After Sun Ce occupied the huijian, he concurrently served as the huijian taishou and replaced all the original chief officials.
He personally visited Yu Tuan's home, still appointing him as a Gong Cao and treating him with the courtesy of a friend.
Sun Ce liked to go out hunting, but Yu Tuan dissuaded him: "You will gather the rabble-rousers and make them loyal to you, even Han Gaozu can't compare with you." But you like to travel in light clothes, the entourage of officials is too late to set up a guard, and the soldiers are often busy and feel very hard. As a chief, if you are not stable enough, it is difficult to establish authority. The legendary white dragon, once transformed into a fish, the ordinary fisherman Yu He could shoot it, and the white snake indulged itself and was killed by Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao. General, you don't want to be so casual, or it is better to pay attention. ”
Sun Ce said, "You're right. It's just that I think about problems occasionally, but I can't sit still and can't think of a good idea, so I get used to going out and walking. "I still can't change this habit.
In the first year of Jian'an (196), Yuan Shao passed on his eldest son Yuan Tan to his deceased brother Yuan Ji as his stepson, and made Yuan Tan the governor of Qingzhou, and later Cao Cao made him the Assassin of Qingzhou.
When Yuan Tan first arrived in Qingzhou, he only operated on the border west of the Yellow River, not more than Pingyuan County.
He attacked Shi Tiankai of Qingzhou, appointed by Gongsun Zhan, to the north, and to the east, he attacked the Beihai Taishou Kongrong, and his prestige became increasingly apparent, and he also implemented a favorable government, with outstanding political achievements and support from the people.
However, he later employed people improperly, trusted some treacherous villains, rewarded and punished injustice, plundered everywhere, was arrogant and lascivious, and his reputation gradually declined, and he greatly lost the hearts of the people.
Since emperor Zhongping of the Han Ling Emperor, groups of thieves have risen together, the world is in turmoil, locust plagues and other natural disasters have continued, and the countryside is full of the situation of "the land is impermanent, and the people are not permanently dwelling", agricultural production has been seriously damaged, and grain has become the biggest problem plaguing all parties. Not only did the common people starve to death, but even the imperial court or local officials starved to death.
Cao Cao wrote in "Artemisia Lixing" that "white bones are exposed in the wild, and there is no chicken chirping in a thousand miles" is the best testimony, depicting the desolate scene of social decay at that time.
All localities have recruited troops to form armies for self-preservation or for hegemony, but they all lack grain and grass and do not have a year's reserve.
These armies, without a steady supply of food, especially the remnants of the Yellow Turban, were poorly organized and had no long-term plans, plundering when they were hungry and throwing away the surplus grain when they were full.
Many armies often disintegrate and fall apart because of food problems.
Even the mighty forces are not immune.
Yuan Shao was in Hebei, the sergeants lived by eating mulberries, and Yuan Shu lived between the Yangtze and Huai rivers, feeding on clams.
The army was still like this, and the people could only kill each other and feed themselves with human flesh, and everywhere was a depressed scene.
Cao Cao also faced the dilemma of lack of food, and many battles were abandoned because of the lack of military food, and he gave up the victory at his fingertips.
In order to solve the long-troubled grain and grass problem, Cao Cao's yulin supervisor Zao Qi put forward a proposal for the establishment of a tuntian system.
Zao Qi (枣祗), date of birth and death unknown, surnamed Thorn, whose ancestor took refuge and changed his surname to Zao, was a native of Yangzhai,Yingchuan (present-day Yuzhou, Henan).
When Cao Cao was recruiting troops at Chen Liu and preparing to attack Dong Zhuo, Zao Qi defected to Cao Cao's command and joined Cao Cao in "raising volunteer troops and circling the conquest".
At that time, Zao Qi was already very famous in society, and after he submitted to Cao Cao, Yuan Shao also wanted to summon him to serve under the account, and repeatedly sent people to pay tribute to Zao Qi (the chancellor and the county sheriff appointed some people as his subordinates), but he categorically refused.
Cao Cao was touched by his loyalty and valued him very much.
