Datang Nongsheng

Chapter 341 Going one step further

The reform of the household registration system of the Guanzhong land and the official salary system by the imperial court has been completed, and the effect is very good. A large amount of land in the hands of officials and dignitaries has returned to the hands of farmers, allowing them to enjoy the power of second-class citizens. The farmers are no longer so easy to be bullied, and with the support of agricultural technology from Xingfu Village, these people who have returned to self-cultivation will have a good harvest this year, contributing a lot of resources to the imperial court to promote the construction of a new countryside. Next year, the entire Guanzhong New Rural construction will be carried out in an all-round way, and by then, the economy and people's livelihood in Guanzhong will reach another level.

The next step for Sun Xiangfu to consider is how to promote this new household registration model and official salary system to more areas of Datang.And, liberate all the private slaves who are still in the hands of the rich and powerful, so that they can also become self-cultivated farmers, providing impetus for the development of the country and creating benefits.

If this idea is to be implemented, it will undoubtedly affect the interests of everyone, including Sun Xiangfu himself. He will also suffer huge losses because of the release of tenants and servants and the implementation of the citizen household registration policy in the North. He is one of the officials of the Tang Dynasty. , the one with the most career fields.

However, if we don't take this step, we can't completely pull the bottom people out of the exploited class.

Because, as long as there are slaves, a class that is controlled by the powerful and aristocratic, and exploited arbitrarily, they will continue to think about turning ordinary people into their own slaves and making profits for them.

The most difficult and rebounding area to liberate slaves and servants may be the Anbei Dadu Protectorate, because more than half of the serf tenants with five surnames and seven families gathered here, and the fields they planted were not official fields. It was the private land obtained by five surnames and seven families through auctions. The imperial court could not take back all the land and return the freedom of the people like it did when it took back the land of officials and the land of the dignitaries.

Sun Xiangfu previously used various projects such as planting spices, bidding for land, and other projects as foreshadowing or bait, so that these aristocratic children agreed to let their private slaves register in the government office.

If it is announced now that these people who were originally private slaves of the aristocratic family are given the same rights as second-class citizens in Guanzhong, this will undoubtedly deeply touch the interests of the aristocratic family.

First of all, these private slaves were bought by a few big families with huge sums of money. It is impossible for them to let the imperial court make a policy in vain and let the money they spent be in vain.

At present, although they have registered household registration for those serfs, the actual control is still in their hands, and it is nothing more than a poll tax for the court in the future.

In fact, Anbei Dadufufu did not collect poll tax from the people in its jurisdiction, that is to say, they did not have any real losses, but sometimes when dealing with escaped slaves, it is easier to argue because they have household registration But this is all trouble caused by the five surnames and seven families poaching each other's corners. It has nothing to do with the court. They endured it by themselves, and it passed.

Furthermore, once these serfs were freed, they would definitely not want to continue farming for the family, because they have seen how rich the owner farmers are. Now, their biggest dream is to be free and become owner farmers.

Then, if Sun Xiangfu wants to implement this policy, the aristocratic family will spend so much money and buy so many fields in the Northland, all of which will be scrapped.

The loss here is not a little bit, because the sons of the aristocratic families bought land outside the customs to grow high-yield cash crops and make a lot of money. Now that so much money has been invested in it, if you destroy all the projects, they will not Agreed, the imperial court has no credibility at all.

Not only that, but this is also in conflict with Sun Xiangfu's big plan to develop agriculture in the north and advance deep into the grasslands. Without the investment leadership of the family, it may cost more than ten years for Sun Xiangfu to promote it with his own money. 20 years of effort, it's not worth it.

Therefore, when Sun Xiangfu said this request, he had already had a plan in mind, and said, "Actually, brother Wang, you don't have to worry, this governor, I just want to change the way for each family to control the farmers under it."

Hearing this, Wang Xu's expression softened slightly, and he asked, "What way?"

"Mode of employment."

After answering Wang Xu, Sun Xiangfu added, "It is imperative for the court to fully implement the new household registration policy and define the rights and interests of citizens, because it can bring benefits to the entire country. If your desires match, your aristocratic family can't stop it at all. This is the general trend of people's hearts.

However, it is not the imperial court's original intention to damage your interests and disrupt the development plan of the Northland. Therefore, I would suggest that the imperial court adopt soft measures when implementing this new policy.

Where the new citizenship policy is advanced, the imperial court will give every citizen the status of a citizen, so that they can enjoy the rights and interests of citizens. After that, the imperial court will not allow anyone other than the imperial court officials, or family forces, to enslave the people of Tang Dynasty The people, all the people in the Tang Dynasty, especially the Han people, as long as they are not criminals, they will at least be defined as second-class citizens, and the second-class citizens of the Tang Dynasty, besides being enslaved, have many basic rights, at least, in the future All deeds of prostitution, where the citizenship system is implemented, will no longer have legal effect. If you want to continue to let them work for you, earn profits, and serve you, you can only use the method of employment.

In order to maintain the development of the Northland, I will suggest to the imperial court to convert the prostitution contracts in your hands into employment contracts, and determine the duration of the employment contract according to the value of the prostitution contract. In this round of reforms, losses were lost in vain.

