At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 428: Rapidly Recovering Economy and the Iron-Blooded Chancellor
Jia Sheng and his classmates watched a play and played, and did not return to Yong'anli until midnight.

Jia Yi, who was already full of anger, suddenly exploded and scolded Jia Sheng: "You didn't even get into the university, how can you go out and play?"

Jia Sheng said disapprovingly, "The admission rate of the college this year is only 6%. Failing the exam is the norm. Do we all have to die? Besides, there is more than one way out in the world, going to the settlement is also a way out."

Jia Yi said: "How can it be the same? Once you pass the entrance exam to the academy, both the imperial court officials and the vassal states will be vying for you.

Go to the settlements, didn’t you read what the monthly report says? It’s either wolves, tigers, leopards, or crocodiles and barbarians. If you are eaten, even your body won’t be found.”

"As a father, I have been through this before. How could I harm you? When the First Emperor conquered the Baiyue in the south, many people left Guanzhong and never came back. The land of Baiyue is not suitable for people like us in Guanzhong."

Jia Sheng said, "What ancient calendar is this? Not to mention that the people of Baiyue are now the subjects of our Han Dynasty. I am going to the south not to fight, but to cultivate the land. There is no danger there."

Jia Yi said, "How can a settlement be compared to staying in Chang'an? Since you don't want to study, go to work in your uncle Lu's workshop tomorrow. Your father and your mother will find you a wife and expand the Jia family. We don't expect you to become rich. Your father only wants you to have a skill so that you can survive in Chang'an."

Jia Sheng was dissatisfied when he heard this: "Why are you looking for a wife now? Why don't you ask for my opinion?"

Jia Yi said nonchalantly, "Why are you dissatisfied? Your mother and I will not harm you. Marriage has always been decided by parents and matchmakers."

Jia Sheng said angrily: "You are just old-fashioned."

Jia Yi had also seen the Gao Family Courtyard, so he naturally understood what Jia Sheng meant. He was furious and said, "You are still an old feudalist. Do you know what feudalism is? It is feudal if there are fiefdoms and fiefs. Your father would like to be an old feudalist, but do you have the ability? Where is your fiefdom? Where is your fiefdom?"

At this time, Jia's mother said, "The child just came back, why are they quarreling again?"

You Niang also said, "Master, please stop talking."

Grandmother Jia pulled her grandson away, trying to stop the two from arguing.

But Jia Sheng was not convinced and said, "The river flows east for thirty years and west for thirty years. It is better to bully an old man than a young man who is poor. I will join the army right now and try to get a noble birth."

After saying that, Jia Sheng ran out of his house.

Grandmother Jia kept calling out from behind, wanting Jia Sheng to come back, but she couldn't catch up with him at all, so she could only come back to blame her son.

Jia Yi said: "He went to his classmate's house and will come back when he calms down."

On October 15th, the 14th year of the Han calendar, in Chang'an City, Jianzhang Palace.

All fifty 2,000-stone county governors from the entire Han Dynasty gathered together, and the scene this year was much more harmonious.

An economic crisis two years ago made everyone's budget look very ugly. Last year, the tax revenue of each county barely returned to the level of the eleventh year of the Han calendar.

However, with the promotion of steam engines, the textile industry quickly prospered again. At the same time, steam engines began to be used in flour mills, cement plants, sand and gravel plants, shipping and trains, greatly boosting the productivity of all walks of life in the Han Dynasty.

Driven by the steam engine, the economies of the counties developed rapidly, the county finances also increased rapidly, and everyone's political achievements were very good. So good that the county governors felt as if they were in another world. The economic crisis two years ago was like a phantom, and it did not exist at all in the prosperity of the Han Dynasty.

Zhang Qiang of Nanyang County said, "To develop the economy and raise taxes, we need to get steam engines. This year, because of steam engines in Nanyang County, the textile industry has increased by 30%, flour production has increased by 70%, and cement production has doubled, causing the price to drop by 30%. Once the steam engine arrived, all industries have prospered."

The main cost of cement lies in grinding. Clay gypsum must be ground into extremely fine powder. Previous hydraulic grinders were not powerful enough and were limited in usage. After all, most of the clay gypsum is in the mountains, and water trucks have to go to the river, so the cost of transportation back and forth is naturally high.

But if steam engines are used as power, there is no need to be restricted by river channels. Cement workshops can be built near mines, and the cement can be ground into powder directly at the mines for one-time molding.

