After listening to Xue Yongli's words, Wu Shigong felt that what he said was extremely true. This land concentration is indeed a big problem!

After thinking about it for a while, Wu Shigong commanded: "They can't hold the land, we can take it back for them, and we must collect some compensation." Let the Ministry of Foreign Affairs go and talk to them one by one, and if they are willing to buy it, we will give them the stocks and bonds of the Runing Military Industry; If you don't want to, you should also give us the right to cultivate for three or five years. Under such conditions, they are not at a loss, we have obtained the land that has been barren for several years, and what we have returned to them is cooked land. Also, the amount of profit we make is secondary, the main thing is to be able to resettle the displaced people and resume production. And the surplus food grown has to be purchased exclusively by us. With food, our Runing army will be invincible. ”

It was after this conversation that, at the suggestion of Wu Shigong, the Runing Army set the rudiments of its own land policy. This land policy has the following characteristics:

First of all, the Runing Army abandoned the policy of confiscating the land of large landlords that was commonly used in the change of dynasty, but mainly adopted the method of redemption. In all dynasties, in order to solve the problem of excessive concentration of land in the previous dynasty, the imperial court has always adopted a rough fight against local tyrants to divide the land or not change it at all. However, this policy led to a constant cycle of dynasties. At the beginning of the dynasty, because of the war, there were few people and many fields, and social contradictions did not yet appear. However, in the last years of each dynasty, because of the large number of people and the lack of land, a large number of idle people were produced, and if natural and man-made disasters were added, it would be endless wars.

And the Runing Army will definitely have to solve the problem of land concentration. However, the adoption of the method of redemption reduced the resistance of the landlords and the gentry class, and even reduced the social turmoil, which made it easier to settle down the society as soon as possible, and it was also easy to gain the support of the gentry of the previous dynasty. And this point is quite important, because the scholars at that time were basically from or funded by official families.

However, the rule of the state requires a large number of scholars. Because it is hard to imagine a group of illiterate people to govern the country. Therefore, before the establishment of a mature education system, these scholars left over from the previous dynasties were more precious than gold.

Redemptions could also be given to landless peasants. The Runing Army paid attention to the contribution value, and the displaced people they captured and collected could become yeoman farmers by joining the army and dividing the land after retiring. They could also be used as serfs for a certain number of years, and then become freemen and be given land where their families could make ends meet. Therefore, with the arrival of the life limit, the land redeemed and confiscated by the Runing Army will also be gradually distributed, and the serfs owned by the Runing Army will continue to be discharged, which fundamentally solves the social contradictions at that time, and is also a great benevolent policy of the Runing Army.

Secondly. This land policy has led to a great change in the thinking of the Chinese people about land ownership.

In order to solve the problem of land concentration that may arise in the future, the Runing Army formulated a hierarchical land taxation system. First of all, all land, including Wu Shigong's own, must be taxed. This is also the policy of the gentry to pay grain and apportionment to the mu in one piece.

And the land class tax. It has also caused several huge changes.

First, it changed the desire of rich landlords to buy land. This is because when a landlord owns more land than the minimum level, the taxes he will have to pay will increase significantly. Even to the last few levels. He will have to pay more taxes than he collects in the rent. Therefore, the Runing Army used the tax lever to prevent the excessive concentration of land. Of course, the minimum land tax collected by the Runing Army was quite low.

Therefore, in this way, those rich landlords will invest their spare funds in industry and commerce or deposit them in money banks for interest, which also makes industry and commerce develop greatly, change the industrial structure of the whole society, and finally move from feudal society to capitalist society relatively gently.

One more point. The huge amount of land owned by those big clans, in order to pay less taxes, they all put it in the names of their own people. But as time went on, these lands gradually became the private property of these children. This greatly reduced the cohesion of those big clans. It also strengthened the centralization of the state.

Ultimately, this agrarian policy also led to the colonial expansion of the country.

In order to encourage land reclamation, the Runing Army granted a long period of tax exemption and low tax to those reclaimed lands and newly occupied land outside the country, which led to the formation of a large number of armed trading houses similar to the Jimin Reclamation Commercial Firms. They cooperated with the national army and organized funds, manpower and arms to occupy land outside the country.

In this way, the country carried out colonial expansion, and the people worked closely together to share the benefits. This has fundamentally changed the long-term situation of labor and loss of money in expanding the territory, and has caused a frenzy of "rushing out of the country" to rise among the whole people. This also provided a huge amount of money for the establishment of a capitalist society in the future.

Of course, at this time, Wu Shigong couldn't think about it so far-reaching, and he put forward such a decision in order to solve the problem in front of him. However, in this time and space, the evaluation of this policy is extremely high. Later generations called this policy the "Kaifeng Land Policy".

"Row now! Throw all that away! King Chuang wants to take everyone to Shanxi and Beijing, eat fragrant and drink spicy food, what is there there? And the beautiful Datong girl! An officer who broke into the camp encouraged. His words immediately caused a burst of laughter from the soldiers who broke into the camp.

