For Zhiyao, history has already given the answer. People are always the key to everything. If education can keep up, there is no need to worry about the country failing to become strong.
In the feudal era, most jobs relied on labor force. As long as there was a sufficient population, even if the upper class was terrible, the country could always reap the demographic dividend.
Of course, overpopulation will also cause backlash, such as social conflicts caused by insufficient land, so that whenever land problems arise, the feudal dynasty will face the crisis of changing dynasties.
Most of the Xia dynasties perished due to land issues. This was not because all dynasties did not want to expand. Many dynasties had occupied all the valuable land in the surrounding areas, and they really could not find new directions for expansion.
The current territory of the original country is about 2.4 million square miles. In terms of territory, it is incomparable to any other dynasty in the Great Unification, but it is not necessarily the case in terms of population.
In Zhiyao's impression, the country with the largest population during the Warring States Period was close to four million. After Qin completed its unification, the total population was about 20 million?
However, that was more than two hundred years later. Over the past two hundred years, various technologies have become more advanced, and more land has been reclaimed, which will definitely be able to feed a larger population.
The era Zhiyao lived in was different. It was a real feudal era before, and the amount of cultivated farmland was very limited.
How limited is it? Let's put it this way, each family does not necessarily cultivate its own core area, let alone other areas, so that large areas of land are so barren.
This is related to the social system. Mountains and rivers belong to the king of a country and cannot be used by others; all land belongs to the nobility. Once the nobility has no intention of cultivating it, it can only be abandoned; the Li Shu, who account for 99% of the population, do not have
They have almost no enthusiasm for working on the land that belongs to their own names.
Zhiyao has always wanted to let more people have their own land, but the social stage is like that. Land cannot be distributed for no reason, otherwise the ruling class will be unstable first.
Now, Yuan Guo is going to make big moves again.
First of all, the prince of the original country was about to get married. Zhiyao used this as a reason to believe that the whole world should celebrate it and reward the original ministers who had made meritorious services, and ordinary people should also share the rain and dew.
How can the whole world celebrate together? What Zhiyao did was to grant land to the nobles and common people. The nobles would definitely get more, and the common people would definitely get less.
If there is nothing that can be done, the nobles have more people on hand, and the land is in their hands, so the difficulty of cultivating it is relatively low.
Ordinary Li people usually have only three to five people in a family, and there can be more than ten people. Giving them more land than they can use will become a burden.
The reason why I say burden is that the original country has reformed its tax collection. Instead of setting up a head tax, it collects taxes based on the amount of land it owns. At the same time, it has formulated a business policy of one tax per ten.
Because of the problems left over from the times, the offset of tax payments must be retained, but the offset method has been refined.
"'Huang's father' has grown up, so there is no shortage of grassroots in Dayuan, and power can go to the countryside." This is what Zhiyao is most satisfied with.
Zhikai smiled and praised him, and said: "'Father Huang' has made a disciple, made a fool of himself, and made a general in the two palaces, and made a slaughter. This is my father's immortal career."
In the early and middle stages of the Spring and Autumn Period, all ambitious people were rushing towards "immortality".
What is immortality? It means making meritorious deeds, establishing virtue, and standing up for good deeds. Very few people can truly achieve this, and the only person recognized as immortal is Guan Yiwu.
It was Guan Zhong who assisted Zuo Lu Xiaobai to complete the Nine-Headed Princes. He had a high historical status until the Han Dynasty. Why was he replaced in the subsequent dynasties? We have to ask Confucianism.
In the Spring and Autumn Period, those who were close to Immortal include Zhao Yang, Zhi Feng, Zhao Wu, Zhong Xing Yan, Yan Ying, Zi Chan, and finally Shi Kuang, who forcibly touched the porcelain.
Zhiyao glanced at Zhikai with a strange look and thought in confusion: "Why has this kid been so flattering lately?"
Before, Zhikai also said that Zhiyao could compare with the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Although he was slightly inferior in some behaviors, the problem was that he had not passed the test of time. It was just a matter of talking behind closed doors. If it spread out, he would be scolded for being arrogant.
arrogant.
If martial arts is not included, among the things Zhiyao has done, including "inventing" paper and printing, creating so many practical tools, working hard to promote education, and persisting in developing medical care, which one is not dedicated to changing the times?
Needless to say, Zhiyao also wrote the book "The Book of Dharma". The mere appearance of the "Book of Dharma" is enough to establish its historical status.
Of course, the premise is that the original country did not perish so quickly, and the subsequent dynasties followed the historical inertia and vigorously supported Confucianism. Otherwise, no matter how great the achievements of the previous dynasty, the new dynasty would inevitably be used and reviled at the same time.
