novelSusiti Chapter 61: The First Prefecture is Well-Governed, and Liu Bei's Wise Reputation Spreads Widely
Chapter 61: The First Prefecture is Well-Governed, and Liu Bei's Wise Reputation Spreads Widely
Chapter 68: A Prefecture is Well-Governed, and Liu Bei's Wise Reputation Spreads Widely
The crisis that Guo Yuan mentioned is indeed a major predicament that Liu Bei is currently facing.
Whether he recruited bandits or refugees, he always provided them with land and property!
Previously, as the refugees gradually returned, the counties were able to settle them slowly. Many of these displaced people still had their former homes and fields in their hometowns, allowing them to resume their livelihoods.
If there is really no land available, the prefectures and counties will do their utmost to grant them either official land or open fields for them to cultivate.
After all, Mount Tai doesn't have a large population, and the twelve counties can't possibly have no uncultivated land. As long as the officials in charge of land affairs are conscientious in their duties, they can always find some unclaimed wasteland for them to reclaim.
But this time, Shentu Fan led more than 600 families to surrender, so settling them down would not be an easy task.
More than six hundred households is not a large number. In later generations, it might only be the population of one large village or two small villages.
But in this day and age, it might take ten miles to settle them.
It is indeed asking too much of the officials in charge of land management to find so much land themselves.
But Liu Bei, upon hearing this, was not discouraged. Instead, he rose with renewed vigor, his hand on his sword, and declared, "It seems that the purge of Mount Tai and the eradication of the powerful and wicked must begin in Bo County!"
Zhang Fei's eyes were filled with excitement. He immediately gripped his longsword and followed behind Liu Bei, eagerly asking, "Brother, where do you plan to begin in eliminating the powerful and cunning in Bo County?"
Liu Bei waved his hand and calmly said, "Let's start with the fields! When I first arrived at Mount Tai a month ago, I declared that from the time I took charge of the prefecture, all taxes and corvée labor within the prefecture would be collected according to the laws of the imperial court!"
"Past events are like fleeting clouds, and I can let them go. But starting this year, anyone who conceals land or hides their household registration will be severely punished!"
As he spoke, he looked at Cui Dan and Guo Yuan and said, "In August, each county must compile statistics on its population, land, taxes, criminal cases, corvée labor, and other administrative matters. The county magistrate must personally carry the registers to the prefectural government for verification."
"This move is not only to prepare for the imperial examination, but also to collect taxes in September! Each county will use this as a basis to collect land tax on the land, and to collect poll tax, tax, and other taxes from the households."
The saying goes, "In August, the people are assessed; in September, taxes are levied."
The Han dynasty placed great emphasis on population statistics in order to collect taxes more accurately.
And all of this was the opportunity that Liu Bei had been patiently waiting for.
He had previously remained inactive, lying low in the prefectural capital for over a month, feigning inaction to lull the powerful and wealthy into a false sense of security, making them believe that this new prefect was merely another inactive figure. All his decrees were nothing more than empty threats.
When the time comes to collect taxes, that will be the day he draws his sword! He will wipe out those cunning and treacherous individuals who resist taxes by relying on their military power and defying the law.
At this moment, a glint flashed in Liu Bei's eyes, and he said, "According to the household registration records, during the Yonghe era, Taishan Commandery had over 60,000 households and over 400,000 people. Now, only 30,000 households remain registered, with a population of less than 170,000. With the population halved, how much unclaimed wasteland should be freed up?"
"According to the rule that one man can support five people and cultivate a hundred acres of land, the number of households and people has decreased by 30,000 and more than 200,000. This should free up at least 20,000 hectares of fertile land. Even if we exclude the land abandoned by war and destroyed by landslides and floods, the county government should still have six or seven thousand hectares of official land on record. However, the current land records show that there are only two hundred hectares of official land left."
