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

Chapter 524: Chen Mai’s Request and the Powerful Legalist Officials
On the 25th day of the fourth month of the 24th year of the Han calendar, in Chang'an City, Yan Palace.

Chen Mai, the chief clerk of the Northern Yinzhou Military Governor's Office, reported to the emperor and Prime Minister Zhou Bo on how much land the Military Governor's Office had reclaimed, how much grain had been planted, and how many Mayans had been educated in the past six months.

Xu Fan nodded in satisfaction, and then said: "The land system is the foundation for the Governor's Office to take root in the New World. Don't be stingy with the land rewards. As long as my Han people are willing to stay in the New World, the land will be freely occupied by them. If necessary, the Governor's Office can even help them to open up the land. The natives of the New World can also obtain land according to the standard of speaking Chinese. The natives who can master Chinese proficiently and have completed the education can be given 100 acres of land and given the rights of Han citizens. The Governor's Office must always understand one thing in the New World. It must make more friends and fewer enemies, and the rewards and punishments must be fair. It must not do things that will anger God and people in the New World."

Xu Fan remembers a saying on the Internet in later generations, that is, Spain and Portugal occupied the New World, the most fertile land, but why were they driven out? And Niu Niu and his people occupied the rotten land of the New World, why did they take root?

Yes, in the beginning, it was Spain and Portugal that occupied the good land. In the minds of those colonists at that time, land with gold and silver mines was good land, and land without gold and silver mines was bad land.

However, Spain and Portugal only mined in the local area and did not build anything, which caused public outrage. They also had no roots in the area, so they were naturally driven out.

Because Niu Niu was a late-developing country, it could only occupy some lands that Spain and Portugal looked down upon. Since it could not dig up gold and silver, it could only farm the land. However, this could actually transfer the benefits to the lower classes, because if you distributed the land to the lower classes, the people at the lower classes would naturally take root in the New World.

In Xu Fan's opinion, this makes some sense. Gold and silver can only flow to the aristocracy of the Han Dynasty in the end, and only fields can allow the people of the Han Dynasty to take root in the New World.

Chen Mai nodded and said, "I will definitely convey your Majesty's teachings to the governor."

Zhou Bo asked, "What difficulties does your Governor's Office have in the New World? What kind of support do you need from the court?"

Chen Maidao said: "The biggest problem is the lack of manpower. Whether it is building a city or reclaiming land to build an industrial zone, manpower is needed."

Zhou Bo frowned and said, "The court can only help you transport 3000 people at most. The rest will be handled by your governor's office."

The New World was indeed too far away. Even for the Han Dynasty, the cost of transporting a commoner there was more than 20,000 coins, which was higher than the cost for merchants.

Merchants could transport civilians to the New World by crowding them together, but the Han court certainly could not do that. The internal space of a ship is limited, and if the space for activities is increased a little, the efficiency of transportation will be reduced, and the cost will naturally be higher.

Chen Maidao said: "Please ask the Prime Minister to recruit thousands of herdsmen in the desert."

Zhou Bo looked at Chen Mai hesitantly. The main task of the Governor's Office was farming, so how could they recruit herdsmen?

Chen Mai explained, "There are no oxen or war horses in the Starting City, and there are no large animals within a thousand miles. This has caused the Governor's Office to make extremely slow progress in reclaiming land. But we have learned from the city-states in the north of Maya that in the grasslands in the north of the New World, there is a kind of wild buffalo that is larger than our Han buffalo and yellow cattle. These wild buffaloes are extremely numerous in the New World. We want to capture these wild buffaloes and domesticate them into cattle that can be used for farming."

Zhou Bo said: "The court can help you do this."

The policy of the Han Dynasty in recent years towards the desert was to try to relocate the herders in the desert and control the population in the desert. Over the years, the Xiongnu people have gradually transferred more than 100,000 people to the desert, and hundreds of thousands of people have penetrated into the counties of the desert and become ranchers in the counties.

Having learned lessons from later generations, Xu Fan naturally would not let these herdsmen move south in the form of tribes. Instead, they split up into family farms, and the herdsmen contracted some remote hilltops in various counties of the Han Dynasty to raise cattle and sheep, or they built a settled farm in a prosperous county. The model was the same as that of later generations. The ranch mainly provided milk and beef and mutton to the people of the Han Dynasty.

