Since Liu Bei settled in Xichuan in the 14th year of Jian'an, and now at the end of the 15th year of Jian'an, the situation in the south has stabilized.

Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, Xu Shu, Fa Zheng, Zhang Song, and Jia Xu are in full swing to carry out local governance and implement the reform measures made before.

Liu Bei was a vassal, and the treasury was almost empty.

Zhuge Liang began to build economic measures, and did not use the advice of the left general Xi Cao Peng Liu Ba to "100 valuables", but followed Shen Chen's suggestion - to borrow money.

Of course, it's not really asking someone to borrow it.

It's about taxation.

Isn't this the beginning of measuring the land?

Jingzhou Yizhou is extremely rich, and under the new policy, the government used political status and low prices to buy back nearly half of the land.

For example, it turned out that a certain county was strong, with a population of hundreds of clans, counting thousands of field slaves, apprentices, weavers, and servants, and owned 100,000 acres of land, with thousands of family wealth and countless money.

The government will summon this powerful man over and give him a choice.

The first is to recruit the officials as officials, liberate the field slaves, and check their fields and population, of which at least half of the slaves and land will be taken away by the government, but they will be bought and sold at a lower price, and they will also be given a certain political status, and a part of the tax will be exempted.

Second, the cultivated land and population should continue to be retained, and the government should conduct an inventory in all aspects. Then, according to the land tax and the Ding tax, the tax will be fully levied, and the tax will be paid for three years, and the family will be exterminated if they dare to resist or adopt a negative attitude.

You must know that these wealthy families are all very rich.

According to the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty: The Biography of Zhongchang": "The room of the wealthy is hundreds of buildings, the fields are full of fields, and there are thousands of slaves and maids. Qi bribes treasures, and the giant room cannot be tolerated; Horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs, and the valley cannot bear it. ”

It is enough to see the gap between the landlords and the poor class.

Like Mi Zhu himself, when he was in Xuzhou, he was not a wealthy family, and his ancestors had never produced big officials, and he could make tens of thousands of slaves completely by doing business, not to mention those nobles who had been big officials in their ancestors.

Therefore, Zhuge Liang and their internal political restructuring are obviously using a knife against the landlord, just like fattening a pig and slaughtering it in the New Year.

In this way, the finances of Yizhou and Jingzhou were instantly full again.

The emancipation of the population of the two places indirectly contributed to the prosperity of the handicraft industry and economy, and commerce became more and more active.

Although because of such a policy, there was opposition from the powerful families in Jingyi and Jingyi, but the policy of being officials in different places made even the officials from the powerful families out of reach, so they could only choose to write to Liu Bei to advise.

The song flew to Jiangzhou like snowflakes, and Liu Bei simply handed it all over to Zhuge Liang to deal with, and went to Jiangling to get married.

At the beginning of the sixteenth year of Jian'an, there were some civil strife, all of which were put down.

Under the strong wrists of Zhuge Liang and Fa Zheng, these landlords can't afford to make any waves.

By February, Shen Chen got married, and the object was Liu Bei's daughter Liu Ning.

Liu Ning was seven years younger than Shen Chen, in the sixteenth year of Jian'an, that is, in 211 AD, Shen Chen was twenty-four years old, and Liu Ning was seventeen years old.

When Liu Bei entrusted his daughter to Shen Chen, he had just arrived.

In the past year, Liu Ning has lived in Xiangyang, socialized with Shen Chen, and once went out of the city to hunt together, and sat and talked about scriptures together.

It was not until September last year that Liu Bei returned to Jiangzhou from Jingzhou and went to Bashu with his family.

Although Liu Ning is not a great talent, he is knowledgeable and reasonable, has good moral character, and is not a rude and willful person, so he was finally sent by Shen's mother to the mansion of General Zuo in Jiangzhou to propose marriage.

Liu Bei was naturally overjoyed and readily agreed.

After getting married in February, Shen Chen handed over the military affairs in Nanyang to Gan Ning Wenpin and Zhang Xiu, and he accompanied his wife at home every day.

And just when Liu Bei Group was developing with peace of mind, Cao Cao Group was also recuperating.

