In the expanded participation meeting held in October of the 37th year of Chengshun, there were extensive discussions on grain production and supply issues. More importantly, Emperor Luo Zhixue of the Dachu Empire gave clear instructions at the meeting.
It is required to initially solve the food supply problem within five years and increase the per capita food level from the existing 380 kilograms to 400 kilograms.
The impact of this meeting is significant!
Da Chu Chao Bao used a lot of space to report on this grain conference in the latest Chao Bao. It not only reported on the conference itself, but also followed up on some related actions of various ministers and departments.
Local newspapers also followed the trend and reported on it on a large scale.
Many officials, whether they are officials from various ministries in Gyeonggi Province or officials from various local government offices, as long as they are related to food, they are all making various statements.
Even officials in other fields that have nothing to do with food or even agriculture are rushing to make various statements one by one.
Even the Ministry of Taxation, which is only responsible for collecting money, only issued a document a few days later, stating that it would study the current agricultural tax rate and explore the feasibility of reducing agricultural taxes to increase farmers' income and increase farmers' enthusiasm for growing food.
The industrial and commercial department stated that it will further optimize the relevant processes of grain circulation, reduce the burden in the grain circulation process, and optimize the grain circulation volume.
The same is true for most other departments.
As for the Dachu Empire Grain Corporation, which is closely related to this matter, the company’s supervisor publicly stated in the Dachu Chaobao: The Grain Corporation will make every effort to increase the food supply and ensure that the local per capita average grain supply will be increased within five years. The grain level was raised to 400 kilograms.
At the same time, a number of specific plans have been released, such as preparing to build large-scale refrigeration ships to widely import meat from overseas territories, colonies, indigenous-controlled areas and other overseas areas to reduce the pressure on local meat supply and reduce the cost of locally cultured meat. resulting in food consumption.
Sea transportation cost subsidies for bulk basic grains will be further increased, and the amount of basic grains such as wheat and rice imported from overseas will be expanded.
The brewing business will be transformed, and the staple grain brewing business will be significantly reduced, and crops such as potatoes and corn, which are not picky about the terrain and have higher yields, will be used as auxiliary grain brewing business to reduce the waste of staple grains in the brewing industry.
And in some places, the purchase price of grain will be raised to support and promote the enthusiasm for grain farming in some areas.
In short, the Dachu Empire Grain Corporation will make every effort to improve food supply.
The enthusiasm of various departments and local yamen towards the issue of food supply can be said to be very rare... This cannot be blamed on them. The main reason is that this is the first time in the past many years that Luo Zhixue of the Chu Empire has publicly targeted some major matter. Make clear requests in person.
The last time he did this was the high-pressure steam engine in the early 1920s. At that time, he personally gave public instructions to speed up the development, production and application of high-pressure steam engines.
Only in this way did the Chu Empire burst out with great enthusiasm and realize the large-scale mass production and application of a series of various high-pressure steam engines in just a few years.
As for other seemingly important matters, in fact Luo Zhixue has never publicly issued clear requirements on what to do and what goals to achieve.
In most cases, it is a natural adjustment made by the empire's top management as a whole with the development of productivity and society.
Even if Luo Zhixue gets involved, he mostly advances through many less conspicuous ways such as small-scale private meetings, listening to reports, and simply giving instructions.
He rarely shouts out loud enough to get the whole country to do it with him!
In most cases, Luo Zhixue rarely directly intervenes in domestic development!
For example, in railway construction, strictly speaking, Luo Zhixue did not intervene much.
But even so, despite the seemingly vigorous railway construction in the past decade or so, more than 100,000 kilometers of railway have been laid in just a dozen years!
This data is extremely astonishing... Of course, this is also an inevitable situation given the productivity, huge population, and vast territory. You must know that the United States in the original time and space had already laid 50,000 kilometers of railways during the Civil War around 1860.