Then he looked directly at Guo Yuan and asked, "Where are the remaining fields? If they were sold to powerful families, why hasn't the amount of land owned by those families increased? If they were abandoned, why can't the Land Bureau even raise five hundred hectares of wasteland to settle these six hundred households?"
there is only one truth!
That is, all these fields have been completely seized by powerful and wealthy families! Their fields stretch for miles, while the common people have nowhere to stand. This is the crux of the problem in Taishan County.
Zhang Fei immediately grasped this principle. Upon hearing this, his eyes widened like a leopard's, and he slammed his fist on the table, roaring, "These thieves have seized at least six or seven thousand hectares, and possibly more than twenty thousand hectares of farmland!"
He immediately looked at Guo Yuan and roared, "Guo Tiancao, has any wealthy family reported this truthfully? With so much land being transferred, there must be some large households with hundreds or even thousands of acres of land. Let's take Bo County as an example!"
Guo Yuan calmly cupped his hands and replied to Liu Bei, "My lord, before I came here I read the report submitted by the magistrate of Bo County. There are no powerful families in Bo County who own more than a hundred acres of land."
Liu Bei couldn't help but smile, "Good, good, good!"
Bo County was a barren wasteland, lacking even enough land to house six hundred families of refugees.
At the same time, the population of Bo County has decreased sharply, with only more than 3,000 households reported.
In the end, no powerful household in Bo County owned vast tracts of land, or even hundreds of hectares of land!
These three impossible things coexist.
These powerful figures have really stopped pretending!
Liu Bei was not intolerant of powerful clans who owned vast tracts of land and annexed other territories.
After all, the Han Dynasty allowed land circulation, and for over two thousand years since then, it did not establish a land system. Powerful landlords were always representatives of advanced productive forces. Otherwise, they could not have remained the ruling class.
But he couldn't tolerate these powerful figures doing things so carelessly! Leaving no way for the country or the common people to survive!
Moreover, their advanced productivity is really nothing to be proud of, since their only competitor is the self-sufficient feudal peasantry.
That's fine, but the key issue is that they are too selfish.
This advanced productive force, if it fails to make the nation wealthy and militarily strong, and also fails to ensure that ordinary people live in peace and prosperity, will ultimately only result in a situation where the rich feast while the poor freeze to death on the streets.
Therefore, as Xunzi said: "The thorny tree must wait for steaming and straightening before it can become straight!"
Human nature is evil, and we must wait for teachers and laws to correct it, and for propriety and righteousness to govern it.
To put it simply, a tree won't grow straight if it's not pruned, and a person will look stern if they're not groomed!
Guan Yu grasped the essence of this perfectly. He slightly opened his phoenix eyes, stroked his beard, and said with a chilling aura, "Brother, to settle over six hundred families, you need five hundred acres of land. Kill one cunning and powerful family, confiscate their property, and the five hundred acres will be easily solved!"
Guo Yuan then solemnly cupped his hands and said, "Please be at ease, Your Excellency. I know that killing such wicked and cunning individuals is a matter of national righteousness."
"It seems that once public anger is aroused, killing the powerful and wealthy and redistributing the land will solve all the problems."
"But that's not actually the case. Although some powerful and influential people do seize the land and houses of ordinary people and run rampant in the countryside, they still follow the 'Monthly Ordinances for the Four Classes of People' and do not violate the agricultural seasons, so that the grains are plentiful. In fact, this is beneficial to the country and the state."
"There is only one point: when powerful families acquire land, they cannot simply leave it lying fallow. They must also rent it out to tenant farmers so that all the land can be cultivated."
"If our lord were to kill a powerful local tyrant and distribute the land to displaced people, how would the original tenant farmers of the fertile land make a living?"
Because Guo Yuan had shown some protection towards powerful figures, Zhang Fei's anger suddenly subsided.
He had previously owned a manor, so he knew that while powerful families might have cunning and shrewd individuals, they were by no means lazy or indolent.
