Chapter 145 Playing Slowly
April 15th, General’s Mansion in Jingxing City.

"The heroic spirit of the righteous army is the only one I have ever seen in my life."

Li Kai, who was wearing a small crown on his head and a cross-collared straight-hem dress, praised as he stroked his beard.

This is a middle-aged man between forty and fifty, with a polite smile on his face, but his eyes appear cold and undemanding.

Behind the desk below him, his two sons were kneeling.

General Li Hao was kneeling behind the main desk with a small stool under him to support his buttocks. Li Ju, who had come specially from Leping County, was sitting opposite the visitor.

"Since you are planning to move your two sons here, then divide them into two branches. I will have someone register them as two large families in the general's mansion."

Huangji is the household registration book of the Jin Dynasty, so named because it is written on yellow paper.

The rebels continued to use yellow paper to register households and population, and distinguished between small and large households.

A small household is an ordinary household with less than 100 mu of land. Apart from the annual land tax, all male members of the small household aged 16 to 60 need to perform one month of labor service every year.

The big households are semi-self-employed farmers and small landlords who own more than 100 acres of land.

The major figures in the rebel army today are mainly military officers at all levels and civil officials in various county governments.

General Li had originally promised to allow wealthy families like Li Kai to purchase no more than one thousand acres of land. In order to further win over the gentry, he planned to allow the wealthy families to divide their houses and build their own ancestral halls.

Having served as an official in Luoyang City for many years, Li Kai naturally understood what this meant.

After the separation, his two sons were able to purchase one thousand acres of land each. Although there were no private households, the rebel army allowed large households to rent out their land for farming.

"Thank you for your kindness, General. But I wonder if there is a limit on the rent for the land if it is cultivated by tenant farmers?"

Some of the private households of the nobles were tenants, while others were slaves. Li Kai's family did not have many slaves, and without private households, they had to find tenants from the regular households.

"The upper limit is 45 percent."

Around the time when land was distributed to the rebel soldiers in March, the General's Office had already set an upper limit on the rent for the tenants.

This amount was finalized after consultation between Li Hao, Jun Li Ju, and the surrendered Leping County Mayor Sun Bin and others.

The land rent for military farms in the Wei and Jin Dynasties was 5% for officials and 5% for civilians. If the government provided cattle, the rent would become 6% for officials and 4% for civilians.

In order to recruit poor people from all over the country, the rebel army naturally had to lower the land rent, so a cap of 45% was set.

Of course, the land rent was actually decided by both the tenants and the landlords. General Li dared to set the rent at 45% because the rebel army confiscated a large amount of land from the wealthy families. In addition to the nearly 140,000 acres of land distributed to the four or five thousand rebel soldiers, there were still 70,000 to 80,000 acres of land rented to tenants in the form of official land for cultivation.

The soldiers of the rebel army were divided into guarding soldiers and combat soldiers. The guarding soldiers did not participate in cross-county transfers and could find time to farm the land, while the combat soldiers were provided with food, salt, cloth and other expenses by the general's office, and most of their land was also rented out.

Naturally, the rent for these two large parts of land was 45%, thus reducing the rent on the rebel army's territory to less than 50%.

Li Kai continued to stroke his beard, "If my son accepts the call from the general's mansion, or brings his own soldiers to help in the war, can he have his land tax reduced?"

When he was an official, the government exempted 40 hectares of land from taxes. Although he did not have that much land, he was used to enjoying the preferential treatment given to the gentry by the Jin court.

"Yes, those who bring private soldiers to help in the war can be exempted from labor service, and those who serve as officers in the righteous army will be granted land according to their rank."

General Li first stated his preferential treatment of the wealthy, and then extended an olive branch to Li Kai's family, "The rebel army is temporarily short of a Langzhong of the Yuheng Division to supervise the craftsmen in repairing, building armor and military equipment, and a Langzhong of the Yingshan Division to supervise the labor in various places and build city canals, etc. Li Ji and Li Huang will be appointed to the positions."

These high-ranking aristocratic families all have followers such as retainers and hangers-on. The children of the aristocratic families are mainly helped by their followers and staff to make decisions, and they can be sent to serve as officials anywhere.

The upper limit may not be high, but it is better than the person in charge currently chosen by the rebels themselves.

People like Li Lian, who were born in a military household, could not be placed in charge of coal mine supervision. General Li planned to let him lead the cavalry to the southern Zhao State to plunder the local gentry population and stored grain, just like General Yuzhou had done before.

"General, you are so kind. My father and I will repay you with a grass knot."

Li Kai's eyes were still as cold and undemanding as before, but he was relieved about his two sons moving to Leping County.

