Chapter 856: Mobilization

The lands to be conquered in the future will cover at least tens of millions of square kilometers and require a vast population. In fact, even developing domestic demand still requires a large population.

There are concrete examples showing that population is the foundation of a nation's industry. With a population under one million, an industrial revolution is impossible. With a population under ten million, a second industrial revolution is impossible. With a population under one hundred million, a third industrial revolution is impossible.

Moreover, as future development brings ever finer divisions of labor, more talent will be needed, which naturally requires an even larger population.

For humanity to break out of the solar system in the future, Wang Dou estimates that without tens or hundreds of billions of people, it is not even worth discussing.

At present, the Han people's fertility is quite good — a family having seven or eight children is perfectly normal — but the infant mortality rate is far too high. Take Wang Dou's own family: his mother, née Zhong, gave birth to no fewer than six children, yet all died young except Wang Dou, the sole surviving son.

There are also all kinds of diseases tormenting the people of this era, especially women. Therefore, it is necessary to develop female physicians and train master practitioners of gynecology.

Wang Dou wrote on it: "At the time of the imperial examinations, establish a female medical track. The rank and treatment of female medical officers shall be equivalent to that of male medical officers. Every county must establish a female medical clinic, specializing in treating women. To avoid public criticism, men are forbidden from entering."

Wang Dou also wrote: "The drowning of infants is strictly forbidden. Violators shall be punished under the crime of homicide. Local village chiefs and township heads shall all receive punishment."

He added one line: "For those who drown infants, both father and mother are guilty. All their surviving young sons and daughters shall be confiscated and raised by the state."

Looking again at the potential future population figures for each Protectorate, Wang Dou frowned slightly. Even though he had thought of many measures and methods above, compared to the population threshold his heart desired, it was still far too little.

Western peoples have a weaker attachment to their native land, but their colonies are often constrained by the small population of their home countries, making development difficult. The Central Plains, by contrast, has a large population, but is constrained by the deep-rooted reluctance to leave one's homeland — a golden nest or silver nest cannot compare to one's own dog's nest. Unless they truly cannot survive, people are unwilling to abandon their homes and move abroad.

And unless a place's population reaches a certain threshold, it is often very difficult to form a stable social atmosphere that makes the local people develop a sense of rootedness, making it hard to stabilize that territory. For example, if a county has only a thousand or so people, that county will often slowly wither and die.

He turned his gaze to the section on feudal princes and wrote: "Within the borders of Shenzhou, all feudal princely domains and fiefs are prohibited. All princes and imperial clansmen may go to the Protectorates to establish their states. They are permitted to recruit their own populations and military forces to conquer them. Fiefs shall be based on the standard of a large county, capped at five thousand square kilometers. For those who are proactive, the central fiscal levies they submit may enjoy a twenty percent discount."

Wang Dou wrote: "Those who dare resist shall all be exiled to the territories of the various Protectorates. Furthermore, the Intelligence Department may be ordered to secretly incite certain princes to rebel. After the rebellion is suppressed, the ringleaders shall be executed, and all accomplices shall be exiled. Of the population under their rule, for those who participated in the various prefectures and counties, half of the population shall be exiled to the Protectorates."

Wang Dou wrote calmly. To solve certain population problems, he scrutinized the offensive strategies for each Protectorate. The Western Expedition: annihilate the upper and middle strata of every country and tribe along the way, destroy all their books and intellectuals, erase every trace of their culture — this was without issue.

However, the Southern Campaign...

He thought for a moment, then revised it: "The culture of India is unique, its strata unmoving for thousands of years. One may approach it in the guise of White Brahmins and White Kshatriyas, without disturbing the interests of its upper strata. Feudal princes may also be exiled here in greater numbers."

After carefully deliberating the future development of each Protectorate, he realized that talent would become extremely important and precious — even the old intellectuals would be in very high demand.

He thought for a moment and wrote: "A large number of disgraced officials and old literati may be stockpiled and auctioned off at the appropriate time. Starting bid: Licentiate, five hundred silver yuan. Provincial Graduate, five thousand silver yuan. Metropolitan Graduate, price negotiable. Ten persons or more constitutes a wholesale price, with a twenty percent discount."

Having finalized the various Protectorate matters, Wang Dou reviewed this item of internal governance concerning corvée labor and head taxes. Originally, he had planned to merge the head tax into the land tax, but after careful consideration, he decided to abolish them entirely.

