Many people know about Shang Yang's political reform, but what method did he change specifically? I'll give you a general explanation, some of which are still in use today.
Let's talk about land reform first
The county system established by Shang Yang replaced the enfeoffment system, which divided the whole territory of Qin into 3 1 counties, and each place set up county magistrate and county official positions. In other words, people are state-owned, leading the country's wages, and there are no more lords. The Zhou Dynasty perished because of the enfeoffment system. Before Shang Yang's political reform, every country used the enfeoffment system. One drawback of the enfeoffment system was that my subordinates, not my subordinates, could refuse my orders. The county system eliminated this drawback. As long as it's on my turf, you have to listen to me. Our current city, county and village system also continues this idea.
The second thing of land reform is to pay taxes, that is, the government recognizes that land is private and allows land to be bought and sold, but in exchange, all land owners have to pay taxes to the state and perform military service. Before that, the land was in the hands of literati, and the government knew nothing about how many people and how much land they had. It is difficult to start a war with money, but it is different to start paying taxes. How many people, how much food and how much land the government has, it will be easy to do things.
Shang Yang also got the household registration system, which is now commonly known as the "ID card". This system is very powerful. The household registration not only made a general survey of the population of Qin, but also made further restrictions. When you are old, you must divide the household registration form, restrict people from traveling casually, and prohibit private hotels. Is to let the people honestly farm and try not to think about anything else.
There is also unified measurement. At that time, the standards of measurement were different in every place. Zhang Cun is a bowl, Licun is a pot and Wangcun is a bottle. This is very inconvenient. When political science and law collect grain, they have to be converted everywhere, which is incomprehensible. And Shang Yang unified me with a wave of his hand! I'll see who pays less for meals in the future! Shang Yang restrained the development of businessmen. He thinks that as long as they participate in the operation, farmers have no mind to farm, so they always think about how to make money, which is not easy to fool.
After the land reform, it was the military reform.
Shang Yang established a military system. At that time, it was useless for farmers to join the army to kill the enemy. After a lifetime of fighting, I came home with nothing, and even the weapons of the war had to be recycled. This military system has changed this situation. As long as you can kill the enemy and make meritorious deeds, you can be knighted and married. This policy made the people of Qin enthusiastic about joining the army, and when they went to the battlefield, they desperately wanted to make meritorious deeds, which is one of the reasons why Qin was called the teacher of tigers and wolves. Shang Yang thought very far. If the title dies of natural causes, it cannot be inherited. Unless killed in battle, it will be inherited by his son.
It is precisely because of these legal systems established by Shang Yang that Qin really became a powerful country!