As soon as Zhao Xuan walked into the palace of the King of Zhao, his heart sank, the original Wu supplies that had been removed and replaced in the palace had been rearranged, and those exquisite utensils were glittering on the wooden shelves. The king of Zhao is still half lying on the soft collapse, holding the copper heater made by Wu in his arms.
"Father!" Zhao Xuan slowly walked up to the soft cushion and bowed to his father, asking him to press the button.
"Xuan'er, sit on the soft cushion." King Zhao squinted his cloudy eyes to measure his son, and realized that his son was slightly thin, and he couldn't help but sigh in his heart.
"What is it that Father King has recruited my son to command?" Zhao Xuan lifted up the corner of his deep black robe and sat on the side of King Zhao.
"Xuan'er, you've lost weight recently." King Zhao patted his son on the shoulder. "In fact, the happiest part of being a monarch, is that his words are supreme and no one defies them, but this will leave no one to admonish the king for his incorrect orders, and in the long run, this country will be in danger."
"Father..." Zhao Xuan knew that there were bound to be many nobles who went to the King of Zhao to complain, but he didn't expect the King of Zhao to sound so serious.
King Zhao waved his hand to interrupt Zhao Xuan's rebuttal, he leaned back with his upper body and slightly closed his eyes for a moment of silence before opening his eyes to speak.
"When I was not yet the Crown Prince, your grandfather had already realized that the feudal system was not good, and that if Zhao wanted to be strong, it had to abolish the feudal system and weaken the power of the feudal lords. For this reason, your grandfather has been in the secret slowly reduce the power of the big feudal lords, foster small nobles into the royal court to take power, to the lone successor to the throne, and spent twenty years, before they can be recovered one after another fiefs, five years later, when the time is ripe, lone formally issued an imperial edict to abolish the fief division system, from then on, the state of zhao, the country is slowly strong, the implementation of this policy, two generations of kings, the total amount of time spent more than 50 years to accomplish. "
As King Zhao spoke, pride shone in his old flowery eyes.
"Father!" There was shame on Zhao Xuan's face.
"Xuan'er, ruling a country is like cooking a small fish, good cooks cook neither too salty nor too bland because they are good at mixing up the ingredients, ruling a country is just like cooking, you can't be overly hasty nor slack, only when it's just right can you get things done."
The King of Zhao has several sons of the first concubine, Zhao Xuan is his favorite, from childhood as the successor training, Zhao Xuan twelve years old after being appointed as the crown prince, the King of Zhao has always been strong to maintain his heir status, so that the other sons grow up, no one dares to have any idea about the succession position. Five years ago, the King of Zhao felt that his energy could not work, and directly handed over the power of the country to the Crown Prince, and recuperated himself in the palace to enjoy life.
"Father! Xuan understands, Xuan does things too eagerly." His father's simple teaching of himself made Zhao Xuan grateful.
"I know you're right, just as your king's grandfather viewed the issue of division, I believe that Xuan'er will solve this problem with patience." King Zhao felt relieved to see that Zhao Xuan immediately understood his meaning.
"My son will definitely make Zhao the head of the vassals." Zhao Xuan swore in front of his own father. "The reason why my child is so anxious is because that Wu Kingdom is rising too fast, and the thought of a strong kingdom at my side in the future makes my child anxious."
"Haha, Xuan'er doesn't need to worry, I think that the Wu Kingdom is not a ruler and not a subject, sooner or later there will be a big hidden danger, Zhao just needs to sit back and wait for the right time." The king of Zhao did not look up to Wu like his son did, in his mind, the way Wu was administrating today was equal to hollowing out the king's rights, the subjects had more power than the king, sooner or later there would be serious consequences.
"It's still father who has the foresight." Zhao Xuan looked at his father with a face of adoration, the King of Zhao was also a father and a teacher to him, and of course also a ruler, Zhao Xuan's techniques of ruling the country were all taught by the King of Zhao.
