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Chapter 954 Ten Years Later
From the 1625st year of Emperor Yang of Sui (1634) to the th year of Emperor Yang of Sui (), a full nine years, the Ming Empire, which had been expanding non-stop, suddenly stopped moving and lay there as if it was overfed.

But inside it, earth-shaking changes are taking place, the intensity of which is no less than that of war. It's just that the manifestation is more hidden and long-lasting, so most people can't easily feel it.

All they could feel was that life was getting easier, there were more goods on the market every year, their own income had increased slightly, and it was easier to earn more money.

If you have a little capital, whether you go to Southeast Asia or the West, you may be able to return with ten times the capital. Even if you don't have capital, you still have a chance to turn things around, such as immigrating to Yunnan, Sichuan, Liaoyang, Luzon, Annan, Inner Mongolia, etc.

The imperial court set up farms and plantations in these areas, and once you went there, you would be given land, farm tools, livestock, and houses. If you were willing to marry a local woman, the imperial court would also cover all the expenses of the wedding and the bride price, and give you a big red envelope with at least a dozen silver coins in it.

There is also a way for those who do not want to leave their homes and are afraid that their bodies will not be buried in their ancestral tombs after death. They can join the reclamation team of the Yarkand Khanate and grow cotton and wheat in the oasis of the Western Regions.

They would be paid monthly for ten years, and those willing to stay after the expiration of the term would still be given land, houses, farm tools and red envelopes, while those who did not want to stay could return to their hometown on their own.

If you can get enough food by farming at home or working as a long-term tenant, why do you have to go thousands of miles away to make a living? Isn't it because the wages are high? If you save money, you can buy more than ten acres of irrigated land, build a few houses, and marry a wife after you come back.

But, is there such a good thing in the world? How should I put it? For some people, it is indeed possible, but for some people, it may just be a mirage.

Why do I say that? Because there are very few people who can go to a foreign country alone for ten years without gambling, drinking, or looking for women, and just think about saving money to return to the mainland. Most people don't have the perseverance to do so.

Many people were not good at saving money and did not save enough to buy land, build houses and marry wives, so they could only continue to renew their contracts with the government. Many people could not resist the temptation and married and had children in the local area. Rather than returning home with their families and suffering from poverty, it was better to settle down and settle down.

This was an open conspiracy of the imperial court. It cannot be said to be pure deception nor was there any good intention. The design was to keep most people in the local area, but it did not use rough means and did not deprive people of their right to choose.

In fact, it is a bit unfair to say this. Such a sinister trick is really not something that the civil and military officials in the court could come up with. The culprit must be the recliner in the Yangxin Palace. That harmless and slightly chubby face was looking at the statistical figures reported from various places and smiling sinisterly.

First, lure them with benefits, and the court will pay to hire idle people from the mainland to work in the frontier provinces. Then, take full advantage of the weaknesses in human nature, so that most of them will be drained of their savings by bars, casinos, and brothels, and have to stay in the local area. This is one of the immigration policies that Hong Tao came up with.

In addition, there has been a very obvious change in many cities in recent years: beggars and vagrants are no longer seen. On the one hand, economic growth has brought a large number of employment opportunities. As long as you are in good health and willing to work hard, it is not difficult to find a job to support your wife and children, and there is no need to become a vagrant or beggar.

On the other hand, there is no longer an environment for vagrants and beggars. Once the government finds traces of such people, it is like a cat seeing a mouse, and they must be caught quickly. Otherwise, if they are seen by the inspectors and the Jinyiwei, it will affect their political achievements, and in serious cases, they will lose their jobs.

These captured beggars and vagrants were neither punished nor tortured, and the government provided them with food, drink, clothing and bedding. At the end of the month, they were sent to the provincial government office along with local convicts.

Every three months, the government offices of each prefecture would send prisoners to Xi'an, Guangzhou, and Tongzhou. In these three places, there were camps set up by the Ministry of Revenue to receive prisoners sent from all over the country. After quarantine, they were detained and lived in the camps. When a group of prisoners was gathered, they would be sent to provinces in need of immigration. Among them, prisoners with more serious crimes, as well as beggars and refugees who had no fixed place to live, would receive new identity cards and become new immigrants from then on. After the hard labor period was over, they would settle in the border provinces whether they were willing or not.

Those with less serious crimes will not have their registered permanent residence changed, and can return to their place of origin after serving their hard labor there. But there is one thing: they cannot commit the same crime a second time, and if they are caught again, they will become new immigrants.

It is possible to be sent to Southeast Asia, or to the three southwestern provinces, or to the Inner Mongolia grasslands and the Western Regions. No one knows where you can go, it depends on your fate.

On the contrary, every year, a lot of laborers and convicts were sent from the frontier provinces that needed immigrants to the interior. Their treatment was similar to that of immigrants from the interior to the frontier provinces. In other words, in addition to immigrants to the frontier provinces, the imperial court was also sending immigrants to the interior.

What is the point of doing this? The answer can be found by looking at the people living in the cities and villages of the frontier provinces, the styles of their houses, the clothes they wear, and the languages ​​they speak.

After nearly a decade of continuous integration, from Luzon, Annan to Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and then to Inner Mongolia and Yarkand, it is almost impossible to find a city that still retains pure traditional ethnic culture and religious customs.

If you want to see the original local scenery, you have to go to more remote towns and villages, but there are not many of them, and they are experiencing increasing invasions of foreign cultures and people. It is estimated that in another ten years, there will be no place left.

At the same time, changes have also taken place in cities and villages in the mainland, with more residents who look different from the local Han people and have unique accents, along with some novel foods, clothing and cultures.

But they are definitely not equal. The changes in border provinces are more obvious and thorough, while the changes in the inland provinces are more like embellishment.

This is the gap in numbers. With a total population of less than 10 million and hundreds of millions of Han people living together, coupled with the intentional or unintentional bias in policies, the former will definitely be the first to be assimilated.

Of course, assimilation is hardly one-way, just like a drop of blue ink falling into a tank of clear water. Although it does not seem to be very blue, it is still slightly bluer than before. After all, the order of magnitude is not so large that it can be completely ignored.

Were there any conflicts and contradictions during the assimilation process? The answer is yes! In the first two or three years, the resistance was the most intense in Yarkand, Inner Mongolia, and the three southwestern provinces. Civilian conflicts of some scale did not occur every month, but they were not too frequent.

Whenever he encountered such a situation, Hong Tao would not just stay calm, but would immediately reveal his cold-blooded and ruthless face as an emperor, instructing the local garrison to find out the situation and then severely punish those responsible.

If it is an immigrant problem, they will be arrested and sent to hard labor without saying anything. If it is a local problem, they will also be arrested and sent to hard labor. However, the location will have to be changed. People from border provinces can go to the inland areas, and the whole family can go together, so that they can experience the taste of settling in an unfamiliar environment.

(End of this chapter)