When the emperor arrived in Xudu, I was very curious about the young emperor who had been manipulated since the day of ascending the throne. I was in poor health and had never visited the emperor before. Of course, I really wanted to see him up close. But I had many inappropriate visits to see him alone for no reason, so I found Xun Yu, who was equivalent to the emperor's secretary, and said that I wanted to see the beauty nearby.

Xun Wenruo has been energetic recently and full of energy. After listening to me explaining his purpose, he said: "You prodigal son, you have no sign of you when you raised an army to welcome the throne a few days ago. You finally appeared and pretended to be sick and lazy all day long and didn't go to court to meet the throne. Today, you have to go to see you."

I immediately shouted injustice: "The eldest son Cao Ang runs to me all day long and insists on taking me as his teacher. You also know that I am lazy and I am an idle person who does nothing every day. Isn't this difficult for me? How can I hide for a few days without being sick?"

Xun Yu laughed and scolded, "You dare to claim to be an idle person who does nothing. Since the rebellion of Chenliu, the plan that Ming Gong did not jump up or down, if you were an idle person, wouldn't I become a stole person? Well, I have a few memorials from various governors here to congratulate the emperor on the move of the capital and change the year name to "Jian'an" to present to His Majesty the emperor's imperial view. You can go with me."

When Emperor Xian was in charge of the government, Xun Yu asked the internal officials to follow the memorials and report to the emperor: "The Secretary of State ordered Xun Yu and Sima Jijiu Guo Jia to ask for a meeting." After a moment, he received the order.

After the ceremony, Emperor Xian Liu Xie said: "Every country and county have submitted congratulations. I am very pleased that Xun Aiqing has drawn up a commendation edict. I will ask the general to read it tomorrow morning and send it to all places." Xun Yu received the order.

Emperor Xian said again: "I have never seen this beloved minister. Who is this?"

Xun Yu said: "This is the Sima Priest Guo Jia, whose courtesy name is Fengxiao. After Your descendant Xu Du has been recuperating at home. Today, if there is a little improvement, I want to meet Your Majesty, so I will take him to meet him."

As early as when I came in, I had already observed this young emperor very carefully. The sixteen-year-old Liu Xie was a little thin, with a rosy face. He acted appropriately and handled things in an orderly manner. Judging from the performance that after being forced to abdicate in Shanyang County, the fiefdom of Shanyang County, which made Cao Wei unable to find an excuse to kill him, if he had power, he should have done something. Unfortunately, he was born at the wrong time and could only be a king who had lost his country.

After hearing Xun Yu's words, Liu Xie was very happy and blurted out: "I heard from the general that Guo Aiqing worked hard and made great contributions. He repeatedly made suggestions for the general to quell the rebels and made great contributions. Can Guo Aiqing be willing to serve the court?"

What does it mean? Am I already an official now? I thought about it and sighed in my heart: "I am still young after all! I actually want to dig Cao Cao's corner. After only a few days of stable meals, I tried to start taking power. The hope of power is really crazy! No! I need to hit him!"

I said lukewarmly: "Aren't you serving the court under the command of the general? Your Majesty's words make me panic!"

In fact, Liu Xie felt a little regretful as soon as he spoke. After coming to Xudu, he could review memorials that he hadn't seen for many years - although Cao Cao read them first, it made him feel the first time after experiencing years of horror. Today, he saw the memorials from various places to congratulate. He was very happy and said what he had just said. Now, after hearing my answer with a warning, I was sweating in a cold sweat.

Without any speculation, the emperor gave Xun Yu a few more words and said it was too exhausted and half-invited and coaxed me and Xun Yu out.

In fact, it was not just Emperor Liu Xie who was pleasing to the sky, but Cao Cao, who was a hundred times more politically mature than Emperor Xian, became a little aloof when he first took over power.

With the arrival of the nominal communist emperor in the world, Cao Cao stood firm in the so-called righteousness. The current imperial court's decrees are constantly issued to all prefectures and counties in the Han area. On the surface, the princes of various places have to obey the emperor's orders. Without discussing with their counselors, Cao Cao asked the emperor to issue an edict to reprimand Yuan Shao's mercenaries for hundreds of thousands of mercenaries. Instead of coming to see him, he formed a clique for personal gain and private attack on prefectures and counties.

After I received this news, I was surprised that Cao Cao would do such a reckless thing and felt deeply sympathetic to him.

