In fact, Zhang Xi has long wanted to have a good talk with these Guanzhong aristocratic families.
It's not like before, Zhang Xi wants to rectify these Guanzhong aristocratic families. To be honest, Zhang Xi still doesn't trust the integrity of these aristocratic families, but the special situation in Guanzhong makes Zhang Xi suddenly have the idea to give it a try. "Renovation" of the family.
In fact, Zhang Xi's dislike for the aristocratic family mainly stems from the historical period of the Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, when the aristocratic families behaved wildly, fought against each other, and even had breasts. This period of history is simply a dark tragedy for the people.
Really, as long as the aristocratic families of that era could be more public-minded and less self-interested, even ten Sima Zhongs could not destroy a dynasty that had just been unified for less than fifty years.
In addition to the connivance of the Sima family, the reason why these aristocratic families are lawless is also a very important reason why the aristocratic families have power from the local to the central government.
And the culprit that caused all this is really not the ninth-grade Zhongzheng.
The Nine-Rank Zhongzheng System is only a manifestation of the aristocratic family's power. What really gives the aristocratic family the confidence to confront the central court and start the Eight Kings Rebellion is that the aristocratic family controls a large amount of local land ownership.
Zhang Xi actually does not favor centralization, but the family's blatant annexation of land is obviously even more unacceptable to Zhang Xi.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty will one day be punished by Luntai, but the family's greed for land will not be restrained.
Therefore, Zhang Xi hopes to reduce the annexation of land by aristocratic families, which is not easy in this era.
The aristocratic family pursues profits, and these days, what can produce the greatest profits is land.
Food is a hard currency in any era. We need to eat food in prosperous times, but even more in troubled times.
If you want to reduce the aristocratic family's desire for more land, you must give the aristocratic family another profit output chain that can replace the land.
But in fact, it is not easy.
It's not like Zhang Xi has never thought about ways to improve the status of merchants, promote business development, and guide the family to transform into a commercial family. This will allow the family to accumulate wealth through business, thus reducing their demand for land.
In his early years, when Zhang Xi was serving as Minister of the Ministry of War in Chengdu, he seriously discussed this issue with Zhuge Liang and Liu Ba, but was unanimously opposed by the two economic wizards of the time.
The reason is simple, this is simply not realistic.
Today, there is only so much land per mu, and people always need to eat. If you rush to develop business without solving the problem of food and clothing, it will only make wealth more concentrated in aristocratic families. The final result will be that ordinary people lose their basic knowledge. Pricing power for survival commodities.
The final result of this will only allow the aristocratic family to control a large amount of money while increasing its annexation of people's land.
And once the aristocratic family reaches that step, has food in hand, and money at the same time, if they don't rebel, they will have to find ways to control the government and let them have more land and money through the court.
After Zhuge Liang and Liu Ba said this, Zhang Xi suddenly realized why emperors in the past dynasties emphasized agriculture and suppressed business.
The emphasis on agriculture is to solve the problem of food and clothing for the people. Only when the people are full will they not rise up in rebellion.
The purpose of suppressing business is definitely not for the three melons and two dates that the common people make to supplement their family income during their leisure time, nor is it because there is no business without necessities. It is purely to prevent those local wealthy families from using this to amass wealth and become powerful, threatening the imperial power.
Throughout the dynasties, various places were encouraged to open markets and allow people to trade freely in the markets. Many dynasties even set very low quotas for this kind of city tax. This was a way to increase people's income. The court would only encourage it. Never banned.
What the imperial court is really guarding against is the transaction of bulk goods, and the people who are often able to trade in bulk goods are never just ordinary people.
How could the emperor feel at ease if such people were not labeled as businessmen and their possibility of entering official careers was fundamentally cut off? !
Therefore, Zhang Xi's idea of improving the status of merchants and developing commerce was immediately discouraged by Liu Ba and Zhuge Liang.
So, those predecessors who traveled back to ancient times and thought about developing commerce to replace agriculture probably didn’t have very good minds. They don’t even think about it. No matter how much the national fiscal revenue is, no matter how rich the landlord class is, you don’t have enough. Food is used to keep the people fed, no matter what.
With such a lesson learned, Zhang Xi immediately stopped thinking about a lot of things, including but not limited to developing the wool industry, sending troops to dig through the Western Regions, re-opening the Silk Road, etc.
These things can be done, but not now.
Now that the Three Kingdoms are standing together, the most important thing is to pacify the world first and let the country settle down before we can think about those things. If we do these things now, it will be a waste of money and food. Even if it is done, the gold and silver brought back will be It is impossible to improve the living standards of the people under the rule, and can only let those aristocratic families take the bulk for nothing.