With the economic development of Dahan in recent years, the income from the breeding industry has naturally risen. The income of these family ranchers is relatively high, and these herdsmen have been successfully integrated into the life of Dahan.

However, the population pressure on the desert is still huge. More than 10 years of peace have increased the population of the desert by millions, and these herdsmen also yearn for the prosperous life in the Central Plains. But how to help them find a relatively stable job is a headache for even the Han Dynasty. Chen Maiyao's offering to the herdsmen in the desert has helped Zhou Bo solve the problem to some extent.

Chen Mai thought for a moment and said, "Can the imperial court keep the financial revenue from mining and operating the mines in the Governor's Office for use in the reclamation of the New World? We have calculated that with this income, Duofu's income and expenditure can barely be balanced and the development of the New World can be accelerated."

For this question, Zhou Bo could only look to the emperor.

Xu Fan said: "If this money belongs to your Governor's Office, then your Governor's Office will have to spend money whenever it needs goods from the court in the future."

Chen Mai said: "I understand."

After Chen Mai left, Zhou Bo said to Xu Fan: "Your Majesty, Chen County has been in pilot operation for five years. During these five years, Chen County's fiscal revenue has exceeded 5 billion coins, doubling. A large number of rural population in Chen County have been absorbed into various industrial zones in Chen County and have become high-income craftsmen.

The contradiction between the land and land in Chen County has been effectively improved, and the income of the people has generally increased. The Han Dynasty set a well-off standard of 3 coins per year, and Chen County has fully achieved it. If it were not for the dividends brought to Kuaiji County by sea trade, Kuaiji County's income would be far less than Chen County. I think the pilot project has such a significant effect, should the scope of the pilot project be expanded? The Han officials in Jiujiang County, Hengshan County, and Yingchuan County all requested the court to include them in the scope of the pilot project. "

Zhou Bo couldn't understand why the pilot project in Chen County had such a significant effect, but the emperor didn't seem to have the idea of ​​expanding the pilot project. Five years had passed, and the government-private partnership was still stuck in Chen County. Xu Fan smiled bitterly when he heard this. He supported the pilot project in Chen County and wanted to expose all the flaws of the government-private partnership and point out a wrong answer for the Han Dynasty.

But obviously I have underestimated the Legalists. Over the past five years, not only have the flaws of government-private partnerships not been exposed, but their advantages have been clearly revealed.

The industrial chain was planned with the power of the court as the main force, and each link of the industrial chain was reasonably arranged, which avoided waste and duplication of construction to the greatest extent. At the same time, the administrative power was used to reasonably arrange the interests of all parties upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and the interests of all parties were balanced, so that there would be no upstream leader who relied on the monopoly of technology and funds to occupy most of the profits, resulting in a small number of people obtaining excess profits, while the vast majority of people could only get some leftovers.

In the past two years, both heavy and light industries in Chen County have achieved rapid development. Heavy industry is not difficult to understand. The project of replacing rails with wooden rails has brought an extremely large market. In the past two years, Chen County's steel production capacity has doubled, and the number of craftsmen in the upstream and downstream industrial chains of the steel industry has increased by 50%.

At the same time, various advanced bed materials and machinery in Chenjun began to develop by leaps and bounds, and their share in the Han Dynasty's industry became increasingly higher, showing signs of becoming a pillar industry. In Chenjun, various machinery and machine tools have become core industries. Half of the Han Dynasty's steam locomotives were manufactured in Chenjun, and this figure is even higher than that of Chang'an City.

Xu Fan could understand the development of these heavy industries. It was these heavy industries that could develop rapidly by using administrative power to develop industrialization. After all, these heavy industries were connected to various factories and were relatively easy to plan. Later historical experience has repeatedly proved this point.

However, Chenjun's light industry developed well, which was beyond Xu Fan's imagination. The development of light industry was the weak point of this model, because light industry had to connect with individuals, and the number level was hundreds of times larger than that of workshops.

But the Legalist bureaucrats completely changed Xu Fan's mind. After they took over Chen County, the amount of textile fabrics in Chen County doubled within 5 years. Among them, the fastest growing industry was the silk industry, which directly increased by almost 10 times.

After Xu Fan's investigation, he found out that the Legalist officials directly applied this model of the entire industrial chain to the silk industry, and with their super high management capabilities, the industry developed rapidly.