Recruiting Li Kai and his son was just the beginning. The general was planning to bring in a group of middle- and lower-class nobles whose land and assets were protected by the government.

"I heard that you have three sons who are not planning to move here. If that's the case, you can promote the policy of the righteous army among the nobles of Zhao. Zhao has a lot of iron mines, and I will attack it sooner or later. The nobles who surrender to me in advance can be treated as wealthy families. If they are captured by the righteous army, their fields and forts will be confiscated. The nobles in Yuanshi County are a precedent."

Jinchang County originally had jurisdiction over seven counties, but only three were left in the hands of Sima Yan and Sima Zhong, father and son, while the rest were all occupied by Tuoba Xianbei.

The rebel army has already captured these three counties, and Li Hao is preparing to turn around and attack Changshan County and Zhao State.

There is really no resource in the north. Changshan and Zhaoguo are both flat and densely populated. Zhaoguo also has iron mines, so we can quickly expand our military after conquering them.

Li Kai respectfully agreed. The Zhao nobles had already witnessed General Li's methods, and a large number of high-ranking nobles were already preparing to move to places further south, such as Yecheng.

The King of Zhao, the King of Chengdu and others all wanted the other side to deal with the rebel army. Bingzhou was unable to suppress it, and the Youzhou army had already been defeated. For the time being, they could not spare more troops to deal with the Li rebel army that was obviously preparing to stay entrenched between Bingzhou and Ji for a long time.

Under this situation, the nobles of various counties and countries in Jizhou began to think about staying away from the rebel territory, so as to avoid their own forts and walls being targeted by the notorious General Li.

The two sides agreed on the migration of the two brothers Li Ji and Li Huang, and then Li Hao proposed that the three leaders of the rebel army be connected with Li Kai as peers.

Li Kai agreed readily. Although he was nominally the patriarch of the Li clan in Taihang Mountain, this branch of the Li clan had been multiplying for more than 500 years, with branches spread across nearby counties. Only close relatives could obey his orders.

After agreeing on various details, Li Kai and his two sons, accompanied by the officers and soldiers of the rebel army, went to Leping County and Jingxing County with their entourage to select land.

The leaders of the rebel army gathered around the general and began to plan the next major move.

Jun Liju took the lead in proposing, "Brother, I have sent people to Pingyang County to recruit a lot of idle men. Why not send people to Pingyang to start an uprising first, so that we can block the connection between Taiyuan County and Sizhou in the south."

Pingyang County is located on the banks of the Fen River and is considered a large county.

His proposal was quite radical. If an uprising started in the Pingyang County area, the Taiyuan Basin would be surrounded by enemies on all sides: Qiang and Hu to the west, Tuoba Xianbei to the north, and the rebel army's territories to the east and south.

The advantage is that they can attack from both the north and the south and try to swallow Taiyuan County. The disadvantage is that the rebel army is exposed to the encirclement of the Jin army in the direction of Sizhou and the two Hu people in the northwest.

"Not right, not right." Sun Bin shook his head repeatedly. He was born in the Langya Sun family, had a lot of knowledge and vision, and had no personal grudge against Pingyang governor Song Zhou. "The reason why Champa was able to occupy the city so smoothly was all due to the bravery of the general. The rebel army has few soldiers and has no intention of fighting outside. It is better to turn around and head south to Zhao State to capture able-bodied men and quickly build up an army. When the number of soldiers exceeds 10,000, we can plan to take over Taiyuan and Pingyang counties."

After he surrendered, he worked diligently and his position in the rebel army rose rapidly.

Another 500-man commander, Lu Rong, supported the strategy of attacking eastward and southward. "General, I have heard that Sima Yi, the King of Changshan, has formed a halberd cavalry unit by imitating the Youzhou halberd cavalry and the Duan clan Xianbei heavy cavalry. It would be better to go to Changshan County first to defeat and gather these cavalry, and then attack Changshan and Zhao."

This proposal is in line with General Li's idea.

"I will avenge you, my second brother, by the beginning of autumn at the latest. Now we should manage the land of Jizhou. I will lead 200 cavalrymen to Changshan County to harass the forts of the nobles, and lure the Changshan cavalry to fight. Li Lian will lead the remaining cavalrymen to the counties of Zhao State, and do the same as Yuanshi County, looting the food stored by the people in the forts, and disrupting the order of the countryside first."

The rebel army was very short of manpower, so they could only create a buffer zone in the area ruled by the Jin court, and then advance slowly and steadily.

The leaders all agreed. The most dangerous work was done by the general, and their duties were very easy.

Li Ju had no choice but to postpone his revenge for several months.

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(End of this chapter)