Having completed industrialization, with a population of 40 to 500 million in the mainland alone, extensive global expansion, and a large supply of overseas industrial raw materials and dumping markets, the national power of the Chu Empire was actually nineteen times greater than that of the original time and space. Any modern industrial country in this century will be more powerful!
The construction of 100,000 kilometers of railways in the past ten years is actually not too fast.
If anyone has played Paradox's Victoria series, then they will know that the Qing Dynasty, with hundreds of millions of people, a vast land and abundant resources, and most of the resources needed for industrialization, will definitely be the world's hegemon once it starts industrialization... the kind that can dominate the world.
This is not for Chinese people to enjoy themselves. After all, this game was created by foreigners.
And today's Chu Empire is actually more powerful than the Qing Dynasty in these strategy games... The Qing Dynasty in the game also has other powers as opponents, and there are also restrictions and penalties from various game mechanisms!
But the Da Chu Empire has no rivals, and there is no punishment mechanism for expansion such as notoriety. For the Da Chu Empire, it can be said that it can expand wherever it wants on a global scale, and it can do whatever it wants. .
Not to mention places like Southeast Asia, America, India, and Africa, the Chu Empire is now promoting its European trade plan... and plans to treat the entire Europe as an economic colony.
With such a strong strength, the Dachu Empire was also extremely strong in various infrastructure construction. It took more than ten years to build 100,000 kilometers of railways, which is actually a small amount...
The main reason is that the technical strength of basic engineering is somewhat inferior. It is more difficult to lay railways in complex terrain. Many places in China also have complex terrain. At the same time, railway construction funds mainly come from the issuance of railway bonds by railway companies, and There was no liberalization to allow private capital to rush in, so railway construction was slightly slower.
If private capital is allowed to rush in, the speed of railway construction will be much faster... But the railways built by private capital will most likely be concentrated in the eastern flat terrain and economically developed areas.
As for other remote economically backward areas or areas with complex terrain, there is a high probability that it will not be carried out.
However, railways are one of the most important basic facilities for people's livelihood. The empire will not tolerate private capital building railways only in places where it is easy to build railways and make money. It is invisible to economically backward and remote areas and is bent on making a fortune.
Considering the comprehensive development and people's livelihood issues, the empire's top officials insisted on not letting go of the railway issue... In recent years, the Da Chu Empire has gradually liberalized even the salt affairs. In the thirty-fifth year of Chengshun, the Da Chu Empire officially A license system has been adopted for salt affairs. As long as enterprises obtain production, transportation, and sales licenses, they can engage in related operations of table salt or industrial salt.
As for the retail sales of salt, it has been fully liberalized. It is no longer limited to specialized salt stores. All terminal retail locations such as grocery stores are allowed to sell after applying for the corresponding license.
This is the very important "salt licensing system" in the salt affairs reform of the Dachu Empire... It has evolved from a monopoly system integrating production, transportation and sales to the current licensing system!
It's just that the table salt and even industrial salt business has been dominated by the provincial branches of the Dachu Empire Salt Company, which has made small profits but quick turnover, with little profit... So even if the license application is liberalized, not many companies have entered it. …It’s not that you can’t apply for a license, it’s that you don’t make money.
There's nothing wrong with doing something these days. I have to go into the salt industry, which is no longer making much money. People's capital is not stupid...
Who doesn’t know that the reason why your Salt Service Corporation has liberalized its exclusive business is because it no longer makes money?
I don’t see you officials letting go of the railways that really make money.
The facts are almost the same... Mainly because of the continuous advancement of technology, salt production has become very simple. At the same time, the empire's fiscal revenue is increasing, and the share of conventional tax contributions such as industry and commerce is very large. The salt industry brings thousands of The profits and taxes seem to be a lot, but the voices of complaints from the people are not small... So the official began to gradually abandon the salt profits and taxes many years ago. By reducing the salt tax and reducing profits, the terminal price of salt was gradually lowered!
Until now...salt is already very cheap...so cheap that most capital is unwilling to enter this industry even if the franchise is opened up.