After the Spring Festival, the heavy troops stationed by Zhao at the border were withdrawn, and at the beginning of January, Wu Mian visited Wu as an envoy of Zhao, the purpose of the mission was in the spirit of friendship between the two countries. No sooner had Wu Mou's envoy team arrived at the mouth of the throat than Wei Qing and Huo Sizhong flew the news by pigeon to the royal capital.
When Zheng Yuming received the news, he immediately summoned Wu Mu and told him to prepare for negotiations with Wu Mou and to make sure that he could gain some benefits for Wu from Wu Mou's mission.
The envoys headed by Wu Mou stayed in the capital of the king of Wu for five days before leaving, Wu Mou returned to Zhao at the end of the month, at the beginning of February, the marketplace at the border of the mouth of the pharynx was restored, and the volume of trade in the restored marketplace increased more than before, and merchants from Wu or other countries, who trafficked goods into Zhao, were no longer subject to the restriction of varieties, and restrictions on luxury goods which were not allowed to enter the original country were lifted, except that the customs tax collected by the customs gate of Zhao was increased by 10% compared to the previous one, which was not the case. In addition to the 10% increase in customs tax, luxury goods also had to pay another 10% tax.
Zhao Xuan reopened the border barriers at the same time, the domestic field tax reform, planting grain fields reduced the tax, from the original twenty percent to ten percent, planting cash crops fields did not reduce the tax, still twenty percent.
Zhao Xuan's drastic tax reduction on farmland taxes made the people of Zhao rejoice, plus Zhao Xuan's knowledge of farmland management, which he stole from Wu, and had the local officials inform the elders of the villages about it, increased the yield of the acres of fields.
These agricultural measures, so that the enthusiasm of the people of Zhao, near the mouth of the throat of the Zhao people smuggled to Wu increasingly rare, after all, people are attached to their homeland, far away from home is a last resort, and now Zhao's field tax and the same as Wu, the people, of course, chose to stay in their homeland farming, as for the news that Wu's domestic farmers in addition to the payment of taxes do not bear the burden of other miscellaneous tasks, the people of Zhao because of the information is closed, and not clear, only thought that the burden of farmers in Zhao and Wu is the same. They only thought that the burden of farmers in Zhao and Wu was the same.
The nobles of Zhao who used to grow cash crops did not switch to grain because the tax did not give less, and for them, growing cash crops was still more rewarding than growing grain.
"You said that the capital of the Kingdom of Wu has changed drastically?" When Wu Mou returned to the country, Zhao Xuan immediately received him and asked Wu Mou to tell him what he had seen and heard in the Kingdom of Wu.
"Not only has the capital of the Kingdom of Wu changed drastically, but what I've seen along the way is different from what I saw two years ago."
The first thing that was changed was the road, a thoroughfare was built from the city at the mouth of the throat to the city of Qu, where five riders could ride side by side, and the road was paved with crushed stone and hard earth and yellow sand, so that it was very flat and not too muddy when it rained. Trees were planted on both sides, which had just come to life and would grow taller and bigger, so that riding on the road would not be afraid of the scorching sun.
Horses and carts traveling on such thoroughfares must pay a small road maintenance fee, which is said to be used to recruit workers to maintain the road, usually villagers from the vicinity of the road, who have to fill in potholes whenever they appear on the road.
Not only was the main road built from the mouth of the throat to Qucheng, but Qucheng also had new roads built eastward and southeastward, eastward to the coast of the East Sea and the Southeast County, and southeastward to the royal capital, Kangcheng. These two roads are so long that only half of them have been repaired, and it will be next year before all of them are built and passable.
"It's too laborious for the Wu to build so many roads at the same time." Zhao Xuan shook his head, adding up thousands of miles of roads, how many people must be called into service? All of the strong laborers were drawn to build roads, which would leave the fields deserted. Although Zhao Xuan knew that transportation was important, he would never do such a large-scale project, it would be too much of an abuse of the people's power. Zhao Xuan could not think of a way to build roads in Wu, not to call on the people to build roads without pay, but to pay wages to recruit laborers to build roads.
"Yes, that's what the microcosm thinks."