"Princess Song has passed 'Tao Qiu' and will arrive soon. You can go there to greet her then," Zhiyao ordered.
Zhikai replied: "Don't worry, kid."
How old you are, you still call yourself "child" all the time, it's really enough.
This year (458 BC), Zhikai is already twenty-four years old. Generally speaking, the marriage is finalized. According to the law of late marriage among nobles in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period, he is more or less an early marriage person.
Also this year, Zhiyao reached the age of forty-nine in her life.
Many times when she dreams back in the middle of the night, Zhiyao can't help but wonder if she has taken her steps too slowly, and has not yet completed the great cause of "One World" by the age of forty-nine.
However, there is really no way around it. It's just like that. It's really impossible to get up quickly if you want to.
Most of them are not unable to achieve quick results in terms of force, but are mainly hindered by other matters. For example, if they do not have enough management talents, they will wipe out the countries. Do they want to continue to use the nobles of the destroyed countries to manage various places?
The example of the Qin Empire is there. They already had enough managers in reserve, but they still had to use a large number of old and old nobles, which caused an obvious tear. When the old emperor died, and the traitors acted as monsters, they made trouble.
He will end up dying as a second generation.
Zhiyao also wants to go faster, but would rather spend time cultivating more talents and consolidating the basic base.
Before Zhiyao promoted education, the Jin State had a population of four to five million, and the number of literate people was definitely not more than 30,000, and most of them were either nobles or down-and-out nobles.
What now? There are more than 600,000 literate people in the entire original country, and literacy is no longer exclusive to the nobility. Due to the emergence of paper and printing, ordinary families can also have books.
That's 600,000 people who are literate! Most of them may just be able to read, but the number of literate people exceeds that of the Han Dynasty, and may even reach the level of the Tang Dynasty.
And that is just the result of Zhiyao's efforts in less than thirty years. With repeated promotions, the number of literate people will definitely continue to increase.
There is one thing that Zhiyao cannot do for the time being, otherwise he will definitely make literacy less sacred and cut off the opportunity for a special class to monopolize knowledge.
Because Zhiyao changed history, we still don’t know if a hundred schools of thought will appear?
However, if Zhiyao works so hard to promote education, maybe there will be a cultural explosion bigger than the contention of a hundred schools of thought?
"Summon Zaiyu." Zhiyao glanced at Zhikai and motioned to Zhikai to invite him in personally.
Not long after, Zaiyu and his deputies who were accompanying him on the envoy came in.
"Meet my king." The two of them saluted.
Zhiyao laughed heartily a few times before saying, "I have made great contributions to Dayuan, so I will give you a seat."
The deputy envoy is called Zhiming, and he is from the Zhi family.
Because of the many changes made by Zhiyao, many talents have emerged within Zhishi, some of whom are already taking on big responsibilities, and many of whom are filling middle- and lower-level positions.
One thing is inevitable, people of the Zhi family will be more proud than other people of origin, which makes Zhiyao very distressed.
Jaeyu reported in person and achieved very good results.
When King Luan of the Song Dynasty learned of Jae Yu's intention, he agreed to the marriage without hesitation. The two parties also reached many cooperation projects in military, economic and trade areas.
The Chu State has no intention of denying the marriage with the Yuan State. The difficulty lies in whether the marriage should be between the princess of Chu Wang Yan and the prince of the Yuan State, or the marriage between Ling Yin Gongsun Ning and his wife.
In order to find candidates for marriage, the already chaotic Chu State became even more chaotic. Many wise men called on the Yuan State to be wary of mischief, and used this move to tear the Chu royal family apart.
In fact, Gongsun Ning had no good intentions in supporting Xiong Yan to come to power. Is it his turn to act like a monster in Yuan Kingdom?
Gongsun Ning had ambitions for the throne of King Chu for more than a day or two, and he had to pretend to be blind to not see it.
As for why Gongsun Ning hasn’t taken action yet? Maybe it’s because the time is not ripe.
"So, Chu State has agreed to the marriage, but the candidate for the marriage has not yet been determined?" Zhiyao asked.
Zaiyu gave the answer first, and then said: "I think that if I want to marry, it would be better to marry a princess."
As the person involved, Zhikai listened, but his heart was completely untroubled.
Sooner or later, civil strife will break out in Chu State due to the struggle for throne. King Yan of Chu will be completely at a disadvantage in the struggle, and his strength is too weak. If civil strife does break out, how far can the chaos go?
Therefore, the Yuan Kingdom should support Chu Wangyan and even strengthen Chu Wangyan's strength to some extent. Only when Chu Wangyan becomes stronger will the chaos become big enough.