They are extremely shrewd; if a clan has three hundred acres of land, they will never let it go to waste. Furthermore, they will employ ten tenant farmers if possible, and never more than twenty.
Therefore, in rural areas, the land owned by powerful and wealthy families was mostly cultivated, and the land was cultivated more efficiently and produced more grain. On the contrary, the land owned by ordinary people was often left uncultivated.
For example, during the reign of Emperor Yuan of Han, the remonstrating official Gong Yu once submitted a memorial stating: "Therefore, the people have abandoned agriculture for frivolous pursuits, and less than half of them are engaged in farming. Even when the poor are given land, they still sell it cheaply to make a living, and when they are impoverished, they become thieves. Why is this? Because the profits from frivolous pursuits are so great that they are blinded by money."
If the lands of powerful families were truly distributed to displaced people, even more land would likely be left uncultivated; in Taishan Prefecture alone, grain production would be reduced by half.
Zhang Fei anxiously asked, "What does Guo Tian Cao think we should do?"
Guo Yuan calmly cupped his hands and said, "Your Excellency is wise. I believe that governing powerful and influential people is like controlling floods—Gun tried to quell a flood, but after nine years, he achieved nothing."
Yu dredged the nine rivers, and the land was leveled and the heavens formed a perfect landscape.
"The powerful clans of Mount Tai have been deeply entrenched for decades, and their encroachment on government land and concealment of household registrations are not recent occurrences. If they are hastily executed for 'encroachment on land,' the powerful clans of Mount Tai will likely feel insecure and take desperate measures. Moreover, if they are uprooted, it will not only harm the powerful clans but also the tenant farmers, causing the land to be abandoned."
"Therefore, Yuan believed that it was inappropriate to carry out a swift and severe punishment under the pretext of 'encroaching on land.' What the powerful and wicked feared was not the prefect's power, but his impartiality. If the prefect could demonstrate impartiality and explain the law to them, even the most cunning and treacherous among them would not dare to openly defy the law."
"I believe that the best course of action now is to address the root causes and then implement benevolent governance. The government should only collect taxes based on the amount of land owned, and the amount of tax paid by powerful families should determine the amount of land they own. The rest should be confiscated as public land. In addition, any commoner who can claim land to have cultivated for three years should be considered the owner of the land. This will also help to uncover hidden households."
"Finally, there are those who coerce the people and resist taxes by wielding weapons. These are the cunning and treacherous individuals whom the Prefect should strike with thunderous force. At that time, with a just cause and a firm grasp of righteousness, even if their homes are confiscated and their land seized, it will be their own fault. Who in the world would dare to criticize the Prefect then?"
Finally, he said with conviction, "In that case, the Prefect's blade will only target three or five ringleaders. However, the powerful and influential families of Mount Tai will surely be terrified upon hearing the news and rush to report and go into hiding. At that time, the treasury will be full and the government lands will be sufficient. It will only take ten days to settle six hundred families of refugees."
Upon hearing this, Liu Bei clapped his hands in praise and rose to his feet!
"Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!"
"According to Zini's plan, it achieves three goals at once: collecting taxes, cracking down on land annexation, and conducting a thorough household registration review!"
Are powerful figures unwilling to pay taxes in full?
Then determine the amount of land under their names based on their current tax payment.
If you pay taxes on 100 mu of land, then the land belonging to your entire clan is only 100 mu.
Guo Yuan was a wise and capable official. After reading through the documents for more than a month, he clearly understood the methods used by those powerful families to hide their land.
There are generally only a few methods, such as colluding with county officials to falsely report cultivated land as wasteland;
Or they may register their land under the name of a distant relative, breaking it down into smaller, individual units;
Even worse, some people use the names of guests or tenants to hold the land on their behalf, and the original family members' names cannot be found on the land deeds or registers.
But for the government, it doesn't matter at all. If you, a powerful local, claim to have only a hundred acres of fertile land, then they will only recognize your hundred acres.
