Chapter Thirty-Three: Disposal

  The next day, Wang Zuwei led 5,000 elite cavalrymen to pursue and annihilate Martai's troops on the Narati grassland for 600 li. Martai was defeated and killed, and his head was nowhere to be found. On the same day, Deng Zhengcai and Nie Songbai each led 10,000 iron cavalrymen, dividing their forces into two routes, and successively conquered more than 90 tribes on the Narati grassland, capturing countless war horses, cattle, and sheep, and taking over 280,000 people prisoner.

  The Qin Empire's household registration system implemented the "Shu Ji Ding Yang" system, which stipulated: At birth, people were registered as "Huang", from 4 to 15 years old as "Xiao", males from 16 to 20 years old as "Zhong", from 21 to 59 years old as "Ding", and at the age of 60 as "Lao". The state conducted an annual census, and every three years a household registration was conducted. There were three copies of the household register, one copy left in the county, one sent to the prefecture, and one sent to the Ministry of Households.

  Wuwei, as the largest county of Liangzhou, had a population of 20 million households and 150 million people in the 14th year of Xuanhe. After the Battle of Wuwei, by November of the 15th year of Xuanhe, the population of Wuwei decreased from 150 million to 120 million, with only 30 million able-bodied men remaining.

  This time, the rebellion in Wuwei resulted in the destruction of dozens of noble families, with thousands killed and the entire city outside Wuwei bathed in blood. At the same time, tens of millions of family guards, servants, plus about 200,000 captives from the Nara Grassland, and 80,000 Mongolian captives left over from the battle to defend Wuwei, a total of 456,873 people were left to be dealt with. These people accounted for almost one-third of the population of Wuwei.

  With so many captives in front of him, if he killed them all, the strength of Wu Wei could not be restored within twenty years. This did not match Yang Chengfeng's grand plan to dominate the world. However, if he didn't kill them, how would he deal with them?

  The Great Qin Empire is now implementing the Xiangbao system, where five households form a Bao, four households form a Lin, one hundred households form a Li, and five hundred households form a Xiang. Each Li has one head. The responsibilities of the Li head include: "registering household members, promoting agriculture and sericulture, investigating false claims, and urging payment of taxes and labor services."

  Due to the uneven sex ratio in the entire Qin dynasty, ordinary families generally had one husband and two wives. In aristocratic families, there were countless maidservants and songstresses. Therefore, among these 4.5 million people, excluding 800,000 Mongolians, among the remaining 3,768,873 people, women accounted for around 2 million, young people 1 million, and the rest were elderly and children.

  For this, Yang Chengfeng organized these people into individual families, a total of 100,000 households. For the 90,000 households among them, Yang Chengfeng allocated the land seized from the aristocratic families to let them farm. The remaining 10,000 households were arranged in Narati Grassland, making them herdsmen on Narati Grassland and supplementing the insufficient population of Narati Grassland.

  At the same time, the system of collective responsibility was implemented. Ten households formed a "bao", with one household head selected as the "bao" head; fifty households formed a "da bao", with one person selected as the "da bao" head; ten "da bao" formed a "du bao", with one person selected as the "du bao" head, who was respected by all. Within each "bao", a plaque was set up to record the number of households and their names. If within the same "bao", there occurred robbery, murder, arson, ***, kidnapping, spreading heresy, or manufacturing poisonous insects, and the other households in the "bao" knew about it but did not report it, they would all be punished according to the law of collective responsibility.

  At the same time, every year during the agricultural off-season, each household must send one able-bodied man to participate in military training. In this way, among these 1 million households, Yang Chengfeng can assemble an army of 1 million men at any time for his battles on the battlefield.

  In addition, there were more than 10,000 orphans. The age of these orphans was between 8 and 15 years old, with 8,331 boys and 3,550 girls. Yang Chengfeng gathered the boys together for various training, believing that in ten years they would become an absolutely loyal imperial guard. The girls were also gathered together and trained to serve Yang Chengfeng when they grew up.

  However, for those Mongolians, Yang Chengfeng was not so polite, and in Wuwei, all kinds of heavy labor were waiting for them to do.

  The local administrative organs of the Great Qin Empire inherited the administrative organs of the Qin Dynasty, which divided powers and governed. The prefectures were set up with a governor in charge of administration, a defender in charge of military affairs, and a central government-appointed supervisor responsible for supervision. The rank of the governor was equivalent to that of the nine ministers in the central government, while the defender was slightly lower, both having a deputy as an assistant. Counties with more than 10,000 households had magistrates, while those with fewer than 10,000 households had county heads. There were also county clerks in charge of documents and prisons, and county captains in charge of public security. Below the counties were townships, wards, and villages. Among them, the townships had three elders in charge of education, a steward in charge of lawsuits and taxation, and a patrol officer in charge of public security; the townships governed the wards, which had ward heads; the wards governed the villages. Both the prefectural and county governments had subordinate offices and functional departments. The subordinate offices were called "door below", with a door chief clerk, under which there were institutions such as document archives, attendants, finance, and deliberation. The functional departments were called "columned departments", including the household department in charge of civil administration, the treasury department in charge of financial administration, the military department in charge of military administration, and the judicial department in charge of justice. The counties also had departments responsible for transportation construction, such as the Ministry of Works, the Department of Public Works, the Bridge and Ferry Department, and the Postal Service Department. The heads of each department were called "clerks" and "stewards". This formed a strict governing institution in the shape of a pagoda.

  Most of the officials in Wuwei were from aristocratic families, so after this rebellion, most of the officials were lacking. Especially after the governor Lei Meng committed suicide during the rebellion, the administrative organs of Wuwei fell into a state of paralysis.

  For this, Yang Chengfeng had to take it upon himself as the governor of Wuwei, handling all matters big and small. Among the Household Section, Land Section, Warehouse Section, Finance Section, Military Section, Commandant Section, Bandit Section, and Judgment Section, only the Land Section, Military Section, and Judgment Section were manned, while the others had no personnel. Yang Chengfeng had no choice but to select 100 men from his personal bodyguards to fill the various positions in Wuwei.

  By the beginning of November in the 15th year of Xuanhe, Wuwei had finally returned to a state of normal operation. Although it was not as prosperous as before, it slowly regained its vitality.

  At this time, the 3 million stones of grain purchased by Han Zai Xi from Yangzhou and other places also arrived in Wuwei. Together with the grain seized from those aristocratic families in Wuwei, a total of 20 million stones were reached, enough for two years of use in Wuwei.

  And the vast wealth of those aristocratic families was also astonishing, with over 10 million taels of silver, 300 million taels of silver notes, and countless antiques, paintings, jewels, and other treasures.