In desperation, the Salt Service Company could only continue to bite the bullet and continue to work hard, still monopolizing most of the domestic salt and industrial salt supply business!
Their monopoly is not because of how powerful their technology is... it is simply because they keep the price of salt too low, making it unprofitable for latecomers!
It's a bit like the Coke companies of later generations... The two Coke companies are able to occupy almost all the cola market, not because of secret formulas or anything like that, but simply because they have made their product prices very low through years of accumulation, causing latecomers to want to Entering this market requires a lot of investment and low profits... No, let alone making money, you will probably have to lose money.
In this way, the market threshold has been raised a lot!
The moats of the two Coca-Cola companies are not formulas or patents, they are simply the ultimate price!
The same goes for the Salt Company of the Dachu Empire. In the past ten years, in order to influence the calls of the empire's top officials, they have continued to lower costs and lowered the retail price of salt to the point where no one would even pick it up... something that would have been unimaginable twenty years ago. .
But it's different when it comes to railways. Regarding railways, the Chu Empire still maintains its exclusive system, and the operating profits of some railways are still very high... A lot of private capital wants to get involved.
Therefore, the empire's railway franchise was driven purely by administrative power.
However, even if private capital did not rush in to create a railway boom, 100,000 kilometers would still be built.
These 100,000 kilometers are not a small number. Even the overseas territory of North America has begun to build railways. Railways are also being built in southern Africa... where the big gold mines go deep into the interior of Africa, and a railway is built to facilitate transportation.
However... even for such an important matter as railway construction, Luo Zhixue actually didn't pay much attention to it over the years. That is to say, he paid more attention to it when the train was first built, and then he basically didn't pay much attention to it... ...Anyway, there are a lot of departments in charge of this matter, so nothing can go wrong. Just build the railway step by step.
There are many other issues, such as the universal basic education proposed in the past two years. Luo Zhixue never took the initiative to express any attitude from the beginning to the end.
It was just that after the ministers discussed among themselves, compromised with each other, and exchanged interests, they reached a consensus plan and Luo Zhixue directly approved it.
In fact, this universal basic education is a very important government affairs, but Luo Zhixue does not pay much attention to it... After all, after the productivity develops to a certain level, compulsory or universal education at the basic stage will naturally be provided, and Luo Zhixue does not need to Zhixue specializes in promoting it.
Universal basic education can, to some extent, be regarded as the Da Chu Empire’s version of six-year compulsory education... Of course, due to limited financial capacity, the basic education in the Da Chu Empire focuses on universal benefits, not All for free!
In fact, even later generations of China seemed to have adopted the so-called nine-year compulsory education early, but in fact, for a long time, due to financial constraints, although tuition fees were nominally free, books, miscellaneous fees, board and lodging were still required. There are still a lot of messy expenses...
I won’t talk about it earlier, but in the 1980s and 1990s, for a considerable number of rural poor families, it was still a relatively heavy burden to support their children in the nine-year compulsory period of primary school and junior high school... If there are more children, then the children It is also very common to drop out of primary school.
It was not until the 21st century that economic conditions improved that fees for books, miscellaneous materials, room and board, etc. were gradually exempted in a real sense...
Don't feel bad about it yet, it's actually pretty good.
Compulsory education is a great test of a country's financial capabilities. For a country with a small population, compulsory education can be achieved with just a few tweaks.
Anyway, no matter how much you try, it won’t cost you much!
But for a country with a population of more than one billion, compulsory education is very expensive.
For example, future generations will provide 150 million primary and secondary school students with free nine-year compulsory education... Generally speaking, primary school students receive a subsidy of more than 700 yuan, and junior high school students receive a subsidy of more than 900 yuan... Boarding students will have to receive an additional subsidy of 200 to 300 yuan... Taken together, it is about That’s about eight to nine hundred yuan per person per year!
The subsidy alone is more than 100 billion, and this subsidy of more than 100 billion is only a small part...
