Chapter 155: Soaring Dragon Platform
Huangyu City, in the main hall where the Prefect originally hosted guests. All the flashy but impractical items like the bronze tripod and incense burner that were previously placed here have been removed.
All the household registration data of the entire Prefecture has been brought out and placed here.
Wu Juwang and others are coming and going busily, some carrying books, others recording.
Xuan Chong is very self-aware, knowing that these boys he recruited cannot all be like “Huo Guang” and “Heshen,” able to be watertight in front of a harsh monarch, with no mistakes in matters big or small.
Xuan Chong couldn’t help but recall a phrase his teacher often said in his previous life: “Ability is one aspect, attitude is another.”
It can even be said that under a team division of labor system, attitude outweighs ability.
Xuan Chong is now fully certain that even the most outstanding prodigy cannot compare to a collaborative division of labor team. Moreover, this batch of adopted sons are definitely not fools, because if they weren’t clever, they would have been dealt with long ago—pickpockets won’t keep useless people.
For example, Wu Juwang is very shrewd and capable, keeping count of all the bamboo slips that pass through his hands. During sorting, if any volume is missing, he can quickly point it out and knows exactly where it is placed.
Now in the main hall, there are several wooden planks pieced together into a large map. Every governance block on the map is marked with four different colored blocks, and beside the map, there are small tables specifically for recording and making area data tables. And now this map is covered with grains of five cereals.
Wu Juwang’s team placed “grains of rice” representing population and “beans” representing fields on various areas of the map. This is similar to bar charts and pie charts in PPT, intuitively showing the resources that can be mobilized on a piece of land.
Wu Fei instructs Wu Juwang and others: “Governing a Prefecture is like this, judging the abundance or scarcity of elements in each area; when areas interact regarding their own abundance or scarcity, the Prefecture intervenes in the necessary production and communication of local common people, actively and proactively allocating the abundance or scarcity in various places. While promoting resource balance in various places, collect as many resources as possible.
When Wu Fei makes strategy adjustments, he redistributes the grains of rice, soybeans, and mung beans in each block on the map evenly.
After the allocation ends, Wu Fei has a handful of grains of rice and beans in his hand. These “rice beans” are the resources that the Prefecture can mobilize.
The adopted sons quickly understood the essence of governance: “During the allocation process, the hand doesn’t stay empty, gathering things from various places into one’s own hands.”
For this reason, the adopted son named Wu Zaixing in the third row second seat seemed to have some realization and quietly muttered some words.
Wu Fei: “Don’t mumble here, say it out loud.” When Wu Zaixing wanted to deny it, Wu Juwang, as the class representative, saw Wu Fei’s expression and scolded Wu Zaixing to speak the truth.
Wu Zaixing cautiously but loudly braced himself and said: “How is this government office the same as us, all sleight of hand!” The adopted sons nearby held back laughter, but seeing Wu Fei’s expression, they didn’t dare speak like that.
Wu Fei walked up to him and said: “I’m very pleased that you can realize this point. The government office is just like this, and the great thieves in the government office are thousands of times more formidable than you little thieves. You at most take goods from one person, while the government office can bankrupt thousands of households. However, you can’t hide your realization, which gives your Master a headache. (He tapped his forehead with a bamboo slip.) As little thieves, you all understand the rule that you can’t be caught in the act. Now as people in the government office, every word and action is ‘in the midst of committing the crime,’ so how can you shout that you are thieves? Penalty: copy today’s summary, not a single character wrong.”
Everyone in the entire room continued working, the students using measuring instruments to place rice beans on the wooden planks.
In the main hall, besides the clinking of rice beans colliding on the wooden planks and the sound of engraving on bamboo slips, everything else was noise.
Half a shichen later, Wu Juwang held the Prefecture office’s seal and stamped the silk book edict, suddenly lifting his head.
He felt it somewhat fantastical. When he first met Wu Fei, as someone in the marketplace, he had never thought he could enter the workplace of the Prefecture masters. Even as a thief, he didn’t dare approach people coming out of this prefectural office. He once thought clouds and mist floated inside the Prefecture, with gods of mountains and rivers lined up in the hall.
And now Wu Fei brought him here. If not for the seal right on the table, with team members holding silk books to take turns stamping. He might even think he was still picking grains of rice outside the shop.
If he had known in the past that he could work for the Prefecture masters, he would have been extremely excited, but now, he found he felt nothing.
