At the beginning of the Han Dynasty,it inherited the dilapidated situation caused by the war at the end of the Qin Dynasty.Young men joined the army,and the old and weak transported food and wages.The affairs were complicated and the finances were scarce.From the emperor to the prime minister,there was no one to drive a carriage with four horses of the same color.Some generals and prime ministers rode ox carts,and the people had no surplus food at home.At that time,because the coins minted by the Qin Dynasty were too heavy to circulate,the people were ordered to mint pod coins,and it was stipulated that one square inch of gold weighed one catty,and the laws were simplified and the prohibitions were reduced.However,those merchants who did not abide by the laws and were only interested in profit hoarded goods to manipulate prices,causing prices to soar,food prices to soar,rice prices rose to 10,000 coins per stone,and a horse was worth 100 gold.
After the world was pacified,Emperor Gaozu ordered that merchants were not allowed to wear silk or ride in carriages,and their rents and taxes were increased,causing them to suffer financial difficulties and insult their personalities.During the reign of Emperor Xiaohui and Empress Dowager Gao,the laws on merchants were relaxed again because the world had just been stabilized.However,the descendants of merchants were still not allowed to serve as officials.The state calculated the salaries of officials and other expenses and collected taxes from the people according to their needs.The rent and tax revenues from mountains,rivers,gardens,ponds,and markets,as well as the revenues from the emperor and the feudal lords,were all used as private expenses of the officials in charge and were not paid from the state funds.The grain transported from Shandong to the officials in the capital was no more than a few hundred thousand stones per year.
By the time of Emperor Xiaowen,there were more and more pod coins.Because they were light in weight,four more coins were minted with the text”half liang”and the people were ordered to mint their own coins at will.Therefore,Wu was a vassal state,but it minted coins based on Tongshan and was as rich as the emperor.Later,it finally became a rebellion.Deng Tong was a doctor.Because he minted coins himself,his wealth exceeded that of the vassal kings.Therefore,Wu and Deng’s coins were spread all over the world,leading to the order to ban private minting of coins.
The Xiongnu often invaded the northern border,where many soldiers were stationed,and the grain stored on the border was insufficient.So the people who could pay grain to the government or transport grain to the border were recruited to be granted titles,and the highest title could be Dashuchang.
During the reign of Emperor Xiaojing,a drought occurred in the west of Shangjun,and the order to sell titles was revised again,lowering the price to attract the people;pardoned criminals who committed serious crimes and were punished as officials could pay grain to the government to be exempted from their crimes.Gardens were built to increase the expenses,and official palaces,pavilions,carriages and horses were also built in large quantities.
A few years after the current emperor(note:referring to Emperor Wu of Han)ascended the throne,and in the more than 70 years since the founding of the Han Dynasty,there was no war in the country,except when there were floods and droughts.The people had enough food and clothing,the country’s granaries were full of grain,and the warehouses of the Shaofu had a lot of cloth and other goods.The accumulated coins in the capital were so numerous that the ropes that strung the coins rotted and could not be counted.The grain in the granary was piled up in large and small warehouses like a battle array,and some grain had to be piled up in the open air,so that it rotted and could not be eaten.Ordinary people in the streets and alleys also had horses,and there were even more horses in the fields,so that people riding young mares were excluded and not allowed to attend parties.Ordinary people living in the alleys ate fine grains and meat,and clerks died without changing their jobs,and officials used their official titles as their surnames.Therefore,everyone knew how to love themselves,feared breaking the law,respected etiquette,and hated doing shameful things.At that time,the law was loose and the people were rich,so there were people who used money to do extravagant and illegal things,and families who annexed land and local tyrants and big parties,who ran rampant in the countryside with power and force.The royal family with fiefs and even the ministers and officials competed for luxury,and their houses,cars and clothes exceeded their own level,without limit.Things will turn to decline after prosperity,which is an inevitable law of change.
From then on,Yan Zhu,Zhu Maichen and others recruited Dongou and launched wars against the two Yues.The cost between Jianghuai was huge,and it became depressed and chaotic.Tang Meng and Sima Xiangru opened the road to the Southwest Yi.For this purpose,they cut through mountains and built roads for more than a thousand miles to expand the connection between Bashu and the outside world.The people of Bashu were exhausted.Peng Wu opened the road to Xianbei and Korea and set up Canghai County.Yan and Qi were in turmoil like the wind blowing the grass.When Wang Hui planned to attack the Xiongnu in Mayi,the Xiongnu broke off the marriage relationship with Han and constantly invaded the northern border.The situation could not be relieved.The people of the world were forced to work harder and complained bitterly,but the war was getting worse day by day.Soldiers who went out to serve had to bring their own food and clothing,and those who stayed behind had to continue to transport them.There was turmoil inside and outside,and they were all busy with the war.The people were poor and exhausted and could only play tricks to evade the law.The state’s financial resources were exhausted and consumed and were not enough to use.Therefore,it was implemented that those who paid materials to the government could fill the official quota,and those who presented bribes could be exempted from punishment.The official selection system was gradually destroyed,and there was no distinction between honesty and shame.People with military power but violence were reused.The laws were harsh and the orders were complicated.Officials who were good at making money for the country emerged.
