Jinling City, Royal Courtyard.
A large number of important ministers of the empire gathered together, and these important ministers of the Chu Empire turned their heads. Luo Zhixue sat on the dragon chair and listened quietly to the ministers discussing matters.
This was an internal affairs meeting before the imperial court with a five-year development plan as its core content. In addition to military generals, all ministers and co-organizers of the imperial study room in the civil service system participated.
After the meeting started, just like most of the imperial meetings in the past year, Luo Zhixue sat upright. Most of the time, he listened to the ministers discussing and even arguing with each other, but he himself basically did not express any opinions. .
Luo Zhixue knew very well that he was an emperor, the helmsman of the entire empire, and his influence was too great. A single word could determine the direction of the empire's major policies.
The more this happened, the more cautious Luo Zhixue became.
After all, he was just an ordinary person. Even though he had some basic common sense, he only understood the surface of many things.
There are many things that he thinks are good and can be done, but when times are different and the actual situation is also different, if they are implemented rashly, there will be problems with acclimatization.
Some policies he thought were bad and unnecessary were found to be quite good after analysis and debate by many ministers, and the implementation effects were very good.
Just like when he formulated a series of education development plans last year, Luo Zhixue originally wanted to open various public schools on a large scale, convert many private schools into government-run schools, and upgrade schools for enlightenment and primary education as much as possible quantity. And unified teaching materials, unified recruitment of teachers, unified treatment, etc.
Basically, he tried to transplant the public education system of later generations.
However, after pilot trials in some areas, it was found that it is not that simple. On the one hand, the expected large number of children did not sign up for school at all... Even though the tuition fees are already very low, even those from poor families or those with excellent academic performance can still do it. Even after applying for tuition exemption, most families, especially poor families, still do not send their children to school!
Because this will result in the lack of an old driving force in their family... and this labor force will continue to eat and drink...
Although the school's tuition is very low, it still requires tuition, and you have to pay for food and drink yourself.
As a result, the vast majority of poor families will not send their children to starve, even if it is free...
In rural families, children as young as a few years old can already do as much work as they can, while children aged seven or eight are half an adult.
Going down to the fields, tilling the soil, weeding, harvesting and lifting...everything is essential.
Not to mention the seventeenth century, even in the 1990s, it was the so-called modern society, but most children from rural families still had to go to school and help their families with farm work. There is a weight on their shoulders that they should not bear.
Such an embarrassing problem arose when the new education policy of the Dachu Empire was being piloted. A large amount of money was invested to build the school, recruit teachers, and invest a lot of money. In the end, it was found that there were not many Students came to register for school... Those who came were also students who were attending private schools!
On the one hand, there are no students to sign up. Another problem is that government-run education is too expensive.
Because it is a universal education, although it is not completely free, it only charges a nominal amount of tuition and miscellaneous fees. This amount of money is not enough to maintain the operation of the school.
After all, various school buildings and office facilities cost money, and if an ordinary school teacher becomes a staffed ninth-grade education official, his salary will also become higher.
This entry and exit means that these government-run schools need continuous blood transfusions from official finances, and they are massive blood transfusions!
As a pilot, a high-level government was fine and had enough money to support it, but the other two pilots, a middle-class government and a lower-class government, could not.
Without strong financial support from their superiors, they would not even be able to launch the government-run school plan...
Nowadays, the Great Chu Empire is in a stage where everything is waiting to be revitalized. A large amount of financial funds are mainly used for industrial development, agricultural development, water conservancy, roads, bridges and other infrastructure construction. In many places, due to local financial difficulties, even the salaries of regular officials have been reduced. It cannot be distributed, let alone squeeze out a large amount of money for the establishment of government-run schools.
Another very important issue in terms of funding is that in the past, a large number of private schools that existed among the private sector were actually funded and established by local gentry.
These gentry set up these private schools out of fame or other motives. They did not think about making money or anything, but instead poured money into them.
When the government took over these private schools, it was equivalent to providing money on behalf of the gentry...
When the gentry sees that your government has taken over, they will naturally not continue to throw money into it. After all, they can’t gain reputation, so why spend money on education? My money doesn’t just fall from the sky!
The pilot projects of new government-run education in three prefectures have been going on and a lot of money has been spent, but the number of students has not increased much... In any case, the losses have gone to grandma's family.
Through this incident, Luo Zhixue finally understood that many policies that seemed to be good in later generations may not be suitable for the current generation!
This was the seventeenth century, and both productivity and people's concepts were hugely different from those of later generations.
As for the current Chu Empire, there is simply no condition for universal government-run compulsory education...
