Xinshun 1730

Chapter 720 What is the purpose of going to Nanyang?

No policy benefits everyone.

Liu Yu felt that it was quite rare for them to be able to think of this, so he smiled and said, "That's right. If you really think so, it's really troublesome. From different angles, the meaning of going to Nanyang is different. Speaking of it, if What are you going to do if the imperial court does not send troops, and you really let you take Java and Batavia by yourself?"

"If the imperial court doesn't send troops, we can only rely on our Guiyi Army to seize Java and Batavia?" Niu Er was startled. He had thought about this question before, but he was a little vague about the specific policy.

"If this is the case, the red-haired ghosts will naturally be driven away, and the land of the red-haired ghosts around the city will also be confiscated. But in order to stabilize people's hearts, those who contract the sugarcane plantations of the Cane Ministry, those who contract The tax collectors, the Tang people who served as Lei Zhenlan Jiapidan for the red-haired ghost, will probably also be killed, and their property will be distributed to the common people, and the extortionate miscellaneous taxes will be cancelled..."

Liu Yu laughed loudly when he heard the words: "Nonsense. If you really succeed, I think you leaders will occupy the sugar factory first in three to five years. You don't need to talk about others, just talk about my family. In the previous dynasty, the ancestors were poor. .When the Holy Dynasty conquered the world, didn’t they take up a lot of land as a reward? In my house, the surname was Xu in the previous dynasty, and the surname is Liu now. It’s just a change of person.”

"Sugar cane gardens, sugar factories, spice hills, these are basically the newcomers replacing the old ones. If you really drive out the Dutch by yourself, the newcomers will be you; but since the imperial court has sent troops, the newcomers will be you That's all."

"If you want to do these things, how can you do it without the capital? However, your thinking should be broadened."

"Since the imperial court wants to go to Nanyang, there are many rich people in Jiangnan. The sugarcane department originally belonged to the VOC, and those people were just contracted. Now that the Dutch have been driven away, they really want to be contracted out. As long as they make money, aren't the rich people in Jiangnan all working hard?" Squeeze to drill here?"

Liu Yu's point is not to tease Niu Er and others that their "ambition" will deteriorate.

Instead, he clicked Niu Er a little bit.However, this basic attitude blurred whether it was the court's intention, the emperor's intention, or his intention.

But in short, it is impossible to divide up plantations such as spice hills and sugar cane gardens. Instead, the old system must continue to be contracted by people.

In terms of production efficiency, large-scale plantations must produce top-grade crops that are much better than growing rice and coffee in small plots.

This point, in fact, is a disguised recognition of the governance idea of ​​treating Nanyang as a colony rather than as a native land.

The Batavia sugar factory employee uprising could easily touch the fragile nerves of the imperial court.

Although Liu Yu tried his best to downplay the essence of this matter in the court, in fact, some people of insight in the court still saw the problem.

Tens of thousands of people are engaged in the production of a certain commodity. Once the commodity fails to sell well and cannot be sold, what will these tens of thousands of people do?
Smallholder farmers are self-sufficient and do not commoditize all their products.What they grow is food, which can be sold or not sold for their own food.

But sugar factories, spice hills, etc., large and small add up to tens of thousands of employees; quite worried.

After all, it has actually happened once.

What the imperial court fears most is chaos.

The small peasant economy is nothing more than two things.

Natural disasters, corrupt officials.

Natural disasters are unavoidable, and corrupt officials and officials should be cured a little bit by the imperial court.

Coupled with the overall policy of suppressing mergers, although everyone knows that they will die sooner or later, but if the general situation is improved, they can also be in the country for 300 years.

But this kind of plantation economy, or the budding of the factory system, also needs to consider economic laws, which is the weakness of those insightful people in the court.

At this moment, I would like to ask the court officials, why the Batavia sugar was not easy to sell in the past few years?Why did it sell well before?It's not that Liu Yu underestimated them, there are nine out of ten, and it's impossible to answer them at all.

Since I don't understand, then I just ban it, isn't there no danger?
In the case of such an incident in Batavia, Liu Yu said that for the sugarcane department and Spice Hill, it is still the original policy, just replacing the old with the new.

That is to say, Nanyang will not be regarded as the mainland for the time being. If something happens, there is no need to worry about the flames of war. As long as the navy is there, at most it will corrupt an island.

When he mentioned this a little bit, Niu Er immediately rejected the idea that he felt was not "right" during the discussion yesterday, such as dividing the land of the plantation and the sugar cane garden.

So I tentatively talked about the system that was discussed the most last night and that I thought was the most suitable.

It is nothing more than a continuation of the original policy of the Dutch in the Bandung area of ​​​​Brianan, with some changes.

"If the imperial court regards Nanyang as its homeland, all according to the ideal system of the imperial court, it is said that the land should be divided into small pieces for individuals. The middlemen are removed, and the imperial officials collect rent directly."

"Although this is good, it is just like the 30-year rent-to-own system envisaged by the ancient Confucian school. It sounds good, but it is difficult to implement."

