"Why be so nice to slaves?"

On the official road by the Jishui River, the prince rode a horse and followed his father, and couldn't help asking.

"Because they are not animals but people, and people have thoughts." Luo Cheng replied to his son.

"But the law of slavery is better than livestock, isn't this what my Great Qin Kaiyuan Law stipulates?"

"It is true that the law is like an animal, but slaves are not livestock, and although they work like cattle and do the work of serving, they think that if they are oppressed and unbearable, they will rise up and resist." Luo Cheng pointed to the fields on both sides of the road, "Prince, what do you think of when you look at this field in front of you and the village in the distance?" ”

The straight and flat official road is more than three zhang wide, and the willow trees on the roadside are in rows, and the ditches under the road are connected. Under the road is a strange connection, and the smoke curls in the distance.

"Father, what the sons and sons see is the peace and security of the country and the people under the rule of the father, and what they see is that the people live and work in peace and contentment."

Luo Cheng just shook his head.

"I have walked this road many times, I remember that the earliest walk on this road was more than ten years ago, when I was sixteen years old, just entered the middle man, I was recruited by the government to dig a canal in Ji County on the north bank of the Yellow River, I and the third uncle of the same village and a team of people, carrying dry food and bedding, along the road with the county's servants. At that time, I was in a state of panic, the roads were full of people who were working as servants, everyone had vegetables on their faces, and the roads were also potholes, there were not so many trees on the roadsides, the canals were in disrepair, and even many fields were deserted because no one cultivated them, and many villages were empty because they had escaped from service. ”

"On the side of the road, you can even see the bones of the dead at any time, stenching and giving birth to maggots."

"After more than a year, I passed this road again, but at that time it was no longer the people who dug the river, but the captain of the Zhangqiu Township Regiment, and brought the villagers to suppress the bandits, at that time Shandong and Henan were full of bandits, many of them were deserters, and their hometowns could not survive, so they left their hometowns with their families to escape the famine and ask for food, but the food was not so easy to want, and they were hungry, so they simply went up the mountain and fell into the grass. But thieves are not so easy to be, some people fall into the grass and become bandits, and the court will naturally suppress bandits and catch thieves. ”

Speaking of that past, Luo Cheng also sighed.

"At that time, the Central Plains was in chaos, the people were struggling to make a living, the government conscripted the people to serve every day, all kinds of levies and assessments, and the people broke their homes and evaded service, either becoming homeless people to ask for food, or falling into the grass and becoming bandits. So in this land, the harsh taxes are as fierce as tigers, the servants are as ruthless as wolves, the good people have become vicious bandits, and they turn around and harm the people, and the officials and soldiers are even more fierce than bandits. ”

Speaking of that time, the roadside was full of bones that no one had buried.

Everywhere are abandoned fields, abandoned villages.

If you don't go in a group, you don't dare to go out at all.

"Emperor Sui is brutal and mediocre." Prince Road.

Luo Cheng smiled.

"My father is telling you this now, not to evaluate Emperor Sui, but to tell you that the people are the water, the king is the boat, and the water can carry the boat or overturn the boat. The same people, Emperor Wen of Sui Emperor Yang Jian treated the people quite generously, so there was a prosperous era of the emperor. As for Yang Jian, he was so happy and self-serving, but the officials forced the people to rebel, the world was boiling, and the people were limited to fire and water, and he himself finally lost the country. ”

Therefore, the most important thing in governing the world is to enable the people to live and work in peace and contentment, so that the people can have food and clothing. As long as the people can have food and clothing, then everyone will live a small life in peace. If the people can't even solve the problem of food and clothing, it's useless for you to talk about any great cause, the emperor makes the people can't eat, and the court makes the people unable to live, then even the weakest people will risk their lives to rebel. There is a saying that is good, as long as you are willing to cut your body, you dare to pull the emperor off the horse. ”

"Jiawen, the sages talked about moderation, do you know what this mean?"

