Shandong Province, Dongchang Prefecture, Liaocheng County. A group of people in military uniforms with narrow sleeves stood on the embankment of the Grand Canal, which has been restored to navigation, looking at the sea of wheat that is about to mature and has turned into a golden color. The reason why it is called Maihai is because this wheat field is not cut into small pieces by ridges, but is connected into one large area with countless acres!
A tall young woman who was obviously dressed as a man and who was pregnant said with excitement: "The slave family has never seen such a large area of wheat outside the customs... If the slave family guessed correctly, this area The wheat fields should have been plowed by horses, and most of them were crop rotation, and there should be grass fields nearby."
Standing next to the young woman was a very imposing and handsome middle-aged man. He nodded and said: "Dry fields are suitable for plowing by horses. Although the yield per mu is small, it consumes less labor. If we can rotate crops again, It can also fertilize the land, and the harvest can be guaranteed.”
"I didn't expect the emperor..." The young woman seemed to have lost her mind and quickly swallowed back the rest of her words, "The master also knows how to farm!"
The two people who were having a conversation were none other than Emperor Zhu Cixiang and Empress Wu Sanmei. Half of the palace led by the couple has arrived in Liaocheng. Although it was said that the expedition was conducted personally by the imperial commander, there were not many accompanying troops - the Pingliao army did not first gather in Yingtian Mansion and then follow Emperor Zhu northwards. Instead, they set off from various places one after another and rushed to the designated combat starting position.
Zhu Cixiang, on the other hand, only took more than 5,000 palace guards, accompanying harem women, and some officials from the two palaces, and slowly headed north.
They first took the overland route to Xuzhou, which is now the starting point of the shortened North-South Grand Canal. After the completion of the Yellow-Huaiyun Project, the canal will no longer be able to pass through the new Yellow River waterway, so it can only start from Xuzhou and end in Beijing. Nearby Tongzhou. Through this renovated North-South Canal, many inland rivers in Shandong and Hebei, including Sishui, Yishui, Daqing River, Tongji Canal, Shahe River, Tuhe River, Hutuo River, Weihe River (Haihe), etc., are connected together. , thus forming a new Central Plains (excluding Henan) canal system.
In order to inspect the results of the North-South Canal construction, Emperor Zhu changed to the waterway after arriving in Xuzhou and slowly headed north, inspecting the state capitals on both sides of the canal as he walked.
Although Zhu Cixiang's court was based on the four rivers, lakes, Fujian and Guangdong, it did not mean that it did not want to build the Central Plains well. On the contrary, they spent a lot of time and effort to develop the Central Plains, which had been devastated by war, again.
The troublesome thing is how to find a suitable development route for the entire Central Plains region, especially the North China Plain.
The small-scale peasant economy will definitely not work!
Because Jianghu, Guangzhou, Fujian and Guangdong in the southeast have already embarked on the fast lane of capitalism, if the Central Plains wants to be small farmers again, sooner or later they will be hit by peasant uprisings.
Moreover, capitalism is not only a matter in cities, nor is it limited to industry and commerce. It can also be successful in rural areas!
In the 17th century, rural areas with a declining and dilapidated small-scale peasant economy could not support the primary stage of capitalism!
Because the primary stage of capitalism not only requires rural markets, but also requires rural areas to provide a large amount of food and raw materials - in fact, there are many factors that determine rural purchasing power, and social equity is of course a very important factor! But the number of products the countryside itself can provide is also a very critical factor.
If the countryside itself cannot provide enough products to support a higher urbanization rate, then where will the purchasing power of farmers come from? The basis of the rural market is to exchange agricultural products for handicrafts (industrial products)!
If rural areas cannot provide enough products, then no matter what kind of system is implemented, it is impossible to form a large market... Without products, there is no money, and without money, how can there be a market? It’s not okay to let people give it to you for free!
In fact, asking rural areas to provide enough products and allowing rural areas to produce enough products are not the same thing. There is an issue of labor productivity.
Because farmers themselves also consume agricultural products, when labor productivity is too low, for example, 100 million agricultural people are required to support 10 million urban people. So the market in rural areas can only cover most of the handicrafts produced by the urban population of 10 million.
