"Why is this happening?"

Li Mu faced Li Shimin and the hundred officials and raised this question. Who can know this, if the monarch and ministers knew, it would not be Li Mu's turn to talk about it here.

Li Mu answered by himself and said: "Actually, it's very simple, it's nothing more than greed, and I'm reluctant to spend money." The monarchs of the previous dynasty, the ministers, the lords, the nobles, these people who are high up, have enjoyed all the glory and wealth, but they are still bent on more. refuses to share even a little profit to the poor people, and only thinks about how to change the law to exploit them! ”

"Let them work, serve in forced labor, and not be paid, not even fed! Is this still a person? ”

"Your house is full of gold and silver! The grain is rotten and moldy, and he refuses to take it out to feed these people, is this still a person? ”

Li Mu pointed at Sang and scolded Huai, when he spoke, his eyes were aimed at several officials with the background of the court, Wang Jue wanted to avoid his sight, but Li Mu had already walked in front of him, so he had no choice but to respond to two sentences, and said: "If you don't count people, how can this be considered people?" ”

"Well said!" Li Mu took Wang Jue's hand and said: "Take a look at our servant, although he is from the Taiyuan Wang family, he can understand the suffering of the people, and has such a high consciousness, I think one day, if there are poor people come to the door to ask for help, our waiter will also be generous and not let the poor people down." ”

What else could Wang Qi say, the big hat had been buttoned down, so he had to have an embarrassed smile on his face and echo it.

"But!" Li Mu suddenly changed his words and said: "Not all people can be as high-spirited as Wang Shizhong, and most of them are very ugly in appearance. So sometimes, I'm not pretentious and say things like dung about money. I really can't figure out why some gatekeepers continue to compete for fame and fortune after accumulating wealth for generations, and the wealth is so much that it can't be spent for several lifetimes—what's the point? You have a thousand houses, and you are only allowed to sleep in one. You have mountains of gold and silver, what can you do? Can I eat it, or can I drink it? “

"It's better to restrain your greed and share the profits. If you do this, you will inevitably get twice the result with half the effort. The people are actually very satisfied, they just need to make ends meet. But it is this small hope that is a luxury for most people. That's why so many homeless people have left their hometowns just for a bite to eat. ”

"Why do I treat money like dung? The reason is very simple, because I have suffered like that! Li Mu glanced at everyone and asked word by word: "Dare to ask the princes, has anyone tasted hunger?" ”

The reaction of the crowd was mixed, some were moved, and some were dazed. Most of the people with moved faces are generals who have experienced the chaos at the end of the Sui Dynasty and fought in all directions. And those who are at a loss, most of them are from gate valve families, and people like them, even when they were in turmoil at the end of the Sui Dynasty, have never been hungry, how can they know what it is like to be hungry.

The corners of Li Mu's mouth hooked an arc, as if he was laughing, and as if he was mocking, and said, "The taste of hunger is really uncomfortable." I suggest that you try it, the taste of not eating a grain of rice for three days, and I believe that after you try it, you will have more benevolent thoughts in your heart. ”

Li Mu turned around, faced Li Shimin, and while everyone was thinking about his words, he secretly winked at Li Shimin, Li Shimin sat on the dragon chair, looked down and saw clearly, and when he saw Li Mu's hint, he knew that he was about to start praising again.

"I said so much, just to let the princes be able to 'empathize'. I don't care if you do it or not. But now that I've figured out what the problem is, I'm going to give me the solution I have come up with. ”

Li Mu looked straight and said, "First of all, the minister asks His Majesty to give him a light gift. The so-called light and thin endowment is slightly different from what is recorded in the history books. The so-called light conscription of the minister is not to reduce it, but to avoid conscription as much as possible. Changing the conscription to a system similar to the current system of the Ministry of Works, that is, spending money to hire people to start work. ”

"Your Majesty and the princes may be worried that if this is done, it will bring a huge burden to the imperial court. I dare to vouch for it, no! ”

Li Mu said loudly: "The minister has done an experiment, the same errand, the two ways of apportioning conscription and settling wages start at the same time, and the way of settling wages is twice as fast as apportioning conscription!" In this way, a lot of time is saved, and in terms of quality, the settlement of remuneration is much better than the apportionment of conscription. We might as well settle an account, if it is a conscription, even if it doesn't cost money, but the food must always be provided, right? Twice the time saved and twice the amount of food saved. At the same time, the construction period is shortened, which frees up time to do other things. In the same amount of time, more is done, and that's the value. ”

