Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1216 Thoughts of Luntai ([-])
It is said that the king's heart is unpredictable, and the situation at this time is the best embodiment.

It is impossible for Liu Yu to ask the emperor, hey, are you going to solve the Yellow River problem before you die?

After all, for the emperor, the Yellow River itself could not threaten the imperial rule.The real threat is the "people" after the Yellow River breach.

The emperor felt that there might be no way to solve the human problem, so he might think about solving the human problem.

Feudal emperors slaughtered people like pigs and dogs. This kind of thing is normal, just a mutant Kusanagi.

Once rational judgment is combined with the emperor, something that shouldn't exist in the rational age, it will easily produce extremely dire consequences.

In the chaotic era of the late Ming Dynasty, farmers, untouchables, miners, etc. used violence to leave a very deep impression on Dashun.For this reason, the emperor of Dashun will try his best to maintain the survival of small farmers; but once he feels that it may not be possible to maintain it, he is likely to kill it in the cradle.

This is not impossible, but very likely.

At the beginning, when Liu Yu heard the emperor suddenly talking about the Luntai Edict, he must have ridiculed and complained in his heart.

He taunted in his heart that the emperor's brain was only as good as the kind of conscience that doesn't talk about productivity and production relations, and expects a few supermen, and makes up something like Zero's Requiem.Issue a Luntai edict before death to alleviate the domestic annexation problem and let the prince be a "good emperor".

This is of course ridicule.

But in the back, the more Liu Yu listened, the more it tasted wrong.

I am afraid of comparison in everything, and when the taste becomes more and more wrong, Liu Yu feels that this method of "flooding the fields with water and changing the rice into mulberry" is not as good as the idea that he ridiculed at the beginning.

Doing things must count the cost.

And to do things, I am afraid of the cost.

The input cost is for the purpose.

The key is, what is the purpose of the emperor?

The purpose of the emperor is to lead a better life for the common people?Or the stable rule of the imperial power?

Most of the time, there seems to be no difference between the two on the outside, but once faced with a major decision, the essence will be revealed immediately.

Even if the rational factor of productivity is not considered, it is worthwhile to invest hundreds of millions of taels of silver in consideration of the abstract purpose of better maintaining the life of small farmers.

But if you only consider the stable rule of the imperial power, in fact... there is a lower-cost solution.

The emergence of the railway did allow the emperor to strengthen his ruling power.And created another feasible plan for the emperor.

Once the railway from Beijing to Hankou is roughly completed; then it will be equipped with the railway from Shanghai to Xuzhou and then to northern Anhui and Henan.In fact, the Yellow Flood Area—the Yellow Flood Area in Dashun is mostly the lower reaches of the Yellow River in later generations, rather than the original concept of the Yellow Flood Area behind Huayuankou in history—it is already a dead land surrounded on all sides.

According to Liu Yu's idea of ​​spending money to immigrate, this needs at least three to five billion taels or even more money to solve it.After all, tens of millions of acres of arable land are involved. Digging the channel of the Yellow River must be the best area for arable land, because the Yellow River cannot cross mountains and climb slopes, and the water flows to lower places.

And there's bound to be resistance, confusion, and the impossibility of even doing it.

And if the emperor really wants to use some anti-human methods, it can only be said that the cost is indeed greatly reduced.

Once the water rushes, there will be a wave of death and a wave of killing.In the north, the new channel of the Yellow River is the valley, in the west, the railway is the wall, in the south, the wealthy gentry are loyal to prevent the victims from going south, and in the east, the sea is the weak water.

At that time, not only will the cost of migration be greatly reduced, but also the resentment of migration will be reduced, and the land will be redistributed incidentally.

Even, it is entirely possible that after a large number of relocations, the mid-Tang land equalization system will be implemented in the Yellow River Flood Area, which will become a new fortress of imperial power and greatly enhance the power of imperial power.

Moreover, after the emergence of the railway, and Dashun's financial situation, this idea is really feasible...