In fact, the bulk of compulsory education expenses are not things like books and miscellaneous fees, but teacher salaries and school construction and operating expenses.
The salary expenditure for teachers in compulsory education across the country is more than 1 trillion a year!
The expenditure for the entire compulsory education stage has reached more than 2 trillion yuan, of which teacher salaries account for about half.
Then there is actually a large amount of funding expenditure at the high school and university levels, which is probably about more than 2 trillion yuan... The entire public education expenditure is almost more than 4 trillion yuan...
This expenditure exceeds the annual fiscal revenue of most countries in the world... let alone fiscal revenue, the GDP of most countries is not that much.
Be scary!
This is also the difficulty of implementing compulsory education in a country with a large population, and it is also the strength of a large modern country!
It is impossible for a country with a huge population to implement compulsory education if it does not have sufficient financial strength.
At least it would be impossible for the Chu Empire to do it for the time being... so many teachers can't afford the wages!
It’s not that the Chu Empire wasn’t strong enough, but that productivity wasn’t to that level and wealth accumulation wasn’t to that level. If we insisted on implementing such a comprehensive compulsory education, we would either be financially ruined, or we’d have to raise taxes and force it, and then there would be uprisings all over the place...
Therefore, in the basic education stage, the Great Chu Empire implemented universal education... In simpler and more straightforward terms: cheap education.
It is not completely free, but the price is lowered to a certain level so that as many people as possible, even children from poor families, can receive six years of primary education.
These days, the younger generation in Chu State have to have academic qualifications to work in the city!
If you want to join a more formal factory, you must have a primary school degree, otherwise they won't want you...
How to achieve universal basic education?
The Dachu Empire did not take many measures. On the one hand, it increased financial investment, and on the other hand, it reduced education costs as much as possible.
Needless to say, increasing financial investment has always been done, but the money is really limited, but the country is so big, even if it is divided equally, the local governments will not be able to share much. At the same time, if the local finance in most areas is not strong enough, then the funding subsidies will be even more not enough.
The aspect of reducing education costs is more important. Of course, this cost reduction does not mean reducing teacher salaries... Teacher salaries are not that high to begin with, they are just at the average middle-income level.
Lowering wages can also easily lead to trouble... So what approach did the empire's top leaders take? Salaries are not reduced, but the number of teachers in government schools is strictly controlled...
In short, there is only so much money. If increasing the number of people and lowering wages is not feasible, then the only option is to reduce the number of people and maintain the wage level.
The cost of teachers for a class with 60 students and a class with 30 students is almost double the cost. Many officials in the empire are not stupid. They must all choose to teach large classes. System.
A sheep is also being herded, a group of sheep are being herded... Of course, the teaching quality of a large class is definitely not as good as that of a small class.
But...if you have money, you can go to private schools. There is no need to squeeze in with poor students and occupy public education resources. This is called being rich and unkind. The education officials in Chu State will think you are an eyesore when they look at you...
If you have money, why would you go to a government-run primary school instead of going to a private school? Isn’t it fun to rob ordinary people of educational resources?
If the official is unhappy, I will slap you back!
In private schools, you can get whatever you want. If you have money, you can even hire a group of teachers of various subjects to teach you at home. This is the so-called home education that is popular among many wealthy families. The government maintains an encouraging attitude towards this and has issued Corresponding policy: Even if you study by yourself at home, as long as you pass the primary school and secondary school graduation exams, the official can issue you a primary school or secondary school diploma...
Many children from top wealthy families receive primary school or even junior high school education at home, and then go outside to apply for high school or even college.
The Dachu Empire is very clear about education: government-run primary schools and even junior high schools, and various financial subsidies are prepared for ordinary people; if you are rich, you can spend your own money to go to private schools, and don't mess around...
If you come here to meddle in seizing educational resources for ordinary people, and complain about the poor quality of education, I will let you see what it means to be a county magistrate who destroys a family, and a magistrate who destroys his family!
