In the area ruled by Zhao Kaishan, the territory acquired is very particular.
Before the war, the local economic ecology was partly occupied by landlords and gentry, partly occupied by Meng'anmouke households, and partly occupied by common people under government management.
This structural model barely maintains a balanced relationship among the three aspects.
After the war, everyone expelled Meng'an Mou Kehu, and this part of the land became vacant.
In the midst of the war, the landlords, gentry, and common people would inevitably suffer some losses. There were no swords among the rebels, and anyone who died would have to consider himself unlucky.
So another part of the land was vacated.
These two parts of land combined were the spoils of the Liberation Army.
For these trophies, Zhao Kaishan didn't care how to divide them at first. He just followed the very primitive convention that whoever captured them would belong to them.
If you knock it down, it belongs to you, and if I knock it out, it belongs to me. We don’t owe each other anything. If you continue to obey my orders, I won’t give you anything extra, just like this.
Not only other generals, but also Zhao Kaishan himself would happily take the lead in seizing land, farms, and tenants, and he was quite ferocious.
Not only Zhao Kaishan himself, but also the rest of the Zhao family also rushed forward to seize the land.
During this process, the land owned by the entire Zhao family, which benefited from the uprising, expanded to more than 200,000 acres, and the number of tenants also doubled several times, making them very fat.
Later, the uprising was on track. Su Yonglin believed that this was not a normal phenomenon and believed that the Liberation Army should not do such bandit-like things, so he persuaded Zhao Kaishan not to do this, otherwise the Liberation Army would be brought into the ditch sooner or later.
Zhao Kaishan thought about it and felt that it made sense, so under the auspices of Su Yonglin, Zhao Kaishan promulgated a public land system in the areas controlled by the Liberation Army.
The meaning is very simple. The unowned land that was conquered is public land. No one can occupy it at will. Full statistics must be made after the war, and then the uprising leaders will distribute it uniformly according to everyone's military exploits.
Those who have great military exploits will get more, and those who have small military exploits will get less.
There is an upper limit on the land that each person who performs meritorious service can obtain. After the upper limit is exceeded, it will no longer be granted, and it cannot be superimposed infinitely.
In this way, after the war-merited land is settled, there will still be a balance of land in the public land accounts. This part of the land will be calculated on the basis of household registration and the number of laborers will be awarded to civilians displaced during the war.
Give them land, let them farm, let them live and work in peace and contentment, exempt them from taxes for a certain period of time, encourage them to engage in agricultural production, and then pay taxes, thereby becoming loyal supporters of the Liberation Army.
From this, the economic order in the area controlled by the Liberation Army can be slowly established.
This was a system designed by Su Yonglin for Zhao Kaishan based on the actual situation of the Liberation Army at that time. It not only met the needs of those who had made meritorious deeds, but also safeguarded the interests of the people at the bottom to a certain extent, so that everyone could receive the dividends of the uprising.
If it can continue to operate, it will be very meaningful for the advancement of the Liberation Army.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. Not long after this system was formulated, Su Yonglin and Sun Ziyi were squeezed out by Zhao Kaishan and went out to develop independently.
So from the very beginning, this system was just a superficial thing, an empty shell, with no real substance.
There is a system, but no one is willing to implement it, and no one is willing to truly abide by it.
Who is willing to use a knife on himself and cut off his flesh for others to eat?
Such people are either running a Ponzi scheme or are proletarian revolutionaries.
Zhao Kaishan and others are neither, they are just simple landlords, only interested in land and power, and of course they will not do anything to themselves.
After the uprising, Zhao Kaishan naturally had no offense to the local landlords and gentry, and even wanted to win over those who helped, so that everyone could share the benefits that Meng An Mou Kehu had.
The people at the bottom have been completely ignored. Being able to join the army and serve as soldiers is the best treatment for them.
And sometimes people's desires have no limit. If the amount of public land conquered is not enough to satisfy their desires, they need to take some of the land from the common people to satisfy their own desires.
Anyway, their ideas are very old-fashioned. Of course, I have the final say on the territory I conquered. I have the final say on everything.
