The rebels outside Handan City were actually really easy to deal with, because Xu Huang launched a sneak attack on them, also at night.
I thought that the night attack would not be that easy, but the vanguard sent by Xu Huang easily entered the rebel camp and started setting fire to it smoothly.
According to later feedback from the battle, Xu Huang learned that when the vanguard entered, the rebel gatekeepers were huddled together sleeping, the patrol that was supposed to appear did not appear, and the lookout soldiers on the high platform seemed to be gambling with their comrades.
As a result, the fires burned more and more, and when the rebels were in chaos, Xu Huang's army began to attack.
In the chaos, the rebels completely collapsed, and the Han army had no tactics. They just rushed and fought until dawn, when the battle ended.
After daybreak, Han army flags and captured rebels were everywhere outside the city. After counting the number of people, Xu Huang learned that more than 20,000 rebels, with a total number of about 23,000, had been captured.
More than a thousand people were killed and burned to death, and less than a thousand people escaped.
Watching the Han army's battle flags flying fiercely on the city wall for many days, Sun Xiang was so stressed that his eyes filled with tears, and then he ordered the city gates to be opened to welcome Xu Huang into the city.
After Xu Huang entered the city, he recognized Sun Xiang and found that Sun Xiang was once a captain under him. Later, when he reached the age, he went to Luoyang. He didn't hear any news about him after that, but now he was a little surprised to find that he was here.
.
After learning about Sun Xiang's experience these days, Xu Huang was quite emotional and patted him on the shoulder, saying that Sun Xiang was a good man.
Immediately afterwards, Xu Huang learned what had happened in the city these days and couldn't help but frown.
"I thought King Zong wouldn't say that. When I heard the news, I thought it was the rebels who said it deliberately to deceive their own people into giving up their lives. But I didn't expect that it was true. King Zhao really wanted to have trouble with the court?
"
"I was surprised at first and couldn't believe it. It wasn't until he sent the guards from Prince Zhao's Mansion to compete with the city guards for control of the city gate that I realized that he really wanted to join forces with the rebels, so I quickly led people
Annihilated his guards."
Sun Xiang whispered: "After that, I sent people to surround Prince Zhao's Mansion and not allow them to communicate inside and outside. There was a lot of dissent in the city. Many officials and wealthy families put pressure on me to withdraw my troops, but I didn't. I was always watching over it.
Some people in Prince Zhao's Mansion couldn't sit still and wanted to assassinate me."
"It seems that there are many rebels not only outside the city, but also inside the city."
Xu Huang sneered, and then decided to pay a personal visit to King Zhao.
Before visiting King Zhao, Xu Huang saw the pale-faced, sunken-eyed Zhao Guoxiang Fu Qian. Xu Huang couldn't bear to see this world-famous scholar looking so haggard.
"You look so haggard. How many days have you not had a good rest? You have the important responsibility of a county, so you should have a good rest."
"I failed to stop the rebellion and caused so many lives. This is all due to my incompetence. How can I still have the face to talk about sleeping matters until now?"
Fu Qian sighed and said: "I am old and useless. I can't do anything. Later I will submit it to Your Majesty and plead guilty on my own. I also ask the general not to hide anything. What mistake did I make?"
, the general said bluntly, I will shoulder every responsibility."
Xu Huang felt helpless.
This matter is really not something Fu Qian, an official at the level of a state minister, can take on, because the affairs in Handan City involve a clan king.
Xu Huang knew that the land transfer order not only involved officials, but also the Han clan clan groups. Even the land and property of Liu Xie, the former young emperor who received a lot of land, had to submit land transfer and tax declarations. Of course,
, Liu Xie was not very impressed by this, so he accepted it easily.
But these sect kings who have been passed down for a long time are different.
They owned a large amount of land and claimed to be clan members of the Han Dynasty. They never considered it necessary to pay taxes. In a sense, they were the most powerful householders who were serious about farming.
Moreover, in terms of status, as clan members, they have special status and special status. No matter how noble they think their status is, ordinary officials would not dare to seriously oppose them.
Even the officials who received the orders from the imperial court were a little wary when facing the Zong Wang. However, Liu Bei specifically instructed during this operation that even the Zong Wang must be investigated by the Du Tian Order.
Liu Bang's genes are indeed very strong. Up to now, the Han clan clan has a very large group, and there are many real outstanding people among them. It can be said that talented people have emerged from generation to generation.
However, this ratio is a bit small. Compared with outstanding people, the number of insects is obviously larger.
After Liu Bei came to power, he made a thorough survey of the Han clan clan groups and learned that most of the Han clan clan groups are still the same as before he became famous. They are ordinary people with little power, little status, little property, and poor living conditions.
