Beiyuan was a strange country.
Beiyuan was able to establish a country because of a very dramatic reason.
Different from Dongqing, Zhongzhao, Nansheng, and Xichang countries, although the aristocrats were powerful, the royal family always restrained their growth and tried various ways to weaken them. Beiyuan was different. Not only did they allow the aristocrats to grow, but they also foolishly passed a system that was extremely beneficial to the aristocrats. The aristocrats' official position was passed down from generation to generation. To ensure the interests of the aristocrats, they also stipulated that the aristocrats could not be killed unless they committed treason or regicide.
With such a guarantee, the development of the aristocrats in Beiyuan could be described as a blowout.
As long as a man was born in an aristocratic family, he would be able to enter the officialdom and obtain an official position after he reached adulthood. As a result, all the positions with real power and benefits were occupied by the aristocratic families. The royal family became a human-shaped stamp machine, and their right to speak in politics was frighteningly weak.
Some aristocrats tried their best to have children in order to expand their family's influence.
As long as the family could afford it, they would be willing to die!
Anyway, when the children grew up, they would definitely become officials. Even if it was a small official, there would be a qualitative change when there were a lot of them.
With this idea, after decades of development in Beiyuan, the group of aristocrats had expanded to a terrible number.
This also affected the inheritance rights and interests of the lineal descendants, so there was a clear distinction between legitimate children and illegitimate children.
Legitimate children were certainly noble, while illegitimate children were a little higher than commoners, but they were servants and slaves in front of legitimate children.
Beiyuan was like a dynasty that was adjusted at an accelerated speed. After only a few decades of establishment, serious land annexation problems were exposed. The interest groups led by the aristocrats were insatiable. They ate too much and the country could not collect taxes, causing the national treasury to be empty and the country to be poor.
There was a widely spread saying in Beiyuan —
The emperor was just a broken doll that the aristocrats could play with at will!
Indeed, the aristocrats led by the Yi family in Beiyuan took turns to govern and stage coups. Beiyuan had never been peaceful.
It was said that there were as many as 20 coups in a year, and the shortest regime lasted only half a day.
It was equivalent to XX force just getting rid of the enemy force, and before they could be proud of it for a few hours, the latecomers secretly stole their heads.
The people of Beiyuan were also miserable.
In five years, the currency was changed six times and the measurement units were changed four times.
The worst part was that the XX faction had just issued some sort of order, and the people below were busy implementing it. After four or five months, there was still no effect, and the XX faction had taken over again. The AA faction overturned all of their predecessor's arrangements and brought out their own original works.
The people of the North Abyss, "…"
In his heart, he wanted to curse at these idiots ten thousand times!!!
With great difficulty, the largest aristocratic family of Beiyuan, the Yi family, stood out from the various factional struggles and pushed the royal family to wear their own dragon robes. The people finally heaved a sigh of relief — Just when they hoped that the new emperor would be smarter and not cause trouble again, these people broke the bottom line again.
The first thing House Yi did after ascending to the throne was to confer the title of King to every direct descendant of the Yi family. This was a hereditary title, and their salaries were of the highest class.
For a moment, he was proud of himself.
(: з) ∠) _
The higher-ups had also said that in order to fight for more authority in the court, the landowning households had fought hard to survive. Even though they had beaten the bastard children into low-class people, the number of direct descendants was still very large. According to a later world record, the patriarch of XX aristocratic family in the North Abyss had a total of 369 wives in his lifetime. All year round, he slept with one wife a day, and the other four had to wait.
The number of children was even more horrifying.
Four hundred and twelve sons and three hundred and ninety-eight daughters!
(: з) ∠) _ In order to increase the number of so-called legitimate children, they could have nine wives at the same time and unlimited concubines.
Although the Yi family was not so horrifying, there were still more than a hundred direct descendants of the Yi family.
In other words, in a place with a small population like the North Abyss, there were more than a hundred hereditary titles of King all at once!
How could the national treasury afford the highest salary for every King?
After receiving half a year's salary, they were so poor that they only had their underwear.
In order to appease them, the new royal family of the North Abyss could only think of ways to squeeze more money from the people.
What?