The year before last, Cao Cao pacified Wuhuan, and last year he personally conquered Gaogan, and now the entire north, except for Gongsun Kang in Liaodong, is in Cao Cao's hands, and the territory has reached the appearance before the Battle of Chibi.

In the sixteenth year of Jian'an in history, after the defeat in the Battle of Chibi, Cao Cao recuperated for three years to stabilize the internal situation, and then began to use troops against Guanzhong.

However, at this time, his progress was far behind, although there was no Chibi fiasco, but after losing the Nanyang Basin, there was no bridgehead to contain the southern forces, so that he had to garrison Yingchuan Runan to guard against Liu Bei.

Now that it is finally stable, several fiascos in the use of troops in the south have made Cao Cao, although he also has more than 300,000 soldiers and horses, but he cannot invade the south on a large scale, so he can only choose to stabilize the rear.

During this period, Cao Cao issued the "Decree on Seeking Talents", which was a meritocracy, recruiting heroes from the north, making many talents attached to it and expanding the prime minister's shogunate.

Liu Bei was not to be outdone, and issued the "Trial Order", as long as he passed the assessment, he could serve as an official, and at the same time vigorously supported the children of the poor and the common people, especially many students of Shen Chen, who served as officials in various parts of Jingzhou and Yizhou, acting as the vanguard of reform.

For a time, the north and south were thriving, and everyone was carrying out internal rectification.

In stark contrast to Cao Cao and Liu Bei is Jiangdong.

Although the Sun clan was still able to hold on to the southeast of the Yangtze River, after being flooded and burned, his vitality was greatly damaged.

At this time in history, they all had 1780,000 troops, and they once led 100,000 troops to confront Liu Bei, Guan Yu's 80,000 troops in Yiyang, Gong'an and other places due to the Jingzhou issue.

However, at this time, the power of Jiangdong was poured out, and only seventy or eighty thousand horses were recovered in two years, if it were not for the continuous attack on Shanyue and Jiaozhou to fill the deficit, and slowly recruit and train troops, I am afraid that there are fewer soldiers and horses now, far inferior to Liu Bei and Cao Cao.

But it's not without good news.

Sun Quan's ship technology was innovated, and after the fire burned Hongkou, Sun Quan obtained some of Shen Chen's boats, which were restored through technology and possessed paddle ships and eight-channel watertight compartments.

The former can increase the speed of the ship, and the latter can prevent the ship from sinking in the event of damage to the cabin.

Moreover, Shen Chen surrounded the lake in Jiangxia, Changsha and other places to create fields, built the Jianghan Plain, and formed double-cropping rice through Zhancheng rice and Han Dynasty native rice, plus rice transplanting technology and manure technology, grain production was greatly increased, and Sun Quan sent people to secretly learn it.

Since the 16th year of Jian'an, the Taihu Lake Basin in Yangzhou has also begun to comprehensively promote the method of double cropping rice and transplanting rice and fertilizer, which will play a vital role in Jiangdong's food problem.

It's just that what Sun Quan didn't know was that he was secretly happy, thinking that this would bring him great help, but he didn't know that Shen Chen had no intention of concealing these techniques in the south at all, and it would naturally be better if they could be promoted.

The reason is simple.

Although these technologies can bring innovation to food, the volume of Jiangdong and Jingzhou Yizhou is here.

Historically, the population of Yangzhou has reached 4.43 million, and now with Jiaozhou, the total population has exceeded 5 million.

Most of them are large families and ethnic minorities who do not obey discipline, and the population controlled by Sun Quan is more than one million.

And Sun Quan failed several times, so that he compromised with the family, unable to obtain the family's population and land, the income from farming of the family, not a dime will be given to the Sun family, nor will it pay taxes, and it will not bring much benefit to Sun Quan.

Jingzhou Yizhou is undergoing reforms, liberating more and more land and population, and Liu Bei will actually control more and more people.

To use a rough analogy.

Counting Sun Quan's 2 million people to help him farm and pay taxes, under the technological innovation, the income is enough for him to support an army of 200,000.