After the reform, hired workers are theoretically free. They just signed a time-limited labor agreement with you. If they don’t work for you according to the contract, it is a breach of contract and you need to pay you money.

At that time, the government will agree with you on a higher compensation standard so that they have no ability to breach the contract. In this way, you don't have to worry that these hired workers will miss work and flee, because at that time there will be court laws to restrain them and guarantee They continue to labor for you until the agreed time is complete. "

After Sun Xiangfu explained, his mouth was dry and he drank the tea on the table. At the same time, Wang Xu needed some time to understand what he said.

After a long time, Wang Xu said, "Even if this is the case, the loss of my family is not small! You know, these slaves were originally in our family, and they have been slaves for generations. Didn't the court do this to let these serfs With the possibility of freedom, and what kind of civil rights you have, I also know that even if they become our lifelong employees, we can't beat them or scold them, isn't it just raising a group of masters at home?"

When Sun Xiangfu heard the words, he laughed and said, "The employment system is not rigid. You can set up some reward systems. After completing the specified workload, the employees who overfulfill the work can deduct the length of the employment agreement. Then, they usually When working, I will definitely do my best to work and strive for early freedom.

You know, if a serf has worked for you for more than ten years, he will enter old age. An old and weak serf will not only not be able to do much work, but you will have to spend some food to feed them, because you can only support them. , you can let their descendants, those young serfs work hard for you.

But why do you need to spend the price on raising those old and weak?Isn't it good to only hire young and strong laborers to save the cost of supporting these elderly people?You can use the saved money to hire more young and strong laborers, improve work efficiency, and earn more benefits. Why not do it? "

"You mean, we can make a fuss about the employment system, as long as there are productive young people, not old and weak?" Wang Xu asked, as if he understood what Sun Xiangfu meant.

"Exactly, by abandoning those burdens, your productivity can be improved, and you can save a lot of cost to support them. Therefore, the time limit for converting a contract of sale into a contract of employment should not be too long, just waiting for them to be in their thirties. Yes, the employment contract has also expired, it is the best, you do not need to bear the burden of supporting them, it is the most cost-effective.

No matter how the world changes, the principle of working to earn money will not change. Young and strong laborers always need to work to earn money to support their families. Just like my major workshops in Shanyang, there are tens of thousands of hired workers Well, as long as you adopt the employment model like Shanyang Workshop, your industry will not be short of labor.

On the contrary, using your old methods is actually outdated, because under your management model, it is impossible for production competitiveness to be greater than that of these ever-changing free laborers.

Just like planting trees and fields, the serfs under you, if they grow well, they will have two meals a day; Diligent and hardworking, but they will never have any creativity.

If my predictions are correct, using your serfs to grow cauliflower will basically not succeed, let alone planting new crops like blueberries that my farmer's children tend to fail.

Because planting these better new crops requires not only physical strength, but technology, and learning technology requires understanding. What kind of understanding do you expect these serfs who live under the whip of your soldiers to have? "

Sun Xiangfu's words made Wang Xu enter into contemplation again. The development model of the aristocratic family is outdated, is it unusable?

In fact, the family's think tanks have been reflecting on this issue, because before Shanyang's investment promotion meeting, they wanted to recruit more tenants, put up many signs in the city, and offered fairly favorable conditions, but No one chose them, but devoted themselves to various workshops in Shanyang, or accepted the employment of those small merchants in the city.

Because most of the common people know that it is not easy to tenant the fields of the aristocratic family, and if they are tenanted, they will become their serfs.

However, like the Wang family, due to the development of the Northland, the industry is expanding, but there is no more manpower to help them maximize their benefits, which has entered a development bottleneck.

If their royal family, like many industries under Sun Xiangfu's name, adopted the employment system and gave those hired workers relative freedom, would they also gather a large number of workers like many industries under Sun Xiangfu's name, and thus achieve rapid development?
Sun Xiangfu's rhetoric, in the final analysis, is to use a step-by-step approach to fool rich landlords like Wang Xu, exploit the class, and transform into a family business.

Starting from asking Wang Xu to register the serfs with household registration, Sun Xiangfu paved the way for today's step.

I still remember that night, he jokingly said to Yu Xiu'er, 'I want to smash this evil old society'.

At that time, it was really just a joke.

But later, through the general incident, he saw the evil face of the family, and saw the living conditions of the people at the bottom. He felt that the world was too imperfect, and even dark, which made him finally make up his mind .

If you smash it, just smash it hard. If you don't smash it to pieces, you won't see the day when the sun shines brightly.

As a high-level intellectual of later generations, he has seen too many examples of social development in later generations. He would not recklessly want to do it in one step, and give the emperor advice on what to do.

Only by taking a step-by-step approach can he have the possibility of accomplishing his goal. It is a wise man's work. All the foreshadowing has been completed now. Then, it is time to move forward. Wang Xu agrees with his proposal. Then, Everyone uses a softer way to solve this problem. If he disagrees, he can use iron fists to promote this matter, but the whole process and progress may be slower, more complicated, and more uncertain.

(End of this chapter)