the arithmetic level in the memorial is superb, but fortunately the final conclusions are easy to understand and can be figured out after hard thinking.

The two ministers first listed the number of households in Hu County in the former Sui Dynasty, one column every five years, and finally sorted out a complex calculation formula, which they called calculation model and called this step reasoning.

The second step is to use the numbers from the first year of Wude to calculate the growth in the number of households in Hu County during the Tang Dynasty based on this calculation model. This step is called result verification.

The calculated numbers are listed on the left, and the number of households adopted by the Ministry of Civil Affairs is listed on the right. A visual comparison of the two shows that although there is a difference, it is not big. These methods are shocking to Li Shimin.

Of course, this calculation may not be accurate. After all, the household registration policies of the Tang and Sui Dynasties were very different, and Yang Guang and Li Shimin also had completely different attitudes towards checking hidden households.

But it at least provides a glimpse into the future.

In the memorial, the number of households taken by the Ministry of Civil Affairs ended in the fourth year of Zhenguan, and the rest were blank, but the numbers calculated based on arithmetic continued to move forward.

Moreover, Fang Xuanling was very considerate in listing the number of acres of land each household could have.

According to this calculation, until a hundred years later, each household in Hu County would only have 20 acres of fertile land.

Twenty acres of land is only enough to support a son and a daughter, and if you take into account the problem of land annexation that cannot be calculated by mathematics, this number will only become even more ugly.

And what time will it be in a hundred years? It was the collapse of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the flight of the emperor, the fall of Chang'an, the rebellion of the princes, the death of elites in civil strife, the death of ordinary people by the Tang army, and the promise of the emperor to plunder the people of Chang'an.

That was a period of history that Li Shimin could hardly imagine. Now his two prime ministers made some unrefined calculations, allowing Li Shimin to glimpse a corner of people's livelihood at that time.

The Tang Dynasty was extremely prosperous for a hundred years, but all this seemed to have little to do with the water that carried the boats.

So in the end, these people, who were as gentle as water, turned into angry waves and overturned this giant Tang ship.

Empress Changsun listened quietly to the emperor's story. She saw that he was sometimes heroic and sometimes mournful. In the end, his ambition was restrained and he seemed to have a new goal.

In that case, the prince should also know a thing or two about arithmetic. This was the first thing Empress Changsun thought of.

Li Shimin also agreed with this. His only doubt was whether Fang Xuanling was willing.

After briefly finalizing the matter, Queen Changsun also curiously asked:

We asked ordinary people how many children they have before. Is this the reason for the problem?

Li Shimin sighed again, shook his head and said:

In addition to calculating the number of households in each county, Xuanling Keming also calculated the increase in the number of households.

However, it was quite troublesome to explain this problem in words, so Li Shimin simply ordered on the spot, ordered the servants to cut the branches into short sticks as long as fingers, and brought two big sticks over.

Pointing to these short sticks, Li Shimin smiled and said:

If a short stick is used as a mouthful and placed on the ground, Guanyin Maid thinks that these short sticks can produce several generations of descendants of a family?

This description was general, but Queen Changsun could understand its meaning. After a visual inspection, Queen Changsun hesitated and said:

Think about it, enough to show off for more than ten generations?

Then Queen Changsun saw Li Shimin standing there laughing so hard that she didn't understand why.

The waiter quickly began to toss these short sticks. According to what Li Shimin said, a pair of short sticks were placed on the top as the first generation, and then three pairs of short sticks were placed below as the second generation.

Then repeat this process, placing three pairs of short sticks under each pair of short sticks.

As the arrangement continued, Queen Changsun gradually widened her eyes in surprise.

Li Shimin sighed, looking at the stick on the ground and recalling the memorial written by Fang Xuanling:

Looking at the records of the household department, we found that one household can be transformed into three households. If a hundred years of peace can be passed down for five generations, then one household can be transformed into hundreds of households. Later generations will call it infinite, and I think it is appropriate.

