Hearing the King of Chu's inquiry, Qu Yuan immediately responded: "King, if you want to compete with the nobles for population, you must first break the status quo of not paying taxes on private land. The reason why the common people have taken refuge in the nobles is because there is no need to pay taxes on private land, and the offerings handed over by nobles to the state are far less than the taxes on normal fields, so the nobles can attract the people to take refuge in their private fields with land rents much lower than the state taxes.

Therefore, there is no tax on private land, which is the basis for the competition between nobles and the state for population.

Once all the private land in the country, regardless of whether it is high or low, all need to pay taxes, then the nobles and the state compete for the advantage of the population, because the people need to pay taxes to the state again, and after two taxes, the advantages of the nobles will become disadvantages.

Therefore, paying taxes on private land is the way to obtain the people. ”

Xiong Huai nodded when he heard this.

For example, the taxes of various countries today are already heavy, and the state of Chu is recognized as a country with extremely heavy taxes, if the people of the state of Chu need to support the nobles in addition to paying taxes.

In this way, within a few years, those people who were entrusted to their noble relatives could not bear the heavy tax burden and fled one after another.

Seeing that the King of Chu nodded, Qu Yuan spoke again: "Great King, all countries in the world, whether it is our Chu State or other countries, the reason why only the people who are bankrupt and fleeing will take refuge in Xungui. That's because after taking refuge in the noble relatives, they are no longer the people of the country, but the private property of the noble relatives, and the life and death and wealth are all in the thoughts of the noble relatives, and the laws of the country cannot protect them. It is better to meet the Lord of Righteousness, but it is better to run away and become a thief when you meet the Lord of Cruelty.

Therefore, taking refuge in Xungui is not out of the people's will, but a helpless move to lose the future. ”

Saying that, Qu Yuan arched his hand and said: "King, now that there is no fief of the feudal lord in the northern Hanbei regions, and the power of the feudal monarch can no longer affect the locality, take this opportunity, the king can send someone to check the land population, and then take the opportunity to take the lead in collecting taxes on private land in northern Hanbei." ”

Xiong Huai nodded, this was supposed to be, otherwise, he would not have bothered to convert all the feudal monarchs of Hanbei into feudal monarchs of Shiyi before.

The reason why the private fields of those nobles did not have to pay taxes before was because as early as the beginning of the feudal division, the feudal monarch's offerings to the state had been agreed with each other according to the situation of the fief at that time.

It's just that I didn't expect that the extensive use of iron tools would make it easier to reclaim, and the feudal monarch would stretch out his claws to the people of the country in order to open up private land in the fiefdom, resulting in a large loss of the country's population and making the country weaker and weaker.

Now, the feudal lords have lost their fiefs, so the private land they reclaimed has also become a royal field again. In this way, it is only natural that the state should tax these fields.

It is also because of the huge wealth of private land, and it is impossible for the feudal monarchs to give up this great wealth unless they have to, which made Xiong Huai make up his mind to use the power of Qin and Han to force the feudal monarchs of northern Han to hand over their fiefs.

At this time, Qu Yuan bowed and said: "The king, it is precisely because Hanbei was ravaged by Qin and Han that many people were displaced and had become a vacuum for feudal kings, so the minister asked the king to be exempt from taxes in Hanbei for two years. Its purpose is to take the lead in Hanbei and compete with the feudal monarch for the two keys to population: reclamation and recruitment. ”

When Xiong Huai heard this, his spirit was lifted, and he looked at Qu Yuan and asked expectantly: "Xianqing means yes!" ”

Qu Yuan said with a smile: "King, as the name suggests, this reclamation and Zhao'an is to recruit the people to reclaim the famine, and Zhao'an is to recruit thieves.

Now in my Chu country, in addition to the country's royal land, it is the private land of the nobles, because the state does not recognize the private ownership of land, so the people privately cultivate the land, regarded as thieves who steal the country's wealth.

Therefore, the minister asked the king to issue an edict to recognize the private ownership of land, and allowed the people to reclaim wasteland, and the reclaimed fields were owned by the people, but they needed to pay taxes to the state, and all taxes on private land were equal to those of the king. At the same time, in order to encourage the people to reclaim the land, the tax burden can be waived for the first two years of land reclamation.

The recruitment of thieves is to announce to all parts of the country that they will no longer arrest thieves, but will instead recruit thieves to reclaim the land. As long as the thieves are willing to turn over a new leaf and voluntarily surrender to the local counties, as long as the thieves have no criminal record in the country, all localities should take the initiative to settle the thieves in the heart of people's parents.

As for how to settle the thieves, you can refer to the reclamation order and let the thieves go to the reclamation. If the thieves are poor and have nothing, they need to lend farm tools free of charge, and only need to return the money they bought within five years.

In this way, those thieves who fled because of bankruptcy and fled everywhere have the opportunity to become citizens of the country again. Two years later, the state will not only have the help of military service and conscription taxes again, but also more than a dozen or even hundreds of acres of land, in addition, the king will also reap the name of benevolence and righteousness. That's exactly how to count them all in one fell swoop. ”

Xiong Huai nodded approvingly, and, in addition to the benefits that Qu Yuan just said, the greater benefit was the competition for population with the feudal monarch as mentioned before.

The reason why the people fled was not only because the tax burden was too heavy, but also because of natural and man-made disasters. Once the people go bankrupt, they can only flee.

However, as soon as the reclamation and recruitment are out, the people will not have to flee.

In the event of a disaster, if it is difficult to bear the tax burden for a while, you can quickly cultivate some fields, replant them, and get a harvest in a few months.

If you are completely bankrupt, you can follow the example of thieves and go to other places to reclaim land, and two years without paying taxes is enough to relieve a family.

As for the problem of land, Xiong Huai is not worried at all, the land of Chu is 5,000 miles, and the typical land is small in many people, no matter how the people reclaim it, within a hundred or even two hundred years, there will be more land than it can be used.

After all, in later generations, the development of Jiangnan lasted for nearly a thousand years, from the Han Dynasty to the Tang and Song dynasties. Now, even Dongting is a place where the people of the Chu State are exiled, not to mention anything else.

As for the problem of people constantly changing land in order to avoid tax burdens, Xiong Huai is also not worried.

Because it is not a centuries-old slash-and-burn farming, after cultivating a piece of land in the past, the soil will be exhausted within a few years, so you have to find another place. However, with the progress of cultivation technology, after the land is reclaimed, as the cultivation continues, the soil will only become more and more fertile, and the harvest will be more than at the beginning of the reclamation, and there will be no less and less harvest.

This not only made the people form the idea that their homeland is inseparable, but also made the people not easily give up their land.

Therefore, once these two decrees are implemented, the people do not need to sell themselves into the nobility because of bankruptcy. In this way, the passage of the common people to the nobility was blocked.