readx;?readx; Chapter 649: The Rule of Heaven (I)

Time flies, three years have passed in a blink of an eye, and it is now the early spring of the seventh year of God's blessing. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

It has been six years since the start of the New Deal. In these five years, the imperial power was unprecedentedly strong, the imperial court was extremely efficient, and the harassment and exploitation of the people also fell to the lowest point in history.

Once the burden on the people was reduced, the problem of displaced people that had plagued the Three Kingdoms for a long time was cured in the Qin State, and a large number of displaced people basically returned to the countryside in the past six years, and their hukou multiplied rapidly. According to the statistics of the first national census in the sixth year of Tianyou, the population of the whole country has surged from 5 million households, 25 million people, and more than 5 million strong men in the last years of Zhaowu to nearly 10 million households, 50 million people, and nearly 15 million strong men at present.

The reason why the population has grown explosively in just seven or eight years is that before the blessing of heaven, the imperial court implemented a tax on the basis of a single mu, so the situation of concealing the number of hukou was extremely serious. In particular, adult men between the ages of 16 and 40 are largely concealed, which is why there is a joke about one household and one ding.

Second, because of the relaxation of policies, the reduction of burdens, and the return of a large number of displaced people. These two are the main reasons for the short-term surge in the registered population. As for the long-term factors such as the improvement of the people's living standards and the encouragement of childbirth by the imperial court, because the time is still short, it has not had much impact for the time being.

But in any case, the growth of the population has brought an unprecedentedly strong labor force to the country. In the past five years, more than 1.3 million hectares of newly cultivated land have been reclaimed across the country, bringing the total area of registered cultivated land to 4 million hectares. The imperial court also invested huge sums of money in the construction of 77 large and small water conservancy projects, such as reservoirs and canals, so that the area of irrigated cultivated land in the country reached 2 million hectares.

At this time, 40% of the country's cultivated land was planted with rice and 60% with wheat. One acre of upper field can harvest two stones and four buckets of rice, fold rice one stone and two buckets, fold rice one acre and one stone, fold rice in the field and fold eight buckets of rice per acre, two or three crops a year. Wheat millet is twice a year or three times a year, with an average yield of two stones per mu, and the folded noodles are also one stone. In other words, the average grain yield per mu in the country is one stone, and two and a half stones can be harvested a year.

The country's 4 million hectares of cultivated land is 40,000 mu, and the total grain output has reached 1 billion stone in the sixth year of Tianyou. Even if the imperial court is lightly taxed, only 'twenty taxes and one', the tax revenue this year can reach 50 million stones. Although grain prices have fallen year after year due to the sharp increase in production, they can still reach about 40 million taels of silver when converted into taxes.

The grain tax alone reached twice as much as that in the Zhaowu period. In addition, the annual tax of 15 million taels has reached a terrifying 55 million taels, which has exceeded the combined value of Qi and Chu.

According to the "Food and Goods Chronicles of the Great Qin Empire", from the third year of Tianyou, the warehouses in various parts of Great Qin were full of grain. Because of the surge in production and the lack of capacity of Changping, in the three years from the third year of Tianyou to the sixth year of Tianyou, more than 5,000 new granaries were added across the country, storing more than one billion stones of grain. This is also because King Wu Cheng implemented a special plan to dump a large amount of old grain to Qi and Chu, otherwise there will really be a huge waste of 'Chen Chen's cause, decay and inedibility'.

The great historian Fan Zhongyan was in his dying years at that time, and he recalled the beautiful scenery at that time in his writings, saying, "During the period of God's blessing, politics and harmony; The treasury is full, and the people are rich; Lu Wu froze to death, and his family had surplus wealth; The warehouse is sufficient, and the goods are prosperous! It is not without emotion that it is called 'the rule of God.'"

Fan Wenzhenggong's 'warehouse is sufficient, and goods are prosperous', which is very apt to illustrate the prosperity of industry and commerce at that time. As the common people can generally eat their stomachs, the middle and upper families have more money, and people have higher requirements for the quality of life, hoping to dress better and eat better; It is more comfortable to use and more stylish to live, so that the industry and commerce that transport the world's goods and meet people's needs will flourish.

In addition, the imperial court greatly encouraged industry and commerce, not only clarifying the provisions of 'all equal for farmers and industry and commerce' in the law, but also building roads and widening canals to provide convenient transportation for business travelers from the north and south. It also abolished the tax cards that had been in place in the past, and it was strictly forbidden to discriminate against merchants and not to double taxation on merchants...... Especially in the fourth year of God's blessing, the imperial court severely punished the private tax cards that were not forbidden, and more than 1,000 heads fell to the ground in two months, and more than 7,000 officials and dependents were exiled, which was extremely powerful to deter the government and the opposition, and greatly restrained the behavior of exploiting and embarrassing merchants, giving the merchants of Great Qin an unprecedented golden opportunity.

For a time, the number of people who are interested in industry and commerce has surged, and the number of people who have applied for low-interest loans to Huaxia Ticket Number has reached more than 30,000 in the sixth year of Tianyou alone, and the amount has reached nearly 10 million taels.

