Lu Ming

Chapter 345 Opening of Port ([-])

The land price of the feudal dynasty is closely related to the national destiny.Generally speaking, land prices are directly proportional to the rise and fall of dynasties, generally in the form of troughs.

In the early days of the dynasty, when the war was at an early stage of peace, ten houses were empty, and the population was far from keeping up with the needs. Therefore, the land at this time could not be sold at a price, and it could be bought very cheaply.

During this period, the government will encourage the people to open up wasteland. In fact, it is to restore the unowned cultivated land that had been abandoned before.

The reason why the early dynasty was a harmonious society was precisely because there was sufficient land supply.When resources are abundant, conflicts will naturally be less.

In the middle of the dynasty, while the population increased significantly, the supply of cultivated land gradually began to tighten.This period is the peak of the trough: the relationship between population and land has just reached a critical point, social productivity is the highest, internal conflicts are controllable, and everything is thriving.At the same time, land prices also began to soar.

After that, there was a slow downhill slope and a series of step-by-step collapses: the population increased, the land began to be insufficiently distributed, the total wealth of the society was diluted, social conflicts increased, the government began to increase taxes to maintain stability, and the gentry began to raise hidden households to resist tax increases. A large number of self-cultivating farmers were bankrupted by the taxation passed on to their heads, and the government lacking funds intensified its efforts to collect money. A vicious circle began. The revolution began.

In the process of the rise and fall of this dynasty, land prices obviously fluctuated accordingly.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the price of good land in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province was only one or two taels. In the Shunzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, the price of the same piece of land was two or three taels, and in Kangxi it was four or five taels. During the Jiaqing period, land prices soared to 30 taels.

Note that the above-mentioned late Ming Dynasty refers to the late Chongzhen period.At that time, Li Zicheng had completely smashed the north. In order to raise a huge amount of funds for suppressing bandits and Liaoshang, the imperial court could only continue to increase land taxes in the south.

While the landlords are struggling to deal with the government, natural disasters are still mercilessly destroying all the crops on the land.All of this caused the Jiangnan field price to collapse rapidly after 1640, to the point where there were only one or two taels of silver.

During that period of time, many places in the south of the Yangtze River were even deserted—this was unimaginable in the Taiping period.

However, this is how it happened in history: land income can no longer cope with exorbitant taxes, not to mention natural disasters, a large number of landlords went bankrupt, and land deeds became a reminder.In order to avoid the collection by the government, some people even put the land deeds on the road for others to pick up.

Time back to the present.

In 1629, when Mr. Xiong bought the land, it was actually not the best time for demolition.

Although the droughts and floods that started last year and other disasters have dealt a heavy blow to the people in the south of the Yangtze River, after all, this is the beginning of the Chongzhen series of catastrophes. It is impossible for the people to realize that the future will only become more and more terrifying.

In short, from the poor peasants to the landlords, everyone still has dreams: if we get through this year, we will probably get better next year.

Therefore, in this case, demolition will undoubtedly cost more resources: in a few years, the land price in Jiangnan will drop like a free fall, and then will be the best time to recover the land.

Some, however, can't wait.

It is an established national policy to insert as many pipes as possible into the body of the Ming Dynasty to suck blood, and important nodes like Shanghai Beach that connect the north to the south must be taken down.The time-traversing people are very anxious, wishing to set up a stronghold in Quan Daming tomorrow. At this time, money is not important anymore.

Therefore, Zuojia Village, a small village in the south of the Yangtze River that was originally unknown in history, became the first residential area to enjoy the demolition policy because it was relatively close to the planned port.

Of course, there are all kinds of people.For these people who have been farming for generations, whether this demolition policy is for enjoyment or for resistance depends on the individual.

Yu Bende and Yu Shuban led a team of land expropriation working group, referred to as "Land Acquisition Office" to Zuojia Village, and immediately settled down in a house.Early the next morning, news was released here: land resumption, cash in cash.

The villagers who heard the news rushed over one after another, and rolled up their sleeves around the small courtyard of the Land Acquisition Office to watch the excitement.

The land requisition price code issued by the land acquisition office is as follows: five taels of silver per mu for bad fields, eight taels for middle fields, and 12 taels for high-quality paddy fields.

It can be seen from this price that, as the first batch of units to be demolished, Zuojia Village still enjoys preferential policies.You must know the current field price, even if it is a top-grade paddy field, the price will not exceed ten taels of silver per mu.

The land sellers soon appeared.

It's still the same sentence: there are more than one hundred people, and there are all kinds of people.In a village of thousands of people, there are always bright-minded guys.These people either knew the surrounding land prices and dared to go back and forth; or for various reasons, they originally planned to sell the land.In short, some people quickly sold their land after seeing the purchase price.

