Chapter 1861: The True Source of Pride

Emperor Liu often modestly called himself humble and worked hard to present a peaceful demeanor, but in his bones he was actually a very proud man. He possessed vision that transcended his era and wisdom that saw through people's hearts. He single-handedly changed the course of an entire world, establishing an unprecedentedly centralized vast empire.

Even with Emperor Liu's usual restraint and gravity, he would occasionally reveal an arrogant, boastful bearing, taking pride in his achievements and abilities. At the very least, as an autocratic monarch, Emperor Liu's accomplishments were without precedent in the past, and it would be difficult for anyone to surpass him in the future.

But as the years advanced and he entered his twilight years, Emperor Liu's mindset was constantly changing. Correcting abuses, instituting reforms, centralizing power, unifying the realm, campaigning south and north—these were things Emperor Liu had prided himself on for decades, yet now in his view, they were no longer worth mentioning. After all, looking back a thousand years, there had still been a few emperors who accomplished such things.

After more than twenty years of peace, Emperor Liu discovered that the only thing he could truly be proud of was overseas colonization. It was not about displaying might beyond the borders; in Emperor Liu's view, this was an attempt to break free from the mold of Chinese historical patterns, a way to vent internal contradictions.

In the current Great Han, although the empire could not completely shed some feudal and backward frameworks, the living space of the common people had been greatly expanded, and they possessed a certain degree of personal freedom.

For ordinary common folk, if they could not bear the heavy burdens and exploitation within the country, they had entirely other ways out, with many choices—relocating to the frontiers, or going overseas. As long as they were bold enough and dared to take risks, there were countless land resources around the Great Han for its people to take, especially the vast South Seas region. Although it was largely wilderness with harsh conditions, most of it was high-quality resources awaiting development. And with the Great Han people's focus and skill in agriculture, as long as people went there, they need not worry about lacking results.

As for the various influences and restrictions local powers placed on common folk, these were certainly unavoidable, but under the Great Han's policy environment, achieving complete control was equally unrealistic.

Toward immigration to solidify the frontiers and overseas colonization, the court's attitude had always been supportive and persistent. It had long made immigration one of the important indicators for evaluating and promoting local chief officials, and it had been written into the ancestral institutions.

That's right—Emperor Liu still could not resist the impulse to establish ancestral institutions. Although he had some concerns that the rules he set might become the "great righteousness" of those who would cling to the old ways, Emperor Liu still did it. At least in his view, every rule he established was for the empire's long-term stability and perpetual survival.

Emperor Liu's original intention in establishing ancestral institutions was, of course, to restrict later generations from acting recklessly. With a vision that transcended the times by a thousand years, he had the qualification and the confidence to do this.

Moreover, many of the items were meant to preserve the pioneering, enterprising, and uplifting spirit of the Great Han's officials and people. For the sake of this enterprise, it was necessary to adopt measures that could be called stubbornly conservative. Reality sometimes was just this contradictory.

Regarding immigration and pioneering, this was given even greater emphasis. The Northeast, Monan, Gaochang, Anxi, and Annam were all key development regions treated as century-long projects.

Against this backdrop, the government offices throughout the Great Han naturally responded enthusiastically. Since it involved promotion evaluations and concerned their official caps, the Great Han's bureaucrats naturally exerted themselves with exceptional diligence.

Of course, they were not allowed to do as they pleased. Otherwise, in order to complete tasks and produce impressive results, they would come up with all sorts of absurd and vile methods, and do all kinds of things without any bottom line.

Thus, Emperor Liu continued to impose restrictions, putting a tightening band on his bureaucrats. In light of the lesson of the Yulin Rebellion, government-organized immigration had one basic principle: it must be voluntary, never coerced. If any official, to achieve his goal, used improper means or abused power over others, one could report to the higher-level government office. Once verified, severe punishment would follow. And if "mass incidents" like the Yulin Rebellion occurred over immigration matters, the investigation would also be pursued to the end, and the officials involved would not be lightly forgiven.

At the same time, strict regulations were made for immigration destinations. Andong, Anxi, and Annam were the first batch; Gaochang, Monan, and other border regions were the second batch; the rest were the final batch.

All government-organized immigration required detailed records to ensure management and control of migrants. The number of migrants and performance evaluations were compiled by each border region and submitted to the court, where the two sides would be compared and assessed. During this process, the court would also dispatch envoys from time to time to supervise and inspect.

As for overseas immigration, up to now it remained primarily spontaneous action by the people, not yet at the stage where the government would organize it. In matters of immigration, solidifying the frontiers remained the current policy and the primary consideration.