Therefore, dividing the land equally may not necessarily create a huge rural market - dividing the land equally is actually a "population raising" policy, which will cause the population to grow too fast, thus consuming the agricultural products that could be provided to the city. ....
Therefore, Zhu Cixiang was unwilling to divide the land equally from the beginning, nor was he willing to repair the military household system or establish a military service system - the essence of this land military service system was actually to divide the land into small pieces to support people (to support soldiers).
The first generation of military households and government soldiers occupied a relatively large living space, and were tied to the land. They had nothing to do, so they were sure to have more children and raise more children. After a few generations, the originally loose land will inevitably become very tight, and the military households will lose their "surplus agricultural products" to support military service.
Of course, the occupation of military land by the upper class of military households and military-registered officials has intensified the process of the disintegration of the military household system, but even without these borers, the "surplus agricultural products" used by military households to support military service will inevitably be used by too many descendants. Eat it.
In the original history, the military household system had lost most of its combat effectiveness by the Yingzong Dynasty at the latest, so it could not be maintained in the Chongzhen period anyway...
Although the land granting system played a great role in the early days of Zhu Cixi's establishment of the new army, after the Northern Expedition to recover the Central Plains, the land granting system became the granting of negotiable land coupons. At the same time, Zhu Cixi tried every means to gather the heroes and officers who had received more land grants to Yingtian Mansion, and provided their descendants with better education and more opportunities for advancement.
His approach was not only to gather a group of military nobles to defend the imperial court, but also to promote the appropriate concentration of land in North China that was suitable for the development of large-scale agriculture.
...
"Zhu Xiangli, I am Zhang Guanghui."
In Anping Town near Liaocheng, Zhu Cixiang met with Guanghui, the largest farm owner in Liaocheng, in the name of Zhu Mou, the assistant manager of the Royal Chamber of Commerce.
This is a middle-aged man in his thirties. He is tall and strong. He sits up straight and looks very energetic.
"Did Yuanwai Zhang come from a military background?" Zhu Cixiang sipped the green tea served by the Zhang family's servant, and then asked with a smile.
"I have indeed served in the army," Zhang Guanghui said with a smile. "I have worked with Gao Futai and Zuo Futai, and I have the title of hero in overcoming difficulties. It's just that my father only has one son, and no one will take care of him when he gets old, so after the victory in the Northern Expedition I became an official serving as a deputy to a thousand households and returned home to work in the fields."
"Oh, you are still a filial son! You are the one who supported your family's ten thousand acres of fertile land?" Wu Sanmei asked curiously.
"How can one deputy thousand households have so much money?" Zhang Guanghui said with a smile, "This is all the family business saved by my father... My father was in business. After the chaos, he went to Dengzhou and worked with Shen He was a minister, so he had some savings. Later, when the land coupons started to be bought and sold, he was very discerning and bought tens of thousands of acres at bargain prices, so he had the current family fortune."
It turns out he is also a rich second generation...
Zhu Cixiang smiled and said: "You grow so many fields yourself, and you also rent them out?"
"It's not cost-effective to rent it out," Zhang Guanghui said. "I can't grow it myself, so I hire people to farm it. 5,000 acres are planted with wheat, and 5,000 acres are planted with grass to raise horses and mules. They take turns."
"mule?"
"Animals born from the mating of a female horse and a male donkey are stronger than horses, hardworking and have a long lifespan. They are most suitable for farming." Zhang Guanghui laughed, "Almost all big farmers in Shandong raise horses and mules. Horses and mules can not only plow the fields, but can also be sold, and the price is not low. If Zhu Xiangli wants to run a farm in Liaodong, horses and mules are indispensable... Why don't you order dozens of them from me?"
"Can I make money by running a farm?" Wu Sanmei asked.
"I don't know how to answer Madam's question. Of course, there are losses and gains in the camp..."
Zhang Guanghui glanced at Wu Sanmei. He had long recognized that Wu Sanmei was a woman, and he also saw that she was a woman from a general in Liaodong. She was tall, fair, and silly. She must be the eldest daughter of the general's family. That's why he thought that Zhu Cihong must want to purchase the newly issued land coupons and then go to Liaodong to camp.
()
