Taxation, taxation, taxation.

Zhang Yu's school office also became busy. Although the pre-war situation is extremely serious, Liu Xie still did not want to give up his tax principles because of this.

Sonners, taxes.

The people who lost their land were already miserable enough. Liu Xie felt that it would be unreasonable not to give them minimum living allowances. He would even collect taxes from them. Then the court would just want to do this by himself.

This is the main responsibility of the school government this year. All counties and counties are used to levying the capitol tax. It will definitely be very unaccustomed to suddenly levy land tax. In order to ensure that the following will not bully ordinary self-cultivated farmers in order to complete this year's heavy taxation indicators, the tax supervision work is very heavy.

Of course, there are also work in the inspection of land in various places. To put it bluntly, this group of remaining gentry members are all vested interests of the imperial court. Faced with the cold and ruthless school affairs and the current tense situation before the war, there is no room for resistance.

Except for Sima Yi who took a different approach and attached all his unqualified land to Lu Bu's name, but also handed over all the harvest this year in the name of Lu Bu, others had no room for loopholes.

As for Lu Bu's disgrace in the court, facing the earnest request of almost the only important minister in the court who had no old grudges with him, he would refuse Sima Yi when he was crazy.

However, this wave of harvests collected through confiscation were not much. Liu Xie thought about it and left 60% of the harvest for the tenants who cultivated these lands, and asked them to directly carry out civilian towns here.

Because according to convention, tenants in the Eastern Han Dynasty had to withhold half of the harvest from their master's family (and also pay a capita tax). If the court confiscated all these outputs, it would force these tenants to be refugees.

It would be better to leave 60% for them, which would have to be more than the owner's family. After calculation, it is actually not much different from the land tax that is earned seriously.

As for the serious land tax, to put it bluntly, the tax itself may be quite difficult, but it is not complicated at all. Just go straight to the ground and work hard. The crops will grow there and will not run away. It is nothing more than the mixed relationship between grassroots tax collectors and local big households. The manor economy also makes the bigger tyrants able to arm the army to fight against the imperial taxes.

But in fact, through years of war and the repeated rounds of reforms by the imperial court over the past year, the resistance ability of the powerful households in the Central Plains has dropped to a historical low. If objectively compared, it is not much stronger than the first-born tycoon during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han.

In addition, the grassroots officials in various places have been replaced by blood, and the court is favored by the people. There are only a few powerful people who dare to violently resist the French, and they are quickly suppressed.

Since these officials from the imperial guards had just taken office and had no time to get involved with the local government, overall, the tax revenue this time went by surprisingly smoothly and there were no twists and turns.

By the way, the Beigong fee of the imperial court this year was not included in this year's tax indicators, and the emperor of Liu Xie was still supported by Mi Zhu.

Mi Zhu's business is good this year, and he sent Liu Xie a lot of money, grain, cloth, and Liu Xie ordered Sima Yi to bring these money, grain, cloth to his father, Sima Fang, to prepare for moving the capital.

Anyway, there is also an imperial palace in Luoyang. Is it the Yang'an Palace built by Liu Biao and Zhang Yang?

Liu Xie also stipulated that from then on, the emperor's personal expenses, that is, Beigong things are self-sufficient and do not occupy taxes, and the court did not have to reserve Beigong budget every year when making tax budgets.

In addition, there is another thing that is also going on with the autumn harvest, that is, minting.

Since Dong Zhuo, the imperial court's monetary system has completely collapsed, and food has become a general equivalent, which is really inconvenient.

In order to prevent counterfeiting and preserve value, Liu Xie specially made a little zinc and melted it in. The domestic zinc ore is all lead-zinc. Liu Xie made some special lead and burned it and got zinc.

Liu Xie used the money Mi Zhu gave him to build a small local blast furnace, melting zinc and copper together. In this way, the coins he made were really shining, and in this era it looked like treasures.

By the way, a water gravity hammer was designed based on the large waterwheel, and a very complicated pattern was designed on the coins. By the way, a small line of characters was added behind the coins: The people are the most important, the country is the least important; the country is the most important, and the king is the most important.

I hope that such ideas can be widely spread through coins, laying a solid mass foundation for myself to further promote constitutional monarchy after defeating Yuan Shao.

Such copper coins should naturally enjoy a certain premium. In fact, the value of copper coins has never lies in how much copper is used in this thing, but in the national credibility.

As long as the imperial court officials were willing to use copper coins instead of taxes, it was actually equivalent to giving copper coins a basic price. This was also the reason why Liu Xie was already unhappy and had finished preparing, but he insisted on publishing copper coins until the autumn harvest.

Anyway, the imperial court officially admitted that a large amount of Jian'an money could be purchased for three dou of grain, and the people were allowed to use large amount of Jian'an money to deduct it when collecting taxes.