The remaining land belongs to its owners. The imperial court will levy taxes on them. All of this is in accordance with the laws and regulations of the state, and officials act accordingly.
At the same time, for ordinary people and tenant farmers, as long as they can prove that they have been cultivating this fertile land, these unclaimed fertile lands will belong to them.
This essentially turned the conflict between the government and the powerful into a struggle within the powerful families themselves.
Moreover, this was extremely beneficial to the principle of "land to the tiller," distributing the land of powerful families to tenant farmers who actually cultivated the land.
When tenant farmers saw that they could convert the land into their own property, they would also take the initiative to report to the government, thereby investigating the hidden households under the control of powerful families.
These people were re-registered as ordinary citizens, which was one of Liu Bei's great achievements.
The reason why all officials throughout history have focused on attracting refugees is because the population was the main source of tax revenue for the Han Dynasty.
The tax was 20 coins per person per year for minors aged three to fourteen.
The tax was levied on adults aged 15 to 56, at a rate of 120 coins per person per year.
In addition, the "gengfu" (更付) was a substitute for labor service in cash, and was usually paid together with the tax collection period, amounting to 300 coins per person per year.
If 10,000 people are found to be hiding, that's 4.2 million coins a year!
In the end, only those three or five ringleaders who stubbornly resisted, used their troops to resist taxes, and refused to be concealed and re-registered as households were the targets of Liu Bei's blade.
At that time, he will be bound by righteousness, and those people will have only themselves to blame. No one will be able to criticize Liu Bei.
Ultimately, Liu Bei was acting in accordance with the law in all of this.
Even if powerful figures collude with influential officials in the court to remove him from his post as governor of Taishan, he would still be a renowned and exemplary minister, greatly enhancing his prestige.
Then Liu Bei ordered, "In that case, everything shall be done as Zini said, and the officials in charge of the fields of the prefecture and the county of Bo shall be fully responsible for this matter."
Subsequently, Liu Bei led Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Guo Yuan, Cui Yan, and others to Bo County to meet the renowned scholar Shen Tu Fan.
Liu Bei deliberately made the ceremony extremely grand. He not only personally led the officials and clerks of the prefecture out of the city to welcome him, but also ordered Zhang Fei to lead the prefecture's soldiers to form a guard, with banners fluttering and armor gleaming in the sun.
Shen Tu Fan was deeply moved by this display of power and prostrated himself on the ground in front of everyone, weeping as he said, "I have been hiding in the mountains for years to escape the chaos, and I thought I would never see the majesty of Han officials again in my life. Today, seeing you, Your Excellency, I know that the Han Dynasty has not declined and that benevolent governance still exists!"
Liu Bei helped Shen Tu Fan up with both hands, comforted him gently, and announced in public that he was appointed as the Chief Clerk of the Prefecture. All of Shen Tu Fan's more than 600 clansmen were registered in the household register of Bo County and resettled with land in accordance with the "Order to Return to Farmland and Restore Occupation".
Upon hearing this, the accompanying people cheered loudly, and Shen Tu Fan was moved to tears.
At this time, Cui Dan also publicly announced the new decree: "From this day forward, the amount of land rent paid by each county in Taishan Prefecture shall be determined by the amount of land rent paid."
Any unclaimed wasteland shall be declared to the Land Administration Office by the cultivator. Upon verification, it shall be permanently acquired, registered in the household register, and subject to taxation according to law. Anyone who resists taxation by using force or refuses to declare their land shall, upon verification, have all their land confiscated and be punished for concealment.
These words immediately sparked a flurry of discussion among the onlookers.
Several elderly villagers immediately knelt and kowtowed, weeping and pleading, "Your Honor, please have mercy! We have cultivated thirty acres of land south of the city for generations, but the land deeds were seized by the Shen family ten years ago. We have been paying rent all these years. Could you please, Magistrate Tian, do justice for us?"