Later,the generals of the Han Dynasty attacked the Hu people with tens of thousands of cavalry every year.It was not until the time of Wei Qing,the general of the chariot and cavalry,that the Henan area occupied by the Xiongnu was recovered and the Shuofang City was built.At that time,the Han Dynasty was opening up the road to the Southwest Yi,mobilizing tens of thousands of people to carry food from thousands of miles away.About one stone was transported every ten minutes,and the coins were scattered in the Qiong and Bo areas to attract people there.A few years later,the road was not opened yet,and the barbarians there took the opportunity to attack repeatedly,and the officials sent troops to kill them.The total tax revenue from Bashu was not enough to maintain this situation,so the wealthy were recruited to farm in the Nanyi area,and the harvested grain was sold to the local county officials,and the grain was paid from the inner government of Kyoto.A road was dug to the east to Canghai County,and the labor cost was similar to that of the Nanyi.More than 100,000 people were mobilized to build and guard Shuofang County.The distance of land and water transportation was extremely long,and the east of the mountains had to bear this burden,costing hundreds of thousands to millions,and the treasury became even emptier.So the people who could pay slaves to the government were recruited to be exempted from rent,taxes and corvée for life.The increase in the rank of the Langguan and the Langguan who paid sheep began at this time.
Four years later,the Han sent the remaining general Wei Qing to lead six generals and more than 100,000 troops to attack the Right Xian King of the Xiongnu,killing and capturing a total of 15,000 people.The next year,the general Wei Qing led six generals to attack the Hu people again,killing and capturing 19,000 people.The reward for killing the enemy was more than 200,000 kilograms of gold,and tens of thousands of barbarians who surrendered were also given generous rewards.Clothing and food were all provided by the county officials.However,more than 100,000 Han soldiers and horses died,and the cost of transporting weapons,armor and other items by land and water was not included.So the Minister of Agriculture reported that even if all the treasury money and tax revenue were used up,it was still not enough to pay for the soldiers.The responsible official suggested:”The emperor said:’I heard that the teachings of the Five Emperors were not repeated and the world was governed equally.Yu and Tang had different laws and were both kings of the same generation.They took different paths,but their merits were exactly the same.The northern border has not been stable until now,and I am deeply concerned about this.In recent days,the general attacked the Xiongnu,beheaded and captured 19,000 people,and the army was stationed at the border,but there was no food to eat.You should discuss it and order the people to pay grain to buy titles and pay ransom to exempt prisoners and reduce punishment.’Based on this,please allow the establishment of reward officials,called Wugongjue.Each level is worth 170,000,a total of more than 300,000 gold.Those who reach the first level of the official can pass the test to be promoted to clerks and be given priority;Qianfu level is equivalent to Wudafu;those who are guilty are demoted to the second level;Wugongjue can be as high as Leqing.In this way,military merits are honored.”In fact,many military merit titles exceeded this level.The big ones were made marquises or ministers,and the small ones were made Lang and clerks.The official system was chaotic and varied,and the official titles became light,and the duties were abandoned.
Since Gongsun Hong used the righteousness of the Spring and Autumn Annals to govern officials and civilians,and thus obtained the position of prime minister of the Han Dynasty,Zhang Tang became the imperial guard for his harsh laws and harsh judgments,so there were cases of”not reporting what he knew”,”not obeying the order of the emperor”,”frustration and slander”,etc.,and he was punished and imprisoned.The next year,the kings of Huainan,Hengshan,and Jiangdu rebelled.The officials investigated the case and arrested all their followers,implicating and killing tens of thousands of people.From then on,officials enforced the law more cruelly and urgently,and the law became more strict and detailed.
At that time,the court was recruiting and respecting upright,virtuous,and literary scholars,and some were promoted to ministers.As the prime minister of the Han Dynasty,Gongsun Hong covered himself with a cloth quilt and had simple meals,hoping to set an example for the people of the world.However,it had little influence on the world,and from then on,he gradually devoted himself to pursuing utilitarianism.
The next year,the general of the cavalry attacked the Xiongnu again and cut off 40,000 enemy heads.In the autumn of that year,the Hunni King Hunye led tens of thousands of people to surrender,so the Han court dispatched 20,000 vehicles to welcome them.After these people arrived in the capital,they were rewarded,and the meritorious soldiers were also rewarded.This year’s cost reached more than one million yuan.