They are very tight, and they are not considered wealthy in any way. The number of small landowners who can be considered as ordinary is very small.
This is actually quite normal. Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty issued the favor order, the number of Han clan clan groups has increased, the territory has become smaller and smaller, and the interests have become less and less divided. Naturally, various kinds of conflicts have emerged.
class differentiation.
Pushing the favor order was indeed a good move, which greatly reduced the burden on the court and got rid of a lot of burdens for the court. The later Ming Dynasty did not learn this. Zhu Yuanzhang loved his children too much, which made Zhu Yuanzhang angry.
The family's descendants multiplied too quickly, placing a huge burden on the country's finances.
There was no such thing in the Han Empire. There were many cases where Han clan members were reduced to ordinary people and suffered hardships, just like the days Liu Bei lived. The court never said that he would be given even a little bit of money to his Han clan clan members.
Serve pension.
The eldest son of the Han Dynasty clan inherits the largest property, and the concubine does not receive such good treatment when he gives birth to a child. He can only get a little bit of soup. To say that he is somewhat capable, he can be considered a great person to fight for the future on his own, but
Most of the Han clan members are normal people. It is very difficult for ordinary people to live a good life. Where do they have the entrepreneurial talent?
As a result, more and more Han clan clan groups became incomparable to others, or even inferior to others. Their lives became more and more miserable, and in the end they were even inferior to ordinary people. Not a few died of poverty and illness.
For these people, the Han royal family had no sympathy, and no one said that they would help these relatively poor Han clan clan groups. It was normal to let them go freely and leave life and death to their fate.
Therefore, the clan clan of the Han Dynasty is a very large group so far. There are tens of thousands of serious members, but only a very small number of them are really considered to be the upper class nobles of the empire. They are at the top of the pyramid.
It's only a little bit limited.
For example, the major sect kings.
The clan kings of the Eastern Han Dynasty were basically the descendants of Liu Xiu, and had little relationship with the Han clan clan inherited from the Western Han Dynasty, and the impoverished Han clan clan groups were basically the clan clan groups of the Western Han Dynasty.
The clan groups in the Western Han Dynasty were also much larger than those in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
The current clan kings of the Han Dynasty can trace their ancestors back several generations, and they can basically all be traced back to Liu Xiu.
Liu Xiu also had his reasons for doing this, because a marquis can still be promoted in name, but a prince can only be an emperor if he goes up higher. Granting prince titles to everyone will only make people who are ambitious for imperial power cross the border.
There are more and more people coming, so it is necessary to strictly limit the selection and number of princes, so as to better protect the imperial power.
Others cannot be kings, and it is most suitable for princes to be kings. In this way, when the royal family has no heirs, they can choose suitable candidates from the side children to inherit the throne. So this rule was established.
Already.
However, the current situation is different.
Because Liu Bei is not a lineage of the Eastern Han Dynasty in a strict sense, but a lineage of the Western Han Dynasty.
His ascension essentially means that the top clan dignitaries of the Eastern Han Dynasty who inherited Liu Xiu's bloodline have lost a large amount of imperial power, and the large imperial power has been transferred back to the pure clan members of the Western Han Dynasty. Liu Xiu's clan has lost its status and power.
This is not a good thing for most Eastern Han clan members.
According to the rules of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Bei should appoint his sons as kings, but these kings who have been passed down for more than a hundred years are likely to lose their status as kings for this reason.
Therefore, they will also worry about whether Liu Bei will use various reasons to attack them.
At present, the Eastern Han clan members who are not too worried are Liu Yu, Liu Xie and a few others. However, they are not kings themselves, so most of the Eastern Han clan kings have a nervous, wait-and-see attitude towards Liu Bei's ascension.
.
When many policies did not involve the clan group, they felt a little more relieved, but when the policies involved the clan group, the situation was different.
Moreover, some news circulated within the Eastern Han clan king group. It was learned that Liu Bei had been offended by an Eastern Han clan king before, and his sense of the Eastern Han clan king group may not be very good, so they were very nervous. The previous slave restriction order had a negative impact on the clan.
Restrictions and suppression have more clearly increased the antagonism and mutual suspicion between them.
If the slave restriction order has not completely touched the core interests of the clan kings, then the Tian Du Order has really touched their core interests.
It seems that Liu Bei is really going to take action against Liu Xiu's descendants.
Like normal powerful landowners, the clans and kings of the Eastern Han Dynasty often had relatively large amounts of land wealth.