And it wasn't just the common people who were in such a state; even the powerful and wealthy were thrown into a panic. The first to become restless were those powerful and wealthy individuals who had registered their land under the names of distant relatives or had guests and tenants hold it on their behalf.
While their methods of concealing land ownership were indeed subtle, they had a fatal weakness—there was no legally binding contract between the real landowners and the nominal landowners.
Now the government has declared that whoever pays taxes becomes a landowner; whoever cultivates the land can apply for permanent ownership.
If distant relatives, guests, or tenants who held the land on behalf of others were tempted, they could go to the land office to register the land ownership, and the land would immediately change hands.
Therefore, they took the lead in declaring their land area, and within just half a month, they had paid more than 800 hectares of land tax.
However, when they declare their land holdings, the land tax authorities will not approve their claims to a piece of land simply because of a small amount of land tax.
They must provide evidence of how so much fertile land under their names was cultivated.
Otherwise, wouldn't it be tantamount to trying to seize the people's fertile land with a mere amount of land tax?
This forced the powerful families to declare a large number of hidden household registrations.
Within just a few days, the Bo County agricultural authorities uncovered over 800 hectares of hidden farmland and re-registered no fewer than 2,000 people as ordinary citizens.
The amount of official farmland in the prefecture increased dramatically from a mere two hundred hectares to over a thousand hectares, and the amount of taxes collected in the prefecture's treasury was equivalent to no less than thirty thousand bushels of grain.
The more than 600 families of refugees led by Shen Tu Fan were successfully resettled in the newly designated Gui'an Pavilion south of Bo County, and seven new villages were built, namely Guide Lane, Huai Ren Lane, Le Ye Lane, An Ben Lane, Xiang Hua Lane, Fu Chu Lane, and Shen Shi Lane.
Each household was allocated between sixty and eighty mu of land, and the prefectural government provided them with grain, seeds, and farming tools.
Moreover, the government is not so rigid nowadays. They are refugees who have been recruited and registered as commoners. The time for tax collection has passed, so they do not need to pay taxes such as tax on population and poll tax this year.
The policy allows taxpayers to wait until October of next year to pay their taxes, which is quite generous.
The people who surrendered to Liu Bei were all grateful for his benevolence.
Just as the public sentiment was running high, Tian Feng had already completed his inspection tour of the county.
He presented the records of his January inspection to Liu for filing, his voice filled with barely suppressed anger.
"My lord, during my inspection tour of the counties, my primary focus was on reviewing major criminal cases in each county. What I found there was utterly shocking. The deep-seated problems in Taishan County far exceeded my expectations. Powerful and cunning individuals run rampant in the countryside, plundering the people and exploiting the common folk. Their crimes are too numerous to recount."
"In Bo County, there was a prominent family named Shen, whose head, Shen Gui, relied on his brother Shen Wu, who was a local bandit official, to forcibly seize more than 400 mu of farmland and drive a farmer named Wang Sou and his two sons to their deaths. Wang Sou's wife filed a complaint with the county court, but Shen Gui falsely accused his son of theft, had him whipped to death in the street, and left his body exposed for three days."
"There was also Hu Chang, the magistrate of Nancheng County, who colluded with local tyrants and accepted bribes. He always won the case against any tyrant, regardless of whether it was true or false."
"No matter how wronged or innocent a person may be, their case must be adjudicated."
"During Feng's short trip of just a few days, dozens of villagers blocked his way to file complaints. The complaints ranged from the seizure of his land to the humiliation of his wife and daughters to unjust punishment. Every single one of these complaints was supported by irrefutable evidence."
Upon hearing this, Liu Bei examined the bamboo slips in detail, and found that everything contained in them far exceeded what Tian Feng had said.
Besides what Tian Feng mentioned, there was also the Hu family of Fenggao, who hid more than two hundred tenant farmers, set up a private court, beat a runaway tenant to death, and abandoned his body in the wilderness. To this day, no one has dared to report it.
