Yudu City.
The twenty-fifth day of the first lunar month, two days after the Fill the Granaries Festival.
Folk tradition called that day the Granary Prince's birthday, a festival symbolizing bountiful harvests in the new year.
Because "fill" and "heaven" sounded alike, the Fill the Granaries Festival was also called the Heavenly Granary Festival.
People offered sacrifices to the earth god and the mill god.
Filling the granaries meant just that: filling the grain stores.
The newly appointed prefect, Jing Yu, sighed.
Until he became an official, he had not known how difficult being one could be.
To think that not long ago, he had still been enjoying himself in the pleasure quarters of Capital City, and now he was here fretting over the livelihood of an entire region.
'ε=(´ο｀*))) Sigh.
Jing Yu heaved a heavy sigh.
Before he came to Yudu City, Empress Liu Yun had personally summoned him to the palace and given him instructions.
Reform. To carry out reforms, they needed a place to try them first.
And the Empress had chosen Yudu City.
Land consolidation was severe in Great Sui. Of all the taxable land in the country,
roughly a third was actually concealed among the holdings of great landlords, and under ancestral law, these people did not have to pay taxes.
Another third was occupied by the various sects, schools, and Lineages, and likewise paid no taxes.
Only a third of the land supported the country.
This had created a situation where private households grew richer by the day while the public coffers grew poorer, leaving the state depleted and the people impoverished.
Previously, there had been troubles within and threats without, with Great Yu watching like a tiger from the north.
Now Great Yu had been destroyed, and peace reigned across the four seas.