Three Kingdoms

Chapter 3552: Planning outside the battlefield

On the bank of the river, Fei Qian pondered for a moment, then retrieved the map of Heluo from his memory, especially the situation of the eight passes of Luoyang, and quickly came to a conclusion that Cao's army had set up an ambush around Luoyang City.

"Prime Minister Cao is really..."

Fei Qian shook his head slightly.

Of course, it is also possible that this was not a strategy set by Cao Cao, but a strategy set by the defenders in Luoyang.

This kind of central attack tactic is worthless if you talk about it, but if you are caught in it, you will definitely suffer a great blow. You have clearly already attacked the city, but in the end you not only failed to capture the city, but were surrounded by the enemy. This psychological gap between the upper and lower levels may cause morale to collapse and lead to a direct defeat on the spot.

However, considering it from another angle, this might be the only way for the Luoyang defender to turn defeat into victory.

"Since Shi Yuan came to me, I guess he has a solution?" Fei Qian said with a smile.

When it comes to tactical matters, Pang Tong, Zhang Liao and others are better at it.

Pang Tong narrowed his eyes and smiled, "My lord, you still understand me..."

Fei Qian also laughed, "Don't take risks!"

We finally managed to rescue your fat black chicken from Luofengpo, but in the end we built the Chicken Killing Bridge and the Bird Killing Mountain. That would be such a loss.

"Huh?" Pang Tong was stuck for a moment, blinking his eyes a few times, "Don't take risks..."

Fei Qian nodded, "Don't underestimate the heroes of the world...Tian Dan and Bao Xu were just minor officials in Qi and Chu, but they were able to save a destroyed state and a defeated country. How much more so now?"

Pang Tong was silent, "This is the common sentiment of the world."

When talking about Tian Dan, it seems that the only thing left is the Fire Bull, but in fact, before the Fire Bull Formation was implemented, Tian Dan used the "Divine Master Plan" to force the old and weak to climb the city wall, and used false surrender to undermine the morale of the Yan army, and used the "counter-espionage plan" to make King Hui of Yan replace Yue Yi, which created the opportunity for the Fire Bull Formation to finally achieve great success.

This series of actions requires a lot of preliminary preparation work, but most people in the world like climaxes and excitement. This kind of communication law conforms to the "Peak-End Rule" - the audience is more likely to remember the most impactful ending, which is a fragment, and cannot form an overall logical thinking.

It's like thinking that money and food can be produced by pouring money from the left pocket into the right pocket, and then you can have endless food and food. Even experts in later generations often fall into this trap, after all, it's too far-fetched and people are used to it.

War is actually an extremely cruel thing. During the Warring States Period, according to the Yunmeng Qin Bamboo Slips, the bloody nature of the real battlefield can be seen. Under the Qin army's beheading system, the casualty rate of regular troops often reached more than 40%. Therefore, if an army can survive 20% of casualties, it can be considered a strong army. The Qin army can survive 40%, no wonder the six countries shouted in unison, and the group climaxed!

Fei Qian laughed and raised his eyebrows, "After the Fire Bull, "more than 70 cities of Qi were restored to Qi"... I wonder if Shi Yuan has any thoughts on this?"

Pang Tong was stunned for a moment when he heard this, then he clapped his hands and laughed, "Ah, if my lord hadn't mentioned it... I really wouldn't have noticed this... Haha, it's really ridiculous..."

The two of them laughed and laughed, then stopped smiling almost at the same time, and their faces became serious.

If this happened to someone else, it would be a joke, hahahaha, but if it happened to me...

Yan State, because of its long-term war with the Hu people, was once full of military power and was one of the seven major powers in the Warring States Period. Yan and Zhao were both early countries to adopt Hu clothing, horse riding and archery, and to carry out military system reforms, and they also achieved considerable success, but it is obvious that neither Zhao nor Yan had the last laugh.

Behind Tian Dan's fire bulls, Yan State fought against Qi State for five years. After occupying more than seventy cities of Qi in five years, Qi State only had two capitals, Ju and Jimo, left. As a result, Tian Dan launched a counterattack and the State was defeated and retreated to the starting point. More than seventy cities were recovered!