Cao Cao's background was not very good, and the status of the descendants of eunuchs made the orthodox scholars more or less look down on the orthodox scholars. The people also hated the eunuchs' greed for money and autocracy. Many people blamed the chaos in the late Eastern Han Dynasty on eunuchs. Cao Cao's background made him not smooth in his career. After being a filial and honest official, he did not avoid the powerful and nobles when he was the commander of the northern commander in Luoyang. He was determined to make progress. The strict law enforcement was only promoted and surrendered openly and secretly, and finally lost his official position. Although he was appointed to the Yellow Turban after he was promoted and was promoted again after he was promoted, he was not valued under He Jin's sect.

When Dong Zhuo took power, Cao Cao took the lead in prosecuting the imperial edict to join the princes, and because he was born in a family, he had only one deputy leader. Cao Cao, who was powerless and weak, could only lead his troops to pursue him alone when Dong Zhuo moved the capital, but almost lost his life. It is estimated that since then, Cao Cao began to complain about Yuan Shao.

In the next few years, he also looked at Yuan Shao's expression, so he was the first to attack Yuan Shao when he first took power.

After receiving the edict, Yuan Shao was furious and said, "What is Cao Cao? I saved him several times. Today, he was ungrateful and held the emperor hostage, and rebuked me!"

But even though he scolded, Yuan Shao was still a little scared. He regretted not going to welcome the Emperor Feng first and hurriedly submitted a statement to defend himself. Cao Cao looked at Yuan Shao's memorial and was very happy. He took Yuan Shao's memorial and said to me: "I finally vented my anger over the past few years, but since I knew my mistake, there was no need to delve into it. I want to submit that the Emperor protect Yuan Shao as the Grand Marshal. What do you think about Feng Xiao?"

I knew that Cao Cao was because Yuan Shao had a large land and many soldiers, so he didn't dare to do too much. I replied: "It's not appropriate!"

Cao Cao asked: "What's wrong?"

I said, "I heard that Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu held a funeral for his mother. The ceremony was extremely grand, which shows that he was very proud of his face. Since the alliance between the princes, Yuan Benchu ​​has regarded himself as a small court. Now the lord welcomes the emperor to Xu, Yuan Shao should have regretted that he had not welcomed the emperor to Yizhou. If the lord serves as the general and represents Yuan Shao as the Grand Marshal, he will be angry and startled to attack. In this way, the lord is attacked from all sides, so now is not the time to compete with him. I advise the lord to abandon his reputation and give the position of the general to his children. After pacifying Xuzhou, Yangzhou will be scheming with him."

Cao Cao saw the grand scenes of Yuan Shao's brothers mourning for his mother in Runan. When Cao Cao witnessed the 30,000 funeral team, he said privately to Wang Jun, a famous scholar in Runan: "The country is about to be in chaos, and these two people must be the ones who are in chaos. To stabilize the world and relieve the sufferings of the people, if you do not kill these two culprits first, there will be endless troubles." At that time, Wang Jun once said to himself: "As Meng De said that, the one who can stabilize the world is Meng De!" After that, the two laughed with understanding.

After recalling the situation that day, Cao Cao said to me: "From Emperor Heng and Emperor Ling to this day, how many of the generals have died well? What is the implication of this ominous position for Yu Xiao's son!"

Not to mention Yuan Shao's joy of receiving praise from the court and being promoted to the general, he said that from the seven or eight years since the Dong Zhuo Rebellion to the Cao Cao's move to the capital, due to constant wars, the people in the north were displaced, the land was deserted, and water, drought, insect disasters, and agricultural production were greatly damaged. There were serious famines everywhere in the north. Not only did the people have no food to survive, but the troops of the various princes generally lacked military rations. In Hebei, the army relied on picking mulberries to fill the hunger; in Yangzhou, soldiers in the army picked clams and touched river clams to make a living. As for adding human flesh to the jerky meat, it was normal.

Although Yanzhou's military farming was effective, it was only enough for the local needs, otherwise it would not have been robbed in the name of extermination of the Yellow Turbans. Now in Xudu, the problem of food and grass for the 200,000 army was an imminent problem. At Ren Jun's suggestion, Cao Cao issued the "Stage Farming Order" and appointed Zao Zhi, who had the strategy of military farming in Dong'a, as the military farming commander. He widely recruited exiled people as the "Stage Farmers". While traveling to the civil farming station, he also launched military farming stations. After a year of military farming stations, he harvested one million hu of grain in Xudu alone.

