Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors-Chapter 514 - 269 I Want the Two Saints!_2

Moreover, the Jin and Qi Dynasties seemed subdued at the moment, but it was uncertain if they might seize an opportunity to strike back. It would be rather embarrassing if the rear was left unguarded and got raided.

Thus, after Zhao Haiping had conquered the vast territories of the pseudo-Great Chu, he temporarily halted further expansion to focus on internal consolidation and gradual assimilation.

He was quite certain that given one or two years, he could forge an invincible army of supreme warriors!

For armies composed of self-farming peasants and sons of good families had always been synonymous with invincibility in ancient times.

Consider even more ancient dynasties, such as the Great Chu or the early years of the Liang Dynasty. The reason their soldiers were so formidable was primarily that they were mostly made up of self-farming peasants and sons of good families.

Although it might seem that militia farmers couldn’t match the professional soldiers recruited specifically for battle, the reality was quite the opposite when actual fighting ensued.

Because, with recruitment, the soldiers received nothing more than stipends and rations, and in a massive recruiting system like that of the Qi Dynasty, those stipends weren’t substantial.

The attraction for the soldiers was indeed minimal.

The key to the militia farming system was that these soldiers could earn land through military service. In ancient times, land was the most critical means of production, incomparable to any treasure of gold or silver.

Gold and silver might be squandered, but land could be passed down through generations, ensuring a stable sustenance for descendants.

As for why these armies collapsed...

It was because the integration of military and farming could not withstand the monopolization of land.

As land continued to be monopolized, these soldiers lost their lands and, with prolonged neglect of training, their combat abilities declined sharply. Lacking both the capacity and motivation to fight, the military structure naturally collapsed.

However, in the early years of a dynasty, so long as land distribution was implemented, it was almost possible to create an army with a high combat spirit.

Dynasties like Chu, Liang, and Sheng in their early periods, when martial virtue was at its peak, almost always managed to do so.

The Qi Dynasty was illegitimate from its inception, so the issue of land monopolization had always existed and remained unsolvable later on.

But now, with Zhao Haiping using the Zhao Yi Army to fight for the territory of the pseudo-Great Chu, these regions, though formerly under the Qi Dynasty, had been under occupation for many years, thus facing much less resistance in many aspects.

However, in the next two years, Zhao Haiping had two other critical tasks apart from distributing land and training troops.

First, using the Zhao Yi Army as a framework, he temporarily established a military governance system to manage the region.

Second, he negotiated with the Jin and the Qi Dynasty.

The former task wasn’t particularly difficult because... it was all about contrasting with his peers.

The tax system of the Qi Dynasty was extremely oppressive, with many taxes continuing from previous regimes, compounded by many new taxes introduced later. Wang Wenchuan tried to reform these issues, but ended up exacerbating the burden on the common people.

It was often said during the Qi Dynasty, "The ancient practices of harsh taxation were fully present." And another saying goes, "The amount of taxes during the Qi Dynasty was seven times that of the Liang, and dozens of times that of Chu."

In summary, the Qi Dynasty’s exploitation of the common people was significant, with historical records noting that peasant uprisings were among the most frequent of any dynasty.

And these taxes were mostly spent on maintaining an excessive number of soldiers, officials, and unnecessary expenditures.

Besides the enormous costs needed to sustain the bureaucratic class, they also had to pay annual tributes to the Jin, constituting a considerable burden.

Under the rule of the pseudo-Great Chu, the lives of the common people were even harsher.

In fact, the pseudo-Great Chu had initially considered implementing a tithe tax, which, if successfully enacted, could have significantly alleviated the agricultural burden and possibly won more public support than the Qi Dynasty.

But the key issue encountered during the reforms of Wang Wenchuan remained: insufficient control over the grassroots level.

For the powerful clans, how could they possibly implement such a tax law earnestly? They were bound to collude with the officials, ultimately passing the heavy burden onto the common people.

Neither the Qi Dynasty nor the pseudo-Great Chu could truly target these powerful clans, as they were fundamentally their ruling bases.

Hence, the new tax system became unfeasible and reverted to the old ways of the Qi Dynasty.

Moreover, since the pseudo-Great Chu was a puppet regime installed by the Jin, when the Jin required troops, it had to assist in drafting soldiers; when the Jin needed various materials from this area, it had to continually exploit the locals.

One could imagine how the common people suffered.

However, surprisingly despite the pseudo-Great Chu regime being pushed to such extents, its rule did not invite universal condemnation or make life unbearable for the people, and compared to the Qi Dynasty, it even held a slight advantage.

Historical records indicate that as the rule of the pseudo-Great Chu continued, order and agricultural production in the Central Plains gradually recovered, and a significant number of people slowly accepted its governance.

Individuals like Yu Jiaxuan, who would start rebellions at the drop of a hat, became increasingly rare.

Thus, many officials and military leaders of the Qi Dynasty began to worry that the people of the Central Plains might "as years pass, become deeply ensnared and lean towards defection, becoming irreversibly alienated" from the Qi Dynasty.

In short, although the governing capacity of the pseudo-Great Chu wasn’t impressive, compared to the equally inadequate Qi Dynasty, it surprisingly managed to hold its own.

In actual history, because Qin Huizhi, after coming to power, implemented the policy of "return the south to the south, the north to the north," which utterly betrayed the northern populace of the Qi Dynasty, and as the Jin quickly terminated the pseudo-Great Chu regime to establish direct rule, the Northern Land eventually and thoroughly disconnected from the Qi Dynasty.

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