Because there were too many horses, Liu Bei convened everyone to discuss, and Jian Yong said: "The husband and the horse are in the bush, and the family of six is the food." Now our army has 50,000 or 60,000 horses, and the horses are not good enough, so I ask the lord to check them out. ”

A horse can eat six people on the top, and there are five or six more horses at once, which is equivalent to hundreds of thousands of more people to eat, and it will indeed cause a lot of food pressure for a county in the plains.

At this time, Hua Xin said that he could use the fake horse method of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

Fake horses, of course, are not fake horses, or the kind of fake horses that can be made, hanging on their legs, traveling thousands of miles in a day and eight hundred in night.

The so-called fake is a loan. The Fake Horse Act is a bill to lend horses to the private sector.

Hua Xin said: "When Emperor Xiaowu was in power, according to the law of fake fields, fake horses for officials and civil officials, called Xi Eleven. The so-called interest is to lend horses to the people, and after three years to recover the horses as the principal. In addition, the people were required to pay interest on the foals of one-tenth of the number of foals produced by the horses they had borrowed, and if there were less than one foal, they were converted into money, grain, and cloth. As soon as this law came out, at the beginning, the world was jubilant, and everyone scrambled to raise horses and scrambled to borrow horses from the government. At that time, there were horses in the streets and alleys, and there were groups of people. Herds of cattle and horses were flocked, and the peasants ploughed on horseback, and the people rode on horseback. ”

In the hall, hearing Hua Xin say this, everyone was fascinated.

Immediately afterwards, Hua Xin's words changed: "It's a pity, the good times don't last long." Emperor Xiaowu because of the crusade against the Xiongnu, built the palace, sealed Mount Tai, and asked for immortals, so that the treasury was empty. Six animal taxes were levied first, and then horse money was levied. In the end, the voluntary application for horse breeding has become a compulsory assessment and compulsory collection of interest and horse tax. The officials up and down, layer by layer, the people were miserable, until the time of Emperor Xiaozhao, the horse was stopped. ”

Everyone looked at Hua Xin, and said in their hearts, you really dare to say it, although Liu Bei is not a descendant of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, but the elder brother of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, after King Jing of Zhongshan, but in front of the relatives of the Han family, is it really good to say that the ancestor of the family, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

But Liu Bei doesn't care about this at all, in fact, in ancient China, the evaluation of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty has always been bad, and it has always been mostly negative. Even Emperor Liu Che of the Han Dynasty himself did not have a high opinion of himself, and he also issued an "edict of guilt" to give an explanation to the world.

And Liu Bei actually agrees with this evaluation. Unlike many people in the 21st century who agree with Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bei feels that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty is the kind of typical, when playing the landlord's cards, he uses four two with a pair of kings, which belongs to a good hand of cards and plays a miserable victory.

The reason why in the 21st century, there has been a wave of overturning cases, such as Qin Shi Huang, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty and other people's evaluations have changed, the essential reason is that the evaluation criteria have changed. In modern times, it has become a merit theory, looking at the impact of this merit on history. To put it simply, by modern standards, it doesn't matter how many people die in order to achieve such great feats as building the Great Wall and digging canals. Anyway, there are so many Han people, they can't die.

"Dare to ask Ziyugong, what does this fake horse method have to do with how difficult horses are to raise now?" Liu Bei asked.

What is the fake horse method, and even the pros and cons of the fake horse method Liu Bei knows, but what he wants to ask is what this fake horse method has to do with solving the problem that too many horses can't be fed.

Hua Xin smiled and said: "Lord, at the beginning of Emperor Xiaowu's fake horse law, all Li Shu in the world was jubilant, and everyone was vying to raise horses. Then the lord does not cost a penny, and the horses and animals can also get the rest of the horses, so why not do it. ”

Only then did everyone understand why Hua Xin wanted to talk about the disadvantages of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's fake horse law, it turned out that he was afraid that Liu Bei would also act like this and turn a good government into an evil law.

