Second-hand time travel: Liu Bei, the big-eared bandit

Chapter 242 Jixia Academy
End of March.

"...Spring plowing has ended, and the household registration of Qingzhou has been sorted out. The six prefectures and kingdoms together have 355,000 households and 1.82 million people."

Before reporting to Liu Bei, Jia Xu cited the household registration statistics compiled during the land distribution: "The number of tenant farmers alone is 280,000 households, totaling 1.4 million people..."

This population is more than half less than it was during the Yonghe era of Emperor Shun (50 years ago).

The statistics from the Yonghe era showed that there were 63 households and 370 million people in Qingzhou. Moreover, no hidden households were found during the household registration census that year.

Years of natural disasters and man-made calamities, as well as the wars that followed the Yellow Turban Rebellion, caused a large number of self-cultivating farmers to migrate to other places to avoid the disasters, leaving only powerful families, dependent people (such as retainers), and the destitute in Qingzhou.

The most dynamic and commercially active group of farmers in society has almost entirely disappeared.

In order to redistribute land, the powerful families of each prefecture all cooperated in resettling the starving people, and now almost all the destitute have become tenant farmers in various households.

Tenants make up nearly 80% of the total population, a proportion that is certainly extremely unhealthy. Any natural disaster or man-made calamity could easily trigger another outbreak of unrest.

The Pingyuan Kingdom resettled the most people, and the proportion was even more outrageous, with a total of 9 households, nearly 50 people, of whom 45 were tenant farmers—including the 28 people in Guantun.

This demographic structure makes it difficult to develop industry and commerce because the overall market demand is too small.

The wealthy families had large estates and many tenant farmers, so they were mostly self-sufficient and did not need to purchase food, clothing, housing, or transportation, which meant they had no basic needs.

Meanwhile, having just spent money and grain and depleting their reserves, the powerful clans were temporarily devoid of any desire to purchase luxury goods. With Liu Bei's army stationed there, to avoid misunderstandings, the clans dared not procure horses, iron, or other military supplies.

Abjectly poor families who have just gone from being starving to becoming tenant farmers have absolutely no purchasing power in the short term, and cannot even engage in a lending economy because they have no property.

This situation can only solve the basic needs of the poor first. As time goes by, a new group of self-cultivating farmers will emerge from the tenant farmers, and only by making positive changes in the overall population structure can rapid development be achieved.

Apart from that, the only other option is to attract people from outside the industry to inject vitality into the market.

How is the Yellow River flood season this year?

Liu Bei turned to ask Zhuge Xuan, who was in charge of water conservancy.

“The waterways within Qingzhou have been dredged to a great depth, so there should be no flooding. However, the water is extremely turbid in early spring, with a lot of floating wood and debris in it, indicating that something must have happened in the upstream waterways… When summer comes, I fear that all the prefectures and counties upstream will suffer from flooding.”

Zhuge Xuan was quite professional in this regard.

The river has too much mud and sand, and it has carried a large number of trees. This is clearly a sign of a breach in the dike or a change in the river's course. If this is the case in spring, then large-scale floods are bound to occur in Henan and Hebei during the summer flood season.

Floods are inevitably accompanied by insect infestations and riots.

"Then we must prepare for unrest in Jizhou and Yanzhou. Perhaps many people will migrate to Qingzhou when the summer floods arrive... How much grain do we have left?"

Liu Bei then asked about Bian Ji.

With many affairs to attend to lately, Bian Ji has once again stepped in to help manage the finances and provisions.

Bian Bing was in a worse situation; he was assigned to manage money, keeping accounts for warehouses full of copper coins every day, and now he felt nauseous just looking at money.

Fortunately, most of the money was new money brought by Tian Yu, which could be weighed and counted directly. If they had to count the money like before, Bian Bing would definitely have run away from home.

“During the spring planting season, we distributed grain for planting and also gave each household ten bushels of rations. Now we only have 93,000 bushels of millet and 35,000 bushels of wheat left.”

Bian Ji didn't take the ledger; clearly, she had these numbers memorized.

One bushel of millet is less than 30 catties in modern measurement, and one bushel of wheat is about 35 catties.

At the end of last year, Tao Qian killed a large number of powerful clans in western Qingzhou, obtaining more than a million bushels of grain, but also consuming a lot of it.

The Guantun garrison had 28 people, and once the grain and rations were distributed, the food was gone immediately.

Fortunately, there were many people, and fortunately, Jia Xu managed to fix the waterway in time; otherwise, the transportation losses would have been heartbreaking.

The rations distributed were barely enough to keep them alive—each household had an average of about 5 people and only about 300 jin of rations. It would take about five months to last until the autumn harvest, so they could only drink thin porridge every day.

The wild vegetables and grasses around the plains have been almost completely stripped away. The Yellow River has just been dredged, so there are very few fish. Only the coastal areas can be fished.