But the first batch was printed relatively few, and after being distributed, the actual value of such beautiful and exquisite copper coins was getting higher and higher day by day. In the end, because the people in the world were struggling to have no money to use it for a long time, even Hebei, Jingzhou, and even Yizhou areas where the war were fighting were rushing to use it.

In the end, this amount of money was actually a collection. Not to mention three dou of grain, three hu of grain on the market may not be exchanged for a large amount of money for Jian'an, and no one is willing to pay taxes with money.

This deviated greatly from the original intention of the imperial court to print money. So after discussion by the Mint Bureau (a direct affiliate of the Tax Cabinet), a large batch was printed. After Mi Zhu's hands, he bought grain crazily, and thus barely stabilized the market price to five dou per ounce.

Interestingly, when Mi Zhu was scattering money to buy grain, he actually contacted the Zhen family in Hebei, and exchanged 300,000 hu of grain for 500,000 yuan, and successively transported it to Xudu by smuggling.

If Yuan Shao didn't know about such a large-scale smuggling trade, it was just a scammer, but he couldn't control it. This shows that he, the king of the North, had just managed the lower level.

It also greatly inspired the morale of the court.

The Zhen family even said that they were willing to continue buying. To be honest, the imperial court would be willing to print it to him at that time. This kind of thing that would eat from the enemy is equivalent to more than two hu of grain.

But Liu Xie refused.

It cannot be said that rejection is a rule for the Mint: the policy of paying three dou of grain and grain for taxes will never change. If a large amount of grain and grain are paid in all parts of the country in one year, the Mint will be dismissed from top to bottom, and the main leader will die, and a three-money will be randomly selected to behead his head.

There is no need to tell them any financial knowledge. Liu Xie himself did not understand it, but the ancients were not stupid. At least they understood the most basic principle of low money and high food. There are loopholes in any system, so it doesn’t take that matter. As a result, if you are afraid of death, it’s over. Anyway, Liu Xie decided this as a way for generations to come, and the descendants of future generations cannot change it.

Of course, this situation will happen if you encounter a large-scale national natural disaster, but what a big disaster is that? The Han Dynasty originally had the political rules of the three officials taking the blame for the natural disaster. If you really encounter such a major disaster that has not been encountered in a century, it would be fine if you kill three officials to worship the sky.

But in short, after a month of tax work and the coin bound to taxes, the grain harvest has exceeded a large part of the original budget.

So far, Liu Xie and the court did not expect that, even a little helpless, were hiding in the deep mountains, or those who had fled to Hebei to avoid war and fleeing to the south county of Hebei, heard that the court informed the area that there would be no more head taxes, and in a month they actually began to flee back on a large scale.

Yuan Shao and Liu Biao fought desperately to stop it, but they could not stop it at all.

With mountains, rivers and terrain, the passes are dangerous to block the army, but they cannot stop the people from voting spontaneously with their feet.

It’s not that I really can’t survive, who is willing to leave my hometown.

Now that my hometown is back to stability and life is getting better, the fool will not go back.

In one month, the population of Yanzhou soared by 200,000, the population of Yuzhou soared by 100,000, and the population of Nanyang soared by 50,000. All of them were carried out to farmland, making the land without a lot of homeless land a little too small.

War requires civil servants and food. Wars in the Central Plains are relatively developed, so it is not as difficult as the western region, but the manpower that needs to be mobilized is certainly indispensable.

This has never been an easy task. However, when it comes to mobilization, the people in various places who have finished the autumn harvest actively participated, and even took the initiative to go to the yamen at all levels to ask when the war will be fought.

Just after the autumn harvest, hundreds of pavilions reported to their superiors, saying that the county soldiers under their command had been prepared, whether it was a war or transporting grain.

Han Song even reported that the Nanyang generation is now more than just the troops in the military camp who are happy when they hear the battle. They are full of fighting spirit. Even the soldiers in the civil camp are now very willing to fight, and they all expressed their willingness to bring their own dry food to the battlefield to help the battle.

The court was stunned when facing such enthusiastic people's hearts.

Anyway, in Xun Yu's statement, if you don't consider the issue of military ration consumption, you will have as many soldiers as you have. Not to mention 150,000 or 500,000, you will be able to collect it. It is probably all the people who have hoes to go to the battlefield with their hoes.

Of course, the court could not do this. If the untrained civilians really want to take a hoe to the battlefield, they will die soon. In the end, the court's combat plan has not changed. However, the April period can now be expanded to May.

In addition, in this month, Liu Ye also brought him good news: "Report to Your Majesty, the craftsman has made the first batch of rattan armor, please move on and look at it."

After Liu Ye was detained by Liu Xie, Liu Xie has been using him as a senior engineer. He reorganized his generals in the suburbs of Xudu and recruited a large number of excellent craftsmen to be responsible for research and invention.

