Chen Qingsong later told Kong Shaoan that in addition to the landlords with gentry backgrounds in the Jiaodong area, there was another group of people who needed special attention.
"Common landowner?"
Kong Shaoan had never heard such a term before, but he understood it after Chen Qingsong explained it briefly. The so-called common people landlords are actually businessmen and loan sharks who purchase large amounts of land.
Some of these people bought land for their children and grandchildren, some to return to their gardens and provide for their retirement, and some to buy righteous land to dedicate to their clans; others to hoard food in order to control food during times of turmoil and famine. The most common method used by these people is the "zhuangzhu system", where they buy land under different names.
"Don't underestimate these people. Common people's landowners often rely on their wealth to monopolize power in the countryside, which is commonly known as arbitrary rural music. A gentry landlord and a common people landlord, combined with the Qing Dynasty's public donations and the sale of officials and titles, will allow The landlord class controls the entire economy."
At this point, Chen Qingsong changed the subject and asked Kong Shaoan another question.
"Xiao Kong, do you also agree with what some people say, that as long as we guide it and complete the primitive accumulation of capital, the germination of capitalism in the feudal era can become a prairie fire?"
Kong Shaoan hesitated for a moment, nodded and said: "When I was at the power plant, everyone would talk about this when they were chatting. I didn't understand it at that time, so I just listened to what they said, but I think it makes sense. As long as it can be changed By adopting a policy that emphasizes agriculture and suppresses commerce and strives to promote commerce, we can surpass Westerners and complete modernization ahead of schedule. But..."
Chen Qingsong smiled slightly and said, "What?"
"After listening to what you just said, I'm a little confused. You know, I don't really understand a lot of things, but as long as Mr. Zhao and you say it, I will do it."
Chen Qingsong smiled and patted Kong Shaoan on the shoulder. He was very satisfied with his statement, and then explained: "Capitalism has always accumulated productive capital through the production field, not in business or other fields. The commodification of labor force In fact, it is monetization.
History textbooks explain that there was a sprout of capitalism at the end of the century. This is true, and it still exists today, but this sprout was unable to attract the large amounts of money capital in the hands of businessmen and landlords. Even if it is very profitable, it is only because of the expansion of sea trade and the increase in the urban population's demand for luxury goods, while 90% of the rural population does not need them at all. "
"Oh, you said it before," Kong Shaoan thoughtfully turned to the first page of the record and said word for word: "One of the characteristics of China's feudal economy is the combination of small agriculture and cottage industry among agricultural producers. .”
"That's right!" Chen Qingsong nodded approvingly: "To put it bluntly, no matter how hard the sprout is, it can only grow in the cracks of the feudal economy; it may even encourage people to accumulate wealth and buy land. In the end, it will It’s still strengthening the landlord economy.”
"Oh why?"
"It's still the trinity economic model. It contains a huge power to increase wealth. It combines the most secure land rent with the interest to obtain high returns. It is any model based on simple collaboration and manual production and only carries out It is incomparable to the bud of absolute surplus value exploitation, and it also has a high degree of flexibility, and wealth accumulation can be invested in the most beneficial direction at any time.
"Historical Records. Biographies of Huo Shi" says that in seeking wealth from poverty, agriculture is not as good as industry, and industry is not as good as business. Don't look at the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats who ranked "business" at the bottom of the four peoples and said that "businessmen value profit over separation." This is just a trick played by others. By the way, I know you are from Jining. Does the Sun family of "Yutang Sauce Garden" know? "
Of course Kong Shaoan knew that. He used to buy its pickles often. Since he went to Jiaodong, he would have a small plate for breakfast every day.
"Sun Yuting was a Jinshi in the 40th year of Qianlong's reign. He served as a member of the Hanlin Academy and is currently a Salt Methodist in Guangxi. His pickle garden was opened in partnership with others with a capital of 40,000 yuan. If you want to be rich, sell soy sauce and vinegar. What do you think? Is he ashamed of doing business? The reason why he dares to do this is because the Sun family has 30,000 acres of farmland in Jining, and they are absolutely big landowners! And I am sure that his family also runs a pawn shop and lends money at high interest rates. "
"Xiao Kong, what I've said to you is actually telling you that even though those landlords seem to be well-educated and full of benevolence, justice and morality,
In fact, they exploited the bottom farmers very harshly. Commercial profit margins and usury interest rates both take the land rent rate as the minimum limit. Otherwise, businessmen and loan sharks would rather collect rent taxes from local landlords than take the risk of losing money and going into debt! "
Kong Shaoan nodded, he actually knew all this. According to the survey data of the work team going to the countryside, currently in the four counties of Jiaodong, in addition to physical fixed land rents, there are also rent deposits similar to security deposits, and there are even situations where rent money is collected in advance.