Then Liu Bei has six or seven million, or even eight million people to help him farm and pay taxes, and the income is enough for Liu Bei to raise an army of 800,000, which is more than four times that of Sun Quan.

Although this is certainly not the case in practice, it is probably what it means.

The gap between Sun Quan and Liu Bei is too large, resulting in no matter how much Sun Quan develops, his overall strength is not as good as Liu Bei.

Because you're developing, so are others. You get 10 points of experience, others get 100 points, and the gap is getting bigger and bigger, this is the reality.

So Shen Chen didn't care about Sun Quan promoting the technology he invented, and even hoped that he would help promote it.

By the time Koto is eliminated in the future, these technologies will already take root in Koto, and there will be no need for the government to spend time and effort spreading new technologies.

And the counterpart to Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan is Han Sui and Ma Chao.

No matter how embarrassed Sun Quan is, he nominally owns a piece of land, which can slowly recuperate through internal affairs and gradually grow.

Han Sui and Ma Chao's situation is much worse.

Because Xiliang is barren, there is a population but not wealth. Guanzhong has fertile land, but there is hardly a large population.

It is also impossible for the two of them to move the Xiliang people to Guanzhong.

As a result, they have little room for development, and can only be content with the status quo.

Fortunately, soil erosion in Gansu was not so serious during the Han Dynasty.

Mr. Shi Nianhai, a famous historical geographer in later generations, once studied and believed that the mountains of Gansu in the Han Dynasty were lush and green, and the forests were covered everywhere.

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The wooded areas on the mountains often extend into the plains below. These dense forests are interspersed with farmland and grasslands, and everywhere they are green, covering the vast Loess Plateau.

And the local water resources are abundant, the Chaonahu of Hananding County, forty miles square, does not stop, does not increase or decrease in winter and summer, and does not grow grass and trees.

Under the condition that the resources were relatively good, the Han people under the rule of Han Sui and Ma Chao cultivated wheat and millet, and the Hu people grazed cattle and sheep, building a relatively perfect ecology that would not make them difficult.

It's just that the development space is so big, and their headquarters has relatively few people, for example, Han Sui only has 40,000 or 50,000 troops, and Ma Chao only has 20,000 or 30,000 troops.

Even if they can mobilize Huqiang and have two or three hundred thousand people at once, they are all Huqiang troops, not their headquarters. Once the men and horses of the headquarters are damaged, those Huqiang kings who sent troops to help them may be the first to defect.

Therefore, in terms of future development space, Liu Bei and Cao Cao are about the same, Sun Quan is second, and Han Sui and Ma Chao are at the bottom, and it may not be a few years, and even Sun Quan's soldiers and horses will be much more than them.

At present, the four major forces are basically in the armistice period.

Sixteen years after Jian'an, there was a brief calm in the world, no one took the initiative to provoke war, and no one chose to conquer the Quartet, and everyone was developing with peace of mind.

There are countless cargo ships coming and going on the Yangtze River every day, Jingzhou is rich in rice and transported to Yizhou, Yizhou is rich in Shujin tea and well salt, and sometimes it is sold to Jiangdong, although the grain is produced, but it is kept for one or two years at most.

The humidity in the south is too heavy, and it is too easy to get damp and moldy, even in the later high-tech era, it is generally only three to six years. Therefore, even if there is no shortage of grain in the south, it is necessary to make the grain in the two places work, even if it is used to feed the pigs, it is better than putting it in the warehouse to become moldy.

In this case, the aquaculture industry gradually emerged, in just two or three years, the people of Jingzhou Yizhou had enough food and clothing, there were fewer and fewer people who could not afford to eat, people's lives were getting better and better, the price of grain and salt was low, and there was quite a taste of the time when the culture and scenery were ruled.

Shen Chen even considered abolishing the Ding tax and apportioning the Ding into the mu in order to increase the population significantly.

As the world knows, the population of all dynasties in China often fluctuated around 60 million, but after the Song Dynasty, the population soared, and the peak population of the Song and Ming dynasties exceeded 100 million, and reached 400 million in the Qing Dynasty.