The silk industry in Chen County originally belonged to the market economy model. Farmers in the Han Dynasty planted mulberry trees and raised silkworms. When the harvest season came, textile factories would harvest the silkworm pupae. Middlemen would collect the pupae from the farmers little by little, and then sell them to textile factories again and again. The textile factories would reel the silk and weave it into silk, which was then sold to the sea merchants in Kuaiji County.

The biggest advantage of this model is that everything is left to the market, so the cheapest silk can be produced.

But the worst thing about this model is that everything is left to the market. In order to reduce costs and gain profits, when they find that they can break the law without being punished, or that the punishment is not strong enough to cover their profits, they will trample on any laws of the Han Dynasty.

When they find that the laws are strictly restrictive to them, they will try to make profits even if it means breaking the law. They will do whatever it takes to make profits in every link of the industrial chain, even if it means destroying the industry.

Therefore, when there is less silk, farmers will raise the price. Even if they have agreed on a price, farmers will not care. As long as they can make more money, who cares about reputation? And who can guarantee what the market will be like next year?

Merchants will also try to pull each other down, or form interest alliances to suppress farmers' profits through monopoly. In short, people in the entire industrial chain are extremely short-sighted for the sake of profit and have no vision for long-term development.

But now the model led by the Legalists has changed. They manage the entire upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and punish those who dare to harm the interests of the industrial chain by signing contracts or administrative means. People in the entire industrial chain are deterred and dare not easily touch the bottom line.

At the same time, they also plan the development of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. Starting from planting mulberry trees, every step is professionalized and standardized. They invite farmers to teach farmers how to divide branches and how to plant more mulberry trees with as little land as possible to speed up the growth of mulberry trees.

Most of the hills in Chen County have become mulberry gardens. This kind of large-scale cultivation can accommodate more than ten acres of mulberry trees.

Sericulture also began to be scaled up. The Legalists had a special silkworm breeding laboratory, and every year they would reserve some high-quality silkworm seeds with long silk length to breed better silkworms. They even began to formulate industry standards, dividing silk into 9 grades.

From the best first-grade silk to ninth-grade silk, the price of each grade of silk is different. The silk woven from first-grade silk is called Chen brocade. Chen brocade has bright colors and soft silk texture. It has become the designated silk source for high-end clothing of the Han Dynasty. The price of each piece of Chen brocade exceeded 1 coins, catching up with the price of Shu brocade.

However, the production capacity of Chen brocade far exceeds that of Shu brocade. The annual production capacity of Shu brocade is only about 10 pieces, but high-end Chen brocade can produce 10 pieces per year, which can earn more than billion in wealth for Chen County every year.

Although the high-end silk industry in Chen County has high prices, the price of mid-range silk is 30% lower than that in other counties, and the price of low-end silk is more than 50% lower. With its strong price advantage, it has swept the entire Han silk market. Now Chen County silk is welcomed by Han Dynasty maritime merchants and has become a must-have commodity for going out to sea. Naturally, the Han Dynasty of this era uses the first-tier goods for themselves, and only sells the second- and third-tier goods.

At the same time, Chenjun silk has become the designated silk for military uniforms of the Han Dynasty for three consecutive years. The Han Dynasty military has a huge market for anti-arrow clothing, which only requires sturdiness and low price and does not care about its external image. The silk from Chenjun can meet these two needs of the military, especially its price. There is no cheaper silk than Chenjun silk in the entire Han Dynasty.

Now the silk industry in Chen County can produce 200 million pieces of silk every year, which is 5 times the production capacity 10 years ago. Chen County has replaced Shuzhong, Linzi County, and Sanchuan County to become the center of the entire Han silk industry. It is also the center of the entire industry. Whether it is high-end silk or mid- and low-end silk, it has completely crushed the silk industry in other counties.

At the same time, the profits of the silk industry are also distributed by them. In the entire silk industry chain, skilled craftsmen occupy the most profits, hard-working farmers and female workers occupy the second place, and other people in the industry chain only occupy the third place. Although not everyone is convinced by this way of distribution, these people in the industry chain can accept this model. Because of the expansion of the market, everyone in this industry chain earns more than before, and under this model, the profits are more stable, and everyone's income can be expected. There will not be a situation of three years of losses and three years of profits. It is this stability that eliminates the dissatisfaction of people in the industry chain.

(End of this chapter)