People in the future may see in history books that when a certain celebrity was in the countryside, he led his servants to work hard, farmed and read, sang pastoral songs, read and recited poems, which was very pleasant. But in fact, their comfort and leisure are based on the hard work of poor farmers.
Since the Han Dynasty, the general land rent rate in China has been above 50%. And due to the popularity of the "permanent tenancy system", the burden on farmers at the bottom has become even heavier. The ownership of land and the right to cultivate it are separated. In the south, it is called Tiangu Tianpi, and in the north, it is called Tiandi Tianpi. In later generations, land transactions generally talked about the purchase and sale of use rights, but in this era, they were discussed separately. The thousands of acres of land owned by many large landowners are probably just farmland, not ownership.
For the above-mentioned good irrigated fields, the skin will be more expensive than the bones; so as long as you obtain the right to farm, you can rent it out and make a lot of profits. For farmers at the bottom, after harvesting the harvest, they must first pay a rent to the landowner, and then pay a rent to the owner of the farming rights. Although the levels of the two vary according to the fertility of the land, they also make the poor poorer.
Why have Fujian people been going to sea to Southeast Asia since the Ming Dynasty? Otherwise, it’s because the rent is too high. There is already a shortage of arable land, with eight mountains, one water, and one farmland. In some areas, the rent for leather is even several times higher than the rent, which leads to the poorer the more land is cultivated.
If Beihai Town wants to take the land in the pass into public ownership, it is useless to just get the field bones. It doesn't even matter if you can't get it temporarily. The field skin is the most critical. On the contrary, there is no such problem outside the customs. All the means of production are provided by oneself. To put it bluntly, when Zhao Xin started to recruit refugees, he wanted to set the land rent to "37 to 30%" and everyone was rushing to do it.
How novel. No production materials are needed, and the working efficiency of the tractor is still so high. The refugees only have to pay half or even one-third of the hard work, and they can obtain higher farming profits than those in Guanhai, and they can also earn money. When it comes to the permanent tenancy of fifty acres of land, no one would be a fool not to join in!
Chen Qingsong said so much in one breath, and Kong Shaoan also had some ideas.
"Teacher Chen, I will start with rent reduction when I get back. What do you think?"
"Well... I'm afraid just reducing rents won't work. You have to be careful about the erosion of public power by monetary power. If you don't cut off this line, you won't be able to reduce rents and interest rates. Then there's the landowners' influence on rural areas. We must get 50% of the control of the commodity economy. They must not be allowed to control both commercial capital and loan shark capital!"
"I understand that they cannot be allowed to convert between land rent, commercial profits and usury."
Speaking of the problem of landlords lending usury, we have to mention one person - Xu Qianxue, Gu Yanwu's nephew. This man was a famous scholar during the Kangxi period and served as the censor of Zuodu and the minister of the Ministry of punishment. It is said that the Xu family's loan sharking in Kunshan is famous in history. After he was impeached and returned home, Mingzhu's nephew collected evidence of the Xu family's crimes in order to take revenge, including the usury loan of five cents. Xu Qianxue was so frightened that he vomited blood. And die.
But in the Qianlong period, five-cent profit was nothing! Very profitable.
The Qing government once restricted private lending rates, requiring a maximum monthly interest rate of three cents. However, the landowners and gentry who control the usury market from cities to rural areas have made it official. In some places, 100% annual interest rate has become a common phenomenon. As for the "Beijing Debt" used by officials in the capital to pay bribes to buy positions, it is a very profitable business; you must know that as soon as scholars start to go to Beijing to take exams in these days, they will definitely deal with money shops and accounting bureaus.
The reason why Beihai Town will provide a subsidy to all students who come to take the exam is because they may borrow usury, which will eventually lead to the monetization of power.
After this conversation, Kong Shaoan finally realized that what he wanted to do was not simply to reduce rents and interest rates, but a revolution from cities to rural areas, from economics to politics, and people from all walks of life would be affected. none
People were spared.
So when he returned to his base camp, Wendeng, he once again convened work team members from the four counties to hold a mobilization meeting. At the meeting, he raised the significance of the land reform movement to a higher level, saying bluntly that this revolution is about "fighting the local tyrants", but it is by no means just dividing the land to complete the task. This is a revolution that affects everyone. In this way, the people at the bottom cannot be lifted out of poverty, and the goal of an "industrial country" cannot be achieved.
"...I have told you so much and drawn it on the blackboard. I believe everyone understands how the landlords and gentry engage in the trinity of exploiting the people. And our task is to break their two legs first. , cut off their wealth cycle. Haha, the discount I am talking about does not mean to rush into the other party's house and break the legs of the old man, but to use the spear of the son and the shield of the trap!
