lovenovelstory Chapter 32 Slave System in the Sui Dynasty
Chapter 32 Slave System in the Sui Dynasty
The night deepened on the window paper.
Inside the study, the candlelight in several copper lamps burned quietly, casting Yang Yan's shadow onto the vermilion bookshelf behind him.
It overlaps with the silent bamboo slips.
He did not sit.
The pain from the caning still throbbed, preventing him from sitting down comfortably.
He simply stood there, one hand behind his back, the other hand unrolling the thick hemp paper book.
The Kaihuang Code.
This is the fundamental law of the Sui Dynasty, and the most solid weapon he can grasp at this moment.
His gaze swept over the neatly written articles, word by word.
After the Liaodong military meeting, he realized that the Crown Prince's situation was far more dangerous than he had imagined.
Yang Su's radicalism, Yuwen Shu's treachery, Gao Jiong's maturity...
The various forces are deeply intertwined and could seize any opportunity to launch an attack at any time.
At such times, only by being well-versed in the law and understanding the system can one find a legitimate foothold for oneself and for the Crown Prince amidst the turbulent power struggles of the court.
When a regime was stable in ancient times, it paid the most attention to these four words.
A thorough understanding of the Kaihuang Code is equivalent to holding an invisible protective sword.
While engrossed in reading, he subconsciously leaned over, wanting to grab a pen and jot down a few key points on a piece of paper nearby.
The moment his fingers touched the mixed-hair brush, his movements faltered.
The pen feels familiar in my hand, but the wrist strength and patience required to write clear small characters on this rough hemp paper are far beyond what I could have imagined in my past life.
He tried it out and found that the ink spread easily, requiring him to write with exceptionally steady and slow strokes.
His wrist began to ache after writing only a few lines. The low efficiency caused a sense of helpless frustration to rise within him.
"The difficulty of writing is truly astounding..."
He put down his pen, gently moved his wrist, and his gaze fell on the slightly messy lines of writing.
A thought suddenly flashed through my mind—no wonder the ancients wrote with such economy of words, each one a gem.
This may not be entirely about pursuing elegance; it is also the low writing efficiency that forces them to condense information to the extreme.
This realization gave him a profound understanding of the transmission of knowledge in this era.
He stopped insisting on recording and refocused his attention on the legal text itself.
The fingertip slowly moved down the entries, "household marriage", "stable warehouse"... and finally stopped at "field regulations" and related annotations.
The flickering lights illuminated the words concerning the foundation of the nation, making them appear and disappear intermittently.
He needed to find a foothold, a foothold that would allow him to legitimately intervene in court affairs and deeply align himself with the core interests of his grandfather, Emperor Yang Jian.
For the Sui Dynasty at present, what is the most important and troublesome thing for the emperor?
Thoughts, like vines, spread and touched upon the areas I had deeply explored in my previous life's papers.
As the floodgates of memory opened, the discussions about land, population, and aristocratic politics in the Sui and Tang dynasties gradually overlapped with the cold legal provisions before my eyes, becoming incredibly vivid.
How did the Guanlong Group become such a behemoth that both the Sui and Tang dynasties had to rely on and try their best to suppress?
On the surface, it was an alliance of military nobles, but at its core, it was rooted in an economic model that eroded the foundation of the empire.
Their true power stemmed from a seemingly insignificant provision in the Kaihuang Code.
The servants will receive land from their masters!
A powerful family could own hundreds or even thousands of slaves and servants who were not registered in the national household register.
These "shadow populations," however, are able to legitimately possess vast amounts of land for their masters.
As a result, fertile land ended up in private hands, and national taxes decreased daily.
The imperial court lost not only tax revenue, but also absolute control over core resources, population, and land!
This is the deep economic secret behind the Guanlong Group's ability to survive dynastic changes until its complete collapse at the end of the Tang Dynasty.
Emperor Wen of Sui, Yang Jian, a man of great talent and ambition, saw this clearly.
In Yang Yan's mind, the emperor's seemingly contradictory yet ingenious political balancing act came to mind.
He did not directly abolish the "slave-land-granting" principle, a lifeline of the Guanlong Group.
Because it was through this that he gained support and ascended the throne.
He took an unconventional approach, launching a precision surgery called "Great Search and Appearance Review" and "Registration and Sample Determination".
The former was a swift and decisive nationwide household registration census, which exposed the "shadow population" hidden by powerful families to the light of day.
The latter approach involved establishing clear household registration and tax rules, allowing the liberated population to discover that becoming a registered household in the state was more advantageous than relying on powerful local magnates.
The essence of this series of combined measures is a bloodless yet incredibly fierce battle for population between the imperial court and powerful clans.
It did not affect the existing assets of the vested interests, but it firmly controlled their growth, greatly increasing the cost of expansion for powerful families.
This was the first and most crucial step in the Emperor's grandfather's strategy of "weakening powerful clans and strengthening imperial power"!
However, this step is not far enough, not ruthless enough!
Yang Yan's thoughts involuntarily drifted to his current "good second uncle," Prince Yang Guang of Jin.
When Yang Guang ascended the throne, this ruthless emperor chose an even more radical and thorough approach.
He issued a decree sharper than a knife.
Women, slaves, and servants were exempted from rent and taxes, and their eligibility to receive land was completely revoked.
This edict, from both legal and economic perspectives, severed the Guanlong Group's channels for unlimited land expansion through the enslavement of people.
However, this reform, which was supposed to dismantle the foundations of powerful clans, was implemented too hastily, ultimately exacerbating social contradictions and, together with the political backlash from the Guanlong Group, bringing about the downfall of the entire dynasty.
"What a pity..."
Yang Yan let out a sigh that no one could understand.
Two emperors, two different approaches: one too mild, the other too radical.
And he, an observer from 1,400 years in the future, stands at the crossroads of history.
It possesses a God's-eye view, capable of reviewing the entire situation and selecting the best options.
Under the lamplight, his eyes became incredibly sharp, like a drawn blade.
He has found his own political platform.
There was no need to start from scratch or be unconventional. What he needed to do was to become a continuation of the sharp blade called "centralization" that his grandfather had never fully wielded.
To advance the cause that Yang Jian had begun but not yet completed in a more refined and stable way.
Taking the solution of population and land issues as a starting point, they completely sided with their imperial grandfather.
It became the sharpest knife in his hand, used to strengthen centralized power!
Yang Yan picked up the calligraphy brush he had once disliked again, and this time, he was no longer agitated.
His gaze was calm and composed, and he was already conceiving a memorial that would shake the imperial court.
What he needed to do was not to sever the lifeblood of the Guanlong Group like Yang Guang did, but to inherit and carry it forward.
Using the most exquisite language, this "dragon-slaying technique" was packaged as a continuation and improvement of the imperial grandfather's "extensive inspection" national policy.
Only in this way can one find the most solid foothold in this turbulent political situation, and even... turn passivity into initiative.