…Because the Wu Fei who led him into this line was busy with utterly emotionless calculations…
Xuan Chong (Wu Fei), while teaching these adopted sons how to govern the Prefecture, was also working hard to maintain his calm, understanding the string of cold realities on this “position of rule.”
This reality is: In the feudal era governance, if assigning a numerical value, it depends on the degree of extortion and robbery, and whether it can be used in the correct direction.
Xuan Chong: The support needed for the Da Yao Dynasty to operate is fundamentally not the “benevolence, filial piety, righteousness” that current Confucian scholars talk about. All “benevolence, filial piety, righteousness” are to cover up the essence of extortion and robbery. The people’s fat and marrow paid by farming households ultimately transfers to the hands of great exploiters, and the great exploiters waving benevolence, filial piety, righteousness turn it into “the virtuous shall possess it.”
The essence of dynasties over thousands of years being hard to change is that the public resources concentrated from levying taxes are not used on public services that truly need resources, but mysteriously disappear.
The major affairs that must be maintained to sustain a dynasty are public matters benefiting the group, such as “water conservancy, roads, storage, military,” etc. Yet most dynasties levy taxes from the bottom-level common people far exceeding the consumption of these public matters.
The people’s fat and marrow being mysteriously used up requires an explanation: exactly where did it go?
“Benevolence and filial piety” create the appearance of a great undertaking meeting everyone’s needs. Of course, after Tang, there was additional worshiping Buddha and building temples.
But if really calculated carefully, can the “benevolence, filial piety, righteousness” appearing in a Prefecture, those memorial arches, really match the accounts of taxes squeezed from the common people?
And the Da Yao’s “benevolence and filial piety,” the “education and indoctrination” run by many powerful clans in prefectures and counties, seem to really require massive people’s fat and marrow to support.
Wu Fei: Benevolence and filial piety are merely personal moral records. The performance appraisal for prefecture and county governance should not be that; the only performance for prefecture and county governance is collecting taxes and using taxes.
When Wu Fei and his adopted sons, or rather students, pick up representative items like beans, millet, mung beans one by one on the map.
In the 3rd month of the first year of Tian You Calendar, policies below began to be implemented. In the countryside, with gongs and drums beating, sheets of clerk documents began to be distributed to each village.
Each household, following the beating of gongs and drums, began reading the clerk documents written on the posted rough paper.
Among them, there was this announcement: If a woman is not married by fifteen, or a man not married by seventeen, official punishment will be imposed. The woman will be forcibly married to a lonely elder, possibly over ten years older, and the man will be directly conscripted for corvee labor, mobilized to the frontline. Suddenly, Bo Prefecture began large-scale marriages, with some men buying foreign women from the slave market as wives to avoid corvee labor.
Wu Hengyu was fighting in Yan Land, sweeping through many villages along the way, including many foreign races brought by Hao State from other planets.
Regarding these foreign races, the men were of course directly made slaves. Except for the rare artisan households and others mastering skills who could be specially pardoned and transported to the southern border; the rest might labor in mines until death.
As for the women? Wu Fei did not let the troops under Wu Hengyu directly ruin them; the slave camp was to prevent frontline troops from “wasting grain,” so these foreign women were bought back by Wu Fei.
But with these foreign women, Wu Fei nearly suffered “investment failure.”
For frontline soldiers, “three years as a soldier, sow rivals Diaochan” means no pickiness. And those wastrels in the countryside who haven’t started families don’t care. They all rely on having many brothers in the clan and have no interest in starting a family.
This drove Wu Fei mad. After investigation, he learned that the current local social basic unit is the “household,” not the family in the traditional sense of later generations. A “household” gives birth to several children, but only one will start a family and have children; the rest are single men, and when single men grow old, they are naturally supported by nephews.
And household registration, to seize local land production materials, merges into “clans.” There will be more single men; the main childbearing force in clans are the great clans. As for “desires,” these men directly solve it through brothels, pooling money for once a month or every few months.
This clan social structure is similar to those tribes in Africa. Only African tribes lack agricultural skill inheritance.
So Wu Fei, collecting “grains of rice” (representing population) on the map, thought: “This won’t do. As the government doing business, how can I still lose money?”
After the corvee order was posted for a month, the foreign women in Xuan Chong’s hands were finally all sold out.
Half a year later, the married wastrels had no time for cockfighting or walking dogs on the streets; they needed to work for a living, which to a certain extent improved the efficiency of repairing water channels and leveling roads in various villages.
This inevitably brings up another matter: the labor needed for public facilities construction.
