Xiong Huai was shocked after hearing this, this is actually the same as the feudal monarch, he is also digging the corner of the Chu State, but the nobles are more hidden, and the feudal monarch is legitimately digging the corner on the surface, and the nobles are just playing the side ball.

"Oh, that's not all." Qu Yuan paused and continued: "In the beginning, the savages took refuge in the nobles, and they only needed to take out the number of harvests to rely on the nobles. ”

"Many nobles saw that after the savages took refuge, the barren and immature wastelands reclaimed by the savages paid more than all the harvests of the fertile fields cultivated by their own slaves and savages, so they changed the way of collecting the fields, and no longer collected most of the harvest themselves, but only left a small part of the harvest to the savages, and instead secretly distributed the fields to the savages and slaves, and agreed on a proportion, and collected from them the annual harvest."

When Xiong Huai heard this, he already understood what Qu Yuan was going to say, isn't this the way of exploitation in feudal society, the transformation of nobles into landlords, and the transformation of savages and slaves into peasants.

For Chu and China, this is social progress, but the premise of progress is not to endanger the interests of Chu, otherwise it will be unbearable.

Sitting in the position of the king of Chu, Xiong Huai is extremely resistant to this change.

If you want to collect taxes, you should also collect them from the state of Chu, and let the king of Chu collect them, instead of the nobles harming the public and private interests.

Qu Yuan continued: "Great King, if it was just a wild man who took refuge in the nobility, things would not have evolved to this extent. ”

"The reason for the sharp deterioration of the situation is that the nobles, seeing the rich benefits, began to take the initiative to drive their vassals to reclaim fields from other mountains, forests and wilderness, and these reclaimed fields belonged to the private land of the nobles, and they were also not subject to taxes."

"However, because of the limited manpower, the aristocracy can open up private land, but there is no one to cultivate it, and that is only in vain. For this reason, the nobles began to take the initiative to find ways to lure the savages to flee, providing various conveniences for the savages to flee, and attracting the savages and the bankrupt and decayed countrymen to take refuge in them. ”

"Because of these actions of the nobles, the number of savages in the Chu State has decreased dramatically. The decrease in the number of savages does not mean that the labor and taxes required by the state of Chu will also decrease. In order to maintain the operation of the country, the labor and financial resources required by the state will not decrease, so when the number of savage labor is insufficient, these forced labor and taxes necessary to maintain the normal operation of the country begin to be transferred to the people. ”

The result of this was that the people of the country were equally overwhelmed, and they went bankrupt and fled to the aristocracy, who had made all kinds of promises and was desperately short of population. After these countrymen fled, the pressure on the remaining countrymen became even heavier, and then the bankruptcy of the relatively wealthy people was accelerated again, and then entered a vicious circle. ”

"The king, the countrymen and the savages are not only the cornerstone of the Chu State, but also the cornerstone of the feudal monarch. In order to build the country and build fiefdoms, the king of Chu united with the feudal monarchs and waged a fierce struggle with the nobles for the ownership of the countrymen and savages. ”

"Because of the situation in our Chu State, the royal family held the power of the country, and those nobles were quickly defeated in the struggle, but not long after the nobles fell into disadvantage, King Sheng was killed by thieves. Then, King Mourning gained the support of the people and was made the king of Chu. ”

"Then, for the death of King Sheng, whether the mourning king has been investigated clearly, it is now completely unclear, and the death of King Shengwang has become a headless public case, which has continued to this day."

After the death of King Sheng, at the beginning of the reign of King Mourning, the feudal monarchs saw the rich benefits in the competition with the nobles, and began to follow the example of the nobles, in their own royal fields and private fields, the implementation of the method of collecting shares, distributed to the countrymen and savages in the territory. Not only can you get more lucrative benefits, but you can also avoid a large-scale exodus of the countrymen and wildlings in the territory. ”

"However, for our Chu State, the change of the feudal monarch not only did not make the situation of the country better, but made the situation of the State of Chu further worse. No matter who the countrymen and savages directly under the Chu State take refuge into, although they are still Chu people, they are no longer from the Chu State and are not the subjects of the King of Chu. ”

"The result of the evolution of this situation is the reduction of Chu State's finances, the reduction of military resources, and the reduction of labor service."

Faced with this situation, King Mourning enabled Wu Qi, who came from Wei, to change the law of Chu. Wu Qi's change focused on strengthening the army and building the city wall of Yingdu, changing the "two versions of the wall" to the four versions of the city building law. ”

Xiong Huai heard what Qu Yuan didn't say, the focus was on strengthening the army, which is easy to understand, during the Warring States Period, no country was a paradise and was not disturbed by war.

But the construction of the city wall of Yingdu is somewhat intriguing.

Since the founding of the state of Chu, there has only been one record of being attacked by other countries in the national capital, and that is when the state of Wu broke Chu. But when Wu Qi was in the state of Chu, there was no record of the state of Chu being invaded into the country.

According to the legend, when Wu Qi was in the Chu State, he was in the south and Baiyue, and Chen and Cai in the north, but the three Jins, and the west of Qin.

If all these are the same, it shows that the Yingdu of Chu is not threatened at all, so why did Wu Qi build the wall of Yingdu of Chu, and who is he guarding against?

"King, there is nothing wrong with Wu Qi's changes, the problem lies elsewhere. That is, there was no extra money and food in the Chu State at that time to train the army, so Wu Qi began to comprehensively reduce the estranged nobles and feudal lords in the Chu State, which was not counted, and also moved some nobles to barren areas for reclamation. ”

These reclaimed fields did not belong to the royal fields before the Chu State, but to private fields, and Wu Qi began to compete with the nobles and feudal monarchs for the countrymen and savages. However, the difference between these private fields and other private fields is that because they are reclaimed by the state, they have to pay taxes to the state. ”

Qu Yuan hadn't said the rest yet, but Xiong Huai had already formed a concept in his mind.

That is, when Wu Qi came to the state of Chu, the state of Chu was facing a serious financial and demographic crisis, the population directly under the state was decreasing, and the number of troops was decreasing, which led to many problems in the country.

Faced with this situation, Wu Qi's first thing to do was to train his troops, and then to strengthen the defense of Yingdu. Because of the lack of finance, Wu Qi attacked the estranged princes and nobles, throttled expenditure, and took the initiative to reclaim wasteland, collect taxes, and open source.

These changes of Wu Qi, coupled with the three changes in the rule of officials that were most hated by the princes and nobles, are the changes mentioned above: the incompetence, the abolition of uselessness, the loss of officials who are not in a hurry, the invitation of private doors, and the customs of the Chu country, so that private interests do not harm the public, slander does not conceal loyalty, words do not take fornication, deeds do not take reluctance, and righteousness does not defamate reputation.

Such a comprehensive political suppression, economic open source and reduce expenditure, set an example for the taxation of private land, militarily organized and trained a new army, won many battles, extremely strong, and also strengthened the defense of Yingdu.