After this incident, Luo Zhixue seldom directly copied the policies of later generations. Instead, he chose another method, which was to make demands, give the ministers some ideas, and then let the ministers figure it out for themselves!
His ministers were natives of this era, and they understood various contemporary situations better than Luo Zhixue.
After many people discussed and analyzed the pros and cons, Luo Zhixue was able to get some of what he wanted, and then choose a certain result he wanted.
To put it simply, Luo Zhixue used to ask himself to raise matters and do things by himself...
But now, Luo Zhixue only makes demands... As for how to do it, that is the matter of the ministers!
After such a transformation, Luo Zhixue found that his efficiency in handling various government affairs had been greatly improved, and the policies he formulated were more complete and more effective.
After the failure of the pilot government-run compulsory education, after collective discussions among many ministers in the court, an improvement plan was finally put forward for implementation to meet the requirements put forward by Luo Zhixue.
Luo Zhixue’s request is simple: “Improve the literacy rate as much as possible, especially the literacy rate of the younger generation!”
He didn't set any specific values, because setting the values involves statistics...and it's also a nationwide statistics project. The amount of work is larger than universal education...
Because of the difficulties in statistical work, Luo Zhixue actually still doesn't know how many people his empire has until now... He can only have an approximate figure, about 70 million!
And among these 70 million miles, how many are literate, how many are beginning to read and write, how many are landless peasants, how many are self-cultivated farmers, how many are wealthy gentry households, how many are urban residents, how many are rural residents, etc., all of them There's no exact number.
Some of the inferred data are also extremely biased.
For example, data submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry show that 95% of the country's population is rural, and only 5% is urban. And of these 5%, more than half still live in market towns. .
However, the data submitted by the Patrol Department deviate greatly from the data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. They believe that the country's urban population should reach about 10%.
The figures submitted by these two departments are completely different...
In order to find out how many people there are in his empire, the literacy level of the people, and their living places and other basic demographic information for subsequent policy formulation and implementation, Luo Zhixue ordered the Patrol Department to take the lead last year, and other Various departments have vigorously cooperated, and local governments at all levels have guided and promoted the establishment of national population household registration files, and relied on household registration files to compile population data.
But this is a big project that cannot be completed within a few years.
The Chu Empire currently does not even know basic national population information, let alone the literacy rate. It can only rely on sampling inference, such as selecting a certain place to conduct a survey and then using it as representative data.
It's just that these data are unreliable...
For example, the literacy rate, the literacy rate in the Jiangnan region cannot represent the literacy rate in other regions...
The reading culture is prevalent in Jiangnan, and the literacy rate is relatively high, while in other places it is much worse, and the gap between these places is also relatively large.
Because of the lack of detailed statistics, Luo Zhixue now looks at various situations in the empire as if he is walking with a pair of eyes that do not match the degree. He can only see an outline of everything. It is impossible to look carefully. …
When formulating policies, we can only make the scale as loose as possible and not set the values too rigidly, leaving some space for the officials below and some space for the people.
It is easy to see things in the smoke, setting goals too far ahead, and the officials below are blindly trying to achieve the goals regardless of people's livelihood.
This was the case when we were working on education policy last year, and it is almost the same when we are working on agricultural policy now.
Luo Zhixue didn't say how much grain production must be increased or how much land should be opened up... because he doesn't even know the country's total grain output, nor does he know the total amount of cultivated land, let alone the cultivated land that can be developed. …
Without detailed data to support him, he casually set a dead goal, which was too low. The officials below saw that he could do it without working, so he just lay down and looked at the flowers and walked the birds every day...
The goal was set high, and the officials below looked at it and said, Oh my god, this goal is too high, and it can't be reached no matter what, so what should we do? It's just a false report... You can't tell your superiors that I didn't complete the task. Everyone else reached the goal by talking nonsense, but you honestly said that you didn't complete the goal. Isn't this asking for death?
False reporting and concealment are fine, but I am afraid that some people will do all kinds of extreme operations regardless of people's livelihood in order to achieve their goals. For example, in order to increase food production, they force farmers to open up a large amount of land beyond their farming capacity, and finally create a land full of chicken feathers!
Therefore, when working on the agricultural development plan this time, Luo Zhixue did not set too detailed goals for his ministers.
Even the focus is on how much land should be reclaimed and how much food should be produced, but the focus should be on restoring agricultural production and building irrigation facilities.
There is actually some land, especially in the provinces north of the Yangtze River. Due to natural and man-made disasters, many places have only ten rooms and nine empty rooms...