All in all, the Yuan Kingdom very much hopes that the Chu Kingdom will be in chaos. It would be best if King Yan of Chu and Gongsun Ning could interact with each other, so that Gongsun Ning would not succeed in usurping the throne too easily.
Zhiyao asked: "Can King Chu's safety be guaranteed?"
Zaiyu hesitated for a moment, and then replied truthfully: "If Chu Ling Yin is cruel, he can send one or two warriors to kill the king."
Looking at it this way, is King Yan of Chu worse off than the last king of Jin who was completely ignored?
In the final analysis, Xiong Yan was nothing before and had no team of his own. Due to fate, he would be pushed to the throne of King Chu.
After becoming the King of Chu, Xiong Yan relied on his righteousness to gain the support of some people, but most of the power was held by Gongsun Ning. Once Gongsun Ning wanted to usurp the throne, the current Chu King Yan was unable to protect himself.
of.
Zhikai glanced at Taihu, who had just come in but was standing in an inconspicuous corner, and wondered what was going on.
Being able to see Zhiyao without notification is the eunuch's special right. Once a person with this kind of power has second thoughts, he will be more harmful than anyone else.
All because of their careful deployment, they can cut off the inside and outside of the palace, not only making the king lose contact with the outside world, but also falsely conveying the king's orders.
Of course Zhiyao knew the dangers, so didn't he just add the official position of "lieutenant"?
With the "lieutenant" as the commander of the palace's military force, the eunuch order became a general manager of miscellaneous matters.
Taihu was such a big living person, so of course Zhiyao saw it, but he didn't report it immediately after Taihu came in. He continued to talk to Zaiyu about the mission, and motioned to Zhikai to go over and ask Taihu to find out what happened.
"You can give money to the King of Chu again and again. If the King of Chu recruits warriors, the second and third sons should know how to act." Zhiyao knew that the best way was to marry her daughter to King Yan of Chu, and then her daughter would bring a team there, but the Chu State did not take the initiative to propose marriage.
What method.
If King Yan of Chu asks for marriage, will Zhiyao agree?
For politicians like them, everything should be based on the interests of the country. Zhiyao would marry his daughter no matter how reluctant she was.
This is reality!
Zhiyao refused to marry out of concern for her daughter. In this case, she was using her personal feelings to harm the interests of the country.
To put it bluntly, no matter what position you are in, you must know how to restrain your personal emotions. If you don’t understand, reality will teach you one day.
Men and women born in the royal family usually enjoy such good treatment, but when it comes time to fulfill their obligations, they should actually be smarter.
Zaiyu agreed with a smile, but his eyes looked at Zhiming.
It is better not to take matters into one's own hands. It will appear arbitrary and authoritative. Too much power may not be a good thing.
Zhiming saluted and said: "Assigning people to get close to the King of Chu, I will definitely complete the mission."
Zhiyao nodded and understood.
Jaeyu began to report on his experience in Yue.
Regarding the marriage, King Gou Jian of Yue certainly agreed, but he refused the status of his daughter as a "concubine" and demanded the rank of "wife".
"The King of Yue said: Is the Song Kingdom stronger than the Yue Kingdom? How could the Yue Princess submit to the Song Princess?" Zaiyu quoted Gou Jian's original words truthfully.
Zhiyao raised her eyebrows and raised the corners of her mouth.
Okay! No need to add fuel to the fire. The fact is that King Gou Jian of Yue looked down on the Song Dynasty. Once word spread, it would definitely hurt the feelings of the Song Dynasty.
Zaiyu said: "I informed the King of Yue with the king's words that Princess Dayuan has been decided to be the Princess of Song Dynasty."
Choosing the princess of Song Dynasty as the crown princess is related to the strategy of the original country and cannot be changed.
Zhiyao is waiting for the next step.
Zaiyu smiled and continued: "The King of Yue looked displeased and did not refuse to marry the princess."
Maybe because of this incident, Yue will go to war with Song?
The Yuan Kingdom will begin a unification war in a year, and not surprisingly, the first target will be the Yue Kingdom.
This depends on whether the Yue Kingdom is fooled and sends troops to capture Donglai.
Once the Vietnamese army enters Donglai, it will be time for the Yuan army to march to Donglai to fight with them.
At that time, the original army will try to come east to destroy the Vietnamese army heading north, then liberate Judi, and then rush south to destroy the Yue country in one fell swoop.
Zhikai walked to Zhiyao and whispered: "Father, envoys from Ba and Shu have come to ask for father's decision."
What the hell?
Zhiyao looked at Taihu in confusion and motioned to Zaiyu to wait a moment and let Taihu explain clearly what happened in Ba and Shu...