Qucheng to Kangcheng Avenue is the two ends of the simultaneous construction, Qucheng this side of the repair of a quarter, Kangcheng to the northwest has been repaired half, Wu Mian line to repair the road, but also specifically to look at the scene, so that he did not understand is that the workers to repair the road is not under the supervision of the whip to work hard to do the work, seems to be doing very energetic. Wu mill side of the Northwest County guards accompanied, can not go to the site of road repair and labor to ask why, only once to see the road repair laborers to eat lunch, each hand holding up a yellow nest, on the salted vegetables in the gnawing, thought that those laborers are sure to be greedy for a meal to eat, only so hard, because of that kind of yellow nest is to liberalize the supply. Wu Milling went over and smelled it, very fragrant, and then saw it in the post station, ordered a share to enjoy it, and found that the taste is good, this kind of yellow nest is called corn nest.
Wu Milling's trip to Zhao this time was much more comfortable than the first time, because there were post stations along the way. In addition to the role of postal station, it was also a place for Wu's businessmen to eat, sleep, and change horses on the way, and there were privately owned inns immediately adjacent to the post, which could be seen as long as you walked for half a day.
The post station and the inn are both very busy, the post station is the official and letter carrier's hospitality, the inn is the merchants and pedestrians to stay and rest place. What is strange to Wu Mou is that the officials and letter carriers have to pay for staying at the post station. Wu Mou only knew that the officials and letter carriers can go back to reimburse their accommodation expenses and have subsidized food, which is called travel expenses after he inquired with the steward of the post station.
Wu Milling as Zhao's envoy, into the state of Wu to stay in the post is free of charge, all the way to the accommodation do not have to worry about, the room is clean, the food is exquisite, hot water pipe enough, you want to be happy, every day to stay in the post you can take a hot bath. Compared to two years ago, when I was on a mission, I couldn't meet any villages on the road and had to sleep out in the open, so the treatment was very different.
"When I went to the capital of the King of Wu two years ago, on the road, I only saw the villages in disrepair and withering, and the faces of the people were all vegetable-colored, but this time when I went there, the villages on both sides of the road became densely inhabited, and the faces of the people were mostly rosy, and the closer we got to Kangcheng, the more the density of the population became more and more bustling, and the more pedestrians traveled on the road."
"That's just Gong Zi Ming practicing the same rest and recuperation strategy as Zhao." Zhao Xuan thought that if Zhao practiced the same agricultural policy as Wu, the people of Zhao would be better off than Wu two years later.
"The greatest changes have been made in the city of Kang, and when the microman entered the city, he thought that he had gone to the wrong place." Wu Milling entered through the city gates, and the first thing that came into his eyes was no longer the potholed streets dug up two years ago, but wide streets. The streets of the entire city of Kang are straightened to form a straight line crossing, there is a kind of two-horse driving in the city, which can pull and carry more than ten people, only need to pay a small dime currency, and can be up and down along the way, the people of Kang call that car a public carriage.
"Kangcheng is divided into several major districts, there is the royal court administrative district, living district, school district, commercial district, industrial district. The royal court administrative district is the royal palace and ministers' offices, the living district is where the people of the city live, and there are several such districts, occupying the largest area, and the school district has the North College and a middle school, two elementary schools, and a technical college, which is a technical school that trains craftsmen. The commercial district is a concentration of merchants' stores, and the industrial district is a gathering place for workshops."
"To divide the scholars and craftsmen together is something only that Gong Gong Ming could think of." Zhao Xuan snorted at Zheng Yuming for not respecting the scholars. Scholars would be the pillars of society in the future, how could they live in the same area as craftsmen with inferior status.
Wu Milling had wanted to talk more about the students of the Northern Academy, but when he saw his lord disparaging Zheng Yuming, he immediately shut his mouth and moved on to other things.
"It seems that Lone will have to walk up there himself."
Wu mill left, Zhao Xuan stared out of the window out of mind, Wu mill told the Wu changes in the situation, Zhao arranged in the Kangcheng spies had sent back some, but are not as vivid and detailed as Wu mill saw said, the great changes in Wu let Zhao Xuan anxiety, anxiety, Zhao Xuan decided to take the time to secretly visit Wu.