After Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu army has been invading the land of the Han Dynasty, and in 200 BC, Liu Bang led his troops to take the initiative to attack the Xiongnu. However, a series of wars made Liu Bang suddenly understand the gap in combat strength between the two sides, and after that, Liu Bang has always adopted the method of intermarriage to stabilize the two sides and maintain the tranquility of the border. But Liu Bang was a man who did not accept defeat, he had seen the wind and waves, and he knew that he was not the opponent of the Xiongnu at this time, and he had been cultivating and living, but what was most needed for fighting a war was population, followed by grain and wages, which were the most fundamental problems in improving combat effectiveness.
In order to expand the population, at first Liu Bang adopted a method of relatively kind, he first encouraged single men and women across the country to marry, but he found that this did not improve at all, due to his years of conquest, the number of men became very small, many croppers are boiled into old men have not married wives, after he increased the reward system, or the same no improvement, which made Liu Bang very annoyed.
Then he did just like a method, issued an edict: as long as men and women who have reached the age of marriage must be married, and men can marry multiple times, the more children are born, the more rewards will be, and if the woman is more than 15 years old and has not yet married, she will bear the single tax. This single tax is equivalent to the entire income of ordinary families in that period for several years, plus the women themselves did not have any income in ancient times, if they have not wanted to marry, then the annual single tax is raised, not the average family can afford to pay, although this edict makes many female friends very hateful, but it does greatly alleviate the population problem during the Han Dynasty, the most important thing is that men have become more.
The increase in population not only solved the problem of conscription, but also greatly alleviated the problems of agriculture and taxation, and the men went out to fight, and the wives farmed and brought their babies at home. Not only did it contribute to the country's economy and solve the food problem, but it also trained the next generation. I have to say that Liu Bang is a one-stroke method.
Even now, there are many countries that are following Liu Bang's approach, the most typical is japan where the problem of social contradictions is prominent, due to too much unmarriedism, so that there are very few newborns born in Japan, once it was also sad for the Japanese government, in order to solve this problem, they decided to take Liu Bang's method, the purpose is to increase the population.
In fact, there are many problems affecting the population, in the past because of the war and the loss of too much population, now it is because the pressure of society is too great, people living alone is already a very difficult thing, there is no extra energy and money to support the next generation, so many people are unmarried, this is also the inevitable product of the development of the times, but I have to say that Liu Bang's method, although it is to increase the population, but also makes women lose power, reduced to a reproductive tool, what do you think?