Originally, the supervisor was responsible for the production of armor. The armor in the late Han Dynasty was divided into four types, namely the tube sleeve armor of ordinary soldiers, the elites and the basin-collar iron armor worn by the generals, the black light armor and the bright light armor worn by the senior generals, and the Confucian armor that was very light and beautiful, but in fact the defense was not much different from the tube sleeve armor. This type of armor is generally worn by commanders and counselors, and has no practical value.

Even the lowest-level cylindrical armour is basically not afraid of ordinary bows and arrows, but the armpits are weak and there is no protection above the shoulders. There is no situation in some movies and TV dramas where you die if you stab it, it looks like a piece of paper.

Having said that, there were paper armor in ancient times, and paper armor was not so crispy!

Going far away, withdrawing.

The combat power of soldiers wearing armor and not wearing armor can be said to be very different. However, even the relatively cheapest tube sleeve armor cannot be really equipped with a military army of more than 100,000 yuan.

Basin-collared iron armor is even more expensive, basically only the imperial guards, the two full-time soldiers of the Guards and Cao Cao's tiger and leopard cavalry are equipped. How expensive are they? Let's put it this way, Zhao Yun and Zhao Zilong in history did not have a set of basin-collared iron armor at least when they were on Changbanpo.

Because only the sleeve armor can put the little A Dou in the armor like a bellyband and hold it close to his body. If he was wearing the iron armor of the basin collar at that time, he would definitely not be able to hold the child.

So what is more annoying is that the imperial guards and guards will also be deported if they perform well, which is very annoying. You say that the new officials will not let them take their armor away. It is not suitable, let them take them away. The armor is consumed too quickly.

The court's finances are tense!

So after Liu Ye took office, Liu Xie gave Liu Ye a task, which was to develop a new type of armor that could be equipped with the entire army as much as possible.

So he naturally thought of Qijia and provided Liu Ye with an idea.

Liu Ye really lived up to expectations and really studied it.

Liu Xie tried various methods such as cutting, hammering, and shooting arrows to test the armor, and almost understood the principle of this thing.

The production process of this vine armor is very simple. It is to use green vines to weave it into armor, then soak it in tung oil for two days, take it out and dry it, then soak it in tung oil after drying, and then dry it again after soaking. This is repeated more than ten times to make the armor.

After repeated soaking of tung oil and exposed to the sun, the vine armor is very tough and not close to the body when worn. This thing is like wearing a spring on the body. It has good defense against chopping and hammering, and is enough to withstand ordinary bows and arrows. It is almost the same as the sleeve armor, and it does not even have the disadvantage of being unprotected on the upper body.

However, the disadvantage is also very obvious, that is, the performance is slightly weak when facing a stab, especially when facing a cavalry thrust, which is similar to not being penetrated.

As for fear of fire, this is a mental illness. I am afraid of fire too! It really makes people burn the whole camp, so what difference can the armor be worn?

"How many pairs have been made? How much does it cost?"

"The trial production is only 600 pairs, and the cost is mainly tung oil. Compared with the tung sleeve armor, it can be considered very cheap. Moreover, weaving armor is much easier than making fish scale armor. Ordinary bamboo craftsmen can do it. If you teach a little, ordinary women can also weave it. With the current prestige of the court, just mobilize the people to help us make armor, but..."

"But what?"

"But we can't find so many green vines."

This vine armor is definitely not fictional in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but the reason why it has never become mainstream armor for thousands of years is the same.

The method of making this thing is indeed very simple. Qingteng is indeed very cheap and tung oil is not expensive. However, Qingteng is mostly produced in the mountains. Where is the most mountains in China? It must be Yizhou, Jingnan, and Jiangdong.

But the problem is that these places produce green vines, but they do not produce sunlight. To make the vine armor, you must expose it to the sun in continuous sunny days to allow tung oil to seep in. But how can there be sunny days in these places!

So in order to wait for sunny days, this vine armor may not be well dried in mountainous areas in the south for two or three years.

But this thing is not durable yet, and it may become useless after not long after wearing it.

There are many suns in the north, but there are few green vines, which is at least not convenient for large-scale collection.

Liu Xie thought for a while and said, "Do you have to? What if... we dismantle the basket? Is it OK?"

"The effect will be a little worse, but at least it is okay to prevent long-range shooting from ordinary arrows."

So, Liu Xie ordered the collection of baskets in areas controlled by the imperial court.

Unexpectedly, in just a few days, more and more people spontaneously brought dry food to the city of Xudu, blocking all the generals located in the suburbs.

Liu Xie was shocked when he heard about this and thought it was because he had received public grievances.

This kind of thing is difficult to talk about. Didn’t Song Huizong get chaos in the world just because of collecting stones?
To be continued...