Cao Cao occupied Yanzhou, took yanzhou as his own pastor, and appointed Zaoqi as the commander of Dong'a County, and the town guarded Dong'a.
During his stay in Dong'a, Zaoqi devoted himself to persuading nongsang, accumulating grain in jigu, diligently repairing weapons, organizing the training of dong'a soldiers and civilians, and reinforcing and repairing the city fortifications in dong'a.
Chen Gong betrayed Cao Cao and joined forces with Lü Bu to attack Dong'a City, because the walls of Dong'a City were very strong, and Zao Qi led the army and the people to stubbornly resist, and Dong'a City was never captured, so cao Cao counterattacked Lü Bu in the future and recaptured Yanzhou to reserve a reliable rear and military base.
After Cao Cao welcomed Emperor Xian of Han and moved the capital to XuDu, he made Emperor Xian of Han and appointed Zao Qi as the overseer of Yulin and the palace of Su Wei.
Most of the Yellow Turban Army was composed of peasants, practicing the unity of soldiers and farmers, fighting and farming, dragging families with mouths, and even carrying labor tools such as cattle and farm tools with them.
When Zao Qi accompanied Cao Cao in suppressing the remnants of the Yellow Turban Army, he became greatly interested in the phenomenon of the rebellious peasants' integration of soldiers and peasants, and was inspired by it.
In the first year of Jian'an (196), Cao Cao defeated the Yellow Turban Army of Yingchuan and Runan, capturing a large number of cattle, agricultural tools, and hundreds of thousands of laborers.
Zao Qi suggested that Cao Cao use these agricultural tools and labor to reclaim land in the Xudu area and implement tun tian to solve the grain problem.
Cao Cao took his advice and appointed him as the Governor of Tuntian and Ren Jun as the General of the Diannong Zhonglang, with full responsibility for tuntian affairs.
Zao qi first tried a pilot project in Xudu, taking the barren unowned farmland into the ownership of the state, organizing the recruited peasants into groups according to the army's establishment, and the state providing land, seeds, cattle and agricultural tools, and they cultivated and cultivated the harvest, and the state and the peasants in the tuntian were divided proportionally.
At that time, the regulations were: those who use official cattle, officials six private four, do not use official cattle, official and private division.
Although the share is not fair, for displaced farmers, they are already very satisfied to be able to settle down and have food to eat, so a large number of displaced people have come to vote.
In order to obtain a stable labor force, the peasants of Tuntian were exempted from military service and forced labor, called "Tuntianke".
The tun tian pilot work has achieved remarkable results, and in the first year, it has a million grains.
Cao Cao was overjoyed and ordered the county capital to set up field officials and recruit exiles to tun tian.
Later, he accepted Zao's suggestion, implemented military tuns, ordered the army to go out in wartime, and also participated in tun tian in his spare time, and the tun tian system was widely implemented.
The implementation of the tun tian system enabled the agricultural production in the north, which had been damaged by the war for a long time, to recover and stabilize in a short period of time.
The peasants who had lost their land returned to the land, many barren farmland was also reclaimed, and within a few years, the government accumulated a large amount of grain, "the warehouses were full", and Cao Cao "conquered the four sides and had no labor to transport grain", which greatly alleviated the suffering of the peasants' labor in transporting grain.
Tuntian not only solved the problem of military food that Cao Cao had been struggling with, but also absorbed and digested millions of displaced people, maintained social stability, and accelerated the pace of unifying the north.
Zao Was therefore promoted to The Position of Chen Liu Taishou (陈留太守), and died of illness shortly afterwards.
Cao Cao was obsessed with him, and many years later posthumously made Zao Zhi a Marquis and had his son take the throne.
Cao Cao said in the "Zhongjue and Ancestral Orders of The Addition of Jujube Qizi" that the result of Daxing Tuntian was "abundant military use, destroying the rebellion, conquering the world, and honoring the royal family", which was the merit of Zaoqi and the "immortal thing", and gave full recognition to the merits of Zaoqi Tuntian.