Wu Lei, the governor of Dongjun, enviously said, "Nowadays, everyone knows that once the steam engine is turned on, political achievements will come rushing in. But this requires the steam engine. Not everyone has a complete steel industry chain like your Nanyang County. We in Dongjun County are just a few small workshops, and the quality of the steam engines we make is also very poor."

Xu Fan naturally didn't mind promoting the steam engine to the whole world. As long as the county magistrates in various parts of the Han Dynasty were willing to build steam engine factories, Xu Fan would send master craftsmen and apprentices to support them.

But the steam engine was the most advanced industry of that era. Without a certain foundation in handicrafts and the steel industry, it would be difficult to make a steam engine.

What the Han Dynasty's governors envied most were the counties with developed steel and handicraft industries, and they were the ones who reaped the biggest benefits from the steam engine craze.

Of course, they also got to eat a few pieces of lean meat, and they could barely suppress their jealousy.

Nowadays, the industry that makes the most money using steam engines is the flour industry. The grinding machines powered by steam can grind fine and white flour, which is a top-quality raw material for making pasta or cakes.

The most important thing is that these counties of the Han Dynasty do not lack raw materials such as wheat. On the contrary, a large amount of money is spent on warehousing every year.

But things were different with the steam grinder. They built a flour mill, and as soon as the machine was turned on, flour came out, and the price immediately increased by 30%.

The key point is that most of the steam engines are now in the hands of the Han Dynasty. With advanced tools and raw materials, they beat those folk flour mills to a pulp.

The last round of economic crisis caused the closure of a large number of textile factories, and it has become difficult for small counties with textile industries to compete with large counties that are textile centers.

But the flour industry has opened up a new track for them, which also requires small investment, quick results and high profits.

Moreover, the flour industry is different from the cloth industry. Cloth is a durable consumable product no matter how you make it. People who are thrifty can even keep it new for three years, old for three years, and then mend it for another three years.

But no matter how frugal a person is, he will never starve. In fact, as people become more and more prosperous, the demand for flour in the Han Dynasty is getting higher and higher, so the upper limit of the flour industry is much higher than that of the textile industry.

More importantly, in this industry, small counties have a cost advantage. The main cost of flour is wheat, and the cost of wheat in small counties is much lower than that of large counties, and the labor cost is also much lower. This leads to the fact that in the flour industry, the poor counties of the Han Dynasty can in turn sell to large counties to earn excess profits.

As a result, the economy of Dahan maintained a barely balanced balance. Dajun relied on the advantages of the industrial chain to devour the market share of Xiaojun's textile industry, while Xiaojun relied on its cost advantage to devour the flour industry of Dajun.

Relying on the cement and flour industries, the lives of the Han Dynasty's governors were no longer as difficult as in the previous two years.

Guan Ying, the governor of Shu County, said: "After all, the Han Dynasty's steam engines are only a minority, and their ability to drive economic development is still limited. I think the reason why the Han Dynasty was able to get out of the economic crisis so quickly is mainly due to the reclamation of land. Before the economic crisis, the number of people who migrated to various princes each year was only tens of thousands, but the year before last, nearly 200,000 people were migrated, and this year it has reached a million."

"Your Majesty has already told me that the last economic crisis was caused by overcapacity. To put it simply, the growth rate of the textile industry exceeded the growth rate of the registered population of our Han Dynasty."

"But in the past two years, the Han Dynasty has relocated more than a million people, which is equivalent to the increase of hundreds of thousands of households in the entire world. The birth of a family always requires new clothes and quilts. If they are particular, they will prepare several sets. Even the wealthier families will pay attention to tablecloths, curtains, and wall coverings."

"The birth of a new family consumes more cloth than ten old families. The birth of hundreds of thousands of new families is equivalent to adding millions of markets to our business. This is just the cloth industry. A new family needs beds, tables, chairs, benches, various living tools, farm tools, and oxen. This creates a huge market. With such a huge demand, the industry will naturally flourish."

Zhang Qiang suddenly realized, "No wonder the emperor wants to force us to settle and cultivate land. I thought he was making a fuss, but it turns out he is doing this to create demand and a market, so that the economy of our Han Dynasty can prosper again."

Guan Ying said: "The Shaofu forced those backward textile factories to shut down in order to eliminate some of the production capacity, and then to increase the market through reclamation. This two-pronged approach has led to the current effect. The steam engine is just the icing on the cake. If there is no sufficient market, no matter how high the efficiency is, it will only accelerate the industrial crisis of our Han Dynasty."

Wu Lei said: "In that case, we must fully support the court's reclamation policy, otherwise the workshops under our command will soon face the problem of overcapacity!"