If today's Han Dynasty is in a money shortage, there is a reason to proceed with this matter. At least it can allow those aristocratic families to take out the copper coins hidden in the cellars and circulate them. But the problem is that since Yuexi County began to mint Starting from copper coins, the five-baht coins of the Han Dynasty have been circulated to Liaodong because they are well made. The Han Dynasty has no shortage of money at all.
Today's Han Dynasty is no longer in an era when Zhuge Liang needs to use the official method of smuggling Shu brocade to collect five baht from other countries and subsidize the Han Dynasty's finances. What the Han Dynasty lacks most now is money.
What the big men now need is to smuggle grain from other countries with five baht. And this is the biggest reason why Zhang Xi hopes to talk to the Guanzhong aristocratic families.
Dahan now has three grain production bases, but now Dahan's territory is also larger.
The Han River Plain on the other side of Jingzhou has to bear the consumption of Jingzhou, and at the same time it has to bear the needs of Jingzhou as the base of the Northern Expedition. It is already very good to be self-sufficient.
As for the Chengdu Plain, it also needs to support the development of the Nanzhong Mining Base. While the large amounts of copper and iron foundry there have brought money, food and military equipment to the Han Dynasty, the people's livelihood there also needs Chengdu's support.
As for Guanzhong, although it has been won now, the population of Guanzhong has been reduced by half, and the expected agricultural income cannot be achieved in a short period of time. At the same time, it has to be responsible for supplying the development of Qinzhou and Liangzhou in the northwest.
Qinzhou is basically surrounded by Qiang people, and these Qiang people are not easy to mess with. The court of the Later Han Dynasty has been dealing with these people for more than a hundred years. They are notoriously unruly and unruly, and there is not enough food to support the pacification work. Even if Ma Chao tops The title of "Shenwei Tian General" is of no use.
And Liangzhou is in trouble.
Liangzhou is located in a bitter cold land in the northwest. It is not suitable for the development of agricultural production. It has a small cultivated area and a small population.
But Liangzhou couldn't give up. It was one of the few horse-producing bases of the Han Dynasty. It was absolutely impossible to form a decent cavalry without Liangzhou's support.
Moreover, there are also many foreign races around Liangzhou, and the number of standing border troops cannot be less.
All of this requires food.
Therefore, today's big men are still short of food.
But the territory of Cao Wei, which is separated by the Yellow River, is exactly the opposite.
The entire Central Plains region and the Hebei region are grain-producing areas with abundant grain reserves. Even at the border of Youzhou, although that place is also a horse-producing base, the degree of agricultural development is much higher than that of Liangzhou. Even if you go north, go to Going further east, we reach the Korean Peninsula, where there is still enough arable land for farming.
The degree of development in that place was limited by the fact that the foreigners did not know how to farm, not by the lack of land.
This is also the reason why Cao Wei is still the strongest among the Three Kingdoms after several consecutive wars - they have enough food and can send out troops at any time if they want.
As for Zhang Xi, what he wanted to talk to the Guanzhong aristocratic families was that he hoped to use their connections to smuggle grain from Hedong and even the Luoyang area and transport it to the Han Dynasty.
The Han Dynasty is not short of money or food, but Cao Wei's side has not much else but plenty of food.
Moreover, in Cao Wei, from the princes and nobles to the aristocratic families, their favorite things were the exquisite five-baht coins, Shu brocade, and paper cast by the Han Dynasty.
And the Guanzhong aristocratic families have unique advantages in this regard.
The Guanzhong aristocratic family had close contacts with the Hedong aristocratic family and the Luoyang aristocratic family. In addition, when Manchong immigrated to Guanzhong, most of the Guanzhong aristocratic families even had their internal affairs.
Those Guanzhong aristocratic families who entered Guanzhong must be in urgent need of a way to transfuse blood after losing a lot of land. And there must be enough ways between the Guanzhong aristocratic families who stayed in Guanzhong and these Guanzhong aristocratic families who entered Guanzhong. You can bypass the Cao Wei checkpoint and get in touch.
These are all ready-made internal responses.
What Zhang Xi meant was that it was Liu Ba's previous idea of economic penetration that we smuggled, semi-official smuggling.
This is not the development of business in the traditional sense, but well, if I have to say it, Zhang Xi actually doesn't mind cultivating the "Eight Imperial Merchants" in Cao Wei's territory.
By the way, you can also use this method of drawing a big pie to dig out ignition charcoal from the Guanzhong family to deal with emergencies.
After all, Zhang Xi really lacked fire carbon in his hands.
(End of chapter)
