Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 665 Population Policy
Zhang Ao nodded again and again: "The commander-in-chief's method is very good. First, send soldiers to the south of Liaoning to reclaim wasteland and build houses. When the conditions are ripe, then let the soldiers bring the family members there. It really saves a lot of trouble."

"But immigrants still have to move, Brother Zhang. The current situation in Ming Dynasty is that the central plains and southeast, especially the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, have a large population, while the northwest, Liaodong, and southwest regions have a small population. If tens of thousands of people migrate from places with large populations, the local population Some land will be vacated, and some people will own more land. The more land the common people have, the stronger their ability to resist disasters." Li Jing said seriously.

Zhang Ao said: "What the commander said is true! In fact, in the past two years, there have been continuous natural disasters in Ming Dynasty. The disaster situation in some areas is even worse than in previous years, but there is no starvation to death like before. First, the court rescued effectively. , Another one is that the land in the hands of the common people is more than before. As long as the harvest is not a failure, the common people can support it for a long time.

It's a pity that the time for the common people to get the land is too short. As soon as there is hope, there will be natural disasters. If the common people can maintain a good harvest for a year or two and let the common people have a surplus, like last year and this year's locust plague, I am afraid that the court will not be needed at all. Raise food and relief everywhere. "

"Yeah! Now is God's time for the people to breathe. Even if it is only given for two years, the country will not be so difficult. But we can't expect God to open his eyes. We have to find our own way, and we have to pay attention to water conservancy projects. , not only to fight drought, but also to drain waterlogging, you have to pay close attention to this matter." Li Jing continued.

Zhang Ao smiled and said, "That's a matter for the Ministry of Water Resources, and it's not for me to interfere."

Li Jingyi raised his eyebrows: "What are you talking about! I established the Ministry of Water Resources so that the local government and other departments will not be held back when building water conservancy projects. It doesn't mean that they will not be under the jurisdiction if they have more power.

You have to know what the Ministry of Water Resources does for those things, isn't it just to serve your Ministry of Population and Land?If you don't keep an eye on them, they are fooling around with their work, and big things are going to happen on your side.

Let me tell Fang later that the Ministry of Water Resources is under the joint jurisdiction of the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Population and Land. They are responsible for supervising the construction of water conservancy projects. Your side is responsible for inspection and acceptance. The final decision.Also, I will ask Shen Zheng to give you some financial rights, otherwise you will not be able to speak well. "

"Master!" Zhang Ao shouted.

Li Jing patted Zhang Ao's shoulder lightly, and said, "Brother, your ability is not outstanding, but you are careful in doing things, which many people can't compare with you, so I put the cumbersome things like population and land into the hands of others." Leave it to you, and you never failed to live up to my expectations.

With your ability, it is unlikely that you will be in the cabinet in the future, but I must give you the right to speak, and you cannot be controlled by others just because you cannot enter the cabinet. "

Zhang Ao excitedly said: "Marshal, as a brother, I never thought that one day I would be such a big official and have the current status. I don't know how much incense my ancestors burned for eight generations before I let my brother know Marshal. I don't want to go there either." Ascension, I just want to do my best in the rest of my life to do the errands assigned by the commander in chief, and do more practical things for the common people, so that brothers will be worthy of the commander in chief's praise."

"Be worthy of the people, as long as we can be worthy of the people, then this life will not be in vain." Li Jing sighed.

Shaking his head lightly, Li Jing smiled and said, "Although I'm not tired of talking to you old brothers, there is one thing wrong. You always like to interrupt. You are obviously discussing things, so you have to feel sorry for a while."

Zhang Ao said with a smile: "That's because the brothers all understand how they got their current status. If it weren't for the support of the commander-in-chief, our group of people might be eating and waiting to die somewhere now. Maybe we would have died long ago. Big brother Mr. Shuai said that one should not forget one's roots, how can we brothers forget the kindness of the commander-in-chief."

Li Jing shook his head: "What I said is not to forget your origin, so that you don't forget what your origin is, and don't get carried away after you become an official and act recklessly, but I didn't make you talk about me all day long."

Zhang Ao said with a smile: "Hehe, I talk about you all day, so that I can not forget your teachings, and remember what I should and should not do.

Marshal, let me not hide it from you, our old brothers are basically in high positions now, these people have some problems more or less, but everyone knows that there are certain things that cannot be done, we all know who the Marshal is, If we really commit a crime, the commander-in-chief will never be merciful, so we will never do things that allow the commander-in-chief to kill relatives righteously. "

Li Jingjing nodded: "I am very pleased that you can think so. Everyone has minor problems, including me. I am sometimes very stubborn. I have to do one thing when I am sure. In fact, many things cannot be rushed. , There is a saying that haste makes waste. Over the past year, I have done a lot of things a little too hastily. Looking back now, I actually regret it very much, but since I have done it, I can’t turn back. If I turn back, it will be in vain.”