Reduce the King's salary and remove their titles?
No way, they were all from the Yi family and held great power. If they were angered, they would lose their heads in the middle of the night.
(: з) ∠) _
Anyway, the people were just ants. Why would ants need people to have such a big appetite? Cut, cut, cut!
The money in the people's pockets was like a sponge that could still be squeezed.
The North Abyss was located in the north. It was only warm for a few months a year, and the rest of the year was very cold. The environment was harsh, and it was not easy for crops to survive.
The land produced little food. In order to stabilize the national situation, the agricultural tax could not be high.
Even if the government only collected 20%, the people had to scrimp for a whole year to feed their families.
However, in order to appease the Kings, the Yi family repeatedly raised taxes on the people and added complicated tax items to increase the national treasury's income.
When the tax was at its heaviest, the government collected 90% of the agricultural tax, and the remaining 10% of the grain tax had to be exploited.
Within the North Abyss, countless people froze and starved to death.
During the years when Jiang Pengji was at war, the North Abyss had coveted the fat meat of Dongqing.
They had also heard of how rich and prosperous Wanzhou was and dreamed of taking it for themselves. But the North Abyss was so chaotic, where did they get the financial resources, equipment, and military supplies? The soldiers of the day were just poor people who had sneaked in to get some hot porridge. The real elites were the private soldiers of the gentry — the minions of the evil spirits in the eyes of the people — and the North Abyss still wanted to squeeze out troops to expand and invade her rear?
Jiang Pengji only gave them two words —
Haha!
Before the Yi family came to power, the barren North Abyss could still gather more than a hundred thousand decent troops, which gave Jiang Pengji a certain amount of pressure … This was also why she asked Qiguan Rang to hold back his troops to prevent the North Abyss from jumping out and stirring things up … Now that the Yi family had been in power for almost two years, the entire North Abyss was like a broken doll. Jiang Pengji really thought highly of the North Abyss by bringing 250,000 troops.
Tsk —
Outsiders thought that Jiang Pengji was using a sledgehammer to kill a chicken. Only Qiguan Rang knew that she brought so many troops to kill all the gentry in the North Abyss.
Among the five countries in the world, the number of gentry in the other four countries added up was less than the number of gentry in the North Abyss.
The gentry in the North Abyss were especially superstitious about bloodlines. The deformed "N kinds of privilege theory of the gentry" was deeply rooted in their bones.
A group of malignant tumors!!!
If she really absorbed it, she was afraid that she would get cancer.
When Feng Zhen told her that they had captured more than a hundred refugees from the North Abyss, she was deep in thought.
Qiguan Rang said, "Actually … there were refugees who flocked to Xue City before, but I made the decision to expel them."
Jiang Pengji smiled and said, "What if they couldn't?"
Qiguan Rang said, "Give them dry rations and send soldiers to send them away. If they are still stubborn, kill them as an example to others. If not, kill them all! "
Although the refugees from the North Abyss were pitiful, they couldn't allow them to enter their territory and threaten the lives of the people there.
When Qiguan Rang arrived at the border, he heard that many refugees from the North Abyss had robbed the local people of their money and rations, killed people, and raped them.
These people couldn't be allowed to live.
As for those who hadn't escaped in time, he was much gentler. He mainly drove them away and killed them when they couldn't escape.
If it were anyone else, they would probably be scolded to death, but Qiguan Rang never cared about such things for the sake of the overall situation.
He wouldn't be soft-hearted to the people of the enemy country and put his own people in danger.
Similarly, he didn't have to be soft-hearted to this group of people who had crossed the border.
However —
Feng Zhen said, "It's just … My lord, one of them claims to be your old friend."
Jiang Pengji asked, "What's his name?"
Feng Zhen answered, "Ma Xiu."
An image of a somewhat quiet but clear-eyed youth immediately appeared in Jiang Pengji's mind.
The acquaintance from the Langye Academy was indeed an old friend.
"I remember Shaoyin saying that the fertile fields of Ma Xiu's family were occupied and plundered by bandits. In order to avoid disaster, he had no choice but to move his family north …"
There had been no news of him for many years. It never occurred to her that he had gone to the North Abyss to avoid disaster.
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