At first,the Yellow River burst in Guan County more than ten years ago.The Liangchu area had suffered disasters several times,and the counties along the river built embankments to block the river.Every time they were repaired,they were washed away again.The cost was incalculable.After that,the Fan system wanted to save the cost of the Dizhu Canal Transportation,so they diverted the Fen River and the Yellow River water to build canals and fields,and tens of thousands of people dug the canals;Zheng dug a straight canal from Chang’an to Huayin because the Wei River canal transportation was tortuous and long,and tens of thousands of people worked on it.Shuofang County also dug a canal,and tens of thousands of people participated.These projects have been completed for two or three years,and have not been completed yet,and the cost has reached hundreds of millions.
In order to fight against the Xiongnu,the emperor raised a large number of horses.There were tens of thousands of horses raised in Chang’an.There were not enough soldiers in Guanzhong to raise horses,so the emperor mobilized people from nearby counties.The surrendered Xiongnu relied on the county officials to provide food and clothing.The county officials were short of money,so the emperor reduced the cost of food,untied the horses on his carriage,and took out money from his private warehouse to feed them.
The next year,the area east of the mountains suffered from floods,and most of the people were in hunger and hardship.So the emperor sent messengers to take out all the materials in the county warehouses to help the poor.It was still not enough,so he recruited rich families to lend to the poor,but still could not save the victims from the predicament,so he moved the poor to Guanxi,or to Xinqinzhong south of Shuofang County,about 700,000 people,whose food and clothing were all provided by the county officials.Over the years,he lent them property and sent messengers to protect them in different places.The emperor’s messengers came one after another,with hats and umbrellas everywhere,and the road was endless.The cost was in the billions,and it was incalculable.So the county officials ran out of money.
However,some wealthy merchants accumulated wealth and enslaved the poor people;they were surrounded by people and had more than a hundred carriages;they hoarded and occupied strange places,and the feudal lords bowed their heads to them and relied on them for supplies.Some smelted and boiled salt,and their wealth accumulated to tens of thousands of gold,but they refused to help the court solve the financial crisis,and the common people fell into heavy difficulties.So the emperor discussed with the ministers and minted new coins to meet the needs,and cracked down on those extravagant and licentious annexers.At that time,there were white deer in the emperor’s garden,and the Shaofu had a lot of silver and tin.It has been more than 40 years since Emperor Xiaowen minted the four-zhu coin.Since the Jianyuan period,the expenses have been insufficient.County officials often smelt copper and mint coins near the mountains where copper is produced,and the people also took the opportunity to secretly mint coins in large quantities.Money is increasing and light,and goods are decreasing and expensive.An official from a relevant agency said:”In ancient times,there were leather coins,which were used by the princes for entertainment.There are three grades of gold,gold is the best,platinum is the middle,and red gold is the worst.Today,the legal weight of a half-liang coin is four zhu,but thieves and others rub the coins to get copper scraps,making the coins thinner and more expensive.It is very inconvenient to use money from afar.”So a square of white deer skin was decorated with embroidery,and leather coins worth 400,000 coins were made.It was stipulated that when the princes and royal family came to pay homage,the jade bi must be cushioned with leather coins,and then the ceremony could be performed.
Silver and tin were mixed to make platinum.It was believed that the most important thing for the sky was the dragon,the most important thing for the earth was the horse,and the most important thing for people was the turtle,so platinum was divided into three grades.The first grade weighed eight liang,was round,and had a dragon pattern,named”Baixuan”,and was worth three thousand coins;the second grade was smaller,square,and had a horse pattern,worth five hundred coins;the third grade was smaller,round,and had a turtle pattern,worth three hundred coins.The county officials were ordered to destroy the half-liang coins and mint three-zhu coins with the same inscription and weight.Counterfeiting all kinds of money was punishable by death,but there were still countless officials and civilians who counterfeited white gold.
So Dongguo Xianyang and Kong Jin were appointed as the Minister of Agriculture,and they were also in charge of salt and iron affairs;Sang Hongyang was appointed as the Minister of the Court for his calculations.Xianyang was a big salt merchant in Qi,and Kong Jin was the first family in the smelting industry in Nanyang.Their industries(livelihood)accumulated to a scale of more than 1,000 gold,so Zheng recommended them to the court at that time.Hongyang was the son of a Luoyang merchant.Because he was good at mental arithmetic,he became the Minister of the Court at the age of thirteen.These three people were very meticulous in their pursuit of wealth and profit.
The laws were becoming more and more harsh,and many officials were dismissed because of this.In addition,there were frequent wars,and the people bought titles to avoid taxes and labor service,and most of them bought the level of Wu Dafu,so the government could recruit fewer and fewer people.Therefore,the court appointed people with the titles of Qianfu and Wudafu as clerks,and those who did not want to be clerks handed over their horses to the government to ask for exemption;the original clerks were dismissed from their posts and ordered to cut trees and weed in Shanglinyuan,or to dig Kunming Lake.