Fei Qian didn't know what the King of Yan was thinking at that time. It might also be that King Zhao of Yan had just died, so the new King of Yan was afraid that Le Yi would become too successful and threaten the king. Anyway, no matter what, the land and cities that Yan had conquered with great difficulty were lost again, and from then on, Yan never recovered and no longer had the demeanor of the Seven Heroes.

Is Le Yi awesome? What happened to him?

So once you calculate the cost, you're basically losing everything.

Both sides suffered losses, and then the Qin State laughed and clapped its hands to encourage, saying, "Well done, great fight!"

If Fei Qian and Cao Cao were to be in the same situation now, who would applaud and cheer them on?

The enemies may not all be outside!

In the power structure of ancient Chinese feudal society, the game between centralization and local tyrants has always existed.

The Three Kingdoms period was an extremely special period of time. The imperial power declined, the aristocratic families rose, and land annexation intensified. The whole world was in turmoil, but this turmoil was also the best time to achieve fundamental changes.

Of course, if we want to achieve this kind of change, we must go beyond traditional political tactics, build a systematic system, and rebuild the entire political framework...

During his time in Guanzhong, Fei Qian had already achieved certain revolutionary breakthroughs in the land system.

The first is "He who tills the land owns it."

This is a truth that politicians have understood since ancient times, but it is still inevitably tainted by selfish desires in the process of implementation. Before the public consciousness can be raised to a very high level, maintaining the number of self-cultivating farmers is undoubtedly the foundation for stabilizing the entire society.

When Mencius put forward the theory of constancy of heart and constant income, perhaps he just wanted to advise the rulers not to be too greedy and to leave some food for the people, but this undoubtedly has certain guiding significance for development.

Permanent property is not necessarily cultivated land, but can also be other relatively stable industries. When people have these material foundations that they can rely on for a long time, they will have the consciousness to maintain social order. This echoes the idea of ​​Ma Da Huzi's assertion that "the economic base determines the superstructure" across time and space.

Mencius did not simply emphasize the possession of property, but put forward a standard, which is to enable the people to "look up to serve their parents, look down to support their wives and children". In this way, the people will be stable and the society and the country will be able to develop.

Isn’t it simple?

But some people just can't do it.

Of course, it is not ruled out that there are people with lofty ideals who have no permanent property but have perseverance. These people who have detached themselves from interests have obviously surpassed those speculators who have permanent property but no perseverance, and have become the shining lights that illuminate the darkness and guide the way in human history.

Fei Qian implemented a dual-track system of "military merit land" and "refugee farming" in Guanzhong, granting the ownerless wasteland that appeared during the war to retired soldiers and refugees, and established a set of self-cultivating peasant economic units independent of the gentry, thus breaking free from the original constraints of the Guanzhong and Hedong gentry.

The most serious problem for self-employed farmers is their poor ability to resist risks. It can be said that from ancient times to the present, the resistance of the lower-class people to risks has been infinitely close to zero. Any disaster, illness, or even a small accident may cause self-employed farmers to sell their only property at a low price in order to survive temporarily. Therefore, under such circumstances, land annexation, or "asset restructuring", is inevitable, and class differentiation and the gap between the rich and the poor will become more and more obvious.

Therefore, Fei Qian established an institution similar to the "Changping Warehouse" in Guanzhong, implementing land pawning and redemption through a unified grain reserve system. It replaced the original private lending of gentry when self-cultivating farmers were in need, and was also a means of gradually disintegrating the manor economy.

But at the same time, this method is not safe, and there is no guarantee that after a certain period of development, this loan originally intended for poor families will become just an additional way for the rich to make money. After all, it is not uncommon to get money from official low-interest loans and then lend it to a third party at a higher interest rate to earn the difference.

This alone is not enough to change Shandong's economic system and reverse the situation of Nai Tou Le that has lasted for three or four hundred years.

