I

  Chapter 317 315【A large area of ​​farmland in the south of the Yangtze River has been abandoned】

  Nanjing, Qinhuai Flower Street.

  Zhu Yuanzhang built Fuleyuan here, and captured the wives and daughters of enemies or criminal officials into Fuleyuan as official prostitutes.

   It is exclusively for wealthy businessmen and big businessmen to get money, and officials are forbidden to enter.

  In Fuleyuan, men must wear green headscarves, red waistbands and fur boots. Women wear black hats and black regular scripts, but no fancy clothes. When they walk, they should only walk on the two sides of the street, not in the middle of the street.

  Fule Courtyard was relocated to the vicinity of Wuding Bridge. From this center, various Qinlou and Chu Pavilions began to appear, and finally evolved into an entertainment street.

   That is, Qinhuai Flower Street.

  The funniest thing is Huiguang Temple, this temple is built from the leftover materials of Dabaoen Temple. In the Wanli period, it was surrounded by many brothels, and the willpower of the monks was tested all day long. In desperation, the temple had to be moved to another place.

  Li Xiangjun returned to Huajie, where she lived for many years.

  This time, Li Xiangjun was accompanied by a team of officials.

   "Sister, are you calling along the street?" Li Xiangjun asked.

  Li Wanchun laughed and said, "You don't have to keep shouting, you have to take turns shouting, otherwise your voice will be hoarse in just one day."

   Of the 108 female generals in "The Record of Female Generals of Datong", two-thirds of them are already married. After getting married, most of them choose to take care of their husbands and raise their children, and those who are unable to have children adopt children, and very few even acquiesce in their husbands taking concubines.

  Li Wanchun is one of the few unmarried people. She is almost thirty years old, because she has a higher vision.

   I can't get high, I can't get low, and it has been delayed until now.

   "Then...then I will shout." Li Xiangjun said.

  Li Wanchun smiled and said, "Call it."

When the officials went to post notices along the street, Li Xiangjun picked up the tin trumpet and shouted: "Sisters and brothers in Qinhuai Flower Street, the world is one, the good and the low are equal. If you want to be good, don't be afraid of the madam to stop you. If you want to stop, you can report to the official immediately... "

  It was the morning at this time, and many brothels hadn't opened yet.

  When Li Xiangjun's voice came out, many windows opened in an instant, and then the door was opened again, and more than 20 men and women rushed out one after another.

   Not only prostitutes, but also Guigong teapot.

A man stood by the side of the street, lit a green turban with a candle, took off his red waistband, and walked quickly to Li Xiangjun: "Sisters, I have come. I have heard that Zhao Tianwang has a good government, and I have been thinking about how to be good these days." Woolen cloth."

  Li Wanchun smiled and said: "You can go to the county government to settle down first, and the household registration is a good man. Even if you stay in the brothel, you still belong to the good man. There are no untouchables under Mr. Zhao's rule."

   "It's really good," the man laughed, "I don't know how to make a living after becoming a Confucianist. I can write and count, but I don't understand the Four Books and Five Classics."

  Li Wanchun said: "Since I can write and count, I will apply for the civil servant examination, and maybe I can be a police officer of the inspection department."

  There are government offices and county offices in Nanjing City. These officials have long been rotten. They belong to hooligans with official status, and many of them will be thrown to mine.

  Public security, fire protection, sanitation and other work are all in charge of the Wucheng Bingma Division. But this institution is also rotten. In the bustling and prosperous city of Nanjing, many streets are dirty and messy, and the neighbors clean them up entirely.

  The first thing Zhao Han has to do is to free the slaves and eliminate the distinction between good and bad. Then recruit local humble people as servants to improve public security and sanitation in the city.

  Li Xiangjun continued to promote along the street, and when he reached a certain place, Kou Baimen suddenly opened the door and ran out.

   "Can generations of prostitutes be good?" Kou Baimen asked anxiously.

  Li Xiangjun smiled and said: "Under Mr. Zhao's rule, there is no distinction between good and bad."

  Kou Baimen immediately turned around and shouted at the brothel: "Father, mother, come out quickly, you can live a decent life from now on!"