The next year,General Wei Qing and General Huo Qubing led a large group of troops to fight against the Xiongnu,captured and killed 80,000 to 90,000 enemies,and rewarded meritorious soldiers with 500,000 gold.More than 100,000 horses died in the battlefield of the Han army,and the cost of transportation and manufacturing chariots and armor was not included.At that time,the court was short of finances,and many soldiers could not receive their salaries.
People in relevant institutions said that the weight of the three-zhu coin was small and it was easy to cheat,so they asked for permission to cast five-zhu coins in various counties,and thickened the back of the coin around the coin to make it impossible to grind copper chips.
The Minister of Agriculture reported to the Minister of Salt and Iron Kong Jin and Dongguo Xianyang:”The mountains and seas are the great storehouses of the heavens and the earth,and they should all belong to the Minister of Agriculture.Your Majesty does not own them,and orders the Minister of Agriculture to supplement the taxes.Please allow the people to provide their own funds and use the official utensils to boil salt,and the government will provide the salt basins.Some merchants and princes who get something for nothing want to monopolize the benefits of the mountains and seas,seek wealth,and enslave the poor for profit.There are too many discussions to hear them.It is suggested that those who dare to privately cast ironware and boil salt should have their left toes clamped and their utensils confiscated.In counties that do not produce iron,small iron officials should be set up and they should be subordinate to the counties where they are located.”So Kong Jin and Dongguo Xianyang were sent to various places in the carriage of the Chuanshe to urge the implementation of official salt and iron,establish government offices,and appoint the rich families who originally operated salt and iron as officials.The official system became more chaotic,and the election system was no longer implemented.Many of the officials were merchants.
Merchants took advantage of the opportunity of changing the currency system to hoard goods in pursuit of profits.So the ministers suggested,”Counties and states often suffer from disasters,and the poor have no property.We should recruit them to migrate to places with abundant land and richness.Your Majesty has reduced the level of food and saved money,and used the money in the palace to help the people.He has relaxed the interest rate and tax level of loans,but the people still cannot all go to the fields to farm,and the trees of merchants continue to increase.The poor still have no savings and rely on the county officials to provide food and clothing.In the past,the court levied taxes according to the number of carriages and different proportions of taxes according to the money owned by merchants.Please allow them to continue to be levied.Those merchants who belong to the last business,who buy and sell on credit,hoard and profit,and those who make profits by doing business,even if they are not registered in the market,must each determine the level of tax that they should account for according to their goods and property,usually 2,000 money per person.Families who have rents and taxes in various manual industries and smelting industries are generally 4,000 money per person.The three elders who are not officials,the northern border For a knight on the border,one chariot is worth one count;for a merchant,one chariot is worth two counts;for a ship over 50 meters long,one count.Anyone who conceals his property or conceals part of his property will be punished by being sent to the border for one year and his property will be confiscated.If anyone can report the crime,half of the property of the person who reported it will be given.Merchants with city registration,including his family members,are not allowed to own land,in order to benefit the farmers.Anyone who dares to violate this order will have his farm servants confiscated and brought to the government.
The emperor remembered Bu Shi’s previous suggestion and summoned him to serve as a Zhonglang,named him Zuo Shuzhang,rewarded him with ten hectares of good land,and announced it to the world so that everyone would know it clearly.
Bu Shi was from Henan and made a living by farming and raising livestock.At the beginning,after his parents died,they left behind a young brother.When his brother grew up,he divided the family with him.He only took more than a hundred sheep for himself,and left the rest of the land,houses,etc.to his brother.From then on Bu Shi went into the mountains to herd sheep.After more than ten years,his sheep had grown to more than a thousand and he bought land and houses.However,his younger brother’s family property was completely ruined,so Bu Shi always gave him some.At this time,the Han court was sending generals to fight against the Xiongnu several times.Bu Shi wrote to the government and said that he was willing to give half of his property to the government as expenses for border warfare.The emperor sent an envoy to ask him,”Do you want to be an official?”Bu Shi said,”I have been a herder since I was young.I am not familiar with official affairs and do not want to be an official.”The envoy asked,”Do you have any injustice in your family and have something to say to the emperor?”Bu Shi said,”I was born not to fight with others.I lent money to poor people in my town and taught those who were not kind to be docile.My neighbors were willing to listen to me.How could I be wronged?I have nothing to say to the emperor.”The envoy said,”Then why did you donate so much of your property?”Bu Shi said,”The emperor wants to attack the Huns.I think those who are strong should contribute their strength and those who are rich should contribute their money.Only in this way can the Huns be destroyed.”The envoy reported his words to the emperor.The emperor then told Prime Minister Gongsun Hong.Gongsun Hong said,”This is not in line with human nature.People who do not abide by the law cannot be role models for the world and disrupt the law and order.Your Majesty,please don’t pay attention to him anymore.”So the emperor did not reply to Bu Shi for a long time.After several years,he sent him away from the capital.After Bu Shi returned home,he continued to farm and graze.More than a year later,the Han army went on many expeditions,and King Hunxie and others surrendered.The county officials spent a lot of money and the warehouse was empty.The next year,the poor migrated in large numbers,relying on the county officials for supplies,and the county officials did not have the power to bear all the expenses.Bu Shi took 200,000 yuan to the governor of Henan as the expenses of the relocated people.Henan presented the account of the rich people’s support for the poor.When the emperor saw Bu Shi’s name on it,he could still remember it and said,”This is the person who wanted to donate half of his property to help the border a few days ago.”So he gave Bu Shi the power to exempt 400 people from corvée service on the border.Bu Shi gave it all to the county officials.At that time,the rich and powerful were scrambling to hide their property in order to evade taxes,but only Bu Shi was keen to invest money to help the government.The emperor then thought that Bu Shi was indeed a virtuous elder,so he gave him a high position and honor to guide the people.
