Due to the dispersion of a part of the escort cavalry to fight in front of the front station, Li Shimin found four poor villages like Shuanglu Village in one day, Datang, the imperial power can't even go down to the county, but now, but directly to the village, what he saw, is naturally a bunch of problems, in just two days, let Li Shimin know how pathetic the foolish people are.

The means used by the sons of the family are actually not clever at all, as long as these people are given a little wisdom, they will not be exploited like this, no wonder those sons of the family will say to the rulers, "The people can make it, but they can't make it known." ”

Only the ignorant people can be exploited by them, and everything is for profit.

And here in Sun Xiangfu, Li Shimin heard a different tone.

"The people may, let it be, but not, let it know."

"The people can make it, let it be done, and they can't make it, they know it."

The sentences are different, the meanings are completely different, but the sons of the family are using a solution that is most beneficial to them, deceiving everyone.

Li Shimin didn't have time to watch it so endlessly, so a day later, the matter of distributing things to help poor villages was handed over to Dugumou and a thousand cattle guards led by him, and a small number of people and horses returned to Chang'an with him for the Spring Festival.

On the carriage, several chess pieces in Li Shimin's hand have been rotated and played by him, but at this moment, he is not playing chess, nor is he allowed Sun Xiangfu to return to his carriage to nap, on the desk in the middle of the carriage, there are several ministers accompanying him for the next five years, or even ten years of planning for the imperial court, among them, he is staring at the piece of paper written by Sun Xiangfu, this is the task that Li Shimin forcibly issued last night.

"Within five years, the construction of the new countryside will be completed in Guanzhong, and within ten years, the construction of the new countryside will be completed throughout the country, and at the same time, compulsory education for all will be implemented, that is, both men and women must go to school, complete basic cultural studies, and eliminate illiteracy."

Just a few dozen words, but it was the most daring proposal Li Shimin saw, and he was stunned for almost half an hour at these dozens of words.

"Zhengming, how big is the cost of making everyone read and write, you can't be unaware, why did you make such a proposal?"

Li Shimin picked up the page written by Sun Xiangfu and shook it.

In this hour, he has fantasized about a lot of pictures of reading and literacy for the whole people, there are good aspects and bad aspects, although there are more good aspects, but he is still a little worried that he can't control such a country, because he has seen too many things in the court of wise people, every reader will have his own ideas, if they can't realize it, they will think of some methods to achieve it, it is already difficult to manage hundreds of readers, manage tens of millions of readers, that picture, when Li Shimin fantasized about it, It's no wonder if you don't worry.

Sun Xiangfu expected that Li Shimin would ask himself this question, and pondered the words in his heart before saying, "Your Majesty, do you want the country to be rich and the people to be strong, or do you want the people to be rich and the country to be strong?" ”

Sun Xiangfu's question was suddenly asked, and several people in the carriage were stunned, and it was the first time that someone turned the word and used it, however, after thinking about it carefully, they found that the country is rich and the people are strong, and the people are rich and the country is strong, are two concepts.

The Han Dynasty is a typical country rich and the people are strong, however, that kind of strength is only suitable for a short period of existence, the country is rich and the people are not rich, and the internal chaos is easy to occur, so the Han Dynasty has gone through several repetitions, although the country is still rich, although the army is still strong, but it is still disturbed by the Yellow Turban Uprising, which led to the division of the heroes and finally perished.

But whether the word "the people are rich and the country is strong" is true or not, for the people of this era, it is not known, because there has never been such a situation before.

In later generations, to define whether a country is a developed country, per capita income is an important index, when the average education level of a country's citizens is high, the skills to get rich will naturally be more, and it will be easier to make money, and the people are rich, the country is difficult to get rich, except for a few countries that have entered the developed country by selling resources, the real power is all by relying on advanced scientific knowledge.

Reading books, literacy, and mastery of knowledge will ferment knowledge and advance to a higher level, and the power generated after entering is immeasurable, and only the people who have mastered knowledge can truly strengthen the people.

Sun Xiangfu from later generations will not let this dynasty repeat the mistakes of the Song Dynasty, which was a dynasty that was rich and the people were not strong, and was bullied by others for hundreds of years, and finally perished, and the main reason for its demise was that the people in power regarded an unrealistic doctrine, or an emasculated culture, as the foundation of the country, and did not objectively look at the civil and military affairs, which was overkill.

Therefore, in the compulsory education that Sun Xiangfu said, there are not too many unrealistic things, and it is the key to be pragmatic.

