Liu Muzhi was slightly startled, then murmured: "Using taxes and output as the conditions for evaluating titles? This is interesting. In the Qin Dynasty's farming war, I haven't heard of many people who earned titles based on farming. Since the Han Dynasty, it has been Even less. But if you do this, everyone will go to farm, and who will practice martial arts and become a soldier?"
Liu Yu smiled slightly: "If you had won a title through military exploits before, then you can occupy more land. With more land, you can rely on your own servants or hire people to farm the land. You only need to Just practice martial arts, study, and become a general or an official. Isn't that what those high-ranking families do? In the army, you can count military merit by leading troops by yourself, but when you return home, you can't count farming merit by occupying more land. ?”
Liu Muzhi smiled and waved his hand: "You are really too talented. It's understandable. I think that the person from a high-ranking family who has entered the millet to pay homage can also be taken out in the future. Except that the knight can't buy it." , people can be elected by donating grain to Nabu. Those people may be looked down upon by noble families, but ordinary people still need them very much. With this, they can be allocated more land and produce more. of food.”
Liu Yu nodded with satisfaction: "This is the effect I want. In peacetime, the advantages of high-ranking families come again, and they will occupy land in various ways. In addition to restricting them in terms of titles, we also need to restrict them in terms of titles. Ordinary people should occupy more land by promoting them to civil titles. If the common people have more land, the aristocratic families will have less land. These are mutually reinforcing things. However, we will not discuss these for now and continue to talk about titles. .”
"As mentioned earlier, the Qin Dynasty fell because they broke their faith with the Qin people and did not continue to adhere to the merit system. The emperor of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang, learned this lesson and used Feng Peiyuan Cong and Guanzhong Lao Qin as his core team. The entire The system of the Western Han Dynasty also inherited the twentieth rank of the Qin Dynasty."
"It's just that the civilian nobles of the Western Han Dynasty have lost the privilege of exemption from military service during the Qin Dynasty. Even the eighth-level public servants are not like the fourth-level nobles of the Qin Dynasty. They do not have to perform military service, and the public carriages will also serve as garrison troops. Soldiers, low-level soldiers such as river guard soldiers, do not necessarily become officials. In the Western Han Dynasty, people were not happy when they were awarded, but they were not sad when they were taken away. They no longer had the importance of changing one's fate with one noble in the Qin Dynasty. More Yes, as an honorary title.”
Liu Muzhi smiled slightly: "Yes, although my ancestor, Liu Bang, the great ancestor of the Han Dynasty, inherited the twenty-level nobility system of the Qin Dynasty, it was more out of the need to appease the old Qin people in Guanzhong and show that he was the inheritor. People who followed Shang Yang's method, but the Western Han Dynasty was the Liu family world where the clan kings were divided, which was destined to be the opposite of the Qin Dynasty's approach of suppressing the clan."
"Therefore, in order to ensure the interests of the Liu family kings and Feng Peiyuan, this group of heroes, it is impossible to be as generous to the people as Shang Yang. Although the Baishi officials in the countryside are still mainly served by veterans who have obtained civil titles, It is not easy to go a step further and be promoted to an official above the county captain level. Just like there is a world of difference between the eighth level and the ninth level between a knight and a civilian, the corresponding official positions are also those of a small official and a junior official. The gap between county officials at the six hundred stone level.”
Liu Yu said with a smile: "But with the people, you can atone for your sins and have a basic freedom. The Han system inherited from the Qin Dynasty is also very strict. It is easy to commit crimes, such as failing to pay taxes or missing the term of service. Crimes, in order to atone for their sins, also need to be paid with titles. Of course, high-ranking officials and nobles need to use money to atone for their crimes, including capital crimes. But ordinary people can only use their titles to pay for their crimes. The innocent person is a son of a good family. Not only can If you join the army and get a title, you can be assigned fields from the country and have basic tools for production. In other words, they have land to plant and farm. If they serve in the army, they can also be exempted from tax and military service. Such good things are generally only available in Guanzhong , it is precisely for this reason that the Han Dynasty established more than 200,000 northern and southern armies to defend the capital and conquer the world. This is also the fundamental reason why the powerful Western Han Dynasty was able to drive out the Xiongnu and pacify the Seven Kingdoms at home."
Liu Muzhi nodded: "Indeed, in the Western Han Dynasty, the Northern and Southern armies composed of good family members in Guanzhong were powerful in the world, and the main civil titles were also awarded to the good family members in Guanzhong. While they served, they also exempted the whole family from taxes. The country's main financial and Food and silk were also supplied to Guanzhong. In addition, the Western Han Dynasty also had a mausoleum relocation system. Every time the local tycoons in Guandong exceeded a certain family property, they would be forced to move to the imperial mausoleum in Guanzhong or go to the north to guard the border. In this way, the tycoons in Guandong would The landlord’s strength is almost impossible to accumulate, and he has been guaranteed to be a strong man for nearly two hundred years.”
Liu Yu smiled slightly: "Moving the mausoleum is actually a kind of surrender, which prevents the powerful people in Guandong from accumulating enough wealth to fight against the country. Of course, this is in the name of moving the mausoleum. It is a pity that Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty listened to the words of the Confucian scholars and abolished After this system was established, it took only a few decades for the tyranny of Guandong to be unstoppable. Only then did Wang Mang usurp the Han Dynasty as a foreign relative. After the establishment of Xin Mang, he relied on ancient reforms to abolish the twenty-level system since the Qin and Han Dynasties. Jue, the fifth-class nobility of the Zhou Dynasty was reused. It has been used to this day."
Liu Muzhi said with a smile: "Before Wang Mang had time to extend his five-level nobility and enfeoffment system to the whole country, the world was in chaos. He died and the country was destroyed, and he was infamy for thousands of years. However, after the establishment of the Eastern Han Dynasty, he still used the five-level nobility system. However, the eight-level civil nobility system is still retained, but it has become a virtual title of honor, and cannot even be exempted from taxes and servitude. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, many wealthy people who were plebeian nobles even went to the He had to spend money to hire people from the same hometown and with the same title to serve on his behalf, and this generation of losing military service also started in the Eastern Han Dynasty."
Liu Yu sighed: "The Eastern Han Dynasty relied on the power of the powerful landlords to conquer the world, so we could only pay more attention to the powerful landlords. Not only did they move the capital to Luoyang, they gave up the Northern and Southern armies of the Western Han Dynasty, and the land cultivation could not continue, so we could only allow the landlords to The tycoons merged, and correspondingly, becoming an official was also based on recommendation, not the previous way of getting a title based on merit and using a title as an official. Therefore, throughout the Eastern Han Dynasty, the imperial power was not shaken and the court was powerless. However, the landlords and tycoons took the opportunity to become powerful and the titles were Grants are also in name only. Basically, the civil nobility becomes a decoration, while the nobility is monopolized by the powerful landlords. As a result, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is 70% or 80% similar to our Jin Dynasty."
Liu Muzhi nodded: "It's a pity that the more the emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty gave in, the more the landlords and tycoons pushed further. With the Yellow Turban Rebellion at the end of the Han Dynasty, the landlords and tycoons consumed the last military power of the country, and from then on they became their world. After a hundred years of war, the three kingdoms were at a standstill, and finally returned to Jin. The Sima family of Jin usurped Wei as a powerful family in Hebei, but what they implemented was the nine-rank Zhongzheng system since Cao Wei, and the corresponding hereditary system of titles."