At first,Bu Shi was unwilling to be a Langguan.The emperor said,”I have sheep in Shanglin Garden,I want you to herd them for me.”Bu Shi had just become a palace official,but he was a shepherd wearing cloth clothes and straw sandals.After more than a year,the sheep were fat and multiplied a lot.The emperor passed by here and saw the sheep and praised him.Bu Shi said,”It’s not just sheep.It’s the same principle to govern the people:let them get up and go to bed on time,constantly get rid of the vicious ones,and don’t let them ruin the flock.”The emperor was very surprised and appointed him as the magistrate of Gaoshi to test his skills.Sure enough,the people of Gaoshi responded very well.He was promoted to the magistrate of Chenggao,and his political achievements in handling the grain transport were rated as the”best”.The emperor thought that Bu Shi was simple and honest,so he appointed him as the tutor of the King of Qi.
Kong Jin was promoted to the magistrate of agriculture in three years because he was sent to various places to cast iron tools,and he was ranked among the nine ministers.Sang Hongyang became the magistrate of agriculture,managing relevant accounting affairs,and gradually set up the equal transportation system to circulate goods.
During this period,officials were allowed to pay grain to become officials,and the amount of grain paid to become officials was as high as 600 dan.
Five years after the manufacture of white gold and five-zhu coins,hundreds of thousands of officials and civilians who were sentenced to death for counterfeiting coins were pardoned,and countless people were executed by local authorities without the emperor’s knowledge.More than one million people paid ransom and were pardoned.However,not even half of the people who committed crimes could afford the ransom,and almost everyone in the world counterfeited coins without scruples.There were too many criminals,and officials could not execute them all,so they sent doctors such as Chu Da and Xu Yan to inspect the counties and states according to the different powers of the various departments of the Shangshu,and expose and report those who annexed and those who used their power to seek personal gain while serving as county governors and prime ministers.At this time,the Imperial Censor Zhang Tang was in a prominent position and in power.Jian Xuan,Du Zhou and others served as the Imperial Censor-in-Chief,and Yi Zong,Yin Qi,Wang Wenshu and others were promoted to the Nine Ministers for their harsh and profound enforcement of the law.In this situation,people like Xia Lan began to appear.As a result,the killing of Yan Yi,the Minister of Agriculture,occurred.
At first,Yan Yi was a pavilion chief in Jinan.He was gradually promoted to the position of Nine Ministers because of his honest and straightforward work.The emperor and Zhang Tang had already made white deer skin coins,and asked Yan Yi what he thought.Yan Yi said:”Now the princes and kings see that the emperor has a blue jade,which is worth only a few thousand coins,but the leather coins used as a cushion are worth 400,000,which is not appropriate.”The emperor was very unhappy to hear this.Zhang Tang and Yan Yi had some conflicts,and someone happened to report Yan Yi for other things,and the matter was handed over to Zhang Tang for trial.Yan Yi was chatting with a guest.The guest mentioned that a certain decree had some drawbacks when it was first issued.Yan Yi did not speak.The guest thought that he had different opinions from him and retorted with a few sarcastic remarks.After Zhang Tang knew about this,he reported to the emperor that Yan Yi,as a nine ministers,saw that the decree was inappropriate,but did not make suggestions to the court,but only slandered and criticized it in his heart,and his crime should be put to death.From then on,there was a crime of”slandering in the heart”,and the officials and ministers mostly flattered and flattered to please people.
The emperor issued the order to calculate the money and respected Bu Shi as a role model for the people of the world,but the people were unwilling to take out money to help the county officials,so the incident of instigating the report of money and money occurred.
