Chapter 62: We Need a New Military System!

In this world, there has always been only relative fairness; how could there ever be absolute fairness?

Whenever war broke out, the prominent clans and powerful gentry of Xuzhou would move their entire households away to escape the calamity.

Once the turmoil subsided, they would return, readily repossessing their fields.

To protect Xuzhou, countless people shed their blood and even sacrificed their lives.

Yet these powerful clans still managed to profit from it all, leaving Liu Bei feeling deeply indignant in his heart.

On the other hand, although Xuzhou experienced a bountiful harvest last year, it only appeared so when compared to the previous two years.

Everything is subject to comparison; over the past two years, corpses of the starved littered the plains, and few common folk were left alive.

Now, with a slight turn for the better, it could be proclaimed abroad as a great bumper harvest.

In truth, the grain Liu Bei had managed to collect barely sufficed for self-sufficiency.

Therefore, his prohibition on the outflow of grain was not aimed purely at targeting Cao Cao; rather, after gathering refugees, Xuzhou simply had far too many mouths to feed.

Liu Bei was currently under immense pressure himself.

"Actually, I do have a strategy to strike at the powerful gentry of Xuzhou."

"Oh? Please speak quickly, Military Advisor."

Li Yi said unhurriedly:

"Last year, because my lord had newly taken command of Xuzhou, popular sentiment was unstable, various factions harbored mutual suspicions, and the regime was insecure; hence, the matter was not raised."

"Now that Xuzhou is unified and the political situation is stable, Yi believes we can finally make a slight move against the local gentry."

Li Yi deliberately raised his voice on the word "slight." In his view, many of Xuzhou's local powerful clans possessed histories spanning a century or more.

One must never act rashly; it had to be done like boiling a frog in warm water—slowly and steadily.

Otherwise, they would end up like Wang Mang reincarnated.

"Then what brilliant strategy does the Military Advisor have?" Liu Bei asked patiently.

Li Yi glanced toward the south, the direction where the military camp was located.

"Has my lord ever considered military reform?" Li Yi asked.

"Military reform...?"

Liu Bei's eyes narrowed. The composition of the Xuzhou army was indeed rather complex.

There were native Xuzhou soldiers, Danyang soldiers from Yangzhou, Taishan soldiers from Yanzhou, frontier troops brought back from the northern borders, and nomadic cavalry given by elder brother Gongsun.

The ingredients were undeniably mixed, and it was truly no easy feat for Liu Bei to twist them into a single rope despite language and accent barriers.

"In former days, when Qin occupied Guanzhong, it was merely a weak and fragile state."

"Later, through Shang Yang's reforms, the twenty-rank system of military merits was established to encourage the people of Qin to farm and fight."

"This enabled Qin to possess an iron-blooded army, allowing the King of Qin to sweep across the six states and unify the realm."

"However, ever since the High Ancestor of our dynasty founded the Han, the empire has enjoyed peace, and the military merit rank system fell into disuse."

"Now the realm is in great chaos, with various warlords carving out independent territories—a situation resembling the contention of the Seven States of old."

"Why not restart the military merit rank system to rouse the fighting spirit of the youths of Xuzhou, making them invincible in attack and battle, just like the Qin army of old?"

"Only thus can my lord rely on this battered land of Xuzhou to pacify the heroes and revive the Han Dynasty!"

With a cold and stern expression, Li Yi slowly delivered his proposal.

Xuzhou was already utterly shattered, considering ancient productivity.

If they relied solely on farming to slowly recover their vitality, it would take five or six years before any results could be seen.

Why else would time-travelers all love to conjure up strange things like potatoes and chemical fertilizers?

Without such things, relying purely on agriculture required a massive investment of time.

Could Xuzhou, and you, My Lord, afford to wait that long?

Now, after suffering through multiple wars, the people of Xuzhou were displaced and the fields lay desolate—much like the impoverished and weakened state of Qin in the past.

Cao Cao's massacre in Xuzhou was essentially aimed at eliminating Xuzhou's military potential.

Li Yi, on the other hand, hoped to unleash Xuzhou's maximum military potential by restoring the military merit rank system.

Lost in thought, Liu Bei paced back and forth on the spot, meditating in silence.

