More than a thousand years had passed since Di Jiazi founded the Great Xia Dynasty. Its reigning emperor, Di Renchen, was the dynasty's twenty-ninth emperor.
Across those long centuries, the Great Xia Dynasty had weathered countless storms. Many of its policies no longer suited the times, but behind every policy stood powerful vested interests. From officials to commoners, untold numbers of people made their living from them.
Changing things was easier said than done!
The reform of taxation and corvée labor that Cang Yuan had mentioned to Ren Changsheng was one example.
Taxation meant the taxes collected by the Imperial Court; corvée meant the labor it conscripted. Together, they covered the various taxes and labor obligations imposed on the people.
When Great Xia was founded, Di Jiazi had proposed a policy of setting taxes and labor obligations separately for each region, on the principle that each land had its own people and circumstances.
In practice, each region's taxes and labor obligations were determined by its actual conditions. Whether a region prospered or lagged behind, it bore no additional burden beyond the taxes collected uniformly across the country. Its fortunes, good or bad, were its own.
This approach had spurred local initiative and driven large-scale economic growth throughout the country in Great Xia's early years. But regions differed in their natural advantages. As time passed, places with the means to prosper did so, while those short on resources or difficult to reach truly could not develop. Gradually, they became barren mountains and treacherous waters.
The prosperous regions needed no explanation. Those barren mountains and treacherous waters, however, became wounds across the body of the giant that was the Great Xia Dynasty.
Poverty meant the people in those places often paid little heed to their methods. Some would even commit acts that