There were many counterfeit coins in the counties and states,most of which were not heavy enough,so the officials requested that the capital city be ordered to cast the bell official red side coins,one for five,and it was not allowed to use it when paying taxes to the government and other official occasions.Since then,the value of platinum has decreased,and people no longer value it.The county magistrate issued an order to ban it,but it still had no effect.More than a year later,platinum was finally abolished.
In the third year of Yuanding(114 BC),Zhang Tang died,but the people had no feelings for him.
Two years later,the red side coins became cheap again,and the people tried every means to spend them,which was very unfavorable to the market,and the red side coins were abandoned again.So an order was issued to all counties and states not to mint coins anymore,and the three officials of Shanglinyuan were specifically ordered to mint them.Since there were already a lot of popular coins,an order was issued throughout the country that all coins not minted by the three officials were not allowed to be used,and all the coins previously minted by the counties and states were destroyed,and the copper obtained from the coins was handed over to the three officials.The people minted fewer coins,and the profits from minting coins were not as high as the costs.Only skilled craftsmen and big profiteers could afford to forge coins.
After Bu Shi became the Taifu of the King of Qi,Yang Ke’s report on the concealment of money spread all over the country,and most of the middle-class families and above were reported.Du Zhou tried the case,and few cases were overturned.Therefore,officials such as the Imperial Censor,the Imperial Court Justice,and the Chief Justice were sent to various countries according to different missions to handle cases of hidden money in various counties and states.The money and materials confiscated from the people were calculated in hundreds of millions,and the slaves and maids obtained were tens of millions.The land and land confiscated from large counties were hundreds of hectares,and the small counties also confiscated more than a hundred hectares,and the real estate was also equivalent to these figures.Therefore,most of the merchants above the middle level went bankrupt.From then on,the people were satisfied with beautiful clothes and delicious food.They ate and drank whenever they wanted.No one engaged in business such as buying and selling and storing.The county officials had more financial resources because they had to run salt and iron and report money.
Then,Hangu Pass was moved more than 300 miles east to expand the Guanzhong area,and the left and right auxiliary commanders of the capital were set up.
At first,there were many salt and iron officials in charge of the Great Agriculture,so the Water and Balance Commander was set up to manage salt and iron affairs.When Yang Ke reported the case of hiding money,there were too many properties in Shanglin Garden,so the Water and Balance Commander was ordered to manage Shanglin Garden.After Shanglin was full of money and goods,the scale of Shanglin was expanded.At this time,Nanyue planned to fight a decisive battle with the Han Dynasty by ship,so it built Kunming Lake on a large scale,and built pavilions around the lake.The tower ship was built,more than ten feet high,with flags on it,which was very spectacular.The emperor was inspired by this style and built Bailiang Terrace,which was several dozen feet high.The palaces built also became more and more magnificent from then on.
So the money was distributed to various government offices,and the Water Balance,the Ministry of Finance,the Minister of Agriculture,and the Minister of the Imperial Household also set up agricultural officials,often on the spot in various counties to renovate the confiscated land and cultivate it.The confiscated slaves were distributed to various gardens to feed dogs,horses,and beasts,or distributed to various government offices.The government offices also set up slaves to do various things,and there were many slaves of criminals,so the grain transported from the Yellow River to Beijing increased to about 4 million shi per year,and the government had to buy some grain itself to be sufficient.
Suo Zhong wrote to the emperor,saying,”Among the sons of the noble families and the rich,some engage in cockfighting,dog racing,and horse racing,and some hunt and gamble,disrupting the lives of the people.”So he punished the criminals and ordered them to incriminate each other,implicating thousands of people in the crime,which was called”Zhusongtu”.They should have been sentenced to prison,but those who donated money were allowed to be appointed as Langguan,and the selection of Langguan declined from then on.
At this time,the area east of Mount Xiao suffered from the Yellow River flood,and there was no harvest for several years.The famine led to cannibalism,and this situation occurred within a range of one or two thousand miles.The emperor felt sorry for them and issued an edict saying,”In the Jiangnan area,we will burn wild grass to plant fields and irrigate fields for cultivation.We will allow the hungry people to go to the Jianghuai area to get food and make a living.Those who want to stay there can settle there.”He also sent envoys to escort the migrating hungry people and transport grain from Bashu to help them.
The next year,the emperor began to inspect the counties and states.Crossing the Yellow River to the east,the governor of Hedong did not expect the emperor’s carriage to come here,and he was unprepared,lost etiquette,and committed suicide out of fear of punishment.Going west through Longshan,the governor of Longxi was not well prepared because the emperor’s carriage came and went in a hurry,so the emperor’s officials could not even eat,and the governor of Longxi committed suicide.So the emperor went north through Xiaoguan,followed by tens of thousands of cavalry,hunted in Xinqin,and used this to mobilize border troops,and then returned to the capital.Seeing that there were places in Xinqin where there was no guard within a thousand miles,he killed all the officials below the governor of Beidi,and ordered the people to graze livestock in the border counties.The government loaned mares to return in three years with one tenth of the interest,abolished the order of reporting the money,and enriched the Xinqinzhong area.