But the people are gone, but the land is still there...
This has resulted in many places, especially in the north, now being vast and sparsely populated, and a large amount of land has been forced to be abandoned due to lack of population.
However, the reason why many places in the north have become vast and sparsely populated is that in addition to man-made disasters, natural disasters are also an important factor.
For example, in the three provinces of Henan, Anlu, and Jiangbei, due to the convergence of the Yellow River and the Huaihe River, it can be said that there is a small flood every year and a major flood every three years. Some dangerous river sections almost burst their banks every year!
Don't talk about extreme weather that only happens once in fifty years or once in a hundred years. Floods will occur even if it rains normally.
In these places affected by floods, agricultural production is very difficult.
In addition, it is not just the Huaihe River and Yellow River basins that are affected by floods... I mention them just because they are relatively representative. In fact, floods are very common in many places, regardless of the south or the north.
This is because the irrigation and flood control facilities these days are basically zero... Putting aside the Yellow and Huaihe rivers, small rivers in some small places are very likely to flood the villages and cultivated land along the coast after a heavy rain!
And once there is a drought, you will have to wait to die!
Although these sporadic floods or droughts only occur locally and often have little impact, they can be found all over the country, and in huge numbers!
When the total amount is added up, these seemingly fragmented natural disasters in various places have caused much more damage to the entire empire than the flooding of the Yellow River!
This is why the Chu Empire regarded the construction of basic irrigation and flood control facilities as a key part of its agricultural development plan.
The Dachu Empire will allocate financial funds at all levels from the central government, provinces, prefectures and counties for the construction of irrigation and flood control facilities in various places.
In the second year of the plan, funds have begun to be allocated, and the construction of various flood control and irrigation facilities has begun in many areas.
It is worth noting that the empire's large-scale construction of various flood control and irrigation facilities in various places also brought about a previously expected result.
That is a lot of infrastructure projects, bringing a lot of job opportunities!
These job opportunities can help the young refugees who have lost their homes due to natural disasters and man-made disasters in the past few years and are struggling to survive.
And this is also the reason why many other departments of the Da Chu Empire spent a lot of money on the five-year agricultural plan and carried out various costly infrastructure construction.
Because of the large-scale construction of flood control and irrigation facilities, this was originally one of the official methods of the Chu Empire to use work-for-relief to restore the stability of people's livelihood after reunification and avoid large-scale displacement.
By the way, some young and middle-aged poor families in many places can also take advantage of this opportunity to earn Weibo wages during the slack season. Although the money is very small, during the slack season, idleness is also idle, and idleness also costs money. The food at home is not...
It's better to go to the construction site and work hard to earn some food ration money.
The official construction of these infrastructures by the Dachu Empire killed three birds with one stone. It was not only to develop agriculture, but also to provide relief through work. By the way, it could also promote the development of construction-related industries, such as quarrying, carpentry and other industries.
In a royal meeting, the ministers discussed and Luo Zhixue agreed, and then initially finalized a subsequent batch of agricultural infrastructure construction plans.
Among them is the large-scale Huaihe-Yellow River flood control and irrigation construction task. It is planned to carry out flood control in some dangerous river sections in the Huaihe River Basin and the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River Basin, mainly in the three provinces of Henan, Anlu and Jiangbei, in the next few years. Construction and reinforcement of embankments, diversion and straightening of some easily blocked river channels, development of flood discharge areas, etc.
The initial goal is to completely reverse the situation in the Yellow and Huaihe river basins, where floods occur every year.
Luo Zhixue did not expect to solve the flooding problem of the Huaihe and Yellow River basins once and for all through a few years of construction. He did not even expect to be able to withstand some major floods. This is unrealistic in a short time. You cannot become fat with just one meal... …
His requirements are very low, which can even be said to be humble to the people, that is, don’t have floods every year...
We can’t flood every year as soon as the rainy season comes. Even if there is a flood, we have to wait until the flood occurs once in five years!
According to the plan, 66 small projects, 13 medium-sized projects and one large-scale project will be planned for the Huaihe River and Yellow River sections in the above three provinces.
The large-scale project is the Hongze Lake flood control project, which includes continuing to build the Hongze Lake embankment, setting up a flood discharge area, and expanding the water storage capacity of Hongze Lake during the flood season.
Because the Yellow River was diverted from the Huaihe River to the sea in the early years, the water volume of Hongze Lake would surge during the rainy season every year, thus threatening the surrounding areas.
In order to ensure the smooth flow of the canal and protect the livelihood and safety of the surrounding areas, the Hongze Lake embankment was built on a large scale in the past dynasties, especially in the Ming Dynasty.
