I have a cornucopia

Chapter 239 Non-staff members are not allowed to enter

Our Qing Dynasty's large-scale anti-corruption campaign...

Although it is still a bit strange for a slave regime to crack down on corruption.

After all, official positions in our Qing Dynasty now have clear prices. The purpose of being an official is to make money. If you can't make money, who would want to be an official in our Qing Dynasty?

If you want our money, just say so. It is shameless to say that you are acting for the people. After all, where are the people in our Qing Dynasty now?
Because of the relatively special system, the number of civilians in my Qing Dynasty is very small...

The Eight Banners were a slave system, with the iron-clad crops and the Ahanikans who were enslaved by them, and then formed a Tokso village, in which the bannermen were the masters, with a small number of bondservants managing them, and the rest were all working slaves or Ahanikans. The Green Banner Army was similar to the hereditary feudal system, that is, the surrendered Ming army generals brought their servants and managed the serfs under the guard system. In the past, the guards had not been reduced to serfs in the legal sense.

Now it is.

These surrendered generals were all from the Wei clan.

They simply re-appointed the military positions under the garrison system based on their strength, and turned all the military households and civilian tenants on the land they controlled into their serfs.

The name is still Junhu.

But it was changed to a hereditary military system.

In other words, these military households became hereditary soldiers of these generals.

They have been under their control for generations, and they have the power of life and death over them. Although they are not called slaves, they are almost the same. They are the Ahanikan in the Toksuo Farm. The latter also have to be cannon fodder when needed. In the past, when the Qing Dynasty attacked the city, it was them who pushed the carts to fill the trenches. Similarly, the military households under the hereditary military system also had to fill the trenches when the generals needed them.

A family servant was equivalent to a bondservant, who was responsible for following the general into battle and managing the military households for the general.

The Han gentry were family owners. Whether they were tenant farmers or serfs, as long as they cultivated their fields, they had to call themselves slaves in front of them. They were also slaves in the government. Everything belonged to the family owner, including houses, food, livestock, and even women. As for self-cultivating farmers, they existed in the past, but now they are basically extinct. After all, with such good conditions, if they don't happily merge, it would be too unfair to the grace of the Qing Dynasty. Not to mention self-cultivating farmers, even many small landlords have been merged by those big landlords.

After the shrimps are eaten, of course the big fish will eat the small fish.

Therefore, the civilian registration system of our Qing Dynasty is gradually becoming history, and even the gentry use the separately registered scholar registration system.

The civilian population originally referred to the merchants, craftsmen, and cooks. However, after the gentry annexed the land, they began to encroach on industry and commerce, and they are becoming history.

After all, this kind of job can also be used as a servant of a gentry.

In fact, in the past, the gentry’s servants were also responsible for business.

The stove...

There are no stoves in my Qing Dynasty.

The Hedong Salt Field is in the hands of Li Zicheng, and the Changlu Salt Field was robbed by Yang Feng. Now all the salt of our Qing Dynasty is bought from Li Zicheng, Huang Fei and others.

Neither Yang Feng nor Li Zicheng prohibited salt from entering the Qing Dynasty, including the Huai salt from the south.

In fact, the salt industry is now in complete chaos. After all, too many Yangzhou salt merchants have died, and it has reached the point where the safety of the salt industry is affected. Therefore, the regent court has adopted a policy of laissez-faire, or completely free trade. After all, this does not require any investment, and even the salt permits are equivalent to being invalid.

This method quickly solved the salt industry problem after too many salt merchants died. If I don't care, there will be no problem. Anyone can sell salt and there will be no need for salt permits. The salt selling craze also solved the supply problem. Anyone who lacks salt can go to the Lianghuai Salt Field to buy it. As for the problem of tax loss in the salt industry, the regent court has lost a lot of tax revenue, so this is not a big deal.

Besides, the expenses of the Regency Court are not that high.

After all, the largest part of the military expenses are borne by the militia themselves, and in theory, the number of official troops is decreasing after continuous elimination.

There is no need to worry about the royal family at all.

There are not many people in the palace, so it can be said that expenditures have been reduced to the lowest level.

In this case, the losses in the salt industry were not worth mentioning, so it was directly contracted to Gao Jie, who is now in charge of the Huaiyang salt tax.

Then he used this to support his subordinates and troops. Similarly, the regent court did not give him any extra money. He used whatever he collected in Huaiyang.

But in general, the salt industry is still under the control of Huizhou merchants and Qinzhou merchants. After all, they still have channel advantages.