  Niang is the real mother, and the father may be the real father.

   Kou Baimen is worse than Li Xiangjun. Li Xiangjun was born in a military officer's family, while Kou Baimen is a prostitute for generations.

  Her father is a musician, her mother is a prostitute, and her household registration is registered with the Jiaofang Division. The work in the brothel is an outsourcing business, and she also accepts door-to-door service orders from large customers.

   Kou Baimen is fifteen years old this year. She works as a maid for prostitutes. She should be listed for business in a year.

   Not long after, Kou Baimen's parents came out together.

  Li Wanchun asked about the situation, and said: "You just need to go to the county government to settle down, and you will be a good person if you have a household registration. If you want to continue to operate, you can apply for a license for singing houses and dance pavilions..."

   "No need!" Kou's father said quickly, "I can continue to be a musician to support the family, and my wife and daughter have to earn a living."

   "As you like." Li Wanru said.

  Nanjing's urban population is too large, and there are a large number of jobless people. It is impossible for Zhao Han to allocate land to them, and he is temporarily unable to solve employment.

   We can only clean up the evil officials, clean up those local hooligans, and send them all to the mountains for mining. Then the government recruits some civil servants, who can take the test if they can read a few words.

  As for the illiterate, the soldiers and civilians have returned to their hometowns, and the next step is to transport food from Hunan for disaster relief. For the time being, homeless people can be recruited as coolies to transport food.

  To tell the truth, many domestic slaves and happy households were conscientious, but they really couldn’t find a job for a while, and only a small number of them could be admitted to the civil service.

  The Qinhuai Flower Street in Nanjing cannot be directly banned, but it must be ordered to apply for a license for singing houses.

   Of course, the change is still obvious.

   Prostitutes who made a lot of money, especially those famous prostitutes, chose to live a good life. They don't worry about life, they just want to be decent.

  The propaganda team left, while the Kou family discussed behind closed doors.

Kou's mother said: "I heard people say that Jiangxi is open-minded and doesn't dislike being born in a lowly family. The daughter is fifteen years old and is still a virgin. She will definitely find her husband's family. Don't count on the big officials. Go find a matchmaker and inquire about officials. Or military officers, matchmaking to make a marriage."

   "Marrying an official, isn't that going to lead to a hard life?" Father Kou disagreed.

Kou's mother said: "Zhao Tianwang's officials are different. They can be officials in the future. I only look for those officials from Jiangxi. Maybe they can be magistrates in the future, and my daughter will be the magistrate's wife. Our family also has some savings. At that time, give more dowry, and the son-in-law is just a petty official, so he will be happy in his heart. We must take a long-term view, today's official, tomorrow's official, we will not lose."

   There are quite a few people who have this idea. The matchmaker business in Nanjing is booming.

  These matchmakers were guarding near the yamen, and when they heard officials speaking foreign languages, they stepped forward to ask if they were married. And I swear, even though the girl comes from a prostitute family, she is definitely still a virgin.

   Not only that, the matchmakers also went to the guards to strike up a conversation, asking which soldiers had not yet married. As long as they have a military rank of ten or more, the daughters of any prostitutes are willing to marry.

  Bian Yujing, one of the Eight Beauties of the Qinhuai River, was only thirteen years old at this time, and her parents were looking for a matchmaker.

  Bian Yujing is also the daughter of a prostitute.

  While being born in a family of eunuchs, they are all beautified by literati. Wu Weiye's article is evasive, but Zou Shu is much more straightforward, explaining that Bian Yujing is a "family of kabuki".

  Whether it was Le Hu Congliang in Qinhuai Flower Street or the liberation of the whole city's domestic slaves, there was actually not much commotion.

  Most people, although the lowly status has become a good status, the content of their work has not changed.

  Because the price of goods in Nanjing city was too high and it was hard to find a job, the domestic slaves became servants and continued to be servants honestly.

  The British Industrial Revolution had to carry out agricultural reform and land enclosure movement first, and force farmers to the cities before they could develop industry. But in Daming, this step can be skipped directly, the population of big cities has exploded. There is only a shortage of jobs, not people.

  The urban household registration campaign was quickly implemented.