Wu Fei: In this era, without mandatory corvee, many projects can’t be done. Giving wages doesn’t work either.
Previously, Wu Fei gave wages to those coming for corvee labor, and the laborers knelt and shouted the General’s benevolence and righteousness, making Wu Fei confident for a while, thinking that as long as he introduced the advanced “monthly wage settlement” system, these ancients wouldn’t obediently come to be cattle and horses? Ancients haven’t seen good days, definitely easier to manage than modern people.
But later Wu Fei broke down; cattle and horses are still better as modern people, obediently delivering takeout for money. These ancients aren’t that foolish; they won’t sell their strength for that bit of wage.
These wastrels are like the African laborers in previous life legends; after getting a month’s wage, they don’t come back, giving Wu Fei a shock of “stubborn people.”
These stubborn people in the countryside have such a romanticist sentiment as good men who can “go anywhere under heaven at will.”
After Wu Fei went undercover incognito, he found these stubborn people calculated like this: “The government won’t catch me for such a small amount of money, and even if they send people to find me, the clan won’t hand me over for such a small amount.”
As for moral recommendation of filial and honest—stubborn people: I don’t aspire to be an official anyway, why need that thing? I can shear the government’s wool, why not?
Wu Fei gained a whole new understanding of the countryside situation: In a game, those concerned with whether the game runs are the high players investing massive energy or resources; as for those rural hicks, they are like zero-spenders, none interested in maintaining the system.
But understanding is understanding; we absolutely cannot tolerate cattle and horses rebelling like this!
Wu Xiao Que: “I’ve always been the one scraping the ground; how dare stubborn people shear my wool?! I’m angry.”
…Can’t control the stubborn people, can’t I control the clans?…
Thus, in the 3rd month of the first year of Tian You Calendar, Wu Fei changed the mechanism within the Maintenance Association for determining recommendation of filial and honest through “adult male elections.” Men must note unmarried or married status and bring their wives for confirmation.
Wu Fei: “Can’t hire you? You don’t care about civil service exams, no weaknesses while shearing wool, relying on local great clans protecting you in such small matters due to reputation in the countryside, right.”
After Wu Fei signed the responsibility document, Wu Juwang raised a question: “Bo Prefecture land is limited. After such policies, local household registrations will increase, but land remains in the hands of great clans. Won’t these landless households become sources of unrest after several generations?”
Wu Juwang entering the “Prefecture Office” also gained attention from some great households.
Yan Land noble families told some opinions to Wu Juwang, and Wu Juwang gradually formed his own political views.
Wu Juwang began asking Wu Fei: “We need more soldiers, which conflicts with the common people’s need for rest and recuperation. How to allocate within this?”
Wu Fei looked at this proud disciple with a smile: “It seems you’ve entered the door, but I tell you, we military strategists, when doing great undertakings, cannot hand the power of balanced allocation to the lower Prefectures and powerful clans.”
You only see that our collecting resources conflicts with those called common people but actually clan members in the human world, but you haven’t seen the conflict between the clans claiming to be common people and their internal farming and traveling merchant disciples seeking better days.
If now within clans it’s comfortable to the degree those “wise scholars” call “prosperity from heaven.”
Those farming, raising horses, reeling silk, chopping wood to burn charcoal people still can’t afford rice, dare not ride horses, can’t wear silk clothes, reluctant to use charcoal! It’s just that these clans perfectly conceal the “conflict” between bottom-level life and maintaining great clan luxury.
For example, various great households and clans locally have a set of population control mechanisms. The main clan’s population is absolutely prosperous, but in other branches, the clan won’t encourage marriage, because if branches have more births, clan fields won’t be allocated to branches.
Clans, to control population, even practice infanticide, especially drowning female infants. This is the lesser branches knowing their place, unworthy of raising daughters; only boys who can be cattle and horses survive in the family. Great branches rarely drown female infants.
Don’t think these regulated lesser branches are living well now; that’s because there’s war now, the military government needs these lesser branches, lesser branches have say, clan elders in the clan don’t dare neglect them.
Once warfare ends, lesser branches are useless to the General’s Mansion, clan village elders will immediately burst their beautiful days, reducing lesser branch resources to the level where they die at forty. Excess resources? Won’t go to the General’s Mansion.
Wu Fei drew his sword, tapped it lightly, listening to the clear ringing sound: We now levy material resources, breaking clan balance. But we are responsible for the balance of even smaller branches (families), letting them (families) earn money, have children, and live out their days! Only then will popular strength turn to our hands.
