What is the use of food?
This question is simply retarded, because everyone knows that food is for eating. But the problem is, what if we run out of food?
Oh, you can store some of it for future use. However, food is not gold. It has a shelf life, so there must be a limit to preparing for shortages. What if after storing food to prepare for shortages, we still can’t finish it?
That means the current situation in Huguang means that it must be sold, otherwise it will just rot.
There are also things to pay attention to when selling. For example, Huguang’s grain is mainly sold to Jiangnan.
It must be explained here that the Jiangnan area was a major grain producing area in the early Ming Dynasty, and was known as "Suhu is ripe and the world is full". But in the middle and even late stages, no one mentioned this anymore, and it became "Huguang is familiar with it, and the world is sufficient", because the economic structure of the Jiangnan region has undergone great changes.
In short, the Jiangnan region has changed from an agriculture-led economic structure to a business-led economic structure. A large number of fertile fields in the past have been transformed from growing food to mainly growing cotton, mulberry and other cash crops, thus forming a Several large-scale cotton spinning and silk centers were established with Suzhou as the core. At the same time, commercial activities were greatly strengthened, forming a commercial core.
Youdao means that there is no stability without farming, no strength without work, and no wealth without business. There are both industries and businesses in the Jiangnan area, but there is a shortage of farmers.
Fortunately, this doesn't matter, because Huguang and Jiangxi have been greatly opened up, agricultural production has improved rapidly, and they can replace Jiangnan as the main grain production area. And because of the Yangtze River waterway, the cost of transporting grain from Huguang and Jiangxi to Jiangnan for sale is not too high.
Jiangnan has industry and commerce, so there is no shortage of money. Therefore, since Huguang has a surplus of food, the best way to deal with it is to sell it to Jiangnan.
But what Gao pragmatically needs now is not that Huguang's grain goes south of the Yangtze River, but that it needs it to go north to support the Central Plains and Hebei regions. This is more troublesome.
The northern provinces are far behind the Jiangnan region in terms of industry and commerce, and in terms of transportation, they do not have the huge advantage of convenient transportation by the Yangtze River waterway. As long as the Huguang merchants were not out of their mind, how could they not sell their grain to Jiangnan, but instead go to Henan, Shaanxi, or even Beizhili and Shanxi?
In terms of economic structure, Huguang's "local tycoons" actually don't need many foreign goods, because in the era of small-scale peasant economy, Huguang is completely self-sufficient and it lacks almost everything.
Even the flagship products of the Jiangnan region, silk and cotton, can be produced in Huguang itself. Cotton needs no special introduction, but as for silk, Hunan embroidery is one of the four famous embroideries, which is as famous as Su embroidery. How big is Hunan’s external demand for silk? Although its silk output is not as good as that of Jiangnan, it is definitely more than enough to satisfy itself.
As for porcelain, Liling in Huguang is also one of the eight major porcelain centers, especially underglaze colored porcelain. Even in later generations, it was a hard product that was world-renowned. It can be seen that Huguang has no shortage of porcelain. In general, Huguang's dependence on foreign goods is very low.
So what does it lack? It may only lack money.
This is because some economically advanced prefectures and counties in Huguang have also carried out the reform of the whip method. For example, Hanyang Prefecture, Wuchang Prefecture, Yuezhou Prefecture, Changsha Prefecture and other places have changed the physical tax in the past to a cash payment. Tax, so what Huguang is short of now is not materials, but money.
However, in terms of money, Henan and other provinces are definitely not as good as Jiangnan, so this road is not feasible.
So in this way, there is no other way to operate according to the normal thinking. The only way to be pragmatic is to follow the thinking of future generations, that is, there is no demand, and I will create demand for you.
Huguang lacks few things, but that doesn't mean it won't have troubles. Huguang currently has two main troubles.
First, there are also floods in the Yangtze River Basin. Floods have always existed in the Yangtze River Basin, but the area of Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake has not been greatly reduced at present, and they can play a role in storing floods to some extent. However, this does not mean that there will be no floods in the Yangtze River Basin. Floods of various sizes still occur from time to time. born.
As mentioned before, the Ming Dynasty basically had no money for disaster relief or major water conservancy repairs, so it relied on local officials to do something small. Since it is just a small effort, of course it is difficult to create a climate, and there is no overall plan to speak of. Therefore, there will still be floods when there are supposed to be floods, and it will not have any big effect.
Another trouble is public security. The inland border area at the junction of Hubei, Henan, Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces had many mountains and dense forests and a small population. In the early Ming Dynasty, measures were taken to "empty the land and prohibit refugees from entering". But by the mid-Ming Dynasty, Jingxiang refugee rebellion still broke out here. After the rebellion was quelled, the central government of the Ming Dynasty decided to establish Yunyang Prefecture, Huguang Xingdu Division and other institutions here to strengthen management, and set up Yunyang Fuzhi to govern. From then on, the "border area" evolved into an "administrative region".
However, that does not mean that this area will be peaceful and stable for a long time. In fact, until the early Qing Dynasty, this area was a frequent area of turmoil and had never been peaceful. Frequent civil unrest is one aspect, while bandits and bandits are another aspect.
However, this aspect is not easy to exploit. Should Gao Pragmatic tell the local government in Huguang that I will send servants to help you suppress bandits and you will give me food?
Therefore, the second one cannot be used for the time being. We can only think of a solution based on the first one. If Huguang vigorously renovates water conservancy, it will definitely be beneficial. It can not only reduce the losses caused by disasters, but also further increase grain production. These two It is beneficial to the "rich" people who control a large number of local fields.
The benefit Gao Pragmatic can bring to the north is obviously free riding on selling cement. Because the emergence of cement has made the reinforcement of dams simpler, more efficient and stronger than before, so now even the Hezong Yamen has been doing a lot of purchase. In other words, if Huguang also overhauls water conservancy, it will definitely consider purchasing cement. This is for sure.
The question now is, does the local government in Huguang have the ability and motivation to do this?
In the past, that was definitely not possible. The local yamen in Huguang are the same as the local yamen in other parts of the Ming Dynasty. Firstly, their funds are extremely limited. Secondly, it is better to do less than to do more. Why are their consciousness so high? It makes no sense to think of ways to do projects everywhere like the people's servants. ah
But things are different now. The current Huguang local officials are not right. Now all the local officials in the Ming Dynasty, as long as they still have hopes for their official career, or even if they don’t think about leaving with their titles, they almost all want to do something. Especially things that can actually improve political performance
This seems strange. Why did the magistrates of Ming Dynasty suddenly become diligent?
In fact, this can be attributed to Gao Gong's teaching method that incorporates the highly pragmatic "performance quantification" idea.
