The external environment was generally calm, and Luo Zhixue also focused more on domestic affairs.
The Northeast Development Project and the Yellow River Artificial Diversion Project are all products of this background, and more importantly, the five-year agricultural development plan.
In the fourth year of Chengshun, Luo Zhixue formulated a five-year agricultural development plan. At that time, he also boasted that Haikou would invest 65 million taels of silver in batches within five years to support agricultural development.
This Haikou at that time greatly inspired people's hearts, and by the way, it also scared the Eastern captives and even the remnants of the Western Ming Dynasty half to death.
After all, that was 65 million taels of silver, which was actually higher than the financial income of the Dongji people in ten years at that time!
It is now the beginning of the eighth year of Chengshun, which means that the plan has been implemented for about three years. During these three years, the Dachu Empire's investment in agricultural development was extremely huge.
Of course, due to the special nature of agriculture, it is impossible to say that money is directly given to farmers. These are unrealistic.
The agricultural investment in the Dachu Empire was divided into several parts. The first was investment in water conservancy facilities, which was also the largest investment. Various flood control irrigation facilities, especially a large number of small local irrigation facilities, seemed to be everywhere. The investment is not big, but it cannot support large quantities.
In addition, there are some water conservancy facilities that are combined with flood control facilities, such as the Huaihe River and Yellow River control projects. Some of the flood control embankment construction is also included in the agricultural investment field. After all, after the construction of flood control embankments, it can ensure more A lot of farmland can be cultivated safely.
The focus of agricultural production lies in the four words of flood control and drought resistance.
In the construction of water conservancy facilities in various places in the past few years, agricultural investment accounted for about 20 million taels of silver, of which the central government spent about half, local finance provided part of it, and gentry donations also provided part.
No matter where the money comes from, the investment scale of 20 million in agricultural and water conservancy facilities in the past few years is undoubtedly extremely large. Among the many feudal dynasties in the past, none of them spent as much money and food as the Chu Empire. Those who build canals, build embankments, dig wells, and build water trucks.
In addition to water conservancy facilities, other areas of agricultural investment are also being invested one after another.
One of the more important parts is investment in agricultural tools and subsidies.
In agricultural production, tools are an indispensable part. Hoes, sickles and other tools produced from high-quality iron materials are extremely important. In order to allow farmers to use better agricultural tools, the Dachu Empire, on the one hand, through direct investment , set up small machinery factories in various places to produce cheaper iron farm tools.
At the same time, subsidies have also been launched for some qualified agricultural equipment manufacturers.
Subsidies are provided in the form of tax exemptions and are mainly targeted at small and medium-sized agricultural tool manufacturers in counties and prefectures. Most of them are small machinery factories handled by local government industrial agencies.
Even though these machinery factories are all government-run, they have to pay taxes honestly like private enterprises... in order to reduce costs. To lower the selling price, the empire gave these small machinery factories some subsidies in the form of tax breaks to lower the selling price of agricultural tools.
In particular, some new mechanical farm tools are the focus of subsidies, such as the down-to-earth rice thresher developed in recent years. This tool can effectively reduce farmers' work time during harvesting and improve work efficiency.
The Dachu Empire greatly increased the output and price of agricultural tools through subsidies and direct investment, allowing farmers to afford more and cheaper high-quality agricultural tools.
The investment in this aspect may seem inconspicuous, but in fact, during the entire five-year plan, the cumulative investment and subsidies reached a huge amount of 8 million taels.
Of course, the money is not just for agricultural subsidies. It is used for the construction of water conservancy facilities. It is also used for flood prevention and disaster prevention. At the same time, it provides work-for-relief, drives local employment, increases the income of local farmers during their off-farm time, and promotes contemporary development. The development of some wood, stone and other processing industries is the same.
The empire invested heavily in the construction of small-scale machinery factories and provided tax subsidies to these small machinery factories. In addition to supporting the development of agriculture, it also played a role in developing local industry and handicrafts and creating employment.
These small machinery factories do not only produce sickles and hoes. In fact, they can produce most of the iron products used daily, especially tools.
For example, tools such as hammers, saws, axes, or some iron products used daily.
These small machinery factories may seem small in scale, often with only a few dozen people, or even a dozen people, but unlike traditional ironmaking workshops, they still use a large number of tools.
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For example, the Chu Empire has become addicted to water-powered machinery in recent years, and after several years of development and research, it has become very mature. There are large-scale water-powered machinery that can be used to process bronze cannons, and there are also Small water-powered machinery used for processing various small objects.
The coverage is very broad.
These are usually small machinery factories in the county. Those with conditions will usually use water power, and those without water power will also use stored power.
