Tibet

There is a reason why Li Ye also took Shannan West Road as a pilot project, and the reason is that Bashu is unstable.

‘The world is not in chaos, but Shu is in chaos first; the world is already peaceful, but Shu is not. ’

Now the world is peaceful, but the hidden dangers of Bashu still exist. The reason is that Bashu is relatively closed, and the local nobles are powerful and never submit to the jurisdiction of the court. For example, Jia Xiu and Guo Qianren, the military commanders, are both from the nobles of Dongchuan, and the powerful families behind these warlords are very powerful.

Before, Hebei separatist regimes, many warlords in Bashu saw the opportunity to secede and become independent, and they were ready to move. Finally, Li Ye took the lead in entering Bashu and put down the separatist regime in Hebei in time, calming the restless hearts of these warlords.

But treating the symptoms does not cure the root cause, and these unstable factors are still there, especially hidden in the hearts of the nobles.

Why was Li Ye's army able to sweep across Dongchuan and Xichuan? It was because these nobles hated Yongwang Li Lin, so they borrowed Li Ye's power to kill Yongwang Li Lin. Only when Li Ye's army entered Sichuan would it be so powerful that counties and prefectures surrendered wherever they went.

But once Li Ye touched their interests, they would not hesitate to show Li Ye their face.

The most typical example is that Cui Yuan was dissatisfied with the court's salt monopoly order and deliberately allowed his son to sell private salt, destroying the court's monopoly pilot. Why did Cui Yuan dare to openly confront the court? Because there were more than a dozen state officials supporting Cui Yuan behind the scenes, and behind the more than a dozen state officials were actually these local nobles.

Historically, the Tang Dynasty divided Bashu, Dongchuan was called Shannan West Road, and Xichuan was called Jiannan Road, which was to separate the army of Xichuan from the nobles of Dongchuan, but this caused great harm. Xichuan was too weak to deal with the attack of Tubo and Nanzhao alone.

Later, the Tang Dynasty merged East and West Sichuan, and used famous generals such as Yan Wu and Wei Gao, and finally stabilized Bashu.

However, in the past two years, Li Ye still received more support from the nobles in Sichuan. First of all, Li Ye actually merged East and West Sichuan. In name, there was still a distinction between Shannan West Road and Jiannan Road, but the government affairs were a team, with Wang Wei serving as the Observer of Shannan West Road and Jiannan Road.

Another important reason was the use of troops against Nanzhao, which almost destroyed Nanzhao and completely resolved the threat of Nanzhao to Bashu.

But it does not mean that in order to gain the support of the nobles in Sichuan, the nobles in Sichuan should be indulged. This time, the internal guards surveyed Shannan East Road and West Road. The Du family in Xiangyang ranked first in Shannan East Road, with 3,700 slaves.

But compared with the Guo family in Hezhou, Shannan West Road, it was a small witch compared to a big witch. The Guo family was estimated to have 18,000 slaves, and this was data from ten years ago.

The Guo family built a castle on Diaoyu Mountain, which was closed off from the outside. The inner guards could only inquire about the situation in the market at the foot of the mountain.

The nobles in the whole Dongchuan followed the lead of the Guo family. The head of the family, Guo Huaiyan, had a far greater influence in Dongchuan than the inspector Wang Wei.

Then the representative of the nobles in Xichuan was the Jia family in Qiongzhou. The head of the family, Jia Yuan, was known as the king protector. He had a deep relationship with the Liao people. There were 3,000 Liao warriors and servants in the family. Jia Xiu, the military commander of Qiongzhou, was Jia Yuan's brother.

At present, the interests of the Jia family and the court were consistent. They both had to guard against the invasion of the Tubo people. However, the Jia family had 15,000 slaves, owned half of the salt wells in Qiongzhou, and dominated Linqiong County. Linqiong County was actually an independent kingdom of the Jia family.

This was the deep-seated reason why Li Ye wanted to promote the abolition order, and to use the abolition order to crack down on the super nobles in various places.

But Li Ye took it step by step, first solving the wealthy families in Guanzhong and Chang'an, mainly the Guanlong nobles.

Then there are Shannan East Road and Shannan West Road. In fact, Shannan East Road is easy to deal with. He knows the Huang family and the Du family, and it is easy to pinch. The difficult part is the nobles in Bashu.

In order to prevent the nobles in Shu from vigilantly colluding, Li Ye specifically did not include Jiannan Road, but only dealt with Shannan West Road, which might paralyze the nobles in Shu.

However, there are also masters in Shu. They have long seen through the real purpose of the emperor's abolition order and used legal means to crack down on local tyrants.

The castle of the Guo family located in Diaoyu Mountain is certainly not comparable to the Diaoyu City of the Southern Song Dynasty. It also built high walls and many fortifications.

Guojiabao is actually a summer villa of the Guo family. The three brothers of the Guo family stay in Hechuan City most of the time.