Thriving commerce brings with it an equally substantial tax revenue. When the new deal was first implemented in the second year of Tianyou, the total amount of industrial and commercial taxes collected was 7 million taels; it was raised to 11 million taels in three years, and it reached 18 million taels in the fourth year of Tianyou, and finally broke through the 20 million mark in five years, and reached a height of 25 million taels in six years...... It has exceeded the total tax revenue during the Zhaowu period. It can be said that there is a significant growth every year.

In addition, since the fifth year of Tianyou, the six major revival yamen in the country have finally begun to pay dividends, among which the earliest established southern revival yamen began to contribute money to shareholders in the second year of Tianyou. As the Great Qin Imperial Court, which enjoyed a forty percent share in the six major yamen, this income alone reached 10 million taels.

Tian tax, Ding tax, industrial and commercial tax, and dividends, these four items constitute the main income of the Qin court, and the total amount has reached a terrifying 90 million taels, which is twice the sum of Qi and Chu!

What's even more terrifying is that the tax level of the Qin State is quite low, which means that there is a greater amount of wealth hidden in the people, as long as there is a need, it can burst out with lasting and strong strength!

In terms of strength alone, the Qin State finally surpassed the two countries of Qi and Chu, achieving the first inequality in two hundred years!

But Qin Lei knows very well that money in the treasury is scrap copper and rotten iron, and only in the hands of the people is wealth and can bring more wealth, so under his leadership, the imperial court's ability to spend money is just as terrible, and the annual expenditure on infrastructure construction such as water conservancy and transportation alone reaches 20 million taels, completely regardless of the cost.

Of course, this kind of large-scale and protracted national project is also an important factor in the rapid development of industry and commerce. Without these huge amounts of wealth flowing into the people, it would be difficult for the emerging industrial and commercial class of the Great Qin Dynasty to complete the primitive accumulation, and it would not have become bigger and stronger so quickly.

While the country is rich and the people are strong, and the people's lives are stable and prosperous, Qin Lei has not relaxed the reshaping of the spirit of the people of Daqin, through the rap Mr. in the teahouse and the performing arts stage in the countryside, a large number of heroic dramas such as 'Li Shimin vs. Wang Shichong' and 'Guan Yunchang Thousands of Miles Riding Alone' have been staged, and the people have subtly cultivated the martial spirit of the people, and openly declared that 'there should only be one country in the land of China, and that is our Daqin!'" So that the people of Qin have always been full of desire to expand their territory and unify the three kingdoms.

It is logical that the military expenditure of the Great Qin Dynasty has also risen year after year, reaching a huge amount of 43 million taels in the sixth year of Tianyou, and the military budget of Tianyou in seven years has even reached 50 million taels, which has surpassed the two countries of Qi and Chu.

Qin Lei's idea of building an army is very clear, 'cavalry-oriented, develop the naval army, expand the infantry army!' After the Qin-Qi War in the last years of Zhaowu, Qin Lei did not blindly rebuild the cavalry, but limited the number of cavalry except for the Zhennan Army to the existing 200,000. In view of the current situation of the weak infantry of the Great Qin, the investment was increased, and the number of infantry other than the Zhennan Army was expanded to 400,000...... These included the 300,000 infantry troops trained by Marshal Bo Xian for him, and the 100,000 Zhendong infantry troops that were rebuilt. The cost of raising these 400,000 infantry troops is about 20 million taels per year...... This is still because the soldiers of the Great Qin Infantry Army generally adopt the military service system, and they don't have to pay too much military salary, otherwise according to the current labor cost of Great Qin, Qin Lei's military expenses are simply not enough.

At the same time, in order to cope with the inevitable arrival of the Qi-Chu coalition army, Qin Lei also began to allocate a special military expenditure of 10 million taels per year to Marshal Bo Xian for him to expand his military strength and build warships. In the eighteenth year of Zhaowu, Qin Lei knew that raising a naval army was more expensive than raising cavalry, and the mighty warships were all piled up with money!

But this is not to say that cavalry is no longer important in the Qin state, Qin Lei experimented with the volunteer system among the 200,000 cavalry troops, intending to build a brave, experienced, and professional army full of pride and sacrifice. Strictly and difficult to manage the army in actual combat, so that it will become the backbone of the Great Qin army and a big killer that sweeps the world. Fortunately, this army is ready-made, and it only needs to pay for military salaries, war horse replenishment, and armament replacement, and it is also ...... every year Twenty million taels.

It is no exaggeration to say that this army, which is full of veterans with rich combat experience, and a vast number of recruits who have grown up in the years of God's blessing and are full of pride and self-confidence, are both experienced and combative, well-equipped, and rigorously trained, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is at the best moment in history.

Although the number of people is less than one million, it is a real elite army, and its combat power has far exceeded the level before the Qin and Qi wars, which is in stark contrast to the trouble-ridden and declining Qi ** team.

In terms of military morale, the two armies are even more distinct, and there is already a world of difference!