As for the Shanxi merchants, they were not completely squeezed out, and they were still engaged in the salt trade with the areas controlled by the Qing Dynasty...

Of course, it has been badly damaged.

What's even more sad is that it was the Qing army that caused them the greatest harm, so they are now retaliating frantically.

Relying on the monopoly advantage of supply, they extorted the Qing Dynasty in various ways.

Generally speaking, the anti-corruption efforts of the Qing Dynasty have achieved remarkable results. In just half a month, He Luohui arrested more than 30 ministers of the court and half of the ministers and vice ministers of the six ministries. Their property was confiscated, and in order to prevent their families in the local area from causing chaos, the Eight Banners and Green Banner armies that had been deployed in advance also attacked their families at the same time, and they were brutally wiped out one after another. The Eight Banners and Green Banner generals happily divided up their property. Including Wu Sangui and Jiang Ge, they also attacked some families in their jurisdiction that they had long been eyeing.

Of course, I like silver.

The generals under the King of Pingxi and the King of Zhenxi had long-standing grievances against most of the gentry families in Shanxi and Xuan.

I have been full of resentment since the Ming Dynasty.

Now that I finally have the chance, it would be strange if I didn't take this opportunity to vent.

This anti-corruption campaign helped my Qing Dynasty to survive once again. After all, making three million from more than thirty companies was no problem at all.

Moreover, the division of their property also gave the Eight Banners and Green Banners a piece of fat meat, and they were all satisfied. After all, as long as they could eat meat, they were satisfied, no matter whose it was. If they couldn't eat other people's meat, they could eat their companions' meat. As long as they had meat to eat, who would care about anything else? Could it be that they had deeper feelings for these gentry? Although this model could not last long, who would think about the long term these days? No one knew what would happen tomorrow, so they just lived one day at a time. Besides, being able to survive was already a success.

But serfs and slaves in various places reacted calmly. The fierce fighting among the upper-level masters had no effect on them, and changing masters would not affect their ability to eat coarse food.

However, among the fleeing people, who were originally mainly slaves, there were many scholars who passed down their family traditions through farming and studying. Now, these former persecutors had to walk on the road of escape trembling with fear along with the victims who had been persecuted to the point of their families being destroyed...

Anton Wei.

"Forget it, it's all over. Now that we're both stranded in this world, let's just forgive each other!"

Yang Feng looked at the young man in front of him who had been beaten into a pig's head.

The latter was wearing a tattered shirt, but it was not worn out, it was simply torn for various reasons along the way.

There was a young man nearby, also in tatters, being pulled by two followers, staring at the man on the ground with angry eyes.

The one on the ground is from an aristocratic family, but his father welcomed the imperial teacher in the capital, and then relying on his father's status in the Qing Dynasty, his brother annexed a lot of land at home. The latter was originally a self-cultivating farmer, but his family seized all the land and eventually had to abandon his home and flee. It's a bit like Zhu Yuanzhang's family, but I didn't expect that the guy's father on the ground was arrested by He Luohui for corruption, and his family was also raided. His brother tried to resist, but was suppressed by the local Green Flag Army and the whole family was killed. He escaped by luck and went to Tianjin. He took a boat here, but he didn't expect that the self-cultivating farmer had also arrived, so now it was an enemy meeting.

"Bah, you deserve this!" The young man from a self-employed farmer spat at the young man from a wealthy family who was lying on the ground after being beaten into a pig's head by him.

The latter had swollen eyelids and could only squint and groan, really looking like a dying pig.

"My king, how can we arrange this? There are many people like him who have made great achievements in the past, but they have escaped and they can't do any work!"

The Yang family steward who was in charge of receiving these refugees asked.

"Can't work? No one can't work if you whip him. His fame in the Ming Dynasty was gone after he surrendered to the Jianlu. We don't recognize the fame given to him by the Jianlu. He is no different from other refugees. He does whatever others do. If he doesn't work, he will be whipped to do it."

Yang Feng said.

If you can't do the work, it's just that you get whipped less. If you get whipped more, you will be able to do everything.

"I am well-read, how could you treat me like this!"

The young man from the noble family on the ground finally heard it clearly, and he spoke incoherently while lying on the ground.

“What you said reminds me of a joke. They abused me, how did they abuse you? They made me work with the farmers.

If you don't like this, go rowing!
I hope that your hands, which can write poetry, can be as strong as those for rowing a boat.