Moreover, no matter the difficulty or the damage to the stability of the world's structure, it is much simpler and less influential than the Luntai Zhao method that Liu Yu thought the emperor would implement at first.

Although I don't know if the emperor really thought so, but listening to what the emperor said, Liu Yu always felt that the taste was very wrong, and he was really panicked.

So, to the emperor's ears, Liu Yu's words made the emperor a little surprised.

Judging from Liu Yu's means in Funing, Northern Jiangsu and other places, no matter how you look at it, Liu Yu is a radical reformist.

The emperor never expected that Liu Yu would come up with the most conservative and moderate solution.

Although this internal conservatism and moderation is based on radical external expansion.

It goes without saying that it is gentle, it is indeed gentle.

I say it conservatively, because Liu Yu's idea completely avoids the direction of changing the land system that the Yellow River may flood and whether private ownership of land should be changed.Moreover, it is obviously a relocation plan based on maintaining all existing systems.

The emperor believed that the group of people in the Privy Council headed by Liu Yu made judgments about the outside world, and there was a group of people in Dashun who knew the outside world best.

And since Liu Yu said that many problems could be solved within five years, the emperor also believed that it was possible to double the fiscal revenue in five years, given his previous trust.

It's just that Liu Yu directly led the problem to the Yellow River problem, which surprised the emperor a little.

Regardless of what the emperor thinks, the current Yellow River issue is just a puddle of shit. It may explode one day, and anyone who gets close will be glued to his body.

On the edge of temples and in the depths of rivers and lakes, those who shout to solve the problem of the Yellow River have no prestige or sufficient height to do this, so they can only shout in vain.

The temple is so high, who dares to resist this matter?Who wants to resist this?
But the emperor didn't directly answer the question of Huang He, but asked: "In Aiqing's opinion, this matter of India and Europe is a battle that must be won? It's time to consider defeat, and everything must be considered in the direction of winning." In the future?"

Liu Yu took a deep breath, and said solemnly like never before: "Return to Your Majesty, I was naughty in the past, and I was favored by Your Majesty. At the time of the military reform, I said that it is necessary to have a well-controlled soldier despite an incompetent general. defeat."

"Furthermore, since the time when I compiled and trained the navy, I have talked about things in Southeast Asia and India. For this matter, I have been planning for more than [-] years."

"During the period, going to Southeast Asia, moving to Ceylon, disrupting the Netherlands, changing Rakshasa, and allying with France were all related to this matter. After the Austrian succession war, the minister said that the conflicts among the European countries have not been resolved, it is just a truce that no one can stop , Sooner or later, the Privy Council has been waiting for this opportunity."

"How many fleets and ships the British have, the condition of the colonies, the popular sentiment...the finances, interest, and tariffs of the British...France's choice on the Caribbean and India issues...etc., etc., the materials collected by the Privy Council are overwhelming. "

"The Privy Council only decides the strategy. It is up to His Majesty to fight or not to fight. It is up to the soldiers to fight on the front line."

"The soldiers of this dynasty work hard and are well-trained. One against one, [-]% can win. But in India, it may be against one out of ten. I don't know how to fail."

"As for participating in the battle of Europa, as long as the navy is dispatched to disrupt its trade and join the French naval battle, if it continues, Britain will surely lose."

"That's right, I'm in the Privy Council, and I just read books for entertainment all day long, and have nothing to do. As long as His Majesty's order remains unchanged and the fight continues, whoever sits in the Privy Council will have the same result."

"No one is willing to touch the matter of the Yellow River...Your Majesty, please step down from the Privy Council and act cheaply as the duke of the country, and go out of Yanzhou, the town of Yugong."

That's it.

Meaning is not the end of this.

The emperor was full of mana tricks, and he had seen many battles between courts in his life, but he was still at a loss by Liu Yu's words.