The tax levy originated from Shang Yang's reforms in the Qin dynasty and was also a form of head tax and corvée labor. In the Ming, it was called the household salt-paper silver, along with the corvée labor attached to each adult male. Tax and corvée obligations accompanied one for life and were unavoidable. Even if the authorities sometimes remitted the land tax in famine years, they would not remit the head tax.

Even if you had no land and became a refugee, the authorities might not levy land tax on you, but you still could not escape your head tax obligation.

There were also the corvée duties attached to it.

Throughout the Ming dynasty, corvée labor was extremely frequent, and the corvée fees were exceedingly complex and burdensome, causing the common people unbearable suffering.

This is also why Li Chuang's slogan of "No corvée service, no grain tax" was so bewitchingly persuasive.

The Qing dynasty proposed merging the head tax into the land tax, but it was only a merger — the burden of head tax and corvée labor still existed, only that a portion was now borne by the landlords and gentry, and some tax categories were consolidated.

Wang Dou believed it was best to end this system of head tax and corvée labor altogether. Every dynasty had vast amounts of hidden land — this is easy to understand, as the gentry, officials, and merchants used all sorts of methods to conceal land in order to evade land taxes. Yet every dynasty also had vast numbers of hidden households — this was the scourge of the head tax and corvée labor.

A large number of hidden households is extremely detrimental to national planning, because without knowing the specific population figures, it is difficult to set development goals, which is very harmful to economic development.

Abolishing the head tax and corvée labor may at first glance seem disadvantageous to the authorities, because with no more commoners coming out to work for free, the monetary and grain expenditures for various projects will greatly increase. But in fact, from a long-term perspective, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

Moreover, if the system is well-designed, the money spent by the authorities will ultimately return to the authorities.

Because although hiring workers costs money, workers need to eat and drink, to spend, and to be entertained, which will drive large-scale development of the tertiary sector and strengthen domestic demand.

Once domestic demand is strengthened, a portion of it will naturally return to the authorities in the form of tax revenue — it is merely a circulation cycle. Moreover, it promotes economic circulation and enhances economic vitality.

Hiring workers can also drive large-scale employment, a brilliant trick that later nations have used time and again with great success. If corvée labor is conscripted instead, it will massively increase destabilizing factors.

The most famous example is the Yuan dynasty Zhizheng era's "Beware the stone man with one eye, who stirs the Yellow River and sets the realm to rebel" — this was forced corvée conscription. If the laborers had all been paid wages sufficient to feed themselves and make a living, then even under alien rule, the laborers themselves might have seized the ones secretly spreading the seditious rhyme and torn them to pieces — because their rice bowls would have been smashed.

In later ages, common people eagerly anticipate infrastructure construction, hoping their hometowns can build bridges and repair roads, wishing for highways and high-speed rail to pass through. But try implementing such infrastructure by mass-conscripting commoners to work for free — Yang Guang is the best cautionary example.

Wang Dou concentrated for a long time, and finally wrote: "On the land tax, abolish all miscellaneous taxes, meltage fees, and surcharges. The head tax and corvée labor — all abolished!"

With this one line Wang Dou wrote, it signified that under his future rule, the head tax and corvée labor system that had been in practice for thousands of years since the Qin dynasty would be ended by his hand.

This single short line would, in the future, stir up earth-shaking waves.

And with this single short line, Wang Dou would be immortalized in history, praised by ten thousand in the annals — yet if handled poorly, it was also possible that...

If Wang Dou implemented this measure, among the populace — whether gentry or commoners — all would naturally raise both hands and feet in support and approval, because this was an earth-shaking benevolent policy.

The common people need no explanation; they have long suffered bitterly under the head tax and corvée. Even some gentry and powerful clans — a family might have several hundred members, yet through various means only need to pay the head tax and corvée fees for a dozen or so people — still, that does not mean they are happy to pay this money.

Therefore, when the time comes to abolish the head tax and corvée, public acclaim will certainly be overwhelming. The opposition will come from officialdom.

Because this means fiscal expenditures will rise massively. Everything will require hiring people. What will some impoverished local authorities do when they have no money on hand? Without money and unable to conscript commoners for labor, some essential projects will not even be able to commence.

Throughout the dynasties, the most that was done regarding head tax and corvée was to lighten them, because in an agrarian society, tax revenue was roughly limited to these sources, and even decreased as the dynasty aged. For example, in the Ming dynasty, tax revenue was at its highest during the reign of the founding Hongwu Emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang.