"There is also the issue of quality is also very easy to understand, assuming that the princes are bricklayers, and now the court asks you to build the wall. If you don't give money, what you think in your heart is that if the court doesn't give money, then I won't do it well. How can the quality of such a project be good? But if you give money, it's different. If you work more, you will earn more, and if you do your job well, you will be paid more in a day. So people will do it desperately because they are doing it for themselves. ”

"Loyalty, filial piety, and righteousness are the words of the sage to the reader. Is that right? Right! But what Your Majesty and the princes should know is that most of the people do not read or do not have the opportunity to read the books of the saints. They don't understand what loyalty and filial piety are, and they don't need to understand loyalty and filial piety. Even if they understood this and spoke eloquently, they would not be able to get food. The people take food as the sky, His Majesty wants to be a Ming Jun, and the princes want to be able to govern the world. ”

"There is no hunger in the four seas, and this alone is enough to live forever!"

"This brings us to the issue of food again." Li Mu paused, glanced at Wei Zheng's side, and said quietly: "The incident of price hikes by grain merchants a few years ago showed a very serious stubborn disease in the imperial court, that is, the imperial court's control over grain is very weak. In the face of grain merchants raising grain prices, the imperial court had no sharp weapons in its hands. Seeing that His Majesty was worried about this, I, the Marquis of the deer, Li Mu, couldn't sleep all night, and finally came up with two ways to prevent the recurrence of this state of affairs. ”

"The first method is to follow the example of the previous dynasty, reopen and close positions, and play a role in regulating food prices at critical times."

Hearing this suggestion, Tang Jian, who managed the Ministry of Civil Affairs, couldn't help but speak up, and said: "Li Mu, you don't know, it's not that Changping the Imperial Court hasn't thought about it, but my dynasty has only been founded for more than ten years, and I have been fighting for many years, and I am waiting to be revived. Nowadays, the grain produced every year is eaten tightly every year. How to store without margin? Besides, the imperial court does not farm land, and even if there is grain, it must be collected from the grain merchants, and the grain merchants refuse to sell it, so do they want to rob it? ”

After Tang Jian finished speaking, he immediately stood up with four or five people who echoed him, accusing Li Mu of talking about empty dreams and not understanding reality.

Li Mujing listened to them quietly before continuing: "Tang Shangshu's words are to the point, the imperial court wants to establish a permanent position, but it is restricted by the grain merchant's refusal to sell grain to the imperial court. Then we might as well think about it, why do grain merchants refuse to sell grain? Because selling grain to the imperial court is tantamount to cutting off one's own money, and a fool will do this! So there's no way around it? Not really, just now Tang Shangshu has already said the solution, the court doesn't farm, why don't you plant? If the imperial court farms the land and gets grain, can't it be built if it is often closed? ”

Wang Jingze knew that it was time for him to speak, so he stood up at the right time and said: "Zhuluhou said lightly, farming requires labor and cattle, where to find it?!" ”

"Laborers, soldiers! Farm cattle? With the Zhenguan plow, as long as it is an adult man, he can pull it, but what else do you have to plow the ox? Is there still a shortage of strong men in the army? As for not cultivating the land? I'm sorry, but the Ministry of Industry has heard of it? Master the latest Tuntian technology of Datang, and teach Baohui! As long as you are willing to work, within a year, hundreds of thousands of hectares of fertile land will be at your fingertips! ”

Wang Jingze was defeated, and he stopped talking for a while. On the other side, Hou Junji opened his mouth, and just wanted to say, "How can the soldiers go to farmland", but suddenly remembered the words he had just been beaten back, and closed his mouth again. Still said, the government soldiers can be bodyguards, and there is nothing more shameful in Tuntian, one sheep is also driven and two sheep are also released, and the face is cushioned on the soles of the shoes, and there is no shame!

Hou Junji didn't stand up, but some people had to stand up. Because the matter of Tuntian is related to their vital interests. These people are the gate lords in the court, especially the Shandong scholars.

If the imperial court has tuntian, then in less than a year, the imperial court will have food. When the imperial court has grain, to whom will they sell it? Immediately, someone stood up, shouting that Gu was cheap and hurting the peasants, and his saliva was foaming, and he didn't care about the risks that might be brought by offending Li Mu, and he got out of the posture of being open-minded.