Because the Great Chu Empire had its capital in the south, a strong navy and large-scale use of sea transportation, it did not rely so much on the canal, but the small dependence did not mean that it could abandon the Youhang Grand Canal.
At the same time, the people's livelihood in the Jiangbei area also needs to be protected, so the flood control embankment needs to continue to be repaired.
The entire Hongze Lake flood control project, to be precise, the first phase of the project, is expected to invest more than 8 million taels of silver, which will be shared by multiple levels of finance, and is expected to be completed within four years.
After completion, the water storage and flood control capacity of Hongze Lake will be further improved. At least there will be no need to worry about heavy rain every year, or large-scale flooding when there is a flood that occurs once in five or ten years.
As for this key project, in addition to the participation of the civilian system, the military will also participate.
Of course, this does not mean that the military will directly invest troops in combat. The number of regular troops in the Chu army is not large, and they are very busy. Even the second-class division cannot be used as laborers on a large scale.
However, during the unification war, the Chu Empire captured a large number of soldiers from the former Ming army and organized them into a large number of settlement camps, construction camps or transportation camps for work, but they were still militarized management institutions.
These prisoners of war are either settling land or constructing infrastructure according to local conditions. In the Hongze Lake flood control project, it is expected that a large number of military-managed prisoners of war will be put into construction camps.
When the first phase of the project is completed, the service period of the surrendered soldiers in this construction battalion will basically be over. At that time, they can be disbanded directly and let the surrendered soldiers return home.
If the first phase of the Huaihe-Yellow River flood control and irrigation project is completed, millions of people along the coast can escape the hardship of annual floods and resume normal production and life.
Luo Zhixue attaches great importance to this, and personally handles everything from funding to personnel arrangements to ensure that the plan is implemented smoothly without any major problems.
As for some minor problems, they are unavoidable. Just let the people below deal with them on their own.
——
When the Eastern captives in the Liaodong region were in danger of annihilation, they probably never imagined that when the Chu barbarians here invested hundreds of thousands of troops and spent huge sums of money to fight them, they could still carry out such large-scale projects in the rear. .
If they found out, their jaws would probably drop... Where did this barbarian Chu get so much money?
The Dongji people cannot understand how powerful the financial revenue of the Great Chu Empire is!
It is probably impossible to understand that the largest organization in the Dachu Empire is not other than the tax department... with the most employees, the most funds, the highest administrative efficiency, and it also has its own armed forces.
The powerful tax department ensured the financial health of the Chu Empire. While maintaining large-scale foreign wars, it could still have a large amount of funds for internal affairs.
Huang Taiji probably couldn't understand these. Even if he could understand them, he couldn't implement them inside Dongli!
Because a tax system of this level needs to be implemented on a piece of white paper, it can only be implemented after a comprehensive breakdown of the old interest system.
The Dongji people's regime has actually been in power for decades. The internal distribution of interests has already been completed and a stable interest system has been formed. It is impossible to change it at this time...
At the same time, this is also the reason why Luo Zhixue has used the most iron-blooded means to forcefully promote various new policies from the beginning, especially agricultural policies and tax policies.
Rather than wait until it stabilizes.
Because once the situation stabilizes and new interest groups are generated and exchanged with the old interest groups, then there is no hope of implementing new policies to distribute benefits.
It must be pushed forcefully from the beginning, relying directly on guns and swords to push.
Reform... is impossible. Reform has been very difficult since ancient times, and it is thankless. If it is not done well, it will drag the empire into the abyss.
Therefore, Luo Zhixue doesn't intend to engage in any reform... He can't do such things as mending, he doesn't have the ability, and he doesn't have the courage!
All he can do is tear down all the old ones and then build a new interest system on the ruins.
This is even less difficult for Luo Zhixue, who started a rebellion and has hundreds of thousands of troops at his disposal. The situation in the past few years has fully demonstrated this point.
In the pre-Ming Dynasty, whatever ambitious people in the Ming Dynasty wanted to do would be met with a lot of opposition, and nothing would be done in the end, especially in the area of taxation. It would be difficult for the court to take the money of the gentry!
But in the Dachu Empire... the gentry and wealthy households were very active in paying various taxes!
Why, you ask? Could it be that these gentry were born to be good people and supported the Chu Empire from the bottom of their hearts?
Just kidding... How can people be willing to take money from their pockets?
As for why I didn’t want to pay it back, and why I paid it so actively.
The reason is also very simple. Those who refuse to pay taxes are all killed...