Is Liu Yu looking for death?Don't want to live anymore?crazy?Or... Or is it hopeless to the point of committing suicide?
All of a sudden, all kinds of thoughts swirled in the emperor's mind quickly, and he didn't know how to answer Liu Yu's words at all.

Even if he has been the emperor for so many years, even if he has experienced 20 years of struggle between reform and old-fashioned.

Obviously, he never thought that there would be a courtier who would really say these words.

The implication of these words... is that Liu Yu asked to leave the town of Yanzhou to take care of the Yellow River.

And to do this is to die.

Whether it is political, or popular, or in any direction, it is mortal.

In other words, except for the emperor who did this, anyone else who did this was seeking death.

Including Prince Edward.

In any reform in the past, there are always some people who benefit and others who suffer.

Even Wang Anshi's reform, which has been scolded for hundreds of years, still has mixed reputation and reputation, and there is a saying that "rule the world with the scholar-bureaucrats, not with the common people".

But in this matter, there is only infamy.

In the imperial court, it is almost certain to be the situation of "cooking Hongyang, and rain at the beginning of heaven".

In folk...

If there is a flood, the Yellow River has already burst, tens of millions of people will be flooded, and millions of people will have no food or clothing.At this time, the emperor's great efforts in disaster relief and the officials' all-out efforts have won a good reputation through the ages.

And now, nothing happened.

Not to mention the various fragmentary and stratified influences after the change of the river course.

For example, the impact on business, the impact on the salt industry, the impact on agriculture, and so on.

Just say the most general.

After four or five hundred years, there has never been a risk of the Yellow River flooding, and there is no need to bear the tragedy of repairing the Yellow River embankment, let alone worrying about the Yellow River bursting...

But some people want to take the Yellow River to Shandong.

Any common people in Shandong can't wait to sleep on their skin and eat their flesh.

Is the Yellow River a good thing?

At least in the eyes of the people at this time, the Yellow River means disaster, not the fertile water of the Yellow River.

It means going out of corvee to repair the Yellow River embankment.

It means facing the danger of the Yellow River flooding and breaching—basically, once a year.

It means submerging the ancestral graves, submerging the only family property, and leaving home.

Who let the Yellow River go to Shandong, except for the force majeure of God, at this time... no one can make new words, but only a kneeling statue, kneeling on the Yellow River embankment.

As for Liu Yu's reputation in Shandong... the coastal areas of Laizhou and Dengzhou who benefited from it were excluded.Let's put it this way, along the canal, I don't know how many people scolded.

Liu Yu didn't just destroy Huai'an and Yangzhou.

Just to give an example, Linqing City.Before the Canal Caomi reform, the big city with a population of 20 had 8 people left in just a dozen years.

The famous Linqingguan used to be a big city in Shandong, and it used to be the place with the cheapest food prices in Shandong. Because of the reform, such a poem appeared:

There are hungry women who pick willows on the official road in Linqing.

Droughts kill the grain every year, and the guest rice is only a bucket of thousands of dollars.

There are willows with rice for rice, and willows without rice for rice.

Her husband lost fiber and died of illness, and the wife ate her old aunt and baby.

The willows are already deep in the spring breeze, and the old stems of the branches and leaves hurt people's hearts.

There are at least 8 people left in Linqing, and there are at least a prefecture, a prefecture, and a county.

And another important water transport town, Zhang Qiu...

The last paragraph of "Zhang Qiuzhi" is written like this:
In the past, it was an important town for water transportation, and the city was surrounded by rivers.Merchants from five directions gather together, and Sanyi has many things.Since Xingguo was sailing by sea, it began to be depressed, and then withered, like a swift wind sweeping away autumn leaves.In the past [-] years, the outline of the city is right but the scenery is not.

Fuzhi also, the history of a county and a city.Zhang Qiu does not have the name of a county, nor is it a city of a county, but has its history. It can be said to be prosperous!
After being transported by sea, Zhang Qiu has no more history. This is Zhang Qiu's last pen.