"Besides, doing so offended both the village head of the village community and the nobles of the chiefdom."

"We thought, if we please the head of the village community and the nobles of the chiefdom, wouldn't this be Jimi? It's meaningless, and it's not called Xia Nanyang."

"And if you can please the village chief and suppress the nobles of the chiefdom, it seems much easier."

"The head of the village, or the rich, will contract the land. As long as the tax is paid, the rest of the governors don't care. The land they contract is then leased to the villagers of the village. We don't care how much tax they collect, as long as they pay It satisfies the governor's regulations, and the rest is up to them."

"There are three advantages to this."

"First, make money and guarantee profits."

"Secondly, if the villagers in the village community are dissatisfied, those who oppose it are the local land contractors, the lords above them. The Governor's Mansion can kill a few appropriately, so that the common people can complain and be praised by the common people."

"Thirdly, in this way, the head of the village community and the rich locals will stand with us. And the nobles of the chiefdom above them will not be able to speak well, and they will not have to fulfill their feudal obligations. It was carried out because of our support. That is to say, we let the village chiefs, land contractors, and local rich people fight against the nobles of the chiefdom and disintegrate them."

"The governor of the water, the master of the iron. And it doesn't need too many people to manage it."

"For the villagers, the head of the village community is the middleman between them and the governor; for us, they are also the middleman who collects taxes for us. Without these middlemen, it is difficult for the imperial court to rule such a large and mostly It is the Nanyang of the barbarians."

"Even, they can be given complete control over the villagers."

"However, we can also feel that there will be big problems in doing so, and there may be big problems in the future."

Speaking of this, Niu Er quietly looked at Liu Yu's face, hoping to see something from Liu Yu's expression.This is not a formal test, just a tentative talk about my own ideas.

He didn't fully affirm that his idea would be feasible, but said that he considered that there would be problems and big things would happen in the future.

However, Liu Yu just listened quietly, and did not express his opinion immediately.

Not to criticize morally, to some extent, it can be said that it is an inevitable trend after sailing ships connect the world market.

Like Brazil and the plantation economies of the pre-Civil War South.

The owners of the means of production promote the most barbaric slavery, but the purpose is to provide raw materials for the earliest production methods at that time.

Some sugarcane sugar factories in Batavia used to use Chinese slave labor, which is basically similar to a variant of slavery.For the purpose, too, of supplying goods to the most developed commercial capitalism of Western European merchants.

Or, something like the reinvention of serfdom in Central Europe after the Thirty Years War.

It seems to be retrogression, but from the perspective of the capitalist market of the whole world, the reprint of serfdom is nothing but a "perversion of commercial capitalism".

The previous serfdom was to maintain a self-sufficient manor.

In the reprinted serfdom system, village chiefs and big landlords fully participate in the world market and provide various raw materials for the development of capitalism.

The grain, livestock, grapes, and timber in Central Europe are not for the manor's own use, but for the capitalist market in Western Europe to make money.

On the whole, they still serve the capitalists in Amsterdam or London.

The policy that Niu Er imagined to implement in Java is, in essence, serving the Dashun capitalists gathered in Songjiang and other places.

Because Dashun's commercial capital needs indigo, spices, cotton, and coffee.

The village chiefs of those villages were forcibly twisted into serf owners, and the villagers of the villages were twisted into serfs and fixed on the land.Use them to produce the raw materials and hobbies needed by the world market, Dashun's commercial capital and industrial capital.

Since the world market is linked together by sailing ships, the appearance of this "a metamorphosis of commercial capitalism" is inevitable.

If you don't look at it separately, this is just a part of the capitalist system based on Dashun in the east, although even Dashun is still in a state of involuntary embryonic development.

However, the re-serfdom in Central Europe was caused by the development of capitalism and urbanization in Western Europe, which led to a sharp increase in the demand for food raw materials; the internal cause was the lack of strength of the burghers and merchants, which made the feudal lords accustomed to the simple and rude rule of the past. , and because it is too close to Western Europe, it has to fully participate in the capitalist system.

On the Java side, it was purely caused by the strong interference of external forces.It may be necessary to use the speed of a storm to complete this unconscious transformation of the village chief himself.

Liu Yu did not agree with what the emperor thought about why he went to Nanyang.But from his point of view, Niu Er's idea is also a feasible method.

Although he is not very supportive, the reason why he does not support it is not out of conscience.

It is because doing so will narrow the market in Nanyang, which is suitable for the development of commercial capitalism, but it is not conducive to the future development of Dashun's industry that has already produced steam engines.

The internal market of Dashun is too small, and the impact on the small peasant economy may cause the Dashun court to be frightened and quickly backtrack.

Whether it is going to Nanyang, seeking India, or thinking of cooperating with the Dutch, what Liu Yu is always looking for is the market.

But the policy Niu Er envisioned was of no benefit to expanding the market.

Liu Yu is not on the side of commercial capital.

(End of this chapter)