Li Mi left Luokou Cangcheng, and a group of dozens of people were escorted by Pei Xingyan with 200 people, first taking a boat into the Yellow River in Luoshui, and then going down the river to land at Baimadu in Dongjun.

When he went ashore, he could be regarded as completely entering the territory of the Qin army.

On the dock, Li Mi felt a completely different atmosphere.

In the spring, Li Mi also led a large army here to besiege the White Horse City, blocking the Xia King Dou Jiande, at that time, the White Horse City near the White Horse City, is the battlefield, full of soldiers and horses, countless trenches.

The nearby village bazaar was also empty.

The bones are exposed, there are no roosters for hundreds of miles, the villages are in ruins, and the fields are overgrown with weeds.

But it's only been half a year, and in this late autumn season, the Baima Ferry is actually busy, with countless ships coming and going, bringing boats of people, and a lot of commercial goods.

Most of the people loading and unloading the ships on the dock were young and strong, but their faces were full of joy, not numbness, and there was no food.

Further back, the White Horse City, which had been almost destroyed under the fierce battle between the two armies of Wei and Xia, had actually regained its vitality at this time. The city was repaired, and the earthen fence built by the Wei army outside the city has now become the wall of White Horse City.

Outside the original city wall of the White Horse City, the Qin people built four new gates of the East Guanxi, the South and the North Pass, which almost more than doubled the size of the White Horse City.

It also introduced living water around the outer gate city, and diverted water through the white horse city, so that there was a small canal in the city that could be navigated to carry goods and grain.

Not far outside the city, you can see villages full of life.

On the road, there are many people coming and going, many of them pushing carts to drive cattle and horses, or simply carrying them on their shoulders.

"What do these people do?"

"For those who accept and sell grain, the weather is still good this autumn, and the crops in the fields are basically harvested."

According to the edict of the Son of Heaven of Daqin, the two-tax system is now fully implemented, not based on the amount of land and family property, but on the amount of land and family property, and then the household tax and the land tax, the household tax is divided into nine grades according to the family's financial resources, and the land tax is taxed according to the acres of land, of which the fields are divided into upper, middle and lower three classes of fields, each with a difference.

At the same time, it was now a wartime to unify the world, so the imperial court issued a special order to implement the peace system, but all the grain collected by the people, in addition to paying rent and taxes, and leaving enough rations for the people, the rest of the grain was purchased by the government, and private grain merchants were forbidden to buy it.

This peace bargain was to ensure food security, and also to facilitate the overall dispatch of the imperial court, to support the resumption of production in various places, and to supply troops to the front.

The two taxes are levied in summer and autumn, that is, after the summer and autumn harvest, and now it is after the autumn harvest, and the people are busy handing over the grain to the grain envoys who go to the countryside to collect grain.

And these grain-picking people on the road here in White Horse City actually took out some of the surplus rations reserved for them by the government and came here to sell.

The government does not prohibit the sale of such small quantities of grain.

"Still have surplus food to sell?"

Li Mi was a little surprised, in his mind, now that all parties are competing for power, the food is the most important thing, it would be good to be able to leave enough rations for the people, how could there be any surplus.

"The share of rations left by the government for the people is relatively sufficient, no matter how many adults or children in the family, they are all kept according to the rations of adults, so there will be some abundance, and the people will sell this grain and exchange it for money, so that they can buy some things they need."

After only one night's rest in White Horse Castle, he continued on his way.

Along the way, Li Mi was even more amazed, when he withdrew from the four counties, he asked his subordinates to destroy the towns and villages of the four counties, fill in the wells, plug the canals, and break the bridges, but now walking here, the roads are smooth and flat, the canals are also smooth, and the villages are distributed on the plains, full of life.

In the fields, in the fields that have just been harvested, there are still many farmers in the fields.

"It was planted in the fall."

After the autumn harvest, some fields will be planted with a crop, some will be planted with wheat, and some radishes will be planted.

The further east you go, the more life you will find here.

Especially after entering Qi County, I found that this side was even more lively, even if it was Luoyang, it couldn't be compared with it at all.

It's literally two worlds.

Even many of Li Mi's subordinates couldn't help but ask, why is there such a big difference?

"It's all because the people of Qi County haven't had much burden in the past few years, especially since the Son of Heaven ascended the throne. In other places, they only exploited the people, requisitioned money and grain from the people, and also wantonly conscripted the people to serve, and the people suffered both from service and from rent. In particular, most of them also implement the law of evasion, and the upper part gives a quota to the counties and villages below, for example, if one village has 100 households, if one household escapes, the remaining 99 households will have to increase the rent and service of the fugitive. If 10 households escape, 90 people will be left to share 10 households, and once half of the 100 households have escaped, it means that the remaining people will have to pay double the tax. ”

In many places in the Central Plains, the people suffered from the war and bandits, and the rent was heavy, and the service was bitter, so many people were forced to flee, and once they fled, the rest of the people were even more miserable, and naturally they had to continue to flee in the end, a vicious circle.

Conversely, why is this not the case in Qi County?

First, when I came to Qi County, there was basically no big war in recent years, and then the local bandits were very strong, and the general bandits did not dare to wander over to make trouble, as for the soldiers and counties of the prefecture, although there were many soldiers and towns, the military discipline was stricter, and there were few cases of disturbing the people and harming the people.

In addition, there is no such thing as levying and evading here, especially now, after the implementation of the two-tax system, the burden on the people has actually been greatly reduced.

"How does the emperor raise his army?" Li Mi asked a question that bothered him a lot.

No matter who it is, whether it loves the people or is brutal, after all, you have to raise an army, and you have to get money and food to raise an army. Luo Cheng was lightly assigned to thin labor, how did he raise the army?

"There is a tax on industry and commerce, a tax on monopoly, and a tuntian."

It's very simple, but this path has not been realized in other ways, and now only the Qin army is implementing it. Luo Cheng's second equalization of land made the land annexation of powerful landlords under his rule reduced, and a large number of landless people were resettled to Juntian outside the Guanwai to grant land, which also greatly improved the situation of Qilu with many people and narrow land, on the other hand, a large number of fields originally belonging to the royal family and the government were taken out and granted to the people, which also increased the number of homesteaders.

If there is no banditry and rebellion, the people will be able to cultivate with peace of mind, and the land will not be abandoned. Without heavy hard labor, the people would not have fled. The collection of industrial and commercial taxes has nothing to do with ordinary people, which has an impact on the merchants and nobles, but it does not affect the people, and this tax has little impact on those people.

Not to mention, Luo Cheng still has a military strategy.

When the people were idle, they built roads and cities, and built water conservancy, and Emperor Luo Cheng also specially ordered that these people were not free servants, but recruited those idlers or poor people and gave them money and food.

"Do you still have money and food for servitude? Where did the government get this money and food? Li Mi was even more surprised.