During this year, Xun Yu successively offered Cao Cao a plan to compete for food and drive tigers and wolf-eating for Cao Cao. Is it effective? It was that Lu Bu and Liu Bei changed positions, Liu Bei went to Xiaopei, and Lu Bu went to Xuzhou City.

The current situation in the world is that Yuan Shao leads the northern Yi, Qing, You and the four states; Han Sui and Ma Teng move in Liang and You areas; Yuan Shu entrenches Yangzhou; Liu Biao is in Jingzhou, Zhang Xiu is in Nanyang; Lu Bu and Liu Bei are in Xuzhou; Sun Ce is in Jiangdong; Cao Cao is in Yanzhou in the middle. While Cao Cao has the advantage of taking over the heavenly orders, he also put himself at the forefront. The powerful princes in the world are staring at the fat piece of the emperor.

Cao Cao, who felt that he was attacked from all sides and felt the power of the cavalry during his battle with Lu Bu, ordered Cao Ren's younger brother Cao Chun to form a cavalry - called the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry.

I have also done a lot of things this year.

First, I sent all the Yellow Turban prisoners to my hometown Yangdi to go to Gaoshun training, which had been moved there. Now I can be considered rich and wealthy. In addition to the occupation of Yingchuan, a large amount of barren land near Yangdi City was distributed to me by Cao Zhuo as rewards, in recent years, there were more than 5,000 prisoners who received the rewards after each battle. I chose prisoners of war differently from other rewards, and they all selected strong people. I chose some virgin boys and virgins around ten years old. Although I could not get it back and cultivate the land like others, my purpose was to cultivate talents, not slaves. However, if I continued to develop like this, I guess if a daughter got married in the future, it would be like a girl with a three or four thousand servants to be a dowry.

In addition, the four brothers, Cao Hong, Cao Ren, Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan, started a business.

Although I have never learned economics and business, I have never eaten pork and watched the pigs go. After using a few tricks from TV and novels, they convinced and contributed money and efforts. Moreover, we are officials, and those who are officials are called officials and businessmen. The so-called officials and businessmen have the power of the five of us to be backers. This transaction has almost monopolized the market for salt, iron, grain, hemp and other important materials in Yanzhou since we were young. After getting the money, of course, we cannot forget Cao Cao. In addition to each person taking out a large amount of money from the profits they deserve to donate as military pay, they also purchased a lot of war horses and tigers and leopard cavalry for military purposes. The Cao army had a cavalry unit of thousands of people in less than half a year, which was many times stronger than the miserable situation of only 500 cavalry in the Battle of Guandu in history.

Although he repeatedly told the person in charge not to force the business to buy and sell, and to hoard and raise prices, there were still black sheep. Cao Hong's disciples failed to sell in a transaction and beat the person to death. He was caught by Man Chong and the goods were confiscated. Cao Hong was rich but stingy by nature. He didn't know whether it was for people or goods, so he came forward to plead for the other people, and he raised the names of several others. Who knew that Man Chong ignored him. Cao Hong was anxious and went to ask Cao Cao. Man Chong knew about it, and immediately killed the person and compensated the victim. After Cao Cao heard about it, he praised Man Chong. Not only did he scold Cao Hong, but he also called us to scold him.

It's really unfair! Whoever I've provoked!

It is easier to do things with money. Pay money to hire slack people to build roads and bridges between towns. When the road is built, of course someone will leave, so a small amount of toll will be charged on important sections of road, especially on bridges.

Cao Cao initially thought that I was building bridges and paving roads to accumulate good deeds, but later when he saw that I actually collected money, he called me and wanted to scold me. I acted like a scoundrel and said, "I paid for my own money to build the roads, one is to facilitate the transportation within the country, and the other is to facilitate the lord to transfer troops and grain when there is war."

"However, my family is not rich, and the money has been built, and the family still has to live, so it is natural to collect a small amount of money. Besides, I can maintain the smooth roads and build new roads for the lord. The people still have money to take when building the roads, and the people will not cause trouble if they have something to do. When building the roads, they also built canals to irrigate the fields along both sides of the road, which means that I personally pay to assist officials in the various places in governing agriculture and sericulture. Why not do this for the country, the people, and the lord?

"If the lord is worried that the enemy will use the road I built to attack, Jia will still say that passive defense will only be beaten, expansion is the bottom line, so we should attack them first."

