In September of the 19th year of Hongxing's reign in the Ming Dynasty, the Yangtze River.
A fleet of forty or fifty galleys with a load capacity of 200 to 400 tons is forming two columns, sailing upstream on the Yangtze River waterway heading towards Wuhan. Among the fleet, there was a large galley warship with the largest hull, with a visual tonnage of over 400, and a total of 24 6-pound bronze cannons installed on the sides, which attracted special attention.
However, the reason why this warship attracts attention is not because of its size and armament, but because on the mizzen mast set up on the high-raised poop of this warship, there is a fluttering red flag. Seven characters are embroidered with black thread - Emperor Taizu Gao is reincarnated!
Anyone who knows something about the military of the Ming Dynasty today will know that this big flag symbolizes that the Emperor of Ming Dynasty, Zhu Cixiang, is on a personal expedition!
The Emperor of Heaven himself is actually in this fleet which is not too large!
He is now standing under the banner of "The Reincarnation of Emperor Taizu Gao", holding on to the railing, looking at the water of the Yangtze River and the endless fields on the north bank of the Yangtze River.
The river was quite lively, with many ships coming and going. Most of them were heading east, and most of them were loaded with grain, wood, iron materials, and porcelain. The sailors on some of the merchant ships discovered the "Taizu" sign on the river's surface. Gao raised the flag of "Emperor Reincarnation", knowing that it was Emperor Ming who was personally conquering the war, so they all knelt down and cheered on the deck towards the warship where Emperor Zhu was sitting.
The cheers spread across the river, and were still very loud when they reached Emperor Zhu's ears.
"Long live my emperor, long live, long live..."
This should be a sailor on a merchant ship from the two lakes. Zhu Cixiang heard some friendly Hunan sounds, and a happy smile appeared on his face - from these cheerful sounds, he could feel the progress of Huguang's economic development in recent years. Very good!
Not only has agriculture produced bumper crops year after year, mining, forestry, and handicrafts have also developed well.
In particular, Daye Tieshan in the east of Wuhan Prefecture has been developed on a large scale. Three major consortiums, including the Royal Chamber of Commerce, Shachuan Gang and Yiguandang, have invested heavily in Daye Tieshan, not only developing mines, but also Iron factories were established on the banks of the Yangtze River in areas with convenient waterway transportation. They were large-scale iron factories equipped with blast furnaces, frying furnaces, crucible furnaces, forges, and hydraulic forging hammers. The iron plants under these three major consortiums alone can produce tens of thousands of tons of wrought iron every year!
If we include the iron factories opened in Pukou, Shanghai, Xuzhou, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou (Foshan), Daming's wrought iron production now exceeds 100,000 tons, ranking first in the world!
These 100,000 tons are not made of crunchy coal, but of high-quality charcoal (charcoal), and they also use lime and slag removal (blacksmiths in the Ming Dynasty knew about lime slag removal) and forging into steel ( The technology of repeated forging with a water hammer can produce wrought iron of quite good quality. If you then use the Su Steel method (pig iron pouring) for surface hardening, you can produce ironware with excellent quality.
High-quality iron tools, especially agricultural tools, undoubtedly play a huge role in promoting social production.
However, what promoted Ming Dynasty’s social production, especially agricultural production, was not these high-quality iron farm tools, but a “land reform” that lasted more than 20 years. The nature of this “land reform” is of course capitalist!
Because the focus of the reform is not the equal division of land that people in later generations would like to see, but the clear ownership and "reasonable transfer" of land.
The former is mainly a tax reform aimed at abolishing the "land transfer system" and recovering public land - now there is no private land in the direct provinces of the Ming Dynasty that does not pay taxes (public land pays rent), let alone the land of officials and nobles who have to pay taxes. The royal fields owned by the royal family also have to pay taxes. Even the sacrificial fields used to worship Taizu Xiaoling must also pay taxes according to law! Of course, tax refunds are available for occupational fields, meritorious fields, imperial estates, and imperial mausoleum sacrificial fields.