After obtaining the tripod,the Houtu Temple and Taiyi Temple were established.The ministers were discussing the matters of Fengshan in Guan,and the counties and states in the world were building bridges and paving roads in advance,repairing the existing palaces,and those counties near the highway were preparing official warehouses,storing items,and setting up the necessary supplies,looking forward to and waiting for the emperor’s visit.
The next year,Nanyue rebelled,and Xiqiang invaded the border and acted violently.So the emperor pardoned the crimes of prisoners in the world because of the bad harvest east of the mountains,and more than 200,000 soldiers and soldiers in the south attacked Nanyue together,tens of thousands of horses west of the Three Rivers were dispatched as mounts to attack Xiqiang,and tens of thousands of people crossed the Yellow River to the west to build Lingju City.In this year,Zhangye and Jiuquan counties were established,and agricultural officials were set up in Shangjun,Shuofang,Xihe,Hexi and other places,so that the 600,000 soldiers and patrol soldiers stationed here could guard and farm at the same time.In the interior of China,roads were repaired to transport food and military supplies.The longest road was 3,000 miles,and the shortest was more than 1,000 miles.All of them relied on the supply of big farmers.When there were not enough weapons in the border areas,weapons from the arsenal and the engineering officers were dispatched to meet the needs there.There were not enough chariots and war horses.County officials had little money and it was difficult to buy horses.So an order was made:from feudal lords to officials with an annual salary of more than 300 stones,different numbers of mares were paid according to their ranks,and distributed to the pavilions of the garrisons throughout the country for grazing,so that each pavilion had a mare,and the performance of feeding and breeding was evaluated every year to determine the punishment.
Qi Wang’s prime minister Bu Shi wrote to the emperor,saying,”I heard that the emperor’s worries are a disgrace to me.Now that Nanyue has rebelled,my father and I are willing to go to the battlefield with the sailors sent from Qi to fight Nanyue to the death.”The emperor issued an edict,saying,”Although Bu Shi is a farmer and a herder,he does not seek profit from this.Whenever he has a surplus,he helps the county officials to alleviate the financial difficulties.Now that the world is unfortunately in danger,Bu Shi bravely asks his father and son to sacrifice themselves for this.Although he did not participate in the battle,his righteous thoughts can be said to have been shown.I have specially granted him the title of Guannei Hou,60 catties of gold,and 10 hectares of farmland.”The announcement was made to the world,but no one responded.There were hundreds of princes,and no one asked to join the army to fight against Qiang and Yue.So in September,when the princes came to the court and tasted the zhu(zhòu)and offered zhu gold,the emperor ordered the Shaofu to check the quality of the zhu gold.More than 100 marquises were deprived of their titles due to insufficient zhu gold.So Bu Shi was appointed as the Imperial Censor.
During his tenure,Bu Shi saw many counties and states reporting the disadvantages of county officials in salt and iron,such as poor quality of ironware,high prices,and some forcing people to buy and sell.Ships were subject to tax,and there were few merchants who used ships to transport goods,and the goods were expensive,so he wrote to Kong Jin to report the tax collection on ships.The emperor was very dissatisfied with Bu Shi.
The Han Dynasty fought for three consecutive years,killed the invading army of the Western Qiang,destroyed the Nanyue Kingdom,and first established 17 counties from Panyu to the south of Shu.They were governed according to their original customs and no taxes were collected.The old counties between Nanyang and Hanzhong each borne the salaries,food,money and other expenses of the officials and soldiers in the newly established counties adjacent to them,as well as all the expenses of the carriages,horses,bedding and other equipment used by the post.The newly established counties and counties often had small-scale rebellions and killed officials.The Han Dynasty dispatched officials and soldiers from the south to suppress them,with more than 10,000 people every year,and the expenses were all paid by the big farmers.The Great Agriculture Department used the equal transportation method to adjust the salt and iron revenues from various places to supplement the shortage of taxes,so it was able to cope with it.However,the counties where the soldiers passed by only ensured that there was no shortage of supplies,and there was no question of abiding by the tax law.