Leng Shengsheng brought a prosperous town to despair, and made the gentry write down words like "Zhang Qiuzhi's last pen" as Zhang Qiuzhi's last sentence.

The remaining 8 people in Linqing are because the water transport was abolished, but the canal can still be used to make do with it, and there can still be some trade.

But it doesn't stop there.

Once the Yellow River passes through Shandong again, the few remaining canal cities that can still support will all die.Of the 8 people in Linqing, there may be [-] left.

Of course, it cannot be said that these incidents were all due to Liu Yuxing's shipping, but were caused by various factors.

First of all, in the previous Shandong water transport area, all configurations and water conservancy projects did not revolve around irrigation and the development of agricultural production.

However, although Caozhou County in Shandong Province is mostly close to the canal, its agricultural water resources are extremely scarce. The only Wen and Si waters, and the Tai, Yi, and Teng springs are also included in the water transportation system.

Local states and counties have no right to use these channels or springs without sufficient water for the canal.

This problem has frequently become a problem since the mid-Ming Dynasty.

Guaranteeing water transportation is the first priority, and for this reason, the Yellow River even tacitly allowed the Yellow River to burst southward.The rivers along the way must replenish water for water transportation.

And the time of water transportation basically coincides with the irrigation period - when the summer rainy season comes, there will be no shortage of water at that time, but the fucking canal is also full of water, and it has to be drained out - this leads to the need for water in dry days When there is no need for water in the rainy season, drain it outside.

It sounds like it should be a good thing for Liu Yu to solve the problem of water transportation by sea transportation.

But the problem is that for hundreds of years, frequent water conservancy projects have been carried out around water transportation, which has basically destroyed the original irrigation system.

The industry and commerce brought by water transport itself supported a certain population.And Caomi can stabilize the price of rice.

The abolition of water transport is a systematic project, because "there is no way to control the Yellow River without the waste of canals" is an important reason for the abolition of water transport.

Even if the problem of the possible breach of the Yellow River is not solved.

Just talking about the anti-agricultural nature of many water conservancy projects brought about by water transportation before, these pits accumulated over hundreds of years are not solved at once by abolishing the canal.

This is one aspect.

On the other hand, a large number of people lost their jobs when the canal was abolished.

In itself, the Canal District is an important place for the spread of the Wenxiang Sect, White Lotus Sect, and Qinglian Sect.All kinds of variants emerge in endlessly.

After the dismantling of the canal, there were at least six or seven large-scale uprisings in Northwest and Southwest Shandong.

Wars, uprisings, massacres, encirclement and suppression, this is another wave of destruction.

Finally, there are some decisive and fundamental factors.

Except for the well-developed coastal Leiden area in Shandong in recent years—in addition to controlling trade with North Korea, naval bases, and the rise of new schools, there is also the possibility of entering the Guandong by sea—excluding these two areas, Shandong has a total of About 7500 million mu of arable land.

After the poll tax was abolished, or putting the poll tax in the land can only be regarded as being in a hurry and not counting as abolished, it is no longer necessary to hide the population.

After statistics, the population of Shandong has exceeded 2200 million.

2200 million people, 7500 million mu of arable land—According to statistics in the 20s, the rate of multiple cropping, interplanting, and two-year three-cropping in southwestern and northwestern Shandong was only 30%—in fact, Shandong has already experienced a large number of people. There is a big problem with less land.

This is the level of productivity at this time.

The previous large-scale water conservancy projects revolved around canals, water transportation, and salt transportation.

What is the average yield per mu?Counting the replanting rate, in fact, it is only 200 catties, maybe even 170 catties.

The per capita land is three and a half mu. If the average land is truly achieved, excluding the fact that an average of 6 counties are affected by disasters every year, that is 600 catties of grain per capita.

It sounds like it's okay.

But the reality is that the land is not averaged, and the "average grain share" cannot be calculated, because it cannot be averaged.

The reality is not without famine.