  Zhao Han took part of the newly released data and suddenly felt a headache. There are too many unemployed people in Nanjing!

  Outside the city, the land of nobles and military officers is being distributed to tenants and military households, and the number of acres is still not enough.

  Wu Yingji said: "General Town, there is a lot of wasteland in the south of the Yangtze River, but the land tax should be treated differently."

   "There is actually a lot of wasteland in the south of the Yangtze River?" Zhao Han found it hard to understand.

  Wu Yingji explained in detail: "Taxes in the south of the Yangtze River are too heavy. After the Yongle Dynasty, a large number of farmers fled, and a large number of cultivated land was abandoned. The rich and powerful families took the opportunity to seize the abandoned land. Emperor Xuande reformed and recruited refugees to cultivate the wasteland to prevent powerful and powerful families from annexing the land."

   "During the Jiajing period, Jiangnan had the reform of land equalization, which was very effective at that time. But in the Wanli period, a large amount of land was abandoned. One is that the land tax is too heavy, and the other is that the water conservancy is in disrepair."

   "There is also the supply of grain grain. There are many cotton fields in the south of the Yangtze River, but grain grain has to be collected. At first, farmers had to sell cotton to buy rice and hand it over to the government. During this period, they were exploited multiple times. It took many years to sell cotton and pay money."

   "During this period, a large amount of farmland was abandoned. The government can only recruit refugees to reclaim it. As long as the wasteland is reclaimed, local farmers will be exempted from taxes for five years, and out-of-town farmers will be exempted from taxes for ten years. Guess what will happen?"

   Zhao Han thought for a while and said: "The gentry colluded with officials and used cultivated land as barren land to evade taxes."

   "That's right," Wu Yingji said with a smile, "but there is even more chaos. Once the tax exemption period is up, the peasants will immediately abandon the land again!"

  Zhao Han was stunned upon hearing this, then shook his head and smiled wryly.

  That is the farmer’s own field, and the self-cultivator is not a proper farmer. He voluntarily abandons the land and flees to other places to become refugees or vagrants. It is conceivable that the taxes are heavy!

  Not only is the tax collected by the imperial court too heavy, but the big households will also send surreptitiously, making these self-cultivating farmers have to pay taxes many times. Moreover, the land they can get is not a good field, even if they only pay the normal tax, it is enough.

   What's more, the tax-free period set by the government can almost turn barren fields into mature fields. At such times, there will be tyrants who come out to seize the fields, and after taking the fields, let these self-cultivating farmers continue to serve as servants, and the self-cultivating farmers will definitely run away.

  In addition, the wasteland refugees are foreigners and are often bullied by the locals, which is also one of the reasons why they ran away after a few days of planting.

  Local officials continue to introduce new policies in an attempt to retain owner farmers and crack down on gentry tyrants. But they are all effective at the beginning, and after a few years or more than ten years, loopholes are exploited.

   This broken place in the south of the Yangtze River is very strange. On the one hand, there are many people and little land, and on the other hand, a large amount of abandoned land.

  The big families are also very interesting, but in the event of a disaster year, half of the land planted by the family is directly abandoned, and the remaining half is intensively cultivated.

  What is self-grown land?

  It means not renting to tenants, but letting hired labor to farm. This kind of hired labor is actually a domestic slave, who only pays a small salary for managing food every month. Sometimes also called "hired slaves".

  Abandoning half of the wasteland and half of the farming, this farming method has been written into the family precepts and family regulations by many wealthy families, and it is regarded as a classic operation like a family secret.

  Wu Yingji said: "There are still many barren fields in the south of the Yangtze River, which belong to salt bittern land. In fact, some salt bittern land has gradually improved with the support of good officials. But if you change a mediocre official, it will be abandoned immediately, because the mediocre official does not reduce the land tax."

   "The general town should collect land taxes as appropriate, build a large number of water conservancy projects, and encourage the people to open up wasteland and restore crops. In this way, there is actually not much shortage of land in the south of the Yangtze River."

  Zhao Han paid more and more attention to Wu Yingji, nodded and said: "You write down all your ideas, and I will let officials at all levels govern as appropriate."

  (end of this chapter)