In the end, Fang Xuanling also gave her own suggestions:

If we do not want to make the country strong and the people impoverished, we should establish households on the cultivated land, and follow the example of the British-named empire in the West in later generations, and implement the policy of opening up the sea to release the power of the people.

After exceeding the limit of a hundred years, Fang Xuanling also briefly calculated the following figures, and Li Shimin remembered those huge figures clearly.

The sixth generation can be divided into more than 200 households, the seventh generation can be divided into more than 700 households, the eighth generation can be divided into more than 2,000 households, the ninth generation can be divided into more than 6,000 households, and the tenth generation can be divided into nearly 20,000 households.

These calculations are ideal and do not take into account factors such as disease, natural disasters, land annexation, and sudden wars.

But Li Shimin also understood better that the more peaceful and prosperous the era was, the less likely the people would suffer these accidents, and the faster the population would grow, which would eventually overwhelm the land and trigger the end of the dynasty. It is right to call it a trap.

Moreover, the common people will be affected by these factors, but the princes and nobles can still reproduce a large number of descendants even when the national power is declining, and these descendants will occupy more land than the common people.

Thinking of this, Li Shimin inevitably thought of Zhuge Wuhou who was watching the light curtain with them, and his lord: Liu Bei.

His ancestor Liu Sheng, King Jing of Zhongshan, is the best illustration of this set of numbers.

Although many descendants have disappeared, people have now said that half of the ancestors of the Liu family are this Prince Jing of Zhongshan.

But thinking of Emperor Zhaolie and Marquis Zhuge Wu, Li Shimin couldn't help but be curious:

Now that we have the help of the light curtain, and all the barbarians have been maimed, I think by now they should have drank from the Ma Hanhai and regained access to the Western Regions, right?

Please ask next time when you watch the light curtain, Li Shimin made up his mind.

On the other side, Empress Changsun also made up her mind silently. She did not expect her sons to be proficient in arithmetic, but at least knew a thing or two about arithmetic.

The memorials of Fang and Du shocked Li Shimin. The most direct impact was that in December, the fourth year of Zhenguan was coming to an end, and the emperor issued an edict to further strengthen the maritime administration.

The officials were naturally complaining. After all, they were busy at the end of the year. It was okay to just listen to the new orders issued at this time. If it fell on their heads, I'm afraid it would be difficult to enjoy the ten-day holiday during the New Year.

But no matter how much you complain, it still has to be implemented, but this time the maritime policy has made Shandong maritime merchants excited.

Previous maritime policies were all geared towards shipwrights, but this time the New Deal unprecedentedly included an order for the leasing of official ships to private citizens.

Common people can organize their own sailors and go to Dengzhou and Laizhou to rent official ships. In the first year, they need to go to designated places to work as assigned by the naval divisions of the two places.

If you pass the assessment after one year, you can sail freely to sea. You only need to pay 40% of your property to the navy every time you return.

The major surnames in Shandong looked down upon them. It was too risky to go to sea. How could there be any value in seizing land by force?

But for the people along the coast of Shandong, they are very interested!

Perhaps because of the obvious tendency of maritime affairs, when Yuan Zheng celebrated at the end of December, Li Shimin could feel that the envoys from the Western Regions had hidden thoughts.

Fortunately for the Western Region's dominance, the Tang Dynasty seemed to have turned its attention overseas, or had no time to look elsewhere, such as Gaochang.

Small countries that hoped that the Tang Dynasty would enter the Western Regions to support them were also afraid that the Tang Dynasty would not be interested in the Western Regions and thus lose their backers, such as Qiuci.

Li Shimin wasn't even interested in watching these things. After the busy Yuan Zheng was over, he simply hid in the harem, where he could be affectionate with Guanyin and maidservant, and have fun and bond with his parents and children.

Early in the morning on the third day of the first lunar month, Li Shimin couldn't wait to go to Ganlu Hall and issued a summons to his ministers who were still in Chang'an.