Late autumn.

After the emperor's huge eastern tour team left the tiger prison at the east gate of Luoyang, it crossed the Grand Canal at Yingze and passed through the Ji Canal, and then entered Jishui, one of the four defilements, and continued to the east.

Xingyang Taishou Zhao County Duke Li Xuanba took the local officials and the people to see him off by the river.

"Let's go back."

"The minister wants to accompany His Majesty to Mount Tai." Li Xuanba was a little reluctant.

"You are now a local herdsman, how can you leave easily." Luo Cheng patted Li Xuanba on the shoulder, "Xingyang County has been under your rule for the past two years, but it has developed rapidly, I have toured all the way east this time, and the development of your Xingyang County is no worse than that of Luoyang Mansion, especially the two cities of Xingze and Kaifeng, now businessmen are gathered, workshops are all over the place, and they are very prosperous, I am very happy." ”

Li Xuanba smiled, "I always listen to the advice of the officials below, and I don't know how to govern the place." ”

"It's nice to be able to listen to good advice with an open mind."

As the east gate of Luoyang, Xingyang has strong geographical advantages, especially the Yellow River in the north, the Grand Canal Tongji Canal in the east, and the Jishui in the east. These three rivers are the golden waterway, the merchants and materials of Luoyang in the west have passed through from here, Xingze City is in the Tongji Canal and the place where the Jishui River flows, and the Yellow River is not transported in the north, so Xingze City has become an important water transport wharf.

There are warehouses all over here, the imperial court has set up a new Yingze warehouse here that can store tens of millions of stones, and the royal inner treasury has also set up a large warehouse here that can hold three million stones of grain, and merchants from all walks of life have also set up countless warehouses here.

Not to mention, there are shipyards here, specializing in the manufacture and production of merchant ships running canals, Jihe River, and the Yellow River, in addition to many handicraft manufacturing industries in Xingze are also very developed, the imperial court intends to establish a handicraft manufacturing area here, the official handicraft workshop of the imperial court Shaofu Temple, the royal handicraft workshop of the Inner Servant Province, etc., although Xingze is not the county town of Xingyang, but there are more than 200,000 people here, with more than 100,000 slaves.

The city of Kaifeng, less than 200 miles to the southeast, is now also an important water transport terminal and handicraft manufacturing base, with a population of more than 200,000.

In recent years, the imperial court has also intended to transfer some of the manufacturing industries in Luoyang City to Xingyang next to it, firstly, the transportation here is more convenient, and secondly, if the population of Luoyang is too large, it will also increase the difficulty of urban management. If millions of people live in a city, the transportation and health of the whole city will be very difficult, and even the difficulty of supplying materials will increase, and prices will also rise sharply.

Historically, Constantinople in Rome became a dung city due to a million people living in the city, and finally had to evacuate many people to the surrounding areas by forceful means to improve the situation in the city.

"I have found that Xingyang County now uses a large number of slaves, especially in the two cities of Xingze and Kaifeng, where the handicraft manufacturing industry is more concentrated, there are many slaves, and even nearly half of the population is slaves, this is a more prominent problem, I hope Xuanba you and the officials of Xingyang County can pay more attention to this problem."

Great Qin now basically dominates the world, and it is also expanding to the outside world and expanding its territory. The imperial court took the initiative to immigrate to the frontiers, which greatly changed the original situation of the Central Plains inland with a large number of people, especially with the strong equalization system of the imperial court, most of the Han people were allocated a lot of land and became homesteaders.

The aristocratic officials and landlords were also subject to the strict land restriction order of the imperial court, and had to replace the land that exceeded the limit in the Central Plains to the border land, which made the Central Plains now have fewer large landlords, and the number of yeoman farmers is extremely large, occupying seventy percent of the land. Home-grown farmers cultivate their own land, and even because a household can be allocated 100 to 70 or 80 acres of land, the demand for labor has increased for some families with few laborers, or families with better conditions such as government soldiers.

In the end, the only way to do this was to buy slaves.

In particular, many landlords and powerful people limited land in the Central Plains, so they bought land in the border land, turned to manufacturing in the middle of the principle, opened shops and built workshops, and it was difficult to hire more people to recruit workers, so they also began to buy slaves.

Although slaves are not cheap, they are a last resort in today's environment, and besides, buying slaves is actually very cost-effective. Therefore, now the top and bottom of Daqin, whether it is the aristocracy and powerful landlords, or the common people below, like to buy slaves.

The aristocratic and powerful officials and scholars bought a lot of slaves, not only to buy land and work, but also to serve these slaves in ordinary life, such as car slaves who drove cars, door slaves who guarded the door, horse slaves who raised horses, and even dog slaves who raised dogs, as well as tea slaves who served tea and poured water, slaves who helped cook and cook, etc., and slaves were inseparable from slaves everywhere.

In ordinary people's homes, most of them buy one or two slaves who work in the fields, and some will also buy some little girls to be handmaidens.

The imperial court also had a special law for slaves, following the law of the Sui Dynasty, the slave law was lower than the storage of property, and the buying and selling of slaves was the same as the purchase and sale of livestock, although there was strict management, but it was not prohibited.

"Xuanba, the use of a large number of slaves is required by today's national conditions, but it is also necessary to guard against the harm that slaves may bring. If a master and a slave have a son, the child still cannot change his status as a slave. ”

The one mentioned by Luo Cheng is very cruel, but if this red line is not drawn, sooner or later there will inevitably be chaos, and there will be chaos.

"Slaves work hard, then slaves intermarry with each other, and the next generation remains slaves, but if they behave well, they can be redeemed for freedom."

The imperial court's attitude towards slaves was controversial now.

Luo Cheng also adhered to that red line, but also had some protective laws for slaves, such as no abuse and no harm, etc., and even stipulated that slaves must be given a minimum salary, although this amount is pitiful, but allowing slaves to own private property is also a great change, if it were not for the opposition of many officials, the emperor was even ready to allow the children of slaves to be semi-free, and by the third generation, it would be completely free. However, this article was opposed by many officials, so the good and the low were not allowed to marry, and the children born to slaves and slaves were still slaves and belonged to the property of slave owners.

But a minimum wage was kept so that they could have a little private property, and they were allowed to save enough money to redeem themselves or their children for freedom.

Luo Cheng has always been a little worried, with the increasing number of slaves in Daqin now, he is afraid that slaves will become a big problem sooner or later. He didn't want Great Qin to have a slave uprising one day.

"Gotta give these slaves some hope."

"Also, we must strictly investigate, it is absolutely forbidden to sell Qin people as slaves, and Qin people are not even allowed to sell themselves as slaves, who dares to break this red line, they must be severely punished, remember."

In the next step, Luo Cheng also planned to strive to pass the article that the three generations of slaves and slaves in the court could become freelancers, these freelancers could not be granted land equally, but they could become hired workers and be naturalized. The third generation of freelancers can become truly good citizens.

In this way, the social contradictions, pressures and risks that slaves may bring are alleviated.

"Xuanba, your Xingyang County is a large slave county, there are hundreds of thousands of slaves in the county, you must manage it well, you can't abuse slaves, you have to ensure their most basic living conditions, you have to monitor it for a long time, if there are slave owners who abuse and kill slaves, you have to punish them severely."

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