Xin Qiji felt that the answers he got in the guidance department were not perfect enough.
It was a formed and systematic thought that could guide the next actions, but it could not relieve his doubts.
He urgently wanted to know where this idea originated from and why it was born.
Because he saw Xin Qiji's ideological confusion, Su Yonglin sorted out the materials he first used to teach his family and workers in the factory, and gave them to Xin Qiji.
"Look at these. Like you, I grew up reading the classics of saints, but now I want to take a completely different path. These are the reasons why I changed my mind. I hope you can find a solution after reading it. The answer to your confusion.”
Xin Qiji looked at the thick stack of paper, reached out to take it, and nodded.
"I'll read them all."
"Well, everything about me is in it."
Su Yonglin patted Xin Qiji's shoulder.
Xin Qiji nodded, returned to his residence, spread out the thick stack of papers, and began to read each one carefully.
He was soon surprised to find that this was not a long speech, but some personal experiences of Su Yonglin.
He recorded the places, people, and events he had visited since he was a child. Similar to a State of the People address, this thick stack of paper almost entirely contained these contents.
Xin Qiji was a little confused at first. What does this have to do with how his incompatible thoughts were formed?
But after patiently reading a piece of paper, Xin Qiji suddenly understood.
This is Su Yonglin's journey along the way, almost like an autobiography he wrote for himself, writing about others as well as himself.
What is the purpose of his role change from a young man from an official family who lives a prosperous life to a rebellious rebel? What kind of ideological change has he tried to achieve? The reasons are all here.
The first piece of paper looks quite old at first glance. It records that when Su Yonglin was nine years old, he went south to sell smuggled salt with his father and saw many people who had no food to eat in Songyang County.
At that time, Su Yonglin felt pity for them and wanted to give them all the money he had so that they could have enough to eat, but his father stopped him.
His father said to him, you can save them for a while and let them eat one or two meals, but what about after that?
Can you keep them fed for a lifetime?
You may be able to manage this group of people, but there are thousands of people who don’t have enough to eat. Even though we make a lot of money selling smuggled salt, we can’t afford to support thousands of people.
Therefore, his father asked him to put away his good heart and only show favor to those who can be used, and not to care too much about those who cannot be used, because they will die sooner or later.
Limited resources should be invested in the most useful people, let the people who are most useful to you survive, collect their loyalty, and gain their effectiveness. This is the most meaningful thing.
Don't pay too much attention to those mud-legged people who seem to be of no use at first sight.
Su Yonglin was very dissatisfied with his father's views. He believed that such views were problematic.
We are all human beings, why should we treat them differently?
And he was more concerned about why these people couldn't eat than who should be saved.
After thinking about the crux of the problem, he asked his father this way.
His father was stunned for a moment, and after a long time he said that it was because of natural disasters and man-made disasters, but man-made disasters were obviously the most important factor.
Landowners and officials joined forces to take advantage of natural disasters and use various means to seize farmers' land, causing landless farmers to lose their land, become homeless, live in poverty, and eventually become refugees.
Landowners and officials are getting richer and richer, while landless peasants are getting more and more miserable. It's okay if they can find a job in the city, but if they can't, this is what they end up with.
Su Yonglin asked those people why they wanted to plunder farmers' land?
Why?
The father replied, because those people are powerful and extremely greedy. Although they already have a lot, they are eager to get more and their desires are insatiable. Even if they occupy all the land in the world, they will not be satisfied.
Su Yonglin asked again if there was no one to control them and let them do whatever they wanted.
My father said that in the past dynasties there were people who controlled things, but we did not have it in the Song Dynasty.
He finally concluded that natural disasters only accounted for part of the reason why people who had no food to eat were not the main reason, but man-made disasters were the main reason.
Therefore, in order to provide food for those who cannot afford to eat, the most important thing is to solve the problem of man-made disasters and not to allow powerful people to plunder land unscrupulously.
At the same time, Su Yonglin thought that in the past, all dynasties had policies to suppress land annexation and protect farmers, but since the Song Dynasty, there has been no similar policy. What is the reason?
He felt confused and wanted to find the answer.
That’s it for this piece of paper.
After reading it, Xin Qiji was surprised.