Li Mu didn't refute, and quietly watched them perform, until Li Shimin couldn't listen anymore, broke off, and said, "What is the place of the Liangyi Palace?" One by one, they are shouting so much, but they still put me in their eyes? Jin Wuwei, drag out these uncontrollable people, and everyone will be punished for ten battles and expelled from the palace! ”

Jin Wuwei answered and dragged out the noisy people. Seeing that Li Shimin was really angry, the officials were all honest, and they didn't dare to stand up and quarrel with Li Mu again.

Li Mu waited for it to be quiet before he continued to speak: "There is another reason why the minister made such a suggestion. As far as the minister knows, now the imperial court implements the uniform land system, and each male is divided into 100 acres per day, but since the chaos at the end of the Sui Dynasty, the population has not improved. After each person divided the land for a hundred acres, there was still a large area of land that was barren. These lands are limited by the 'equalization system' and are not cultivated. It directly led to a huge and immeasurable food loss in the imperial court. Even if the government soldiers do not reclaim the fields, planting these barren fields will also be a huge help to the food shortage of the imperial court. ”

As soon as this remark came out, many people stopped talking.

This time, Li Mu didn't say it was right, but he said it wrong, and it was outrageously wrong!

There is nothing wrong with the fact that the imperial court is now implementing the uniform field system. But is it really based on the uniform field system? Of course not. As Li Mu said, due to the equalization system, each person can only share 100 acres of land, resulting in barren land and no one to cultivate, how is this possible?

If the gate valve listened to the words of the imperial court like this, Li Shimin would not be unable to sleep.

The real situation is that today's fertile land is in the hands of the gate valve family. For example, the Taiyuan Wang family, the fertile land in Taiyuan, eight or nine times out of ten are in the hands of the Wang family's children. And the 100 acres of land allocated by the people are basically 'leftovers', square and good land, how can the people have a chance. The leftovers can be counted enough, which is considered good.

Li Mu also has a mistake, is there really a shortage of food today? Lacking, it is the court that feels lacking. The imperial court calculated the existing fields according to the population and the equalization system, which was naturally insufficient. Because the population was concealed, and the actual number of the fields did not match what was reported. But in reality, there were more people than were reported to the imperial court, and more fields were cultivated. The surplus parts are in the hands of the gate valve family, and they master these in order to have an advantage in the game of the imperial court.

Li Shimin knows this, and the officials also know it, but everyone doesn't break it. But Li Mu, a "naïve" guy, took it seriously. He also said so seriously, so serious that people want to laugh when they look at it.

Some people wanted to point out that Li Mu was wrong, but when the words came to their mouths, they didn't know how to say it.

Say, how to say? Whoever punctures this layer of window paper will offend the whole world's gate valve family. So, this thing can't be said. But if you don't say it, looking at Li Mu's posture, he will really let the soldiers go to Tuntian according to the number on the books, so whose field is it? All of Tun's fields are from the gate valve family!

What a vicious trick!

Everyone suddenly realized, and then looked at Li Mu, only to find that the corners of his mouth had been slightly upturned, it was very obvious that this was the pit he had dug a long time ago, just waiting for everyone to jump down!

Now there are wolves in front and tigers in the back, neither advance nor retreat. The gate valve forces in the court don't know how to speak. was calculated by Li Mu, and everyone's face was iron-blue.

Among them, naturally also includes the eldest grandson Wuji.

Although the eldest grandson family is not a thousand-year-old family like the five surnames and seven wangs, the merits of the dragon are enough for them to become the new upstarts rising in the court. The eldest grandson's family also has a lot of land, but it is not as much as the five surnames and seven hopes.

The number is naturally exceeded. If it was according to Li Mu's algorithm, the eldest grandson would also suffer huge losses.

But Li Mu didn't play his cards according to common sense, and the eldest grandson Wuji didn't expect this result at all, and he didn't know what to do for a while. He clearly knew Li Shimin's jealousy of the gate valve, Li Mu had already laid the groundwork so well, Li Shimin would not fail to understand what it meant, what he would do, and he was about to come out.

The eldest grandson Wuji refused to suffer such a big loss, just when Li Shimin's mouth opened and he was just about to speak. The eldest grandson Wuji finally stopped being a shrinking turtle and stepped forward.

"Your Majesty, this is a big matter, please think twice!"