Wu Juwang understood and nodded. The General’s Mansion uses even more bottom-level families’ balance to replace clan balance, thereby extracting local clan power for war. If one day the General’s Mansion cannot supply “family balance,” it will revert to “clan balance.”
…”Marriage” is just one policy; other resource-extracting policies are also in allocation…
Xuan Chong summarized in his history notebook: Under the Eastern dynasties’ governance system, a region’s military strength is often not positively correlated with whether the prefecture and county is prosperous, but depends on resource concentration degree.
Northern fishing-hunting-farming systems, those times entering the Central Plains. All took advantage of the Central Plains’ internal bottom-level self-stabilization unable to mobilize resources to break in, after destroying the Central Plains local “self-stabilization,” assembling more manpower and materials, continuing south to collapse Jiangnan which was similarly “bottom self-stabilization, upper unable to mobilize resources.”
Correct, the subsequent two thousand years of invasions into China were basically fishing-hunting-farming; true nomads were eliminated by Later Han. Those making waves were feudalized ethnic groups, so they went west wave after wave.
Jiangnan military weakness not due to lack of produce or people issue; Qi’s army was very capable. Fundamentally, the South too easily forms small farmerism; local small households “self-stabilize,” local small systems resist mobilization by large systems.
Jiangnan: Hold a few mu of land, one plough ox, marry one woman, theoretically self-sufficient in farming and weaving. Of course safety issues, so to seize water, they group into clans. Once clans form, no need for further unity; facing higher ruling class levies, they naturally resist, because in these Jiangnan people’s eyes, their lives are already perfectly self-sufficient, your Imperial Court’s intervention destroys the perfection.
And the North, due to too much climate fluctuation. If a place lacks manpower water channels mobilization, sometimes drought, sometimes flood.
This requires government to mobilize corvee for water channels, roads for grain transfer; because of shortages, villages gather together.
Yet even so, when Northern great clans grow to a certain scale, able to withstand these fluctuations, ensuring bloodline continuation, they also implement Jiangnan-style “self-stabilization” adjustment mechanisms, thereby resisting upper (Imperial Court) mobilization.
Eyes to the harsher North, there fishing-hunting turned farming ethnic groups, when maintaining farming civilization, the bottom society’s production “self-stabilization threshold” is higher, so ultimately stabilize into larger organizations!
However, resources rich enough for each place to maintain “self-stabilization” doesn’t mean the region’s military resources are proportionally rich.
Under Southern water and soil climate, though unit area paddy produces more food than Northern dry land, easily maintaining balance in small land units and small population groups. But in ironware, medicinal materials, horses, materials domains, Jiangnan stable small population organizations each hold very little.
That is, ten mu fields enough for a family to live, only ensuring one male marries a wife, can stably continue several generations. But water wheels, digging water channels, shipbuilding, etc., this family impossible to accumulate “non-grain” resources.
Northern water and soil can’t support so many people, but after forming large groups of population and grain “self-stabilization,” in ironware and war horse resource accumulation, absolute advantage over Southern small organizations; these military resources help them plunder externally.
At this time, larger stronger great social structures, eyeing Southern “self-stabilization” small social structures, definitely have ideas. Especially when natural disasters destabilize Northern great groups, more ideas.
Wu Fei now facing the North, not just staring at grain, but also “war horses,” “ironware,” “coal,” “cotton cloth” and other war materials. Use all means to strike Hao State upper echelons’ concentration degree on these resources. Simultaneously break local clans’ “self-stabilization” degree below, strengthen own resource collection degree.
On the map, Wu Fei looking at each governance module in his control range, like a sage treating common people as straw dogs, calculated a formula.
Wu Fei: “You (men now under clan control) must lack, must lack women, land, salt, cloth, housing; life pursuits with regrets, I can all satisfy here.”—If you lack nothing, all easily satisfied by clans in “thrifty” ways. Then I’ll tidy up the clans.
In the evening, Wu Fei and many students entered the canteen; a pot of home-style meal was divided into each person’s plate.
Wu Fei patted his students, thinking to himself: “I’ve given you vision, and you realize you lack even more.”
…Way of man, plunder the insufficient to supply the excess…
Inside Hao State, Pu E was divining, her five elements compass pointing to “desert.”
This divination result meant Hao State’s “peace and harmony” would sharply decline due to eastern enemies invading.
Pu E frowned, involuntarily looking at the situation on the map.