The royal family's political suppression of them was rewarded with economic tolerance, and economic tolerance was rewarded with a substantial expansion of their land wealth. This was especially true for some clan kings who were good at financial management or were greedy.
The number of fields owned by these sect kings is no less than that of the super landowners in those places, and their status is even higher. It is even less likely that anyone will talk to them about issues such as taxation.
But things are different now. Liu Bei just wants to talk to them about tax issues. Not only does he have to talk about it, but he also wants to collect taxes seriously. It is also a stepped tax rate. The larger the amount of land, the higher the tax rate for the excess part. The highest is actually up to
Forty-five percent, this is like using a knife to chop off their flesh and eat it.
After the clan kings learned about this, their attitudes were relatively consistent, that is, they were frightened and angry, but the degree was different. Some were not so angry, while others were so angry that they were about to explode.
Zhao Wang Liu She is the kind of person who is so angry that he is about to explode.
From the bottom of his heart, he felt that Liu Bei, a member of the Western Han Dynasty royal family, was deliberately trying to seize the imperial power from their Eastern Han royal family members. In the end, he bullied children and old ladies to seize the imperial power. This was purely shameless and despicable.
Shameless, completely unlike the capable minister he once was.
In his opinion, the distant relatives of the Western Han Dynasty and the orthodox clan of the Eastern Han Dynasty like Liu Bei are no longer the same kind of people. Being able to serve these serious clan relatives with official functions is already a gift. How dare you risk the power of the world?
Why don't you come and usurp the throne?
how dare you?
Forget it about usurping the throne, there have been so many troubles before and after, we have already endured a slave restriction order very hard, and now we are still going to farm?
Dutian?
Do you know what Dutian is?
Do you know what Dutian means?
Are you worthy of Du Tian?
When Fu Qian brought Du Tianling to Prince Zhao's Mansion to convey the order to Liu She, Liu She was almost angry to death. He pointed at Fu Qian's nose and told Fu Qian to get out of Prince Zhao's Mansion. Fu Qian was not angry, but
He conveyed the imperial order in a neither humble nor overbearing manner, saying that he would soon organize people to come to cultivate the fields and calculate the taxes, so that Liu She could prepare.
Liu She's face turned blue with anger, and he could not tolerate Fu Qian's "offense" and Liu Bei's "calculation" under any circumstances.
So he negotiated privately with some officials and powerful families with good relations, and learned that they were also very resistant to the land transfer order, and were preparing to carry out the "Guangwu Shi Story" to start a war and counter Liu Bei's shameless order with resolute resistance.
, making Liu Bei give in and realize how big a mistake he had made.
So Liu She thought for a moment and decided to join in. Then he sent people to contact other sect kings in Jizhou to see if they had any ideas.
In fact, Liu She had another level of consideration in this matter. He felt that Liu Bei was from a clan of the Western Han Dynasty. He was essentially a different group of people from the noble clans of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It was difficult to say that Liu Bei could urinate into the same pot.
It is difficult to say that what he is doing now is not a revenge against the Eastern Han clan group.
If this revenge is successful, it is hard to say that there will not be another one. If there is a next time, will it be more powerful and severe each time, and in the end, they will even be deposed as sect kings?
Without these inheritances, how can they live a good life?
This is the most essential worry, and it is also the fundamental reason why Liu She and other Eastern Han clan clan groups cannot bear it. With such worry, Liu She feels that if this resistance succeeds, they must raise their eyebrows seriously.
Rebel against the banner, call on the world to break with Liu Bei, take back a large amount of imperial power from Liu Bei, and let the good days of the Eastern Han Dynasty clan kings continue.
Otherwise, if Liu Bei, a remnant of the Western Han Dynasty clan, is allowed to ascend the throne and rule the world, who knows what unforeseen tricks will follow that will make their lives worse than death.
Before, there was no response to the message sent by Liu She. The other sect kings seemed not to be very moved by Liu She's proposal, but Liu She felt that he had to make a move, so he just gathered the rebels and prepared to raid Handan.
When Handan City was built, he initiated the "internal and external coordination" of Handan City.
But he calculated over and over again, and failed to realize that Sun Xiang, the commander of the Zhao Kingdom's military forces, was a capable man and a loyal subordinate to Liu Bei. He led more than 2,000 military commanders and soldiers and learned in advance that the rebels were about to attack Handan.
, so he acted quickly, took control of the entire Handan City, and defeated the team he sent to assist the rebels.
Later, he even risked the accusation of disrespect to surround Prince Zhao's Mansion and trapped him. Although no other military operations were launched against Prince Zhao's Mansion, the siege and the alert were enough to put Liu She into extreme panic.