The reality is not that there are no corrupt officials.

The reality is not that there are no tenants who have to pay rent.

The reality is not that businessmen don't take advantage of the time to pay taxes to suppress grain prices.

People in later generations eat a lot of fat, eggs, milk, and meat, and feel that one catty of grain a day is enough.

These days, the common people who work, if you give him two catties of grain a day, he will be half full.

Besides, are these lands all planted with food?

Are there any commercial crops?grow cotton?Peanuts?Plant dates?In fact, there are still many.

Without land, we have to rush to places that are not suitable for arable land, and this further damages the already fragile ecological structure, and frequent droughts and floods.

In addition, according to some statistical data in Shandong, excluding strange cities such as Qingdao and Weihai, the ratio of men to women in these strange cities has reached 180 to 100, but it is normal, which proves that there are many workers.After eliminating them, the ratio of men to women in many places has reached 110 to 100, or even 130 to 100.

All these factors combined together have contributed to many problems.

But all these questions are not as good as what Liu Yu raised now.

He wants to let the Yellow River go to Shandong!

This is equivalent to throwing coals directly into the powder keg.

For the vast majority of people, the Yellow River means disaster in terms of the level of productivity at this time.

No province is willing to let the Yellow River pass by its door.

No one wants to go down the river from Kaifeng.

If you don't do it, will the Yellow River stop bursting?
of course not.

If you don't do it, the Yellow River will burst and there will be no river course.After 600 years, the south side has been raised too high, and it is impossible to go south.

But the Yellow River, which has no channel, needs to be flooded and find its own channel.This process may take five or ten years.

It can even be said that the population of Shandong can directly become negative growth.

But it's like the "helium flash" story in later generations.

When the Yellow River bursts and then goes to disaster relief, that is doing good.

And before the Yellow River bursts, it is evil to go to the Yellow River and build rivers in no-man's land.

The emperor can do this matter, but the emperor doesn't want to do it.

Because as long as the emperor is not stupid, he will not do this, not to mention the high cost, and the low income.

It is far more costly and less profitable than solving the problem after the Yellow River breaches.

If the minister wants to do it, as long as there are parties and factions in the court, no one will do it.

It's like smearing shit on yourself.

The official is too young to do it.

This is not a simple matter, but a major event involving three provinces and tens of millions of people.

It is also necessary to systematically consider a series of things such as salt transportation, cities, resettlement, repression, industry and commerce, water conservancy projects, irrigation, agriculture, and so on.

The official is too big to dare to do it.

Whoever did this will leave a bad reputation forever.

The prince is very smart, he has to do things, so he chose Hankou.Because if the prince dares to do this, the prince will probably end up being the prince too.

Liu Yu didn't say that he would do it, but he said that he was already busy in the Privy Council, and that the war between India and Europe had already come to an end, and the implication was obvious.

That's why the emperor was surprised.

Not surprised by anything else, but why Liu Yu did this?
After excluding the answer of being for the people, the emperor can only think that Liu Yu is desperate and wants to commit political suicide, or that he is trapped in the sorrow of reincarnation and cannot get out.

Even, it was more like an act of breaking a jar: I can't live anyway, so why not do something before I die.

At least, that's how the emperor saw it.

But in fact, except for the most basic reasons, Liu Yu just felt that when the railway was repaired and Dashun was in place at this time, the peasant uprising and the people's rebellion in Shandong were all in vain, and even the king's predecessor disturbed the court and collapsed The government may be gone.

Because of the changes in the canal, grain tax, grain rice, etc., it can no longer have a major impact here.

That being the case, why ask people to sacrifice in vain in the future?

If you don't want to sacrifice in vain, why don't you take the opportunity to do something other than make people sacrifice in vain, and continue to take the opportunity to lay the foundation for the future economy?

As for the idea of ​​seeking death, smashing the pot, committing suicide with anger, it really has nothing to do with Liu Yu.

(End of this chapter)