From now on, all those who have escaped and have had meritorious service in Jianlu will be sent to row boats."

Yang Feng said with a smile.

Although it would be best to kill these guys in theory, after all, if they were alive, they would write articles to accuse me of my crimes.

but……

But let’s make use of the waste!

After all, he is in urgent need of rowers. The biggest constraint of the canning industry in recent years is the lack of rowing labor. After all, the fish in the near sea are getting fewer and fewer. If he wants to catch more fish, he can only go to the open sea. But at least for now, he still needs to process them in factories on the shore. The most he can do on the boat is preliminary processing, that is, removing the internal organs, and then adding salt. If conditions permit, he can even carry ice to store sea ice in winter. But in any case, a rowboat supported by a large number of rowers is indispensable, and the faster the better.

In this situation, rowers become the most exhausted profession.

"It's not enough. We have more and more fishing boats now. Besides, we are not the only ones. Now the coastal areas are doing this. Just along the Shandong coast, including us, there are four or five hundred large boats fishing. Each large boat needs at least a hundred oarsmen, which means more than 50,000 people. There are no good people doing this. They are all captured prisoners and bought boat slaves. They die of exhaustion on the boat in half a year at most. That means tens of thousands of people are consumed every year. What's more, the south is also doing this, so they also need more people to row the boats."

The steward said with a sad face.

"Uh, is the mortality rate that high?"

Yang Feng was also shocked by the bloodiness and cruelty of the era of wealth accumulation.

"Replying to the king, we are still doing well. Ever since the young lady saw the rowers and couldn't stand it for a moment, and scolded us, we have been treating them the best. At least we can let them take turns to go ashore. Dengzhou would be exhausted to death in three months. Many captives were locked in the cabin and never came out again until they died."

said the steward.

He seemed quite proud of it.

"She shouldn't have seen this kind of thing."

Yang Feng said seriously.

This kind of thing really shouldn't be seen by Yang Xiu and the others.

"We were careless. We didn't dare to let the young lady see it, but we didn't expect something unexpected to happen."

said the steward.

"I'll ask Zheng Zhilong to think of a solution later. The Japanese slaves are not expensive, so let him buy some. The Portuguese can use them, so why can't we?"

Yang Feng said.

This cruel industry must be maintained.

The death rate of rowers is indeed very high. In fact, no one treats them as human beings. They are just locked on the boat. However, in order to make them have dreams, some tricks are used. For example, if they perform well, they are taken to Lushun to patronize the business of the princesses. This is a good way. After getting happiness from the princesses, they can go back to the cabin and continue to row hard. But in any case, this industry can only be expanded and not reduced. Fisheries and various canned foods with a shelf life are already the most important things to deal with famine. They even play a role more than new crops. New crops are also subject to climate. Corn and sweet potatoes are indeed drought-resistant, but if there is a drought that leaves thousands of miles of land barren, they will also be doomed.

But climate change has had little impact on the ocean.

Even if the land is barren for thousands of miles, the fish in the sea will still be there.

The development of the canned food industry has allowed marine fish to spread further inland, and now almost the entire Shandong province is eating them.

Because it is easier to preserve in winter, it can even be eaten in the Yimeng Mountains.

It is indeed difficult to become a staple food because of transportation and cost, but the food gap during famine is usually only 20% or even 10%. As long as it can make up for this gap, famine will not happen. Now Shandong basically has no famines where a large number of people starve to death, because of the fishing and aquatic product processing along the coast. Even the old guys in the Shandong Tongshan Association have realized the importance of this industry. Of course, it is mainly to make money, so all the coastal areas are doing it.

They have no bottom line at all, and have even been found to have committed the evil act of kidnapping innocent people.

but……

This is how the times progress.

Although the age limit for child labor in the UK has been relaxed to five years old, factory owners in the UK prefer to use eight-year-old children as child laborers.

But they have entered a new era.

As for the suffering of those eight-year-olds and even five-year-olds...

If I can't see it, of course it doesn't exist.

Although the average life expectancy of our Ming Dynasty oarsmen after boarding the ship was less than half a year, they really saved millions of starving people!
"We can't let the women go to the fishing dock anymore. Many people on the boat don't like to wear clothes. Even those who are not on the boat don't like to wear clothes in the summer."

The steward said cautiously.

"In the future, we should fence off the fishing pier and put up a sign outside saying no women allowed. No, it should be no non-staff members allowed."

Yang Feng nodded and said.

(End of this chapter)