Some experts and scholars believe that the population of the Song and Ming dynasties exceeded 100 million because of the double cropping rice in the south, coupled with the invention of fertilizer technology in the Song Dynasty, grain production increased greatly, and the population exceeded 100 million.

The explosive population growth of the Qing Dynasty was due to the introduction of high-yield crops such as corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes, which greatly increased productivity.

However, it cannot be ignored that Yongzheng's spread into acres also provides a guarantee for population growth.

Before Yongzheng, all dynasties collected two taxes, population tax and land tax. To some extent, the population tax limits population growth.

The people are already poor, and if they have more children, they will pay more taxes, so that everyone is unwilling to have more children.

Even if you give birth, you have to find a way to hide it and be a hidden household.

This has resulted in a significant increase in hidden households.

And after the tax is not paid, as long as there is a stutter, the child can be raised, and a family can often have seven or eight, or even more than ten.

In addition, there was no need to pay population tax, and the hidden household was meaningless, resulting in a huge increase in population in the middle and late Qing Dynasty.

Therefore, the advantage of spreading into the mu is that it can encourage fertility.

The second advantage is that the hidden household will not make sense, the people will not hide the fact of the birth population, and the number of registered people will also increase greatly.

But Shen Chen thought about it again and again, but he still didn't do it.

Because Yongzheng dared to do that, it relied on the fact that in the early Qing Dynasty, both in terms of science and technology, military, economy, and productivity, they reached the peak of the feudal period, and forcibly spread the land into the mu and implement policies.

And now this era is still too backward, even if it is wool from the mouth of the family, it is only less than half of it now.

In order to prevent a large-scale rebellion of the clan, Liu Bei could only choose a stick and carrots, while picking up their wool, he had to find a way to appease them, and he didn't dare to really take away all the hidden properties of all the clans.

Including ethnic minorities, the total population under the rule is more than 10 million, and the actual control of half of them is almost the limit.

So if you want to hurry, you can't reach it, and finally Shen Chen gave up this idea.

By the seventeenth year of Jian'an, the strength of Liu Bei's group had also exceeded 300,000.

Hanzhong is increasing its troops.

Liu Bei sent people to Xiliang to purchase horses and train cavalry in Hanzhong.

The number of cavalry was not much, only 10,000.

But this is undoubtedly a powerful force, which can play a great role in competing with Cao Cao in the future.

Then Jingzhou also expanded its troops by 20,000 troops, mainly the Jiangxia naval army.

At its peak, the Jiangxia Navy had 60,000 or 70,000 people, but it was crippled in several battles, and now it is slowly expanding and recovering to 50,000 people.

It is estimated that by the time of Jian'an 20 years, the total strength of Liu Bei's group will reach about 350,000.

In this way, even if considering the problem of rear defense, at least 200,000 people should be left to garrison all parts of Yizhou and Jingzhou, Liu Bei can mobilize 150,000 troops for the Northern Expedition, which is comparable to Cao Cao's strength during the Battle of Chibi.

During this period, Liu Bei Group was also actively developing military science and technology, such as the steel filling method all over Sichuan and Shu, and the steel production capacity was greatly increased, which brought changes in weapons and equipment to Liu Bei Group.

By the eighteenth year of Jian'an, Liu Beijun's main first-line troops had reached 180,000, and the second-line county troops had 120,000.

Nearly half of the main force used steel ring knives, and the rest are still slowly iterating.

You must know that the Han Dynasty ring head knife was mostly made of wrought iron, but compared with the northern nomads who were still in the pig iron or bone, wood, and bronze age, the wrought iron ring head knife has been crushed by all aspects of technology.

In this way, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty defeated the Xiongnu and could not find the north.

Now that the weapons have changed from the age of pig iron to the age of steel knives, the equipment technology of the Han Dynasty has been developed again, and the change of technological progress in the future will further make up for the gap in strength caused by the population gap between the north and the south.

And in such a time, from the end of the 15th year of Jian'an to the end of the 18th year of Jian'an, three years of recuperation, the north and the south have changed.

In the nineteenth year of Jian'an, a new war is about to begin.