After a short while, he slowly spoke:

"The military merit rank system can indeed inspire officers and men to fight to the death, but whether it is a curse or a blessing for Xuzhou cannot be judged in a moment."

Having spent a year with Li Yi, studying and progressing together,

Old Liu's political acumen was already exceptionally high by this point.

The military merit rank system indeed offered commoners a chance for upward mobility, and Li Yi's statement about slowly striking at the local gentry likely relied upon this very foundation.

Through the military merit rank system, opportunities for promotion were provided to commoners, thereby reshuffling the distribution of wealth in Xuzhou.

Yet Liu Bei understood that the twenty ranks of military merit essentially sucked the blood of the people of Xuzhou, and it was definitely not a long-term solution.

"We shall adopt the military merit rank system, but we will not copy it entirely."

Sensing what Liu Bei was thinking, Li Yi methodically explained to him.

In fact, the twenty-rank military merit system of the Qin Dynasty was the progenitor of gaming progression mechanics.

While others paid real money to win in video games, the ancient Qin people simply wagered their lives in warfare.

Cut off one head and be promoted one rank—it sounded wonderful and could indeed ignite the fighting spirit of the bottom-tier soldiers.

After all, do kings, dukes, generals, and ministers have a different seed? Who wouldn't want to squeeze into the upper echelons of society?

However, Shang Yang, much like many game designers today, had a conscience that was remarkably wicked.

Once you were promoted to the fourth rank, you would realize you had been trapped.

Shang Yang would immediately append the suffix "Grandee" to your title.

This was equivalent to setting up a brand-new threshold for you.

Those at the base level would forever remain trapped playing at the base level.

And if you wished to climb any higher, personal military merit alone was no longer enough; you had to participate in group army operations.

In group army operations, casualty rates were the highest, which effectively "eliminated" another portion of their own people, squeezing their interests to the absolute maximum.

Further up the ladder, the tricks and traps only multiplied.

Yet the core philosophy remained singular: to squeeze out your surplus value, down to the very last drop.

If you could genuinely climb the ranks relying on the military merit rank system, you must undoubtedly be a talent destined to leave a genuine mark in history.

As for those who could not climb up, they would never rise again—meeting their physical demise.

The greatest advantage of this military merit rank system was that it produced a multitude of renowned generals for Qin, allowing them to utterly crush neighboring states.

However, just as Liu Bei worried, the military merit rank system was essentially a form of blood-sucking, which could be overlooked during wartime.

Once peace arrived, it easily triggered a series of social conflicts.

Yet Li Yi believed that modifications could be made on this foundation, such as abolishing cruel mechanisms like collective punishment (Lianzuo).

In fact, the Han Dynasty inherited the institutions of Qin, retaining many of its old systems.

The military merit rank system was actually preserved as well, with Liu Bang having proclaimed as early as his time: "None shall be king unless of the Liu clan, none shall be a marquise without military merit."

However, the national conditions of the Han differed from those of Qin, and by the late Han period, the military merit rank had been completely abandoned.

Even so, the shadow of the military merit rank system could still be glimpsed among many warlords.

What Li Yi needed to do now was to formally restore it and draft various clauses.

However, modifications had to be made based on the actual conditions of Xuzhou, seeking truth from facts.

Taking the essence and discarding the dross, they would forge a twenty-rank military merit system with distinctive Xuzhou characteristics.

The charm of this system lay in its ability to "suppress the nobility and elevate the commoners."

That is to say, it would strike down the decayed aristocracy while raising the status of commoners who wished to change their destiny and were eager for action.

To put it a bit more philosophically, it was a readjustment of distribution, mobilizing the potential and dormant vitality of society.

"Whether it is the Qin system or the Han system, as long as it can solve our problems, it is a good system."

Li Yi explained the twenty-rank military merit system to Liu Bei in simple and profound terms,

and presented his own reform plan, which finally set Liu Bei's mind at ease:

"Very well, then we shall implement it according to the Military Advisor's words."

"Following the Advisor's modifications, this strategy cannot be considered overly violent and is worth a try."

Liu Bei was actually quite willing to give subordinates with innovative ideas a chance, and not merely because the man was Li Yi.