Pay first and then get back. The tax is paid at the local level, and the tax refund is the responsibility of the Ministry of Household Affairs!
Under such circumstances, it is impossible for officials and nobles to take advantage of the tax inequality to engage in mailing and occupying people's land - no matter who is the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, asking for money from the Ministry of Household Affairs is not possible. It won't be easy!
Local land taxes, commercial taxes, mining taxes, etc. are gradually linked to the income of local officials and the budget and preparation of local yamen.
Moreover, officials below the state (state, equivalent to county) and county (including state and county) are usually held by locals (and above the state and county are usually foreigners). The amount of tax collected is directly related to the interests of the local bureaucracy and has no Motivation to collect less.
As for occupying public land, it is even more difficult, because after several rounds of land inspections, both public land and hidden land have been included in the fish scale atlas, and there are yamen under the Ministry of Households responsible for bidding and leasing. I cannot say that the process of bidding and leasing is free from corruption and intrigue, but embezzlement and annexation are basically impossible.
After burying the "land transfer system" that divided land according to power, Zhu Cixi began to gradually promote the rational transfer of land... Under the capitalist system of the Ming Dynasty, it was impossible and impossible to prevent the transfer of land. Economy.
After all, land management is also a risky business. In business, there are losses and profits. People who lose money quit, people who make money take over, and the industry is gradually concentrated. This is the general trend.
Logically speaking, Zhu Cixi should not interfere with land management, but through the Northern Expedition and the Liaodong War, the Ming court acquired a large amount of "unclaimed land" in the north.
Part of this land was turned into land coupons to pay military expenses... and the redemption of land coupons is full of mysteries.
This was an opportunity to establish large-scale agriculture in the north - large-scale farming usually occurred in wheat-growing areas, because wheat fields were dry fields and could be plowed by efficient horses. Moreover, in the 17th century, the output of dry fields was unstable, which was very detrimental to smallholder production. So it is more conducive to establishing large farms...
Therefore, the disposal of "ownerless land" in the north and the trading of land coupons were aimed at promoting the emergence of large farms.
Although this process is a bit dark - the so-called "ownerlessness" is actually the expropriation of the northern landlord class! The fluctuations in land coupons caused many speculators to go bankrupt and many soldiers holding land coupons to sell at low prices... However, the results Zhu Cixi wanted basically came about.
Of course, the concentration of land is also related to the fact that Ming Dynasty entered the era of colonization and capitalism. The former provided the possibility for landless peasants and "non-eldest sons" from aristocratic and bureaucratic families to seek opportunities overseas, while the latter gave the large cities in the southeast the possibility of absorbing this population.
The progress of agriculture in the Ming Dynasty strongly supported industry and commerce, especially the development of the southeastern industrial and commercial towns - the current economy of the Celestial Empire revolves around the industry and commerce in the southeast of the Ming Dynasty! Moreover, a quite virtuous cycle was formed, which made the economy of the Ming Dynasty and even the entire Celestial Civilization a little more prosperous.
Oh, not all the civilization of the Celestial Dynasty is prosperous. There are still some places where the development is not ideal, that is, the area ruled by the rogue bandits who call themselves the Dashun Dynasty.
The information about the economic development of the Dashun Empire sent to Emperor Zhu from various channels illustrates the fact that the economy of the Dashun Empire is obviously declining, and they are facing a huge economic crisis, a A crisis that was beyond their expectations and at the same time insurmountable.
So after Zhu Cihong learned about Li Jicheng's massive plunder of India and his return with a full load, he made up his mind and kicked off the demise of the rogue regime...
At this moment, the sound of leather boots hitting the ship's plank reached Emperor Zhu's ears. He looked back and found that Huang Xiaobao, the ceremonial supervisor, was walking over quickly, with a happy face.
"Your Majesty, good news!" Huang Xiaobao said, "I just received the 600-mile urgent dispatch from the Navy's sentry ship. The governor's office of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan reported that the traitor Li Guo has died of illness!"
Zhu Cixiang nodded lightly and smiled: "He died a good death... He was so lucky, he can be buried comfortably in the ground!"