It’s hard to say what means were used.
Zhao Kaishan himself needs the personal loyalty of local forces driven by such interests to expand his power and military strength, so he turns a blind eye to this situation and does not care.
Therefore, land granting under the public land system, which could have protected the interests of the lower class people to a certain extent, became a gimmick.
You can see it, but you can't get it.
There was a large amount of public land in the accounts of the Liberation Army, but it only existed in the accounts. It was written in black and white on paper. If you look at it in practice, you can't see it. It became Schrödinger's public land.
The landless people looked at the land with longing, but there were only two ways for them, either to flee, or to join the Liberation Army as soldiers to feed themselves.
Don’t even think about land.
In addition to the implementation of the new rural policy, small-scale land reform, and safeguarding the interests of farmers in the areas controlled by Su Yonglin, the dividends of the uprising generated during the entire uprising were all divided up by the senior and middle levels of the Liberation Army.
The upper floors eat meat, the middle floors drink soup, and the lower floors don’t get even a crumb.
Among them, those who gained the most dividends from the uprising were the Liberation Army military group, represented by the Zhao family, which received military honors, followed by the local landlords and squires who helped.
As a result, a large amount of land fell into the hands of the senior leaders of the Liberation Army and the landlords and gentry. Through the uprising, they obtained larger land wealth, their personal property expanded rapidly, and their personal happiness increased significantly.
However, the division between the senior leadership and the grassroots of the Liberation Army has become more serious.
Unless soldiers from civilian backgrounds are lucky enough to achieve military merit and be promoted to officers and get some scraps, the rest can only shed blood and tears but get nothing.
All they had was a little money, barely enough food, and a pitiful pension after they died in battle.
The civilians are even worse. Except for a little food, it is difficult to get even money. They also have to delay their own production in order to transport grain, which is not worth the gain.
The distribution of the uprising dividends was not their concern, and the treatment for joining the army was very poor. Soon, their enthusiasm for the uprising was exhausted.
The enthusiasm aroused by Zhao Kaishan's propaganda slogans that he had learned from Su Yonglin's appearance but failed to understand the roots just dissipated.
The Liberation Army military group and the landlords and gentry who had benefited were also intoxicated with the huge benefits they had gained, fell in love with luxury, and had little interest in continuing to move forward.
Coupled with Zhao Kaishan's astonishing superb military command art, the Liberation Army moved slower and slower, more difficult and more contradictory as it moved.
When Zhao Yucheng felt confused, he wrote and communicated with Su Yonglin many times, hoping to get some guidance.
Su Yonglin also seized the opportunity and mentioned many times that during the uprising, he paid great attention to distributing uprising dividends to the people at the bottom.
Of course, those who join the army are not mentioned. They are given adequate pay and food, and there are additional rewards for achieving military merit.
For the civilians who help transport food, if they have money and food, they can give them food. If the financial turnover is difficult in special periods, they will use something called white strips to replace the expenditure. The white strips can be used to deduct taxes in the future.
Then the land and household registrations seized from the Jurchens were included in the statistics, and land was allocated to farmers according to the number of laborers in the family, registered, and established to build their own economic base.
Only in this way can an army be provided with sufficient logistical support.
When the logistics are supported, the army will be stable, and when the army is stable, the local government will be stable.
This is a gradual process.
You have to make everyone have a sense of participation, make everyone feel that their contribution is not meaningless, see real changes, and let the benefits benefit every ordinary person, so that they can be optimistic about the uprising. There is uninterrupted enthusiasm.
Only then will they enthusiastically join the army, support the uprising, and protect the results of the uprising.
When you tie your own interests to the interests of an extremely large number of people at the bottom, you are almost on an invincible position.
Su Yonglin took this principle apart and explained it to Zhao Yucheng bit by bit, hoping that he could learn something.
Of course, Su Yonglin's original intention was to let Zhao Yucheng learn, not to let him practice without regard to the actual situation.
In the end, Zhao Yucheng actually put it into practice.