What a trick empty gloves white wolf, Liu Bei looked at Hua Xin and admired it in his heart. It is really worthy of being a high-ranking official at the level of Cao Wei Sangong in history. This shot is extraordinary, it is simply killing two birds with one stone. No, it's killing three birds with one stone. Obviously, he can't feed the horse, but after Hua Xin's trouble, not only do the horses not have to be fed by themselves, but they can also charge a lot of interest, and the people are happy to rush to fake the horses. Almost everyone can benefit from this policy, and only the most brilliant politicians are like that.

"What a fake horse method, Ziyu Gong is the truth!" Liu Bei couldn't help but admire.

Everyone thought that Liu Bei was going to agree with Hua Xin's method, but who knew that Liu Bei suddenly asked, "How many soldiers are there in my plain?" ”

Such a divine turn almost didn't make the big guy flash his waist, and after a while, Xi Zhicai said: "Lord, there were originally 13,000 soldiers and horses in the plain, and now there are nearly 500 casualties, but the lord has subdued hundreds of Wuhuan Hu cavalry, and the number of soldiers and horses has not changed much. ”

It turned out that Liu Bei suddenly thought that since this horse was so valuable, why not use him to change the government soldiers.

Liu Bei nodded and said: "All families that have been killed or injured by government soldiers, each household will be given two horses, and their parents and children will be exempted from forced labor until the male in the family reaches adulthood." ”

This is the buying of people's hearts by eating fruits.

Hearing this, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Tai Shici and others all got up and said, "The lord is merciful, I wait for the soldiers to thank the lord." ”

"Every soldier who serves in the government is given a horse per household for farming, and there is no need to charge any tithes tax. And the horses were given to them. Liu Bei added, and added in his heart, anyway, this horse was also robbed by them.

"In addition, 15,000 government soldiers will be recruited by the 11th false horse method, and if the government soldiers make meritorious service within three years, the horses will be given to them, and there is no need to return them." Liu Bei continued.

"If this is the case, then everyone will join the government soldiers enthusiastically." Cui Mengdao.

"Of course, for ordinary people, exchanging a strong man for a horse is really profitable, and this horse is much more capable than a person." Xi Zhicai said.

Liu Bei frowned, he didn't say anything, after more than half a year, Liu Bei's modern aura is becoming less and less, and it is inevitable to consider the problem with the way of thinking of people in this era. Some people may think that how can horses be compared to people, and even such comparisons are wrong.

Nor can this be wrong. However, for the poor, horses are really more valuable than people. In the final analysis, when you have money, life is worth it. When people have no money, their lives are worthless.

As for why another 15,000 people were recruited, this is an article that Liu Bei saw before he crossed over, and it is said that it was studied by Western experts, saying that in an agrarian society, the number of troops should be maintained at about 2 percent of the total population, and at most not more than 4 percent.

Although, I would love to say to them, please look at the Qin Dynasty. In the Battle of Changping, Qin maintained an army of 600,000 with a population of 5 million. This 12 percent mobilization rate has reached the level of World War II, and several industrial countries during the First World War could not do it. But come to think of it, in history, there was only one Qin Dynasty. Moreover, the Qin Dynasty did not last long.

Soldiers in reality are different from games in that they need to be recruited, trained, equipped, lodging, fed, transported, dispatched, and communicated. All this is not only costly, but also laborious to ensure the smooth operation of this series of complex logistical measures. Moreover, the greater the number of people, the more difficult it becomes.

Especially in the ancient era when transportation was basically by walking, and communication was basically by roaring, the number of troops was too large, and the only way to destroy production and social structure was to do so.

Historically, Yuan Shao's army ate mulberries, and Yuan Shu's army ate river mussels. Eat it every day, and you can eat the dead. And Cao Cao even had to rely on eating human flesh for a period of time to survive.

It can be seen that excessive military expansion is harmful to social production.

is also coercing the Son of Heaven to order the princes, the reason why Cao Cao did not become Dong Zhuo and Li Guo. I'm afraid it is also related to the fact that he used the method of tuntian to restore agricultural production.

Therefore, Liu Bei expanded the army according to the upper limit of modern scholars' research, four percent of the total population, and the number of 28,000 people, and as for the others, they gave me the fields to farm, which was the initial stage, several years earlier than Cao Cao.

"Lord, in this way, we only have 30,000 horses left, and we should be able to raise them." Jian Yong counted the number of horses and said.

However, at this time, Liu Bei no longer wanted to raise horses by himself.