The Ming Dynasty started with saving the eldest grandson

Chapter 311 Labor shortage

After retiring from the court, the civil servants left with deep worries.

The military generals represented by Xun Gui followed behind to watch the fun.

If melon seeds hadn't been introduced to China yet, they would most likely eat melon seeds while eating melon seeds.

I asked you to pour dirty water on Xungui, and you will be slapped in the face now.

In the palace, Zhu Yuanzhang called Lan Yu over and praised her.

It was really clever to turn the policy dispute into a factional dispute, and it solved a big problem for the court.

Lan Yu looked confused: "I didn't secretly change my concept."

"The people who owned the most land in the Ming Dynasty, apart from the nobles, were the bureaucrats and gentry."

"That Jie Jin only talked about the honorable people and said nothing about the bureaucrats and gentry. This is pouring dirty water on the honorable people."

Killing them will also nail them to the pillar of shame of the party fighting for the country.

Everyone thought that Lan Yu was on the fifth floor, but they didn't know that he was on the first floor from beginning to end.

However, the bureaucrats deliberately discredited the nobles and used this as an excuse to oppose the New Deal.

Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao, Zhu Xiongying, Chen Jingke:? ? ? ? ? ?

It is also expected that bureaucrats are opposed to this matter.

It is an unkindness of the imperial court to go on a killing spree because of policy disputes.

It's not that they are not afraid of death, but the interests involved are too great, big enough for them to ignore the risks.

After finishing the matter, Chen Jingke asked curiously: "Your Majesty, how did you convince the nobles to support the New Deal?"

The first people to get the news must be wealthy and powerful families, and such families are often landlords.

"I summed up a set of experiences in dealing with them. I didn't give them a chance to make excuses, and I just convicted them and put an end to it."

Use the influence of the gentry on the grassroots to spread relevant rumors and demonize the New Deal.

Lan Yuli explained: "I am in charge of military law. I often encounter people who violate laws and disciplines and try to exonerate themselves through sophistry."

Jiang Wei did not hesitate and immediately executed it.

In order to restrict large households from expropriating common people's land, the imperial court issued restrictive laws.

It is important to let the people understand the true intention of the New Deal and avoid being taken advantage of by those with malicious intentions.

"As a member of the noble family, I naturally couldn't bear it, so I stood up to refute him."

It is emphasized that the civil servant group took this opportunity to attack the Xungui Group, accusing Xungui of occupying and occupying a large amount of land.

But before they could come up with a unified statement, relevant rumors had already spread in Luoyang City.

If you don't say it, don't say it, no matter who cares.

Zhu Xiongying also sent an order to the comfort envoys and reserve system to immediately start propaganda work to preach the new policy to the army and the people.

As a result, these people began to work together privately to oppose the New Deal.

Chen Jingke: "..."

What happened in the morning spread quickly.

Rumors also emphasized that the nobles supported the court's new policies and had expressed their intention to sell their excess land.

As long as the imperial court bites the bullet and the civil servant group opposes the New Deal just to target the nobles, then this will be a party struggle started by the civil servants.

This encouraged people to resist the New Deal.

The imperial court has been cracking down on large households and reducing the burden on the people. This is obvious to all.

They are naturally very opposed to tiered tax collection, which is simply killing them.

Zhu Yuanzhang said mysteriously: "Hey...guess."

Zhu Xiongying couldn't accept this reality and asked, "Then why did you interrupt him twice and not let him explain?"

There's nothing to say about their first move, public opinion.

The people believed the first half of this rumor.

In order to confirm this, Zhu Yuanzhang called Jiang Yu and asked them to widely publicize what happened in this morning's court.

Could this be the legendary stupid...ahem, master of Mangfu Ke?
But no matter what, he did reduce the resistance to reform for the court by accident.

"Then Jie Jin must be trying to make excuses. I was too lazy to argue with him, so I blocked his mouth."

Zhu Yuanzhang laughed dumbly. The blue jade was still the same blue jade. It was us who made things complicated.

Zhu Xiongying: "..."

Nowadays, it is not surprising that there are laws restricting mergers.

And used this as an excuse to obstruct the implementation of the court's new policy.

When it comes to party strife, there aren't so many concerns.

Chen Jingke was also quite speechless. It was not that he had super evolved, but that we were overthinking it.

Aren't all dog officials like this? It would be strange if they didn't object.