I think Su Yonglin started thinking about this issue when he was only nine years old. He also thought about the issue of man-made disasters as the mainstay and natural disasters as the supplement. He also thought about land annexation.
So smart.
When he was nine years old, he was studying Confucian classics under the guidance of his grandfather.
Xin Qiji became very interested in Su Yonglin's thought process, so he started reading further.
Looking down, you can see what Su Yonglin saw when he went out with his father or grandfather. Most of them were stained with blood and tears from the common people. Just from the description in the text, you can feel the misery that rushed towards him, and the growing anger in his heart.
But this anger did not affect his thinking, and he still maintained normal thinking.
He continued to explore himself and finally discovered that there was a deep-seated reason for the Song Dynasty's repressive policy of not carrying out land annexation.
The essence of the suppression of land annexation in previous dynasties was the need for yeoman household registration by tax laws and military conscription. Taxation and military resources came from the huge yeoman household registration units. They needed to control land annexation to ensure tax revenue and the amount of soldiers.
However, this situation has completely changed with the development of productivity, population increase and social unrest since the mid-Tang Dynasty.
The collapse of the land equalization system and the government-army system and the emergence of the Two Taxes Law paved the way for the Song Dynasty not to suppress land annexation.
By the Song Dynasty, collecting taxes and recruiting soldiers, two necessary behaviors to maintain power, no longer required the government to maintain a large and stable class of peasants.
Taxation no longer uses Tian Dingnan as the collection unit, but instead uses acres and assets as the main tax collection standards. No matter who controls the land, as long as the land is still within the territory of the Song Dynasty, taxes can be levied.
The conscription system has been changed from a military service system to a recruitment system. It does not need to rely on the farmer's household registration to recruit soldiers. Instead, the society pays for recruitment.
The rulers of the early Song Dynasty also eliminated the hidden danger of local tycoons from the institutional level, so that the powerful landlords were no longer the gravediggers of a single dynasty, at least not on the surface.
A considerable part of the population who lost their land due to land annexation was absorbed into the industrial and commercial population due to the development of urban industry and commerce and maritime trade, forming a citizen class.
They earn income by selling their labor and intelligence rather than cultivating fields. They have no means of production and are proletarians. Their life and death are not directly related to the land, but to the country's economic environment.
Since the Song Dynasty, the curfew has been cancelled, the boundaries between cities and towns have been broken, and the commodity economy has achieved great prosperity and development, absorbing a large number of landless people.
For the first time in history, population mobility and property uncertainty changed dramatically.
Times have changed.
The prosperous economy has indeed alleviated social conflicts to a considerable extent, so that although there were many peasant uprisings in the Song Dynasty, they could never become big or threaten the power of the Zhao and Song royal families.
Of course, this is only a relief, not a substantial relief, but it is not enough to lead to the demise of the Song Dynasty.
The Jurchen invasion that led to the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty was more of an accidental event and not caused by land annexation.
But even without the Jurchen invasion, the Zhao and Song Dynasty should eventually collapse due to intensifying social conflicts in the more distant future.
But no one knows how long this collapse will last.
It could be three hundred years, or four hundred years, or even five hundred years.
As long as industry and commerce continue to develop, cities are prosperous enough, science and technology continue to advance, and the citizen class continues to grow, the Song Empire will not even collapse due to land annexation, but will collapse due to other economic factors.
Or it may not collapse, but rely on some other means to usher in a new Song Empire, undergo internal changes, and gain a longer life.
However, during this process, the people who suffered and lost their lives continuously will also become the victims of this unprecedented social process.
Their suffering, their tragedy, and their cries will not be remembered by anyone, nor will they be passed down to future generations.
The Zhao Song regime will never do anything to improve their lives, because the quality of their lives will not affect the intensity of the Zhao Song regime's rule.
At least not until social conflicts are fully aroused.
How cruel is this?
Up to this point, Xin Qiji has read almost a quarter of Su Yonglin's manuscript, and up to this point, based on the recorded dates, this is the conclusion Su Yonglin came to when he was sixteen years old.
Xin Qiji was completely shocked.
————————————————————————
PS: I feel that it is better for Japan to exist in a two-dimensional world, which is more beneficial to mankind.