Cao Cao felt that it was powerful, so he didn't care about us anymore. But he didn't count. After the road was repaired, although everyone didn't charge much money, the base was there. Besides, the cost of sand and stone roads was almost zero except for labor costs and other raw materials. It only took a little more than a year to recover the cost. In the future, apart from a small amount of maintenance costs, it would be a real no-price business.

However, there are still many smart people with economic minds. Many officials and wealthy businessmen thought that road construction accounting was investing. For a time, road construction in Yanzhou became popular. But I, Cao Hong, Cao Ren, Xiahou Dun, and Xiahou Yuan, were the precedents. When building roads, I also hired them with money and grain instead of forcing the people. Otherwise, if I were caught by Man Chong, I would lose my skin even if I die.

In addition to farming, people will naturally be happy when they have a job that can make money during the slack farming period. When they have money, they will marry their wives and daughters, buy farm tools and oxen, and buy new houses and new clothes.

Because the roads were smooth and there were no bandits, merchants from all over the country gathered in Yanzhou, making Xu Du a commodity distribution center that was difficult to travel north in the Central Plains, and also brought a lot of tax revenue to the court. The construction of several roads made a prosperous scene in Yanzhou, which was something Cao Cao did not expect.

With food and money, the combat effectiveness of the troops will be guaranteed, and more troops can be recruited, and high-quality equipment can be purchased for the army. We have made another profit for those who monopolized the iron tools.

As soon as the spring of the next year, I took out the saddle and stirrup that had been developed for Cao Cao to see, and said that five thousand had been made. If the lord wanted it, he could donate it.

But the same thing is said, my family is poor! There is a family that needs to be supported, so lord, you should also express the following no matter what you do. Hehe!

At this time, Cao Cao was about to use troops against Zhang Xiu, Nanyang, who had the weakest military power. He was overjoyed when he saw the saddle and stirrups that could greatly improve the combat effectiveness of the cavalry. However, he was helpless at the face of the prodigal businessman who took advantage of the situation and had to ask: "How do you want me to express my filial piety?"

I said, "Please make a decree that from today on any novelty similar to such a benefit to the country and the people, the first maker can enjoy exclusive rights, and others may not imitate without permission from the owner of the exclusive rights."

Cao Cao said: "If the court wants to create it, would it still require permission from the untouchables?"

I said: "The law can be explained that if an exclusive right is applied for, the court guarantees that other people cannot force the owner of the exclusive right to be impermanent, transfer the exclusive right at a low price, and imitate it before the owner of the special money agrees, because the court has invested free of charge in the management of the officials in order to protect the legality and independence of its exclusive right, so the owner of the exclusive right to automatically grant the court the privilege of use while applying for the exclusive right."

Cao Cao was made up by a bunch of names like a tongue twister. Although I don’t understand the mystery, one is that the court can use it casually; the other is that the strategies I have offered over the years are not like Xun Yu’s suggestions, but “two tigers compete for food” and “driving tigers and swallowing wolfs” and then people understand and take effect immediately after hearing it, but once it is implemented, it will slowly show great results like spring rain moistening things.

The first simple patent law in Chinese history was introduced like this.

In exchange for support from other officials and wealthy families and conscious protection of the law, I distributed some of the general shapes and usages of gadgets that I could think of, to them, movable type printing, ceramics, horseshoes, looms, compass, papermaking, water wheels, windmills, water mills and other items to the hands of various families.

There are people in these families who are specifically responsible for making money. When they saw the idea of ​​these things, their eyes immediately turned into copper coins, and they shouted and told their respective heads that a mountain of gold fell from the sky.

In this era, the discrimination against merchants was not so great. Even the emperor set up markets in his own gardens and did business by himself. Moreover, each family had certain business opportunities, but it was not so blatant. The officials and big families who were jealous of me, the Cao family and Xiahou family who were jealous of making a lot of money, and they were enthusiastic when they saw the ways to make money. The resources of each family were fully mobilized, and the money in the past was previously hidden in the cellar, and the money in the vault was withdrawn for the study of the concept into physical objects. Then the workshops sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, and the emergence of a large number of commodities drove the development of the entire Yanzhou economy...

From now on, those in power can only continuously strengthen the laws that use exclusive power, and do not even think about weakening or banning them. Because the biggest beneficiaries of this law are officials and prominent families who control the wealth and power of the world.

It can be predicted that in the near future, industrial and commercial taxes will exceed agricultural taxes and become the main income of the court.

Seeing this situation, I couldn't help but wonder: Is the current situation already forming a hotbed of capitalism on this land?
Chapter completed!