However, everyone does not believe that the Xungui Group supports the New Deal and actively sells excess land.

Rich people don't even have time to buy land, so how can they spit out the fat in their mouths?

However, a small number of people chose to believe what they saw and heard.

The two sides also had a heated argument over this.

When this rumor reached the ears of the bureaucrats and gentry, they all became numb.

They naturally knew who spread the news, but they didn't expect the emperor to move so quickly.

Now that the opportunity has been lost, it will not be so easy to sway public opinion again.

When people are preconceptions, people are definitely more willing to believe the rumors they heard first.

However, they did not admit defeat. The influence of the imperial court was limited to the big cities, and they still had the final say in the vast countryside.

It depends on who can inspire more people.

So they wrote letters to relatives and friends in their hometown and made arrangements in this way.

However, what they didn't know was that the imperial court had already made arrangements in advance for this.

In other words, they haven't really realized what the Soothing Envoy and Reserve Correctional System represents.
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It can be said that the stepped collection of land tax has attracted the attention of all the people, even Chen Jingke's own family is no exception.

Chen Jingke's family had no land before, so they made a living by practicing medicine.

But Fuqing's dowry comes from several manors.

Later, she bought some more, and her family now has nearly 10,000 acres of fertile land.

These are the roots of family heirlooms, so how could we not pay attention to them.

As soon as Chen Jingke entered the house after get off work, he saw Fu Qing coming up to him and asked:

"Mr. Lang, is it true that the stepped taxation is true? Does our family have to do the same?"

Chen Jingke nodded and said: "The laws of the Ming Dynasty are for everyone, especially laws related to the country, and they are treated equally."

Fu Qing said anxiously: "What should we do? How can we support such a big family with just the salary of the two of us?"

Chen Jingke said: "The imperial court has naturally considered this issue, so it stipulates that each household can own almost one thousand acres of land."

According to the stepped taxation, if you own more than 1,000 acres of land, you will lose money.

This number was determined after careful consideration.

Landowners are also divided into different levels. There are big landowners and small landowners.

The land owned by small landowners ranges from a few hundred acres to several thousand acres.

Moreover, they do not have much ability in politics and do not pose much harm to the court.

Those who can really constrain the court are the big landowners.

The amount of land owned by these people is measured in hectares, ranging from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of hectares.

Looking up, dozens of miles and hundreds of miles are occupied by other people's land.

Xu Jie, the great "upright official", owned more than 400,000 acres of land, and half of Songjiang Prefecture belonged to his family. To others, a thousand acres of land is like mosquito legs.

These people also have great political influence. They can oust court officials locally and influence national policies in the court.

The Ming Dynasty in the previous life can be seen to a certain extent as having perished at the hands of this group of people.

If the court indiscriminately attacks big and small landowners together, it will create trouble for itself.

Productivity determines that the gentry and landowners have huge influence on the grassroots. This is a reality that must be acknowledged.

If you push them too hard, it will be detrimental to the stability of the country.

Appropriate compromise is worth it in exchange for policy adoption and national stability.

Therefore, we should treat different landlords differently.

Allowing one thousand acres to be left was to appease small landowners.

Although they will still feel physical pain, it is not fatal and will not jump out to rebel.

The court then concentrated its efforts on dismantling the large landowners and weakening their power.

When the big landowners were dismantled and the people saw the profits of business, they began to actively engage in business.

Then raise the tax rate to divide small landowners into wealthy households and completely solve the problem of land annexation.

Haste makes waste, and many policies must be implemented step by step.

This is the principle of boiling a frog in warm water.

Three generations of monarchs have taken over the reins, and there are few policies that cannot be completed. There is no need to be too anxious.

Moreover, in ancient times, the yield per mu was only one or two stones. After removing seeds, field taxes and other inputs, there was not much left.

With a thousand acres of land, if you can store a few hundred shi of grain in the end, it will be considered a good year.

For ordinary people, this is indeed a huge number.

But for large landowners, they can barely maintain a decent life.

Especially for a top power family like the Chen family, this output cannot even sustain a basic life.

That's why Fuqing is so anxious: "One thousand acres is not enough..."

Chen Jingke comforted him and said, "Don't worry, the court will naturally not fail to consider everyone's difficulties."

"Although land policies have been tightened, business controls have been relaxed. In the future, everyone can engage in commercial activities to make money."