The grain reserves of over 100,000 dan (a unit of dry measure) were only enough for the troops until the autumn harvest, which meant there was no surplus grain.

At the end of last year and the beginning of this year, all the powerful families distributed large amounts of grain to famine victims and tenant farmers, leaving them with no surplus. This situation cannot withstand even the slightest disturbance. They must not only ensure this year's harvest but also prevent any unforeseen events, at least to survive this autumn harvest.

Actually, if he could, Liu Bei would like to quietly farm for two or three years and stockpile a large amount of grain first.

But time was precious, and Liu Bei wanted to speed things up.

"My lord, for now, our best course of action is to close the passes, defend Qingzhou, and wait until we have a sufficient supply of food before considering anything else. When poor, one should cultivate one's own virtue; when prosperous, one can benefit the world..."

Jia Xu was probably afraid that Liu Bei would meddle in other people's business... especially afraid that Liu Bei would be so kind as to help the disaster victims in Ji and Yan.

Everyone in the room nodded in agreement, worried that Liu Bei would squander his fortune again.

Liu Bei was silent for a while, then nodded: "We have no surplus grain, so let's put other things aside for now... Let's spread the word to all the states that we are going to rebuild the Jixia Academy in Qingzhou. Anyone with a skill can come here to apply for a teaching position. At least we still have a lot of money."

"Rebuild the Jixia Academy?!"

Everyone was shocked; Liu Bei was indeed going to squander his fortune again.

"Yes, the new learning is actually the old learning. In the past, the Qi region was a place of intellectual ferment and diverse schools of thought, with scholars everywhere, making the Qi region prosperous and its people wealthy..."

Liu Bei cleared his throat: "Ahem, actually, what I mainly value is the 'wealth of the people'."

"Does Your Majesty wish to gather scholars from across the land here for debate, thereby stimulating commerce and trade?"

The first to react was Mi Fang, who was usually quite unremarkable.

As a member of a merchant family, Mi Fang was quite astute in business.

“That’s right. Only with a large influx of scholars can the economy be stimulated… As for scholarship, it becomes clearer through debate. Mr. Zheng will surely be happy to preside over this matter. If I appoint Mr. Zheng as the headmaster of Jixia Academy, I’m sure no one will object.”

Liu Bei nodded and said.

Jia Xu praised, "This is indeed a brilliant plan... My lord, why don't you first establish several academies, each headed by a specialist, and appoint Guan You'an, Hua Ziyu, and others as deans..."

……

Without hesitation, the Jixia Academy was rebuilt on its original site outside the Ji Gate in Linzi, Qi State.

Liu Bei also formally went to invite Zheng Xuan and others to serve as the headmasters.

Guan Ning excelled in the Book of Poetry and the Book of Rites; Hua Xin excelled in the Book of Documents; and Bing Yuan excelled in the Analects, each forming their own academy.

This matter truly fulfilled the greatest wish of the scholars. Zheng Xuan immediately agreed upon hearing the news and even moved his entire school from Gaomi to Linzi.

The area outside Jimen had been transformed into residential buildings and a market, but the locals moved out of their homes without uttering a single complaint; no one became a holdout in this matter.

Although we didn't have any surplus grain, we still had enough money, and this matter didn't actually cost much money.

Upon learning that Liu Bei intended to rebuild the Jixia Academy, the entire Qingzhou, from the gentry to the common people, offered their strong support. In particular, with Zheng Xuan becoming the headmaster, no one dared to object.

The Jixia Academy is something that the people of Qingzhou are proud of. This is about reviving the cultural heritage of their hometown, and no one would want to cause trouble. On the contrary, people are contributing money and effort, and everyone is very enthusiastic.

Of course, at first everyone assumed that with Zheng Xuan as the headmaster, the newly built Jixia Academy must be a Confucian academy...

However, while the Jixia Academy was being rebuilt in Linzi, several other academies were also being built in Pingyuan, Donglai and other places, which were also listed as academic branches of the Jixia Academy.

Donglai is Guan Hai's maritime academy, which is almost completed.

Pingyuan has opened a medical school, with Xiuniang still serving as the dean. She has also sent a letter to Zhang Feng in Luoyang, asking the Imperial Physician Zhang Feng to recommend several local renowned doctors who are unwilling to serve as imperial physicians.

The College of Agricultural and Irrigation Sciences was also located in Pingyuan. The dean was Jia Xu, and the vice deans were Zhuge Xuan and Guo Yuan.

In addition, there was a newly opened military academy, with Liu Bei personally serving as the principal, and the professors being various generals in the army, except for Zhang Fei.

But Zhang Fei was very happy; he was now the dean—Liu Bei had allowed Zhang Fei to open a separate art academy in Jinan…

(End of this chapter)