With these external powers, it is much more convenient to process iron products than blacksmiths who directly use hammers to hit them.
If the blacksmith strikes the iron directly, even if he is a skilled blacksmith, the force will still change every time he turns the hammer and the position will be difficult to be accurate.
Manpower, there is always a limit.
But machines are different. They can keep the force of the mechanical hammer consistent and the landing point precise.
The most important thing is that if water power is used, the machinery will not be tired... and the work efficiency can be greatly improved.
Therefore, despite the fact that these small machinery factories, which are generally established in counties or prefectures, may not look very big in scale, their output is not small, and they can basically meet the local demand for some daily iron products.
And this can be regarded as bringing the most basic concept of industrialization to the local area.
Various new machinery, even small mechanical equipment that still uses human power or stored energy, began to gradually enter small and medium-sized machinery factories from the many large defense factories in the Dachu Empire, making more people realize the role of machinery. And it also allows more people to participate in further research and improvement of mechanical equipment.
The more people use these mechanical devices, the easier it is to find problems and solve them, especially when many innovations involve some inspiration.
There are many things that researchers have not thought of at all, but front-line machine operators are aware of them and have come up with their own solutions.
These solutions will eventually be passed on to the medium and large machinery factories that produce these machinery and equipment, and then the products will be improved and newer machinery produced.
This can form a cyclical, progressive and mutually reinforcing situation, thereby improving productivity.
In industry, no matter whether it is water power or steam power, productivity is king. As long as productivity can be improved, it is industrialization.
The first industrialization in the original time and space did not start after the steam engine was mature and applied, but it had already started before the steam engine was mature and applied.
To be precise, the mature application of the steam engine was a product of the first industrial revolution.
It is not that the first industrial revolution came after the steam engine, but that the steam engine came after the first industrial revolution. The issue of the sequence between the two needs to be clear.
The beginning of the first industrial revolution was the use of shuttle weaving in the textile industry, which led to a shortage of cotton yarn supply. In order to meet the supply of cotton yarn, people thought of various ways, which eventually led to the emergence of the spinning Jenny. It kicked off the industrial revolution in an all-round way.
In the Dachu Empire, similar textile industry innovation actually started about three years after Chengshun.
Long ago, the Xiangyang Machinery Factory used the ideas provided by Luo Zhixue to come up with flying shuttles and more efficient spinning machines.
Of course, this thing was not called this in the Da Chu Empire. A few years ago, it was uniformly called a new loom and a new spinning machine. Now, even the word "new" is gone, and it is just called a spinning machine. Yarn frame, loom.
What's even more interesting is that these two things were not actually used to develop the textile industry and carry out the industrial revolution at the beginning. It was purely because the Chu Empire needed a large amount of cheap cloth to make military uniforms in a short period of time in order to ensure military supplies.
Therefore, Xiangyang Machinery Factory built new textile machinery and supplied it to the then Xiangyang Quilt Factory and Hanyang Quilt Factory, which later became Hantian Textile Factory.
After the Hantian Textile Factory applied these two new machines on a large scale, because the production efficiency was extremely high, the cost of the cloth produced was very cheap, and the output was so large that it could not be used up by military supplies, so it began to sell it to external parties... which then caused A comprehensive reform of the textile industry.
A large number of Jiangnan textile handicraft workshops, represented by Suqin Textile Company, felt the threat immediately and introduced them as soon as possible.
In just a few years, the textile industry of the Great Chu Empire completed the upgrading of looms and spinning machines... Well, after all, this thing is not technically difficult. As long as there are blueprints, any craftsman can do it. come out.
It was not difficult for the medium and large machinery factories in the Chu Empire, and it was quickly popularized in the entire textile industry.
At the same time, various types of machinery, especially water-powered machinery, are widely used in various factories.
Not to mention those defense factories, even the textile industry has begun to use water-powered machinery, but the quality of the cloth produced is too poor, and they are all coarse cloth.
Production efficiency has been greatly improved, and large-scale use of machinery and equipment has made it possible to build large-scale centralized production factories. Then behemoths such as Hantian Textile Company and Suqin Textile Company appeared.
At this time, to apply the serious academic views of later generations, the Industrial Revolution had actually begun in the Chu Empire.
It's just that the steam engine hasn't been invented yet, so to many later generations, even Luo Zhixue himself doesn't think it's the Industrial Revolution yet!
But in fact, the Dachu Empire had already launched an industrial revolution.
The large quantities of cheap cloth loaded on ships and shipped to Fuso and Southeast Asia were the most typical features of the Industrial Revolution.