However, it could be anticipated that once the new tax reform was fully completed, the Great Han would welcome another terrifying wave of population growth, which could not be stopped. Perhaps at that time, alleviating population pressure would become the main purpose of immigration.

When the state's tide surges fiercely, one uses neighbors as drainage ditches—this was the solution Emperor Liu could think of: providing the Great Han's people with more choices and the Great Han Empire with more possibilities. Fortunately, this world was large enough for the Great Han's subjects to roam.

Therefore, although the court had not organized large-scale, compulsory population relocation for over twenty years, under the guidance of this relatively moderate policy, the Great Han had still achieved no small accomplishments in immigration and frontier consolidation over the years. Small amounts accumulated into large ones, and the scale of the immigrant population achieved was several times greater than the crude forced relocations of those days.

Of course, in this regard, one had to praise the performance of those bureaucrats. For the sake of good political achievements and promotion prospects, they thought of every possible way and actively pushed things forward.

Simple and crude policies could not be used recklessly, but there were other methods. Many local government offices chose to entice with benefits. Quite a few regions with poor land and large populations chose to set aside a portion of their meager retained taxes to subsidize people willing to relocate to the frontiers.

Thus, for many common folk willing to venture to the borderlands, from the moment they submitted their application, they already had their first income. And upon arriving at their destination, land, seeds, farming tools, and other means of production were generally prepared in full. Some places even considered housing, providing additional subsidies, and the rations for subsistence during the reclamation period would not be lacking either.

For immigration, the court had also specially allocated a fund dedicated to this matter. By the twenty-fourth year of Kaibao, this fund had reached as much as three million strings of cash—by no means a small sum.

It must be mentioned that in the early years, to support Andong's development, the court allocated one million strings annually. This money stopped as Andong's development gradually got on track, and also due to some obscure reasons. But from this, it was not hard to see Emperor Liu's favor toward the Andong region's development, the consolidation of the northeastern border defenses, and his partiality for his eldest son, Liu Xu.

On the other hand, the Pacification Commission was also operating at full capacity, vigorously promoting propaganda, carefully selecting each immigration destination's advantages to advertise, which indeed achieved considerable results.

In recent years, throughout the Great Han's regions, there were many such phenomena: government offices dispatched clerks to the countryside, going door to door promoting the court's immigration policies and local government immigration benefits.

Once wouldn't work, a year wouldn't work, but over the long accumulation of years, there would always be people who were moved. After all, even Andong, in the promotional brochures produced by the Pacification Commission, was described as a treasure land of vast fertile fields, with animal, plant, and mineral resources there for the taking—cold, but with no other shortcomings......

And with this large-scale tax reform currently underway, once completed, with the transformation of the social environment plus policy drivers, a new wave of immigration could be foreseen to erupt.

In the past, although many government offices pushed immigration to make their promotion evaluations look good, there had not been comprehensive consensus. From other interest considerations, bureaucrats actually were not willing to do the laborious and costly work of immigration.

Under the two-tax system, government financial income depended mainly on people. The more the population, the more taxes could be collected, and the less would be apportioned to each individual. The burden on the people under one's jurisdiction would be relatively reduced, and as long as one knew restraint, the popular resentment caused would also be smaller.

Local bureaucrats could basically regard the people under their jurisdiction as chickens in a coop—sustainably harvestable for eggs. Unless necessary, they were not willing to release them from the coop and give away their egg-laying chickens to others.

But now the situation was different. Population was no longer a criterion for performance evaluation, and the tax base and payment rules had also changed. Land was fixed in quantity; no matter how many more people there were, it was hard to affect the collection of regular taxes.

In this way, maintaining a large population was clearly not cost-effective for government operations. Raising so many people consumed grain after all; if disasters occurred, there would be relief and tax reductions—no matter how one looked at it, it was a loss.

The poorer the place, the more this was true. For officials, whether from career or interest considerations, they had the motivation to do it; for the people, there was court policy support and direct material benefits. Apart from needing to leave their homeland and bear the risks of border security, there were no other drawbacks—this was a win-win result.

As for risk—from the moment a person is born, they have already embarked on a journey of risk......

Of course, once an immigration wave formed, it would not be so friendly to the domestic landlords, for they, who controlled vast amounts of land, also needed large amounts of labor to farm and manage it.

As for the labor shortage immigration might cause, it would be replenished with the next population explosion. The Great Han would hardly have a headache over lacking population.

On the other hand, this could also limit the exploitation by domestic landlords. Once they went too far, people could run away, immigrating openly and legitimately. If you drove people away, what use was keeping the land......