In fact, many county governors and magistrates of the Han Dynasty were rather disgusted with the princes coming to their territories to recruit people. There was no other reason. Population has always been the main force in creating wealth, whether in production or consumption.

The princes recruited people in their counties, which was equivalent to reducing the wealth in their territory. But now it seems that in order to avoid overcapacity, they have to support the princes to recruit people in their own territory to create new demand markets.

At this time Xu Fan led Prime Minister Xiao He, Acting Prime Minister Ye Teng, Shang Nong and other members of the Nine Ministers in.

"See your Majesty!" All the prefects saluted Xu Fan.

Xu Fan said calmly: "No courtesy."

All the county guards sat down in their seats.

Prime Minister Xiao He said expressionlessly: "This year's plan will start from now on, and Neishi County will step down."

When the Internal Secretary Li Shang heard what Xiao He said, he was shocked and immediately stepped forward holding the account book.

To be honest, Li Shang was a little afraid of Xiao He. When Zhou Zhang was in power, although he had a high prestige, everyone also submitted to Zhou Zhang.

But he was more like an elder brother to these prefects. If they made any mistakes, Zhou Zhang would at most talk to them and ask them to correct them, so the prefects of the Han Dynasty respected Zhou Zhang more.

But Xiao He was different. Although his prestige was not high when he first became prime minister, he issued an order to streamline the government and cleared out 2 Han officials. This caused the Han official group to complain about Xiao He, but it also earned him great prestige. The Han Dynasty's Legal Monthly even gave Xiao He the title of "Iron-Blooded Prime Minister", and this title was recognized by all classes of the Han Dynasty.

Although Xiao He did not kill many people, he destroyed the jobs of 2 people and plunged 2 families into the quagmire. You must know that although the First Emperor killed people like crazy, he never cleaned up officials' families at one time.

The Han Dynasty also managed Han officials very strictly, and censors at all levels often uncovered major cases, but the total number of Han officials arrested in these major cases did not exceed tens of thousands.

But Xiao He accomplished in one go what the Office of the Grand Censor and the Office of the Supreme Court had failed to accomplish in 10 years. Who wouldn't be afraid of such a tough guy?

In short, these county governors of the Han Dynasty felt a little frightened when they saw Xiao He.

After Xu Fan, Xiao He and others looked at the final data, they handed the account book to Zhang Cang, the Chief Accountant, who then led the Han officials to verify the data.

But judging from the briefing, all counties and prefectures of the Han Dynasty have generally emerged from the economic crisis, and land taxes are growing rapidly.

The merchants and farmers were even more delighted and said: "The court should increase subsidies for water pumps. Water pumps are more effective in increasing grain production capacity than building canals, and the cost is also lower."

The reason why merchants and farmers said this was that the production capacity of grain and various cash crops in the Han Dynasty had generally increased by about 10% this year, with some counties reaching 20% ​​to 30%.

You must know that this is not the Han Dynasty that had just ended the war 10 years ago, but the Han Dynasty that has undergone more than 10 years of water conservancy construction.

In places where it is easy to build canals, the Han Dynasty has already built them all, and windmills and water wheels are also popular throughout the Han Dynasty.

Starting from the eighth year of the Han calendar, there has been no significant increase in the grain production capacity in the interior of the Han Dynasty. This is because all the delicious meat had been eaten up, and the cost of increasing grain production capacity by building canals was extremely high, and the effect was extremely limited.

The reason for the general increase in grain production this year is partly due to the steam pumps, but more importantly, a new type of cloth called waterproof cloth has appeared in the Han Dynasty.

This kind of cloth is mainly made of linen and silk, and then wrapped with a layer of paint glue for waterproofing. It was originally used to make raincoats.

But Xu Fan discovered this kind of fabric by chance. It was just a variant of a low-quality plastic water pipe. If it was made into a water pipe and then put on a steam engine, there would be no need to build a small canal. Water could be irrigated directly.

So Xu Fan asked Brothers Textile Factory to make a batch of water pipes made of this cloth, and then gave them to farmers in Guanzhong to see how they performed.

The results are extremely gratifying. With this waterproof cloth, the use range of the steam pump can exceed hundreds of meters from the water source. Many fields on hillsides or fields far away from water sources can get sufficient irrigation because of the waterproof cloth as a means of transportation.

In this era, the biggest limitation on grain production capacity is not fertilizer or seeds, but simply rain. If you want to increase production capacity, the most effective way is to irrigate with enough water. If the yield of one stone per mu is planted in the field, the production capacity can be doubled instantly.

(End of this chapter)