The head of the family Guo Huaiyan, the second brother Guo Qinghua, and the third brother Guo Qianren, each of them has dozens of wives and concubines, and gave birth to countless children. These children who have a promising future go to various counties to serve as officials, and those who have no future go to various counties to serve as clerks. Together with sons-in-law and disciples, they are basically spread across various counties in Dongchuan.

Like the Jia family in Qiongzhou, the Guo family in Hezhou had the secret of controlling the salt wells in Bashu.

The imperial court implemented a pilot salt monopoly system in Bashu, and killed Cui Yuan who resisted the imperial court for this.

But in the end, the imperial court reached a compromise with the Guo, Jia and other wealthy families, purchasing their well salt at a price of 50 wen per catty, and selling it to ordinary people at a price of 110 wen. The difference in price was the salt tax.

Of course, the condition was that these wealthy families were not allowed to sell private salt anymore, which barely stopped the flood of private salt in various parts of Bashu.

But the good times did not last long. Since the beginning of this year, private salt at 70 wen per catty has quietly appeared in the Chengdu market. Although the quantity is not large, the meaning of the test is very obvious. Once the imperial court does not respond, private salt will immediately pour out in large quantities next year.

The additional price difference of 20 wen per catty is enough to make these Bashu wealthy families blinded by greed, and the emperor's abolition order was pushed to Bashu at this time.

In the study, staff member Li Zhennan pointed to the self-examination order on the table and said to Guo Huaiyan: "This is by no means a simple self-examination notice. Even if the owner declares truthfully and pays taxes truthfully, the inspection will still come and all the account books will be reviewed. When they investigate the Guo family farm and salt well, they will find that the salt output does not match the amount sold to the government. There is a huge gap. How can the family owner explain it?

There is also the source of those 20,000 salt workers. That is a serious crime of liaison with foreign countries. One person is selling illegal salt and the other is illicitly communicating with foreign countries, which is enough to put the Guo family in danger.

The 20,000 salt workers of the Guo family were actually Tang Army prisoners of war captured by Nanzhao during the Nine-Year Battle of Tianbao, and sold to the Guo family for almost 20 years. These Tang Army prisoners of war have adapted to their status as salt workers and their lives. It has also stabilized, and no one mentions the past anymore.

Perhaps due to the long period of time, the Tang army did not discover this secret in the process of destroying Nanzhao. Once this secret is revealed, a series of problems will be revealed. The Guo family has long sold pig iron and weapons to Nanzhao, and The Guo family raised 10,000 strong men and had a large private collection of weapons.

Each of these crimes is enough for the Guo family to be confiscated and exterminated, but for decades no one has dared to touch the Guo family, let alone investigate the Guo family, so they are so unscrupulous.

Guo Huaiyan was silent for a moment and said, "What about Mr. Yi?"

"I believe that one must repay the other person with his own way. The laws of the Tang Dynasty allow the legal acquisition of slaves. The acquisition of slaves by each of our families is reasonable and legal. If the court wants to implement the abolition of slavery, it must first abolish the previous laws of the Tang Dynasty. Then we will compensate our abolition of slaves. We cannot say that he can abolish them if he wants to, unless the person Li Ye inherits is not the Tang Dynasty, the head of the family. This is Li Ye's biggest weakness!

He claims to inherit the Tang Dynasty, so he must abide by the laws of the Tang Dynasty. Without compensation, his current abolition order is unreasonable and illegal, or it does not target the slaves before the abolition order, but only takes effect on new slaves. "

Guo Huaiyan nodded, "It makes sense, but what about his slave tax law?"

"Master, if the skin is gone, how will the hair be attached? Once the abolition of slavery is illegal and we win the fight, the slave tax will not appear again. In fact, our goal is to resist the inspection. As long as it is delayed indefinitely, it will eventually end. Let's leave it alone. We don't care if the court wants to investigate other places, but we can't investigate Bashu.

Therefore, we need to collectively resist, just like we resisted the salt tax. In the end, both parties compromised. We recognized the abolition of slavery on face, and then symbolically restored a small number of old and weak slaves to freedom, allowing the government to provide for them in their old age. We don’t care, the court With face, we have also solved the burden of old and weak slaves, and everyone is happy! "

"Well said, I will post a hero post right now to call on everyone to boycott. I will also reach a consensus with the Jia family of Qiongzhou to fight the imperial court's abolition order together."

Li Zhennan said slowly: "We must recall Erlang back from Chang'an as soon as possible and prepare for war!"

Guo Huaiyan was shocked, "Will there be another war?"

"Beizong's war preparations refer to the worst-case scenario. Beizong believes that the court does not want to start a war. If both sides can make concessions, the problem can be solved. Head of the family, the abolition of slavery is not a big problem. Beizong is worried about causing other problems. The court doesn’t know about these issues, but we actually have an advantage!”

Guo Huaiyan nodded, "Just do as you say!"