Fei Qian also established a new monetary and fiscal system in Guanzhong, reversing the original "Wuzhu coins-grain-based" structural system, and began to adopt more complex precious metal currencies such as gold, silver and copper. The right to issue currency was taken back to the central government, which naturally weakened the economic manipulation ability of local powerful people. At the same time, four foreign trade routes of "Desert", "Western Regions", "Snow Region" and "Jiaozhi" were established. While building a logistics network and expanding business routes, it also expanded road traffic and reshaped the economic lifeline of the strategic material circulation channels controlled by the state.

All of this is aimed at the redistribution of political rights, that is, to build a new governance structure in the Han Dynasty.

The "4321" political management system promoted by Fei Qian was originally to bypass the county and directly build a governance system from the central government to the grassroots level. However, this vertical management system has an unavoidable problem, which is "people". Just like in the future, if there is no expansion of college students, there will be no college student village officials.

Although Fei Qian now has the Shoushan Academy and the Qinglong Temple, they are barely enough for Guanzhong and Hedong. Shandong has a dense population, and the number of officials needed is at least ten times that of Guanzhong!

Moreover, in order to ensure that officials do not stay in one place for a long time, as there is a high probability of collusion between officials and gentry, it is necessary to implement the "responsibility system for itinerant officials and term avoidance". Not only are local officials not allowed to serve within 500 miles of their hometown, but their interest ties with the gentry must also be cut off as much as possible.

This will lead to an even greater shortage of people.

All of these matters require manpower, and even a large number of additional supervisory personnel...

If there were not enough people, education was necessary, but the Shandong education system, including the academies and scriptures in various places, was in the hands of the gentry, which easily formed a vicious cycle. Gentry was needed to assist in education and promote the poor, but the poor quickly evolved into new aristocratic families, and even colluded with each other and intermarried to form a huge regional or even clique-like political aggregation.

When Fei Qian raised these questions, Pang Tong was also scratching his head.

"Military affairs are like water..." Fei Qian pointed to the river and said, "If you leave Hangu Pass, you will be like the water flowing eastward, and you can never come back."

If we march into Shandong, under the current circumstances, the same situation will most likely occur as when Yan State marched into Qi State, where we would capture many cities at will, and then something would go wrong, or some mistakes would occur during the stalemate in the war, and inevitably "more than seventy cities would be recovered" again!

So, how to solve this problem?

For a moment, Fei Qian and Pang Tong fell silent.

Although Fei Qian has thousands of years of accumulated experience to draw on, it can only be used as a reference. It is like he knows what is wrong, but the problem now is to find the right direction among the mistakes.

As a native of the Han Dynasty, Pang Tong's theory is obviously more suitable for the current Han Dynasty than Fei Qian's pure theory.

Pang Tong stroked his beard and pondered for a moment, his eyes swept across the river, looking at the rolling water flowing eastward, and suddenly smiled and said: "In the past, Qin conquered the six kingdoms, not only because of its strong bows and powerful crossbows, but also because of Shang Yang's reforms. Now my lord, if you want to conquer Shandong, you should have three tactics: destroy their clan system, change their money and food, and change their education."

Fei Qian's eyes flashed, "Shi Yuan, please tell me in detail."

Pang Tong chuckled a few times and said, "If I remember correctly, the current Cao family's farming has many disadvantages..."

Fei Qian nodded, "That's true."

Cao Cao's military farming system was developed after Fei Qian. From a certain perspective, it is unclear who copied whom, but Cao Cao's military farming system was not as completely oriented towards self-cultivating farmers as Fei Qian's. Instead, it still had the nature of a landlord's manor and severely exploited the tenant farmers.

The most typical means of exploitation is to strictly restrict the personal freedom of tenant farmers.

The peasants who worked in the military farms could not leave the land they were assigned at will, otherwise they would be severely punished. A red card was considered a light punishment, and some were even arrested and thrown into prison. There were also many who were executed as a warning to others. Moreover, more than 80% of the harvest of these tenant farmers had to be handed over, and they had to perform certain labor service, which made it impossible for these tenant farmers to enjoy the fruits of their labor and they could only struggle on the line between life and death for a long time.