At this time, some thin ice had begun to form on the surface of the Yellow River, and in order to allow nearly a million people to cross the river, in addition to erecting more than a dozen pontoon bridges on the river, the Li and Luo coalition forces also collected all the large and small ships nearby.

On the surface of the river, the black pressure is all people crossing the river. However, the morale of the soldiers of the Li and Luo coalition was high, because Li Zicheng told them that the camp was not to give up the territory of Henan, but to attack the city of Beijing, overthrow the Ming Dynasty, and establish a new dynasty.

"King Chuang is here!" Suddenly, someone saw Li Zicheng appear on the south bank with his personal guards, so a burst of cheers broke out on both sides of the Yellow River and on the river.

Li Zicheng took off his felt hat and waved it at the cheering crowd with a smile, and the cheers were even higher. Everyone believes in King Chuang's words, and everyone believes that King Chuang will make them live a good life.

Liu Zongmin came to Li Zicheng's side, raised his voice and said, "Look, King Chuang, this is what the people want. What kind of bad idea did Cao Cao have, he still wants to go back to the dirty and broken Shaanxi, it's not that my old Liu looks down on him, that's how he is in this life. ”

Li Zicheng kept a smile to the cheering crowd and reminded Liu Zongmin: "Won't you hold your words in your stomach?" If you talk too much, you will lose your knowledge? Anyway, didn't Cao Cao cross the river with us after the most stubbornness? ”

On November 25, the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, more than 80,000 people of the Runing Army, plus 20,000 horses of the Heiyun Army, entered Henan Mansion together and launched the most repulsive action against the Li and Luo coalition forces. Before the war, Wu Shigong personally wrote a letter to Li Zicheng, and there was only one sentence on the letter: "Get out of Henan!" ”

At this time, Luo Rucai regained his rogue nature, and Li Zicheng also wanted to integrate the various forces within the peasant army first, so neither of them wanted to have a head-on decisive battle with the Runing army now. Therefore, on the 26th, the peasant army gradually concentrated in the northwest of Henan Province, preparing for the complete withdrawal of the whole army from Henan.

However, regarding the direction of the withdrawal, Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai had another disagreement. Luo Rucai wanted to return to Shaanxi, because Sun Chuanting's Qin army was no longer a threat, so Luo Rucai wanted to return to his hometown and show his face in front of his hometown father. To be honest, this Luo Rucai's small-scale peasant thinking is indeed serious enough.

However, Li Zicheng's goal was to cross the Yellow River. And the most critical factor in making this decision is that if it enters Shaanxi, there is no guarantee that the Runing army will not follow and pursue. And crossing the Yellow River, you can completely get rid of the Runing army.

Because the Yellow River has not yet frozen, it is just right to cross the river. In the next month or so, the Yellow River will enter a freezing period, and there will be no way to sail at all, and it is very inconvenient to even erect a pontoon bridge. Therefore, the peasant army was given a month to move freely.

Moreover, compared with the ruins of Shaanxi, Shanxi and Beizhili were much richer and more populous, which was convenient for the peasant army to expand its population and plunder materials, and it was also far away from the Runing army, so it could establish a base for the peasant army.

Of course, crossing the Yellow River was also conducive to the propaganda of the peasant army. After all, the Li and Luo coalition forces were defeated and drove out of Henan. However, under the propaganda of Song Xiance, Li Yan and others, it became "capture Beijing City and overthrow the Ming Dynasty!" ”

Although Li Zicheng's strategy was to enter Shanxi first, after strengthening his strength, he would go south to Shaanxi, take the northwestern provinces as a base, and then attack Beijing directly. After the overthrow of the Ming Dynasty, all the main forces were concentrated in a decisive battle with the Runing Army in the Central Plains for the hegemony of the world. However, this propaganda of the peasant army swept away the shadow of defeat, and the morale of the officers and men of the peasant army was high as if they were victors.

However, after reaching the end of the day, Luo Rucai still took the overall situation into account, and finally acted together with Li Zicheng's camp. Although crossing the Yellow River had the disadvantage of being too slow, the Li and Luo coalition forces had long arranged the old, weak, women, and children in the rear, and they only needed to ensure that their main force of 500,000 or 600,000 horses could cross the river safely.

"Has the news of the spies come back?" After greeting the cheers, Li Zicheng immediately asked Li Guo about the movements of the Runing Army.

"That Wu butcher has been about twenty miles away from our rear team, and he has not forced it up. It's three times a day, and if there's news, I'll report it to you immediately. Li Guo hurriedly replied.

"How do you do three newspapers a day? At least six times a day. You also have to be careful about this inquiry, don't think that if you are my nephew, I will not use military law. Li Zicheng suddenly said angrily.

"Yes!" Li Guo didn't dare to talk back at all, and immediately went down to give the order.

The surrounding generals all looked at Li Zicheng, and they all understood in their hearts: Li Zicheng's mental pressure is indeed too great these days! (To be continued......)

PS: Note one thing: November of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen is a leap November, so please distinguish clearly.

Also, I was ecstatic to have more than 200 monthly passes last month.

It's really thank you, friends!