When the authorities have no money on hand yet still need to get things done, it is impossible not to make the commoners work entirely for free.

Wang Dou had his own means of generating money, sufficient to cover future project costs. However, it could not be applied uniformly across the board; it had to be implemented by region and by steps.

Wang Dou wrote this single short line. His expression was calm, and his writing was also very matter-of-fact, yet he knew just how great the upheaval would be in the future.

In fact, on the issue of hidden households, Wang Dou had thought of many methods, but he realized that no measure was effective. The so-called merging of the head tax into the land tax was equally ineffective, so he simply abolished it all.

Next, Wang Dou reviewed and revised several more items, such as technical schools, the cultivation of mathematical talent, the subjects of the imperial examinations, the establishment of customs houses, and so on.

Finally, he looked at this item, which was about the industrial revolution.

"The prerequisite for the industrial revolution is the agricultural revolution. Only when the common people are fed and clothed and possess more surplus goods will the demand for exchange arise, giving birth to a vast market. To meet the demands of this vast market, production-oriented merchants must raise productivity, producing massive quantities of goods to continuously satisfy the people's needs. When the supply of goods cannot meet the people's demand, production-oriented merchants must improve their machinery and develop higher technology — and the industrial revolution is born."

"Therefore, the prerequisite is the agricultural revolution. If grain and rice are insufficient and the people suffer from hunger and cold, then even if industry is forcibly developed and goods are produced, the people's purchasing power will be insufficient, which will only lead to overproduction and an economic crisis. The essence of an economic crisis is that the common people have no money and domestic demand is weak..."

Wang Dou annotated: "Merchants are greedy by nature; no merchant is not cunning. When overproduction occurs, they would rather pour goods into the river than lower prices. Therefore, the only way to resolve an economic crisis is not to rely on the conscience of merchants, but to boost domestic demand, to fatten the common people's wallets so they have sufficient silver money to purchase goods."

Wang Dou wrote: "The sole factor that determines the fate of commodities is the market. There are two kinds of markets: internal markets and external markets. To avoid excessively violent economic fluctuations, one must not overly rely on external markets. Developing domestic demand should be placed first."

He wrote: "Therefore, the First Five-Year Plan should focus on farmland, water conservancy, and infrastructure construction. Within five years, hunger and cold shall be basically eliminated, with per capita national annual income reaching approximately twelve to fifteen silver yuan, and the gross national product reaching..."

"After the Second Five-Year Plan, with strong domestic demand, coupled with the vast markets of externally conquered lands, the possibility of an industrial revolution will then exist."

Wang Dou leaned back in his chair and thought for a long time. Finally, he took a drag on his cigarette, stubbed the butt out in the ashtray, closed the book, and placed it into the drawer.

Footsteps sounded. It was the soft voice of Zhong Diaoyang, the commander of the Guard Battalion: "Grand General."

Wang Dou said, "Is everyone here?"

Zhong Diaoyang replied, "All civil and military officials are already waiting in the main hall."

Wang Dou drew a slight breath. "Then let's go."

He said, "It's time to begin."

They walked out of the office. The corridor outside was lined with Personal Battalion soldiers standing guard every three paces and posted as sentries every five paces. Each wore fish-scale iron armor and stood motionless at attention, only fixing their gazes on Wang Dou with boundless reverence as he passed.

They entered the assembly hall. As Wang Dou rounded the screen, he saw the hall packed with figures — the civil officials and military officers of the Protectorate, all gathered together. They spoke in low voices, the mingled sound seeming to carry every kind of emotion spreading through the room.

The moment Wang Dou's figure appeared, every one of them looked over, their eyes full of excitement, fervor, and nervousness. Many faces even flushed deep red.

Wang Dou walked toward them with a smile, and everyone crowded around him, calling out fervently, "Grand General."

"Grand General."

"Grand General."

They called out, their voices growing louder and louder, until at last they seemed to merge into a single buzzing roar.

Wang Dou looked at them with a smile and said softly, "Is everything ready?"

Zhang Gui bellowed, "Grand General, all preparations are complete."

Wen Fangliang said, "Grand General, everything is ready."

Han Chao said, "Grand General, preparations were finished long ago."

Everyone said, "Grand General, everything is ready."

A smile bloomed across his face. In that moment, Wang Dou felt slightly dazed — at last, this day had come.

He drew a deep breath and said, "Then issue the ******, full national mobilization!"