In the second year,that is,the first year of Yuanfeng,Bu Shi was demoted to the position of Taizi Taifu.Sang Hongyang was appointed as Zhisu Duwei,in charge of the affairs of the Great Agriculture Department,and completely replaced Kong Jin in managing the salt and iron of the world.Because officials from various places were doing business on their own and competing with each other,prices rose and fell rapidly,and the taxes paid by the world were not enough to pay for the labor of transportation.Sang Hongyang then requested the establishment of dozens of Great Agriculture Department officials,who were in charge of the Great Agriculture affairs of various counties and states,and each of them often established equal transportation officials and salt and iron officials in major counties,and ordered remote areas to use the goods that merchants trafficked from the area to other places when prices were high as taxes,and the government transferred them to each other.A price stabilization agency was established in the capital to receive the goods sent from the world.The construction officials were summoned to manufacture vehicles and other utensils,and the expenses were provided by the Great Agriculture Department.All the institutions under the Great Agriculture have monopolized the goods of the world.They sell when the goods are expensive and buy when the goods are cheap.In this way,the rich merchants cannot make big profits,and they will return to agriculture,and all commodities will not have the phenomenon of fluctuating prices.Because the prices of goods in the world are suppressed by it,it is called”leveling”.The emperor thought it was reasonable and agreed to his request.So the emperor toured to the north to Shuofang County,to the east to Taishan,and then toured the sea and the northern border counties,and then returned.There were rewards in every place he passed,and more than one million pieces of silk and hundreds of millions of money and gold were spent,all of which were paid by the Great Agriculture.
Hongyang also requested that officials be allowed to pay grain to fill their positions and criminals to pay grain to atone for their sins.It was ordered that the people could pay as much grain as they could to the warehouse of Ganquan Palace,and they would be exempted from lifelong taxes and labor service,and would not be affected by the Gao Min Order.The people in other counties paid to the places in urgent need,and the farmers everywhere paid their own grain.The grain transported to Beijing by Shandong increased by 6 million shi every year.In one year,the granaries of Taicang and Ganquan Palace were full of grain,and the surplus grain and other items in the border areas were converted into 5 million pieces of silk according to the equalization law.The expenses of the country were met without increasing taxes on the people.So Sang Hongyang was granted the title of Zuo Shuzhang and 200 kilograms of gold.
There was a slight drought that year,and the emperor sent officials to pray for rain.Bu Shi said:”County officials should rely on taxes for food and clothing.Now Sang Hongyang has officials sit in the shops to buy and sell goods for profit.Just boil Sang Hongyang and it will rain.”
Taishigong said:The road for mutual trade between farmers and businessmen was connected,and currencies such as tortoise shells,gold coins,knives and cloth were produced.The history of this phenomenon is very long,and it is too far away from the time before Gao Xin to be recorded.Therefore,the Book of Documents first talks about the Tang and Yu periods,and the Classics first talks about the Yin and Zhou periods.Generally,when the world is peaceful,the order of seniority is followed in the order of seniority in the school,with agriculture as the first priority and the end of the Shang Dynasty as the last,and rites and righteousness as the embankment to limit material benefits;if the world is in turmoil,the situation will develop in the opposite direction.After things develop to the peak of prosperity,they will decline,and when they decline to the extreme,they will change.The customs of one period are simple and elegant,and the customs of another period are luxurious,and they change in a cycle.The nine states in Yu Gong are each based on their land.The land was suitable and the people were more or less.Shang Tang and King Wu of Zhou inherited the bad policies of the previous dynasty and carried out reforms to prevent the people from being exhausted and exhausted.Each of them was cautious and committed to their own business.However,compared with the time of Yu,they gradually showed a weak situation.Duke Huan of Qi adopted Guan Zhong’s strategy,unified the currency,sought wealth from the cause of mountains and seas,made the princes come to pay homage,and used the small Qi State to achieve the reputation of hegemony.Wei State appointed Li Ke to make full use of the land,develop agricultural production,and become a strong country.From then on,during the Warring States Period,the world fought against each other,and cunning and force were valued,benevolence and morality were despised,and the way of wealth was first,and etiquette such as concession was second.Therefore,the rich among the people accumulated hundreds of millions of wealth,while the poor could not even satisfy their hunger;the powerful princes sometimes annexed the small countries and made them vassals,and the weak ones even stopped offering sacrifices and perished.It continued to Qin,and finally unified the country.During the Yu and Xia dynasties,there were three types of currency,gold,yellow,white,or red;in addition,money,cloth,knives,or tortoise shells were used.By the Qin Dynasty,the currency of a country was divided into two categories:gold was measured in units of yi,which was the upper currency;the copper coin had the inscription”banliang”,which had the same weight as the inscription,and was the lower currency.Pearls,jade,tortoise shells,silver,tin,etc.were only used as decorations for utensils and treasures,and were not used as currency.However,their prices varied from time to time,and were not fixed.Therefore,we fought against the barbarians and established meritorious services at home.The people of the world worked hard to cultivate but could not provide food and wages,and the women’s spinning and weaving were not enough to wear clothes.In ancient times,all the wealth in the world was used to offer to the emperor,but the emperor still thought it was not enough.There was no other reason,mainly because various affairs at that time influenced each other and worked together.What is there to be surprised about?
Phoenix Lee https://chinese-tradition.com/shiji-eight-books-equalization-book.html