Not long after Li Si and the others left, Wei Liaozi came to ask for an audience.
Ying Zheng lamented that he really did not have a moment of leisure. In history, Ying Zheng had to read several carriages of books every day, and he was so tired that he fell sick. He was always on guard that he could not do that.
"Your Majesty, I have made a specific plan based on your reform ideas.”Wei Liaozi opened a scroll.
"Great Qin has a regular army of 300,000 people. If we want to reach the 500,000 that the King has mentioned, we will need 4,000,000 dan of rations a year. If he wanted to reach the 800,000-strong army, he would need 9 million dan of rations a year.”
Ying Zheng nodded slightly. According to the intelligence, apart from Great Qin, which could maintain 300,000 regular soldiers, the other countries, such as Zhao, Wei, and Qi, had maintained more than 100,000 regular soldiers, while the weakest country, Han, could not even maintain 100,000 regular soldiers.
It wasn't that they didn't want to maintain more standing armies, but the agriculture and economy of this era didn't allow them to maintain more standing armies.
Although this was a world of high martial arts, it had little to do with the people. The people lived their lives as they should.
Once a war broke out, if the regular army did not have enough, they would start to recruit the people. Thus, once a war broke out, the food consumption would be much higher.
"If we want to have three meals a day and train once a day, the amount of food consumed will increase. The 500,000 regular troops will have a food shortage of 7 million, and the 800,000 troops will have a food shortage of 14 million.”
In this era, both the army and the people ate two meals a day, and the army trained once every five days. The consumption of energy was too great if it became three meals a day and one practice a day.
"Your Majesty, this subject suggests that we do not need to be in such a hurry to unify the world. If we take too big a step, we might not be able to move faster, but we might end up dragging our balls. This subject understands that Your Majesty wants to increase Great Qin's army's fighting strength, but this needs to be done gradually.”
"Please continue," Ying Zheng said.”
Seeing that Ying Zheng's expression did not change, Wei Liaozi sighed and continued,""The soldiers train once a day. It is not enough to just provide enough food. We also need a certain amount of meat. Dogs, pigs, sheep, deer, chickens, ducks, fish. No matter what kind of meat we have, we will not have enough.”
It was impossible to train elite soldiers by eating only food and not meat.
Wei Liaozi's long speech simply said that we can't meet your requirements, we lack food and meat.
Ying Zheng thought of the treasure that he had drawn from the lottery, smiled and said,""Just do as I say. Recruit the army first and make it five hundred thousand soldiers. Then, train once a day and have three meals a day. I will take care of the food and meat shortage.”
Wei Liaozi slightly frowned as he said," Your Majesty, having 500,000 soldiers isn't a big problem. However, according to Your Majesty's plan, Great Qin's reserves will be used up in a month at most.”
"Don't worry and do it. I'm not a fool. Naturally, I've considered everything before asking you to make such a plan.”
Ying Zheng's tone was extremely firm, and his expression turned extremely solemn,"
"I know that the path of reform will not be so smooth. There will be royal families, nobles, or ghosts and monsters stopping you on the road ahead, but remember, I am standing behind you.”
"As long as I am alive, Shang Yang's fate will never happen to you!”
Speaking of which, although Shang Yang's reform had greatly increased the strength of Qin State, after Duke Xiao passed away, he was torn apart and his entire family was killed.
However, with Ying Zheng's strength, it was not a dream for him to be immortal. As long as Wei Liaozi was loyal to him and reformed the Great Qin Empire, he would never follow in Shang Yang's footsteps.
"Thank you, Great King!" Wei Liaozi was moved, but he quickly regained his senses.
"There's also the encouragement of childbirth. After giving birth to a child, each additional child will be rewarded with one mu of fertile land. Every year, you can receive five gold coins and a stone of meat.”
"This subject roughly estimates that after this plan is implemented for a year, the reward of fertile land will still be maintained, but it will no longer be maintained by the second year. As for the five gold coins per person per year, the Imperial Court will only maintain it for three months at most.”
" Because the more children they give birth to, the more rewards they will receive, which will cause the people to give birth to more children. The pressure on Great Qin will be greater than ever, and those that they don't want to give birth to can be given to the Imperial Court, which will increase the pressure on the Imperial Court…"
In this era, it would be considered good if an ordinary person could eat two meals a day in a year. As for meat, it would be good if they could eat one meal a month, and there was only some shredded meat.
If Ying Zheng's reward for having more children was announced, many people would probably exercise non-stop at night.
In this era, population was the greatest wealth. In history, the population of the Qin country at this time was only three million. However, in this world, the population of the Qin country had reached seven million. The population of other countries had basically doubled, but even so, the population of the entire Nine Prefectures did not exceed 50 million.
In fact, if it wasn't for the lack of land and food, Wei might have destroyed Qin two hundred years ago.
Road construction, mining, opening up the city, increasing the literacy rate of the people, increasing the rewards for immigrants from other countries, abolition of slavery, nationalization of salt, copper, iron, wine, currency, mountains, forests, rivers, and lakes, encouragement of commerce, and change of some of the harsh laws of Qin, such as the law of association. If one person broke the law, not only would his entire family be implicated, but his neighbors and fellow countrymen would also be implicated…
There were as many as twenty-five directions of reform proposed by Ying Zheng, and Wei Liaozi had come here today to tell him.
"Your Majesty, I agree with your direction of reform. If we can implement it and Great Qin can handle it, we will benefit greatly.
However, Great King, you are taking too big of a step forward. Before Great Qin gains any benefits from the reform, it will be dragged down by the reform.
Moreover, more than half of the reform could not be separated from food and meat. The shortage was simply astronomical.
Not to mention now, even the economy and food production of the Great "Song" during its heyday would be dragged down.
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