It took almost three days, and more than 200 mu of land around Zuojia Village changed owners.Most of these lands are middle fields and bad fields, and there is also a fish pond.

Compared with all the plots owned by Zuojia Village, 200 mu of fragmented land is naturally not much.But this step is the beginning after all, and it can be regarded as eliminating some people, which is a good start for the land acquisition.

Next, the Land Acquisition Office issued new conditions: In Xiaoshan, Fengxian, Jinshan, Haiyan and other areas that have been hit by floods and floods this year, there is now a large amount of land that can be replaced with Zuojia Village.The ratio of swapping both sides is 1:1.5.

That is to say, if someone from Zuojia Village can take out the title deed of 10 mu, he can exchange it for 15 mu of land in the above-mentioned area.Not only can it be changed, but it is also a contiguous piece of land.

At this moment, there was a sensation in the village.Now it is the end of the Ming Dynasty, and hundreds of years of population reproduction and trading have changed hands, resulting in the current extremely scattered fields. It is almost impossible for ordinary people to gather a large piece of land.

Now that the opportunity is in front of us, not to mention the exchange ratio of 1:1.5, people will naturally be tempted.

The tenants who accounted for the largest proportion of the population were not qualified to consider selling land for land exchange, and those who jumped out to exchange land were a few self-cultivating farmers and small landlords.These few families are all mixed surnames in the village. They have few people and are not burdened by big families, so they can leave as soon as they say it.

The next step is handover.In order to get together, several families first selected the land near Fengxian, and then went to inspect the land there overnight.

The results of inspections have been mixed.The land in Fengxian was acquired by Hangzhou Station after the August tide disaster. Although the area is large, it has passed the salt water, so the land condition is very poor, basically it is considered inferior land.

However, considering the huge benefits brought by the 1.5 times the exchange area and the truly contiguous land, these petty bourgeois families finally let out their own land deeds: if Xintian manipulates it carefully for a few years, it will become Nakata is even Ueda.But the contiguous land, based on the background of these few families, if they pass this village, they will not be able to get it together in the next life.

A few days later, under the witness of Yu Shuban, a well-known local land official, the representative of the county government, and a shopkeeper of the land expropriation office, the two parties signed and exchanged the land deed.

In this process, for the so-called "buying horse bones", the land acquisition office paid extra money, and asked Yu Shuban to stamp the official seal on the land deed of the transaction-the white deed became the red deed.

There is a saying of "red and white deeds" in ancient land transactions.A white deed is a land deed that has not been certified by the government, that is, a land deed that has not paid taxes.The red deed is a formal official deed.

Generally speaking, the daily effectiveness of the white deed is the same as that of the red deed.But once there is a land dispute that requires both parties to go to court, Bai Qi will give people an opportunity to take advantage of the loopholes: after all, tax evasion has not been certified by the government.

Several petty bourgeois families gratefully took Hong Qi and his family to live in their new homes.And the mulberry garden they left behind, as well as more than 300 mu of land in pieces, were taken into the bag by the land expropriation office.

Lu Xun said that the power of role models is infinite.

After watching a few families take advantage of the big advantage and not be cheated, the villagers could no longer hold back: almost all the self-cultivated farmers and rich peasants in Zuojia Village began to move around, and the small courtyard of the land acquisition office was overcrowded for a while, until It doesn't stop late at night.

At this time, Zuo Hongtang, who had been sitting firmly on the Diaoyutai and following the development of the situation coldly, couldn't sit still: when he found out that there was a bastard in the clan who wanted to change the land, he finally made a move.

Like most villages and towns with surnames in this era, Zuojia Village is naturally dominated by people with the Zuo surname.The Zuo clan, whose ancestors have lived on this land for generations, not only has many houses, but also owns thousands of acres of surrounding land, and is the largest local tyrant in the vicinity.

Originally, for the Zuo family, the action of the Land Acquisition Office was the same thing, and everyone watched it as a lively scene: the Zuo family rooted here naturally could not sell their land, nor could they be tempted by the so-called 1.5 times exchange method.

The reason is simple: those small households who cannot avoid government taxation are the same wherever they go, but a big family like the Zuo family not only has N many hidden households in the local area, but also their business relationships for generations are all in the county.

Once he went to another county, what would Yintian do?Leaving the intertwined relationship in the county, and seeing this kind of family migration by the government in other places, it is purely a sheep entering the tiger's mouth. Even if they just pay taxes in full, they can already shed several layers of skin.

Therefore, in the matter of land expropriation, the rich peasants took the initiative to acquire the small land, but the Zuo family, a big family, absolutely refused to move.

However, things have developed to this point, and some things are not so easy to say: Zuo Hongtang had just dealt with the scum in the clan, and Yu Shuban came to see the Land Acquisition Office after he came to Zuojia Village. This was the first time for Yu Shuban Go to the door of the left house.

(End of this chapter)