There have been too many denunciations about his life, but in any case, the Grand Canal, which he once exhausted his national strength to communicate, became the artery of "South-to-North Water Diversion" in the following Millennium! It can be said that the prosperity of Datang is closely related to the connection of the Grand Canal!
I. Pei Yaoqing's Reform
From the 7th century to the first half of the 8th century, China ushered in his great glory-the prosperous Tang Dynasty. The population of Chang 'an, the heart of the Tang Dynasty empire, also expanded rapidly to millions.
These 1 million people eat horses and feed them. Today, the GDP of that year will be tens of billions. At that time, this was definitely an astronomical figure.
Such a large consumption, even if the climate was pleasant at that time, even the rich Guanzhong plain, could not stand it!
Take grain as an example. If the weather is favorable, you can basically have enough food and clothing. But once God's eyes open, anger will send you floods, typhoons and droughts, and it is common for Chang 'an people to "drink the north wind to the west".
Since local food is not enough to eat, let's support the central government-Jiangnan food is transferred to support it.
The idea is beautiful, but the mountains and waters are far away, and the freight is absolutely amazing. "Chang 'an expensive" is not a joke at all.
Speaking of natural disasters, in 733 AD, an unfortunate thing happened-the great disaster in Guanzhong. Seeing that there was no food to eat, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty even prepared to move the capital to Luoyang to avoid famine.
The first awesome man made his debut. His name was Pei Yaoqing, then the mayor of Beijing.
He told Tang Xuanzong: Is it necessary to move the capital in order to avoid famine? Transport with food!
Tang Xuanzong didn't think about water transportation, but the real problem is that it has been abandoned for decades due to geographical and human factors.
Lao Pei continued: Leave it to me and I'll do it!
Let me briefly talk about the difficulties of grain transportation at that time:
As we all know, every river has a rainy season and a dry season, and the riverbed is not a smooth road leading to Ma Pingchuan. In addition, the strong sediment transport capacity of the Yellow River often causes additional siltation.
If the transportation team on the road is a stalk or something, it will be more difficult to transport water.
Therefore, the matter of transporting grain is by no means as simple as it seems.
In response to these problems, Lao Pei's specific practices are as follows:
First, stop the original land transportation in Shaanxi. This is the so-called unbreakable, let's break the original system first.
Secondly, establish a segmented grain transportation mechanism: set up granaries as transit stations in the Yellow River Estuary, Luoyang and Sanmenxia respectively. Segmented transportation, segmented control.
And it is a combination of land transportation and water transportation. Especially in Sanmenxia, when the current was swift and the waves were big, capsizing accidents occurred frequently. In this case, we should use land transportation to avoid the risk of this section. After this period, we will carry grain downstream.
I have to say that Lao Pei's practice has already had the idea of "refined management" that we said today.
It is this three-stage combination boxing that * * * transported 7 million stone grains in three years, saving 300,000 tons of freight.
It can be said that the spectacular prosperity of Kaiyuan cannot be separated from Pei Yaoqing's contribution!
In addition, Pei Yaoqing has since created a new professional position-transshipment ambassador, which is roughly equivalent to today's Minister of Communications. This official position used to exist, but most of it was temporary or part-time, but since Lao Pei, it has been converted into a formal permanent establishment.
Second, Ada's reform.
Happy times are always fast. In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the Anshi Rebellion "the rain blew away", and time came to the Tang Daizong era.
The prosperous Tang Dynasty was smashed into a sieve in the eight-year war, and Chang 'an was once ruined, and its population was not as large as that of that year. At this time, the grain transportation has stopped.
However, after all, the Tang Dynasty wanted to revive and eat food. In 764 AD, Tang Daizong gave the position of "Minister of Communications" to Ada, a financial expert.
At this time, the main problem that Ada encountered was: poor grain transportation. Sanmenxia is not only a long-standing problem of the "ghost gate", but also the sediment carried by the Yellow River has silted up many river sections. Besides, delivering food is a chore, and no one wants to do it!