"Actually, what the commander-in-chief has done is good. Although many people don't understand it, after a while, they will naturally see the commander-in-chief's foresight." Zhang Ao laughed.

Li Jing smiled and said: "Don't flatter me, I know that even you don't understand some of my policies. Just say that I want your population policy. Although you follow it, it is obviously not as important as other things Heart."

"You're blaming me wrong. There are so many things that happened this year, and many things are more important than population policy. I can't focus on the small ones, can I?" Zhang Ao said hastily.

Li Jing shook his head and smiled, "Hehe, I didn't say you wouldn't do it. What I said was that you didn't understand. If you didn't understand, you wouldn't be so concerned."

Zhang Ao smiled: "Well, I admit, I really don't understand. What I don't understand is that the things you are thinking about will take at least decades or even hundreds of years before there will be problems. Maybe it is not a problem. , why do you want to do it now? You must know that the population of Ming Dynasty is currently insufficient. Instead of encouraging births, you want to control births. Not only me, but almost everyone can’t understand.”

Li Jingwen sighed and said: "Brother, it will be too late when you find out that there is a problem with the population. You may not be able to calculate this account, and it is very complicated to figure it out. When I explained to you before, I used the population of a family. The method of increasing and reducing the land shared by each person is calculated according to your calculations. The number is very small, and you don’t care about it. I will use a large number to calculate with you today, and you can try to see if you can understand it. "

After taking a sip of tea slowly, Li Jing continued: "How many people are there in our Daming? Let's count as 1000 million people. Among these 1000 million people, there are at least 1000 million women who can give birth. Let's count as 1000 million. , If these 1000 million women all gave birth to a child this year, it will be 600 million people, and at least [-] million of these [-] million children will survive.

When someone is born, someone dies, so how many people died in our Ming Dynasty this year?Although the data reported by the local government is not very accurate, but there will not be too much difference. I calculate it based on 400 million, which should be more reasonable.

600 million people were born and 400 million people died, so our Ming Dynasty has increased its population by 200 million this year.

In a country as big as Ming Dynasty, the increase of 200 million people a year is really not much, and only 100 million people will be added [-] years later. At that time, Ming Dynasty had [-] million people, so there should be no major problems.

Ha ha, but the population is not calculated in this way. As the living conditions get better and better, the number of deaths will decrease, and as time goes by, the number of people who can give birth will increase, and the number of people who will give birth every year will increase. more and more.

If the world is peaceful in the next 100 years, there will be no wars, and no major disasters will occur. I conservatively estimate that after 100 years, the population of Ming Dynasty will not be [-] million, but more than [-] million and close to [-] million.

Five billion people!What do we feed [-] million people?

Therefore, we must formulate a population policy in advance, brother, let me tell you clearly, in order to limit the population, I am going to impose a poll tax, and each family with more than three children must pay a poll tax in addition to paying a fine, specifically per person I am still thinking about how much tax to collect every year. In short, the population policy must be implemented as soon as possible, and we must control the population growth of Ming Dynasty. "

Zhang Ao took a long breath after hearing this: "If it really reaches [-] million people, then Daming will not be able to support so many people, and there will definitely be problems in the country."

Li Jingzheng nodded emphatically: "Brother, if we don't think of or don't know about this problem, then we can't blame us for the population explosion in the future, but since we know it, but don't think of ways to avoid such things from happening, then We are going to be scolded by future generations."

Zhang Aozheng nodded emphatically: "Don't worry, Commander, I'll arrange someone to do this right away. Starting next year, I will fully implement the population policy."

"First formulate the regulations, draw up the laws, and then implement them. This is what I think about this matter. Don't tell the common people that the population limit is for the future of the country. If you can't understand it, how can the common people understand it?

Even if the common people can understand it, the common people don't care about that. The common people don't care about what will happen to the country in tens or hundreds of years.

So you don’t have to explain it to the people, and you can’t explain it. You just tell the people the regulations and tell them that if they have more than three children, they will be punished, and the punishment will be heavy. Even if they can afford it, they will have to pay every year The problem of head tax is a headache.

Of course, this matter is not so easy to do, because we don't have so many people to do it, so you have to do it step by step, you can catch each province one by one, but there is one thing to guarantee, that is, to catch one Work one. "

"Don't worry, Marshal, the brother will live up to the entrustment of Marshal." Zhang Ao said solemnly.

"For the formulation of the regulations, you can go to Dali Temple, the Ministry of Criminal Justice, or people from the Imperial College to help you. The regulations must be formulated in detail. Try to think of everything you can think of. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. We can change them if they make mistakes." Li Jing answered.

Zhang Ao nodded.

(End of this chapter)