After Ji Lie came to the throne, because of Ji Hou's advice, he had Duke Ai of Qi killed. In addition, the Zhou Dynasty's military strength was weak during the period of King Yi. As a result, many vassal states took the opportunity to stop paying tribute directly, and Wang Ji's reform became more difficult.
When Ji Lie took over Bangzhou, Bangzhou had become extremely weak, his financial resources were exhausted, and his military equipment was depleted, reaching a dangerous level.
There are many reasons for the depletion of the royal family's financial resources. Some are caused by land enfeoffment, another is caused by the reduction of tribute from princes, some are caused by unfavorable campaigns, and some are caused by natural disasters.
Since the period of King Yi, the Kingdom of Zhou Dynasty has suffered many natural disasters, including drought, hail, earthquakes, and river diversions. At the beginning, King Yi died of fear because of frequent natural disasters, thinking that he had sinned against God.
The enfeoffment system implemented by King Wu and Gongdan of Zhou was the best way. According to the technology and productivity of this era, it was impossible to control such a large empire, and the only way was to use the enfeoffment system. The hidden danger of the feudal system is that the vassal states will grow bigger, which is inevitable.
In order to obtain money, Ji Lie began to increase taxes on Wang Ji, confiscated the land of nobles for farming, and focused on agriculture. Because of Ji Lie's prestige as Emperor Zhou, although the nobles were dissatisfied, the reform was still implemented.
On the other hand, since King Wu, the ministers in the Wang Jin Nei were enfeoffed. By the time of Ji Lie, the Wang Jin Nei was already overcrowded, and the land and finance could no longer supply so many ministers. Ji Lie wanted to cancel the convention of "being a minister for all generations".
This approach has touched the bottom line of these royal nobles. It's just that Ji Lie did not abolish all of them, but selectively abolished them. He adopted the method of winning over some nobles and attacking some nobles. In addition, his mother's family, Queen Si, was from the Qi Kingdom, so this was successful.
This not only increased Wang Jin's financial revenue, suppressed Wang Jin's ministers, but also consolidated the power in his hands.
By attacking a small number of nobles, winning over most nobles, and with the support of Ji Lie's mother clan, Ji Lie's reform was temporarily successful. With money and food, the Sixth Army of the Emperor can continue to maintain its strength.
Every emperor of the Zhou Dynasty would marry the princes. In addition to winning over the princes, another reason was to use the power of the mother clan and wife clan to suppress the nobles in the royal territory. All the emperors of the Zhou Dynasty have not broken the rules of this game.
Of course, the princely states obtained greater benefits by marrying their legitimate daughters into the royal family and using their daughter's status as queen. This was a joint effort, and it was also a tacit understanding between the Zhou royal family and the princes.
In fact, this system is beneficial to the Emperor of Zhou. As long as the Emperor of Zhou is not stupid, he can use high-ranking officials to show his position to those prominent nobles outside the Kingdom. Use their strength to balance the ministers within Wang Jin.
Even if the power of the princes outside Wangji has greatly increased in Wangji, it is only for one generation. When the next emperor comes to the throne, other princes and states will take his place. In general, power is always in the hands of Emperor Zhou.
Ji Lie's reforms continued to be implemented, but Ji Lie was not satisfied with the current situation. He wanted to gain greater power.
When the Zhou royal family was in decline, the Chu state far to the south began to rise. Because the Chu State was enfeoffed in the barbarian land in the south, it was not welcomed by the Central Plains princes and regarded as barbarians.
At first, the Chu State was the same as the Wu State. Those who were enfeoffed were all viscounts, and they were also regarded as barbarians. After more than a hundred years of development in Chu State, people in Chu State should be granted the title of marquis based on their merits, but until now, all people in Chu State have been viscounts. And when the princes went to pay homage to the Emperor of Zhou, Chuzi even refused to let him enter the main hall.
Such humiliation caused the Chu State to leave in anger, no longer go to Zhou Dynasty, and even began to continuously attack the Han River kingdoms.
When the Emperor of Zhou enfeoffed Chu State in the south, he actually had the intention of distributing it. After all, at that time, the location of Chu State belonged to the southern barbarians, an uncivilized land, and the south was plagued by smoke, poisonous insects, and the mortality rate was very high.
But what Emperor Zhou didn't expect was that the Chu State would develop so fast in this place where smog and poisonous insects were rampant. However, in just a hundred years, Chu State had become the leading power in the south.
Chu has a land thousands of miles away and millions of people, but he is still a viscount. This makes Chu Jun very dissatisfied. Just as the Zhou royal family is declining, Chu Jun wants to take this opportunity to annex the Jianghan Plain and force Nanyang to force the Emperor of Zhou to give him a A title appropriate to the status.
The battle between Chu State and the Five Kingdoms of Han River also began.
...
Time passed very quickly, and in the blink of an eye, it had been three years since Wang Lin succeeded to the position of Duke Huaigong. Since he inherited the position of Huai Gong, Huai State began to make arrangements in Han State.
Three years have passed, and by this time, less than 30% of the land in Han country was planted with food. In addition to jute, the remaining 70% of the land is also planted with mulberry and hemp.
It takes at least three years after mulberry trees are planted before silkworms can be raised. It would be troublesome to convert a large area from grain to mulberry and then change to grain again.
Especially the land owned by nobles, in order to pursue a luxurious life, they replanted a lot of farmland into mulberry trees and raised silkworms for sale. After the Huai State had had enough of silkworm cocoons, they drew silk to make silk. At that time, Zijue improved the silk craftsmanship, making Huai's silk not only beautiful in color, but also very comfortable to wear, making it very popular among the nobles.
After three years of subtle development, the low price of grain in Han Kingdom has been accepted by people, and the number of people growing grain has decreased significantly. The nobles of Han State were also indulging in extravagant enjoyment.
Seeing this situation, Wang Lin was not in a hurry to take action, but was prepared to let the country of Han continue to develop. The deeper it fell, the harder it would be to turn back.
It would take at least three years to convert grain into mulberry trees to see any benefits. If it were launched at this time, as long as the nobles were ruthless, they could still cut down the mulberry trees and replant them with grain. But once you get a lot of profits from mulberry trees and silkworms, it is almost impossible to switch to mulberry crops.
At the same time, after three years of development, Huaiguo's shipyard on the bank of the Yangtze River was also established. Wang Lin still attached great importance to the Yangtze River Navy.
After investing a lot of manpower and material resources to establish the Yangtze River Navy, the navy has also developed rapidly. Now there are more than 40 large and small ships and more than 3,000 navy personnel. However, because of the short time, there are not many large ships, and several large ships are under construction.
Huai State sells grain at low prices and buys silkworm cocoons, weapons, and cloth at high prices. Even if it makes money from those silks, fine wines, and delicacies, it still loses a lot every year. Even many nobles in the country opposed it, but under Wang Lin's strong promotion, the deal was still like this.
After all, the caravans of the Huai Kingdom are basically controlled by the royal family. The Huai Kingdom has been inherited for five generations and has accumulated a very high reputation. At the same time, Huai Guo has accumulated a large amount of money over the years, enough for him to continue to promote the entire plan.
However, this is just a trivial matter in Wang Lin's opinion. As long as the Han Kingdom is annexed, the money will come back soon. Not to mention the money, even the land and population will belong to the Huai Kingdom. Han Guo seemed to have made money, but in fact it was only temporarily kept.