Holding his beard, Liu thought of several ways:
First, the whole process of grain transportation is still divided into four transportation sections, and warehouses are set up at the junction of each section to store grain for transshipment. This is basically the same as Lao Pei's.
Second, the organization set up a "security team" to transport grain and sent special military attache to escort it.
Third, reform the wage system for boatmen. In the past, water transportation was labor, that is, compulsory apportionment. You can't do it if you don't do it. If you do it, you will have no money. Now, we should hire people to work professionally.
Fourth, open the Bianhe River and dredge the river.
Fifth, completely cancel land transportation. In view of the long-standing problems in Sanmenxia, 2000 large ships were specially built, and they are no longer afraid of capsizing.
Needless to say, Liu's "five consecutive moves" have just worked. Not long after, the rice in the Jianghuai area was successfully transported to Chang 'an.
Tang Daizong praised Lao Liu as "Xiao He"! It's a pity that Liu is not as lucky as Xiao He. In 780 AD, 65-year-old Liu was framed and executed.
Third, Pei Xiu's reform.
Pei Yaoqing and Ada's two water transport reforms made the Tang Dynasty prosperous and revived, but the problem was that the system died and the interests lived.
Around 850 AD, there was no food in Chang 'an, the capital, and the problem was to transport food!
It used to be a natural disaster, but this time it was purely a man-made disaster: after the grain sent by Jianghuai was transported to Chang 'an, it was only about 30% of the original!
If you want to ask, where did all the food go? The person in charge of transporting grain will tell you "responsibly": the boat capsized and fell into the water! Cann't catch it!
For this answer, investigators can only stare blankly! Not satisfied? The grain delivery officer will even give you a live "drill" of the capsizing accident.
This time, the person who stood up was also Lao Pei. His name is Pei Xiu. At this time, he is over 60 years old and belongs to the level of officialdom slick. After a little investigation, he found that it was not capsizing at all, but was deducted by various points along the way. All the lost food went to the "master" at each checkpoint!
These so-called "lords" are actually officials and clerks in charge of grain transportation. The reason is also very simple: after the turmoil in the Tang Dynasty, the wages of these people were also falling, so they had to find ways to "open up sources". However, what should have been reasonable and reasonable "plucking geese" has become "plucking geese" here.
Now that we have found the crux of the problem, Pei Xiu can naturally suit the remedy to the case:
First, the responsibilities of grain transportation assistants and state and county officials are clearly divided, and different types of grain transportation officials are encouraged through different law enforcement responsibilities.
To put it bluntly, it is to establish a clear reward mechanism so that you can have soup to drink, but you have to give the "meat" to the country.
Secondly, the annual grain commission is distributed to the government and the people, which also solves the problem of "profit" that the government and the people are most concerned about.
In other words, it is absolutely impossible to strictly manage the commission of grain transportation, set up a "anti-corruption" high-pressure forbidden zone in this area, and pluck hair in other places.
The third is to concretize and institutionalize this reform plan.
This seems simple, but it's really powerful. Because I used to say that "the system is not on the wall, it means there is no system", and Lao Pei's approach is to let the system be on the wall! Put all the responsibilities and rewards into a hard lever.
Generally speaking, Pei Xiu's reform is not better than Ada's, but Ada's scheme failed in motivation because it was not completely institutionalized. Pei Xiu, on the other hand, hit the nail on the head.
From then on, grain transportation can transport about 6.5438+0.3 million stone grain every year, although it is not as good as the annual transportation volume of two or three million in Pei Yaoqing's era, but the grain of Chang 'an people is basically guaranteed!
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From the prosperous Tang Dynasty to the middle and late Tang Dynasty, it was these effective reforms of grain transportation that made Datang realize a national chess game. The success of the Tang Dynasty after the Anshi Rebellion 144 was also inseparable from the reform of water transport in the Tang Dynasty.