"It's just that noble bureaucrats can't do business in their own names, they need to go through other people's hands."

To put it bluntly, white gloves are needed.

The purpose of this actually stems from Chinese tradition: to suppress the merchant class.

If you directly allow powerful bureaucrats to do business, it will improve the status of businessmen in disguise, and the country will passively move towards a path similar to capitalism.

The end result is that businessmen control everything.

I won’t go into details here about the harmful effects of businessmen taking power.

Although in fact, powerful bureaucrats tend to do business with white gloves.

But with this fig leaf in place, doing business will always be an unsightly act and inferior to others.

This is very important in terms of ideology.

Can influence the direction of ideological culture and policy.

As a time traveler, how could Chen Jingke not understand this.

Therefore, when formulating specific policies, he emphasized that powerful bureaucrats must do business through agents.

And you must report to the court what specific industries you are engaged in to facilitate the court's supervision.

After listening to his explanation, Fu Qing also knew that the matter was a foregone conclusion, but he was still a little unhappy:

"There is no way to buy land safely when doing business."

Even she thinks that doing business is unstable, so you can imagine what others will think.

Chen Jingke couldn't help but feel a lot of pressure, but he didn't show it and said:

"After the rise of sea trade, the supply of cotton and silk exceeded the demand. How about building a few textile workshops."

Fuqing said helplessly: "Weaving requires a lot of manpower. The imperial court adopted the land equalization system. Most of the people have been allocated land. Where can we hire people to do the work now?"

Chen Jingke's heart moved and he asked, "Are there a shortage of manpower now?"

Fuqing nodded and said: "The shortage is huge. Compared with three years ago, the wages have doubled, but we still can't find enough people."

"Many people are beginning to think of ways to buy slaves from abroad to work."

Chen Jingke raised his eyebrows and asked, "Buy slaves from outside?"

Fuqing said: "Yes, some are purchased from Nanyang, and some are purchased from Japan, Ezo, Liaodong and other places."

"Nowadays, you can often see slaves with different appearances and skin colors on the streets."

Chen Jingke asked in confusion: "Why haven't I seen it?"

Fu Qing gave him a blank look and said, "You spend your whole day either in the palace or at home. Isn't it normal that you can't see me?"

"Furthermore, Luoyang is a place in Gyeonggi Province, and inspections of outsiders without household registration are very strict."

"It's okay for the female slave. It's easy to get the residence certificate issued by the court."

"Slaves who work like that are bought privately. How dare you bring them here? There are quite a lot of them in other places."

This was intentional by the court. As long as female slaves were in good health, they could basically get a residence permit.

After working for a certain number of years, or getting married and having children, you can directly settle in your husband's family.

It was difficult for foreign male slaves to obtain a residence permit. Basically, only miners were allowed to enter.

Settlement is almost impossible unless there is a significant contribution.

Of course, except for countries and tribes that have been annexed as a whole, those who can obtain household registration collectively.

Chen Jingke asked carefully about the slave workers, but Fuqing mostly heard about it and didn't know very clearly.

He could only record the matter silently in his heart and ask Jiang Wei to investigate it carefully.

This matter can be big or small and must be done with caution.

It's not that he is narrow-minded and insists on pure blood or something.

But even if we want to integrate ethnic groups, we can’t just let anyone blend in. There must be a threshold.

Otherwise, Europe and the United States in the previous life are the most typical examples.

How high can the quality of illegally imported slave labor be?

Once it spreads, it will inevitably become a hidden danger.

But there was no need to tell Fuqing any of this. After learning the information he wanted, he continued to chat about doing business.

The end result is to buy a few boats.

"From now on, the imperial court will send out official fleets every year. Just ask our ships to follow them. It's a sure-fire business."

"Wait a few years and then do other business depending on the situation."

Fuqing had no choice but to agree to this plan.

After that she started running around buying boats.

It is not easy to buy seagoing ships now, and the queues at major shipyards are not waiting until several years later.

Even though she was a princess, she still spent a lot of effort to buy five boats, one large, four small and five from others.

As for the family land, it was sold to the court, leaving only two 500-acre manors.

While their family was busy, other families were not idle either.

The bureaucratic gentry group is busy inciting the people to resist the New Deal.

The noble class has already begun to split up their own land.

(End of this chapter)