In addition, there were other powerful clans such as the Wang family of Juping and the Liu family of Nancheng, who either exploited the common people or colluded with thieves, committing more than ten crimes.
After reading the documents, Liu Bei slammed them down on the table, rose abruptly, and declared in a stern voice, "The Book of Documents says, 'Cultivate virtue diligently and eradicate evil completely!' Now, powerful and cunning individuals run rampant, seizing the people's land, taking their lives, and concealing their grievances. The foundation of the state is already decayed, and the nation is on the verge of collapse!"
"As a local governor, if I cannot rid the people of this scourge, how can I face the imperial court?"
"Order Zhang Fei to lead the county troops to arrest people according to the register, and arrest all the heads of the six evil families—Shen, Hu, Wang, Liu, Zhang, and Zhao—as recorded by the inspector."
"Bei should personally oversee the prefectural government, holding court for days to interrogate the prisoners, and confronting each case in court with the records and the accusations made by the people."
Liu Bei was swift and decisive in handling cases. He started by cracking down on corrupt and cunning officials, and imprisoned more than seventy people, including those in charge of land and bandits, in twelve counties.
He then submitted a memorial to dismiss seventeen officials from nine counties: Fenggao, Bo County, Nanwuyang, Nancheng, Juping, Liangfu, Feiguo, Gaixian, and Mou County!
Of the twelve counties in Taishan Prefecture, five counties lost their chiefs, one county lost its magistrate, seven counties lost their military commanders, and four counties lost their assistant magistrates!
This caused a tremor in Mount Tai, and all the officials knew that Liu Bei, this renowned scholar of unyielding integrity, was truly going to take decisive action to cleanse the atmosphere of Mount Tai.
As a result, fourteen more officials resigned and fled overnight.
While purging the local officials, Liu Bei also did not let go of those powerful and wicked local bullies.
The heads of the five families were all sentenced, and the children involved were punished according to their crimes, either exiled to the border or enslaved by the government.
Only the head of the Hu family refused to confess his crimes and, relying on the more than two hundred guests and loyal followers he kept at home, dared to gather a crowd to resist the county troops.
That very night, Zhang Fei led the county troops to surround Hu's fortified village. In less than half an hour, they breached the gates and captured all seventeen ringleaders, including the head of the Hu family.
According to the law, Tian Feng sentenced the head of the Shen family to death by beheading, while the other accomplices were given a reduced sentence by one degree. All of the more than 300 hectares of land under the name of the Hu family were confiscated.
The news caused a great stir in Mount Tai.
Those powerful figures who were initially observing finally realized that the new governor was not just there for show.
In a short time, they all took the initiative to declare their land holdings to the local county agricultural authorities and clear out any hidden land!
When the sweet osmanthus blossoms fill the air in October, the atmosphere in the twelve counties is refreshed.
The once domineering tyrants now live in fear, and the villagers, who have been oppressed for many years, finally stand tall and proud.
Guo Yuan's policy of "determining land area based on taxation" not only caused a surge in the amount of government-owned land, but also re-incorporated a large number of hidden households into the common people.
Within just a few months of Liu Bei entering the prefecture, he uncovered over 3,000 hectares of hidden land by powerful clans and re-registered over 11,000 households of ordinary people.
The taxes collected into the government treasury amounted to no less than 200,000 bushels of grain and over 30 million coins.
When the news reached Luoyang, both the Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of Works were shaken.
After reviewing the accounts, Minister Liu Yu clapped his hands and laughed, then sighed to Minister Lu Zhi, "Liu Xuande has governed the prefecture for only a few months, yet the powerful and cunning have vanished, displaced people have returned, fields have been reclaimed, and the treasury is overflowing. This is truly a worthy official of two thousand shi!"
Lu Zhi was also proud of his prized disciple, and said with a smile, "Xuande is indeed a capable official, skilled in both literature and military affairs. His talent was already evident in the military farms in Hebei, and his ability is further demonstrated in governing the prefecture of Mount Tai."