We must first mobilize the poor peasants at the bottom who are the most exploited, rely on them to organize peasant associations, and then use the power of peasant associations to compete with the landlords. The reason you are going down this time is to tell the farmers not to be afraid. The Military Control Commission and the North Korean Navy will support them in everything! We are here to let everyone have enough to eat through their own labor! "
With the end of the mobilization meeting, more than 100 rural work teams composed of Beihai navy, civil affairs officers, and agricultural technicians set out again. Starting from July 5, 1793, Beihai Town began to implement farmers' associations in the four counties of Jiaodong and announced relevant bills. It explicitly requires the establishment of three-level peasant associations in counties, townships and villages under the leadership of work teams. Indirect agricultural operators, such as those who rent out farm bones and skins and only collect rent but do not cultivate the land, are not allowed to join. The farmers' association has a tenancy department that mediates tenancy disputes through negotiation and arbitration.
Like the farmers' association organized by Zhao Xin in Java, all farmers' association members will receive a set of production tools and high-quality, high-yield seeds for free. Farmers at the township level will provide their villages with horse-drawn seeders and harvesters. A full set of agricultural machinery services; the administrative office's construction and improvement of farmland water conservancy facilities in each township will focus on farmers' association member households.
Immediately afterwards, the Jiaodong Administrative Office announced the "Land Management and Private Lending Regulations". Taking into account the habit of using the lunar calendar in inland areas, the specific implementation time was set on the first day of the seventh lunar month. Mainly includes the following contents:
1. Landowners in the four counties, regardless of their size, can retain 50 acres of paddy fields or 100 acres of dry land. The rest of the land will be expropriated by the Military Control Commission in the form of currency. Landowners who do not participate in expropriation compensation are not allowed to join the farmers' association. The ownership of the land after expropriation is publicly owned by the government. Members of the farmers' association rent it for farming and are not allowed to transfer it to tenants. The proportion of tenant rent sharing is 30%.
2. In terms of expropriation compensation, the landowner can receive 30% of the cash compensation, and the remaining 70% will be paid with land bonds issued by the Beihai Town Civil Affairs Bureau, which will be repaid in equal installments over ten years, with an additional annual interest of 8%.
3. When members of farmers' associations rent from landlords, the maximum rent for farm bones and skins shall not exceed 40% of the current year's output, and fixed land rent shall not be implemented. If the existing land rent is higher than 40%, it must be reduced to this standard, and if it is lower than this standard, it must not be increased. Otherwise, the tenant farmer has the right to give up the tenant farming, and all economic losses will be borne by the tenant.
4. Landlords are not allowed to collect land rent in advance in the form of rent deposits. If there is a bad harvest, the land rent should be reduced. The lease term shall not be less than 6 years. After the lease expires, unless the landowner takes back the farmland, it shall still be leased to the original tenant; if the landowner wants to sell the land, he shall not separate and trade the farm bones and skins. At the same time, the Beihai Town Military Control Committee Right of first refusal.
5. As for self-cultivation farmers, all taxes are exempted for self-cultivation farmers with less than 2 acres of land, and only a fixed tax of 5% is levied during the sales process. In addition, if they are members of a farmers' association, they can enjoy a 1% tax reduction.
6. The Administrative Office will allocate 500,000 yuan to establish a rural credit department in Jiaodong area to provide a series of services such as lending and deposits to farmers' association members.
7. For private loan sharking, once the Military Control Commission detects it, the borrower only needs to repay the principal without paying interest; those who cannot afford to repay can be repaid in up to ten installments. At the same time, the Military Control Council will impose a high fine of five times the principal on the lender and pursue criminal liability.
The issuance of the relevant decree immediately caused an uproar in the four counties of Jiaodong. The gentry landlords who originally smiled at the work team would either earnestly persuade them by saying "Don't compete with the people for profit" when they met the members of the work team again, or they would be in constant panic all day long. Without exception, these people sent their own personal entourage to the homes of the poorest tenants in their villages and townships, and sent gifts to them.
Food, and asking for help. For a time, all the gentry in every township and village became benevolent people.
However, what they didn't expect was that the farmers were not fools. They knew who was really good to them. The work team had already won their favor during the previous half-year's investigation work. These people never went to the landlord's house to eat or drink, they fired alone every day, and they often used their own rations to provide relief to those poor households. So many people told people in the work team about the hardships they had suffered in the past.
What did people say? Farmers have to save themselves and work together to find a new way of living.
You are already so poor anyway, why not give it a try?