At the same time, in these military farms, there were also problems that military farm officials and their subordinates engaged in commercial activities for personal gain and did not pay attention to agricultural production. Some even used the cheap labor of tenant farmers to seek personal gain instead of cultivating the public military farms.

"Last year, there was a severe drought in Yanzhou. The wealthy families seized 6,000 hectares of land from the people. The people starved for more than three months, and there were corpses of starvation everywhere. This is a good opportunity sent by God..." Pang Tong said slowly, "If we can get the Chenliu garrison land, we can seize the land and grant it to them based on military merit. Anyone who surrenders will be granted 20 mu of land, and those who behead the enemy will be granted an additional 10 mu. The land granted will be issued an iron deed by the state government, which will be valid for three or five years, and cannot be resold during the period."

Fei Qian nodded after hearing this. He had also thought about this. "If this is the case, we need to prepare 3 million mu of land for granting. Where can we get such land?"

"The Cao clan owns 700,000 mu of land in Yuzhou, and the Xun clan in Yingchuan owns 300,000 mu..." Pang Tong laughed, "There are also large clans in Jizhou, each owning tens or even millions of mu... Three million mu, what's there to worry about?"

Fei Qian also laughed, "Shi Yuan, if this is the case, the Shandong gentry will become enemies of life and death! Are we going to follow the path of the Former Qin?"

If this knife is chopped down, the whole world will rebel!

No, it was all the Shandong gentry who rebelled!

"No, no!" Pang Tong put his hands into his sleeves, like an old farmer counting the crops in his field. "When I checked the land in Sanfu, at least 30% of the land deeds were private deeds..."

Pang Tong showed a sly smile, "Just follow the old example of Guanzhong and Hedong... They are the ones who brought this upon themselves, they will not survive, what does it have to do with us?"

Fei Qian laughed and nodded repeatedly, "Yes, that's right!"

The river wind suddenly blew up, blowing up yellow dust all over the ground. The dust floated up and fell gently, staining the clothes of Fei Qian and Pang Tong, and also landing on the armor of the surrounding soldiers guarding.

It is simple to say so, of course, but the actual operation is no less difficult than the bloody fight on the battlefield.

Guanzhong was able to be implemented because it was first plundered by Dong Zhuo, and then again by Li and Guo. After Ma Chao's Qiang Rebellion, even the wealthy and powerful aristocratic families who remained in Guanzhong were already dying. By the time Fei Qian took control of Guanzhong, they simply did not have the strength to compete with Fei Qian.

Even so, it's still not easy.

Fei Qian looked at the turbulent river and could not help but think of the bloody storm when Guanzhong implemented the "Military Merit Field". That reform made some powerful families in Guanzhong try to unite and rebel, but it also created tens of thousands of self-cultivating farmers who were loyal to the new policy.

The recent success of Hedong is thanks to Lao Cao...

In addition, the Pei family had completely sided with the Cavalry Army, so there wouldn't be any bloodshed.

As for advancing into Shandong, it is okay to occupy the emptied areas, but I am afraid that those large states and counties with dense populations will be lip service and will delay a lot!

Fei Qian thought for a moment and added, "Besides that, we can follow the old stories in the Spring and Autumn Period."

Fei Qian picked up five stones and scattered them on the ground, forming a rough shape of a plum blossom. He said to Pang Tong, "If we find a place, in addition to issuing notices to pacify the people, we will set up a "Five Elders Association", with retired soldiers in charge of public security, poor scholars in charge of paperwork, local farmers in charge of land, merchants in charge of commerce, and our military supervisors and censors. These five parties will participate in the discussion of government affairs..."

"In addition to the four, three, two, and one, there are five more elders? Will these retired soldiers conflict with the patrol inspectors?" Pang Tong frowned and said, "And...will there be too many redundant personnel, making it difficult to decide?"

Fei Qian smiled, first sweeping away a stone with his foot, then sweeping away another one, "First, the Five Elders, then the Four Pillars, then the three important things in the government office, changing the military supervisor to the patrol inspector, the direct governor, and establishing two assistants for governing the people... and then, return to one..."