Not only did the imperial court praise it highly, but scholars also lauded it immensely.
Even the usually reserved and discerning scholar Xu Shao, upon hearing this, commented: "When Liu Bei governed Mount Tai, he eliminated powerful and tyrannical officials to uphold the law, comforted the common people to pacify their hearts, cleared the wilderness to fill the granaries, and clarified the criminal justice system to redress grievances. These four qualities not only demonstrate his talent as a capable official, but also the demeanor of an ancient sage."
Thus, Liu Bei's reputation as a benevolent and virtuous man, a capable minister of the state, and possessing the virtues of a sage was once again spread throughout the world.
Liu Bei, however, did not find anything to praise about this.
He merely did what any renowned minister would do: purify the corrupt practices of Mount Tai, forcing powerful figures to conceal their activities. Then he investigated those in hiding, registered all households, and within a few months, he had gathered over ten thousand people.
Even the substantial taxes were simply collected by him strictly in accordance with the national law.
After taxation based on land area, the current statistics show that there are more than 24,000 hectares of land in Taishan County. This equates to a per capita land area of slightly more than nine mu, but less than ten mu.
With a land tax rate of one-thirtieth, more than 200,000 bushels of grain were easily collected.
This seems like a lot, but when distributed among the counties, it would only amount to a little over ten thousand bushels.
Because land tax was a tax in kind, most of it remained in the local area. The millet in the county granary was used to pay the salaries of county magistrates, county assistants, county lieutenants, and other senior officials, to provide monthly meals for county officials, to provide food for postal workers, and to provide disaster relief and care for orphans and widows.
The 30 million coins he collected as poll tax were merely the proceeds from the tax levied on the people in accordance with national law after he investigated and investigated the hidden population.
Of this, approximately ten million coins had to be transferred to the imperial court; for example, the money for the emperor to repair palaces mainly came from the poll tax.
However, what he considered his duty was seen as a divine favor by the people of Mount Tai.
After being granted land, the newly returned refugees erected wooden tablets at the edge of the fields, inscribed with the three characters "Liu Gong Tian" (Liu Gong's Fields).
Furthermore, the three elders of Bo County proposed building a shrine for Liu Bei in the county. According to the customs of the Han Dynasty, a shrine for the living was a temple built for people who were still alive to commemorate their kindness and virtue. Only those who had made great contributions to the people could enjoy this honor.
On the first day of the tenth month, Liu Bei finished his court duties and had a rare half-day of leisure. He took Zhao Yun and several personal guards and rode out of the city, heading north along the Wen River.
Villagers could be seen working in the fields from time to time along the roadside. When they saw his flag in the distance, they would put down their farm tools and kneel down.
Liu Bei was not used to such a display, so he simply waved for them to get up and rode away.
He was drawn to a children's rhyme when he came to a threshing ground.
They sang hand in hand, a newly composed ballad: "When Liu Lang comes, the fields open up; when Liu Lang is here, even jackals and tigers tremble. The Prefect is like the winter sun, shining upon the corner of Mount Tai."
Liu Bei stopped his horse beside the threshing ground, gazing at the smiling, innocent faces of the children, his heart filled with surging emotions.
He was simply doing what a bureaucrat should do: collecting taxes according to the law and redressing wrongful convictions according to the law.
This is the fundamental principle of the nation, the minimum level of protection for the people;
But when this barrier was riddled with holes due to years of corruption and exploitation by powerful figures at the end of the Han Dynasty, when someone occasionally put it up again, the people were moved to tears of gratitude and regarded it as a new life.
However, Liu Bei didn't have time to dwell on his feelings for long. As winter approached, he devoted all his energy to the next crucial matter.
That is to select the virtuous and capable!
Every year at the end of the year, local officials would recommend candidates for filial piety and integrity. This was a key administrative task for the prefect to establish his benevolence, win over local gentry, and discover talented individuals.