There are other measures to reduce the cost of education, such as centralized purchasing.
At the beginning, the cost of books is too expensive, so we will conduct centralized procurement and tendering, allowing companies to compete to lower prices, and cost-effectively lower the price of books to the price of waste paper... Of course, you can't expect the exquisite paper and printing of this kind of books. , the basic paper and printing are only kept at a usable level.
But the role of books is to pass on knowledge, not to show off beautiful paper and printing!
If you can learn knowledge from printing an ordinary book, then it is a good book!
A beautifully printed book is a crappy book if it contains a bunch of nonsense.
In order to save education costs, the officials of the Dachu Empire quite approve of this aspect... If you don't agree, how much money do you plan to donate to education this year?
Ten million Chu Yuan or 100 million Chu Yuan?
What? You didn't... Then what a piece of shit are you against!
For example, it is more expensive to build new school buildings, so a large number of existing official-owned buildings are used. For example, in the early days of education in the empire, quite a few school buildings were built using existing buildings such as the former Ming Dynasty prince's palace and the private gardens of the powerful. There are buildings.
Even if it is a new school building, even if it is to ensure quality, the cost should be reduced as much as possible, as long as it can be used... any additional costs such as carved beams and painted buildings will be reduced.
So many schools in the empire are actually just a bare area of teachers and school buildings and other necessary buildings, and the buildings are all practical buildings, with basically no artistry at all, and they are extremely ugly.
What are you talking about, sports venues, cultural venues and the like, just use a piece of open space as a playground... What kind of bicycles do you need for inclusive sex education? It's good to have school.
If you dislike the poor hardware facilities of public education, the same sentence still applies: you can definitely go to those private schools and get whatever you want...
The Dachu Empire has never had any restrictions, and even encourages private schools!
Especially in rural areas, the Chu Empire officials have always encouraged local gentry and wealthy businessmen to set up private schools.
In addition to encouraging them to run schools in person, almost every place has a so-called educational charity dinner once a year...
This educational charity dinner is quite interesting.
Usually the top three levels of the local government, the magistrate, the prefect, and the governor, invite the local gentry and wealthy businessmen to come for food, drink, and fun... Of course, before entering, you have to fill out a check to donate to local education!
This number cannot be too small. If you are shameless, the official will still be shameless.
You, a big boss, just donated so little. Is my face so worthless?
I lower my dignity and personally invite you here to eat, drink and have fun with you. How dare you not pay me?
Who do you look down on?
If you dare to look down on me, the official, your family will be ruined in minutes!
Well, this is an annual educational charity dinner with the characteristics of the Chu Empire!
What stands out is one: you have to come even if you don’t come, you have to donate even if you don’t donate...
Actually, it was all kinds of donations in the pre-Ming Dynasty... It's just that officials in the pre-Ming Dynasty only did it when they had something to do, and it also depended on the mood of the wealthy businessmen.
In the Da Chu Empire, those local officials will come to you once a year...
Otherwise, how do you think the various primary schools that have sprung up like mushrooms all over the Chu Empire came from?
We can’t do it just by relying on official finance!
The development of education in the Great Chu Empire was inseparable from the generosity of the gentry and wealthy businessmen!
After holding this kind of educational charity banquet for more than thirty years... the majority of the gentry and wealthy businessmen in the Great Chu Empire have already acquiesced, and even they themselves take it for granted... Whenever an educational charity banquet is about to be held, they will be very conscious Then fill in the amount of the check based on your social status, this year's profit, the level of invitations and attending officials.
Even some newly minted wealthy businessmen are eagerly waiting for this invitation to the charity dinner!
Getting an invitation means that your financial resources and social status have been recognized, and you can truly enter the local upper class circle. Otherwise, you will become rich without even having an invitation from the upper class!
Well, without a certain social status and financial resources, you still can’t get an invitation!
In terms of education and charity, the officials of the Chu Empire have always maintained the fine tradition that started during the Unification War: never cheat the poor!
(End of chapter)