"What about a rich country and a strong people? What about the prosperity of the people and the strength of the country? ”

Although Li Shimin thought of a vague concept in his heart, he wanted to hear Sun Xiangfu's opinion even more, and the other ministers in the carriage were the same, and they all looked at Sun Xiangfu at this moment.

"It is very simple to make the country rich and the people strong, follow those systems of the previous dynasty, with the current production level of our Tang Dynasty, and the per capita distribution of resources, we can also be rich and strong for one or two hundred years, and then after that, you also know what kind of ending the Han Dynasty will be.

The people are rich and the country is strong, the people are really rich, they will really support the country, the country is only consistent with the people's wishes, will be fully supported by the people, such a country, is the real sense of the strong country that can withstand the wind and rain.

And how can ordinary people get rich?

The only way to make them stronger.

When they master more production knowledge and more ways to get rich, they will be able to resist internal or external pressure more calmly, so making the people stronger is the foundation for a country to become stronger, and the imperial court must lay this foundation even if it costs a lot of money. ”

Sun Xiangfu spoke for a long time, but in exchange for a silence, his arguments, at present, can only be regarded as his family's words.

Is there any precedent for this argument?

Yes.

Happiness Village is a case in point.

Sun Xiangfu is not omnipotent, with the help of Sun Xiangfu, the people of Happy Village learned some basic knowledge, and continued to explore and make progress in the direction he guided, and studied a lot of technologies that were not originally available in this world, this is not the credit of Sun Xiangfu alone, he is at most a guide.

And now, even if Sun Xiangfu is not there, they themselves are constantly conducting various researches, which is a kind of fermentation of knowledge.

The people of Happy Village have become strong people or rich people, and the wealth here refers not only to wealth, but also to the wealth of knowledge.

With what they have now, they can easily live well in this world, so the Happy Village Collective, under the condition of keeping their various research funds abundant, can take out 1.5 million yuan to invest in projects in Weinan County, these money is only on the road of research, easy to earn, if they use what they have mastered to make a profit, I believe that in a few years, the whole country will be made by them most of the money. Just by taking out the smelting and glass technology to make money, you can earn a mountain of gold and silver in minutes.

However, Li Shimin has not yet prepared the whole country to be this kind of strong people, and at this moment, in his opinion, the development plans proposed by Xiao, Fang Xuanling, the eldest grandson Wuji, and even Ma Zhou seem to be more reliable.

Xiao, for example, proposed to complete the citizenship system within six months, open the imperial examination after the fall of next year, and implement a new set of functions and supervision systems for local officials within three years.

Fang Xuanling, on the other hand, attaches more importance to the governance of the border areas, and the capital of Anbei and the newly established states outside the Yumen Pass are the top priorities of the imperial court in the next few years.

He believes that as long as there are no external troubles, Datang's internal governance is actually not complicated, because judging from this year's treasury tax revenue and national output, as long as Guanzhong does not continue to suffer disasters next year, Datang's internal situation will be very good and will be better in the future.

Moreover, he knew that Xiao would give Li Shimin suggestions on government affairs planning, so he cleverly put himself in the position of deputy, picked up the missing and filled the gaps, and said a few points on the development plan of the border areas.

Changsun Wuji directly said how much of the country's finances can be used for military affairs in the future, and within three to five years, the problems of Tuyuhun and Goguryeo will be solved, and within ten years, all the surrounding countries that do not submit will be swept away.

Ma Zhou said, is the most in line with Sun Xiangfu's set of rich people and strong country thinking, born at the grassroots, he attaches more importance to the people's livelihood, through the study of the development of Shanyang, he has come to a lot of his own views, he believes that the development of commerce, reducing agricultural taxes should be the stage of the imperial court's governance, within three years, after the country's financial revenue reaches a certain level, exempt from poll tax, five years later, agricultural tax halved, ten years later, halved and so on.

It's all more practical things, of course, as long as they do what they say, it's actually enough for the Tang Dynasty to dominate the world.

As for what Sun Xiangfu said, in fact, it is a little too advanced, just like when he said about breeding and seedlings before, Li Shimin listened to half of it, not half of it, and thought that the matter of new rural construction is quite reliable, and the matter of compulsory education for all is put aside for the time being, and there is no need for Datang to spend a lot of money to do such a thing, there is so much money, and it is better to train a few more strong troops for the country?

He didn't think that ten years later, maybe the implementation of compulsory education for all would not cost too much money, because the cost of studying at that time might have dropped to a very low level.

The country's military strength is strong, and the people do not have the corresponding centripetal force for the country, but it is not necessarily a good thing, human nature is greedy, once the person who has mastered the military power is greedy, the country is likely to be short-lived, becoming a gorgeous and short history.