"Father, the golden mean comes from the Analects, and the golden mean is virtue, and it is the utmost important. He Yan, the great Confucian of the Eastern Han Dynasty, set up solutions, Yong, Chang also, and neutralization can be the way to do it. ”

Luo Cheng nodded, "That's right, to put it simply, moderation is not mediocrity, but moderation and not going to extremes, and it is necessary to adapt measures to the times, things, things, and conditions." Remember, don't go to extremes. ”

"Yang Guang went to extremes back then, acted too quickly, and finally died in the world." Luo Cheng looked at the crown prince, "I know that your talent is average, so I never thought about how powerful you will be in the future, and I also hope that you can face up to this point of yourself, and in the future, you can be a king of success, and I will be very satisfied." ”

When the prince heard this, he bowed his head in some disappointment.

"Jiawen, there is nothing wrong with being an ordinary person, since ancient times, there have been so many emperors, and how many truly good kings there are, most kings are just ordinary people. You are still young, I am still young, I will try to shave the thorns off the scepter for you, and in the future I will hand you a smooth scepter, and I will choose more virtuous talents for you. If you have a good system and a good Zaifu, then after you inherit Great Qin in the future, as long as you don't do anything wrong, then Great Qin will be able to continue to prosper smoothly. ”

Luo Cheng hopes to complete this round of expansion at the beginning of the founding of Great Qin in his own hands, and after completing this round of expansion, Luo Chengcheng plans to start to gather his fists and concentrate on internal governance, so that the world will be more stable, so that Jiawen can inherit a more peaceful world.

So now he is so concerned about slaves, he just doesn't want to save such a complicated issue for later.

"We drive donkeys to pull mills, and we know that we have to hang bundles of grass on donkeys' heads, which is to give people hope, and slaves are human beings, and they are more complicated, so we have to be more and more cautious when we draw up the system, and we have to see not only now, but also fifty and one hundred years from now. If the imperial court does not have a reasonable system, then the tens of millions of slaves in the empire will become a huge problem sooner or later, and may even bury the world of Great Qin. ”

"Father, it's impossible, right?"

"As long as you are human, nothing is impossible, everything is possible. Think about it, what is the total population of the Great Qin world now?"

The crown prince has now begun to study government affairs, and he knows this, "According to the decree of the Ministry of Civil Affairs at the beginning of the year, there are more than 12 million households and more than 81 million people registered today. ”

"Well, remember it well, so how many slaves are there in these more than 80 million mouths?"

"More than 12 million slaves."

"In addition to these more than 12 million slaves, there are also many newly returned barbarians Hu Di, and there are no less than 10 million." Luo Cheng analyzed with the prince, "Of the 80 million population, slaves account for 12 million, and there are 10 million newly naturalized barbarians, which means that in fact, among the 80 million population of Great Qin, slaves account for one-and-a-half, and the newly naturalized barbarians also account for more than one-tenth, adding up to nearly thirty percent." ”

"Three out of ten people are either slaves or barbarians, and that's a dangerous thing."

"But the court needs slaves, and slaves are needed for work, serving, ploughing, mining, etc."

Luo Cheng nodded, "Because of this, the imperial court did not prohibit slaves, but it cannot ignore this hidden risk." Therefore, the imperial court needs to ensure the digestion of these hidden dangers from the institutional point of view, and the way that the father and emperor are thinking of now is to give these slaves some hope that they can slowly digest these problems, rather than allowing the problems to continue to ferment and grow. ”

Legislation to protect slaves from abuse and killing, legislation to protect their basic wages, protection of their basic living conditions, and even legislation promising that the third generation of slaves can be free employees, and the third generation of free employment can directly obtain the status of good citizens and naturalization, all of which are to dredge up and digest the hidden dangers brought about by the slavery system and avoid the final detonation of slave contradictions.

Three generations after three generations, Luo Cheng believes that these descendants of slaves who have lived in the Central Plains for several generations will still be able to integrate into China after all, and there is hope for the future and basic security of life, so the possibility of slaves resisting can be minimized.

In this way, there are constantly slaves who break away from this identity and integrate into the Han nation, and there are no new slaves who continue to enter Daqin, and they are not afraid.