New Shun 1730

When Lin Yunwen was shocked into a cold sweat by the words of his colleagues.

Liu Yu also experienced a cross-examination by the old forces at Songjiang Prefecture.

After the banquet, Liu Yu was in a good mood.

The governor of Songjiang Prefecture came to visit again. It was originally agreed that he would go to the surrounding areas to inspect the situation, not only to see the rural situation, but also to see the development of Songjiang Prefecture's handicraft industry. He made an appointment to keep everything simple, and it would be tomorrow.

The governor of Songjiang Prefecture did not come from the imperial examination. Although he and Liu Yu were not familiar with each other, because they were both "court ministers" who were sent to the outside world and took the right and wrong path of the imperial examination, the conversation was quite speculative.

Jiangnan is a place with a developed economy and a prosperous culture.

In the past, Dashun had to compromise to protect the world from equalizing land and exempting grain. The economy of the large estates and large landowners in the south of the Yangtze River was not completely destroyed.

There are a lot of disadvantages.

There are some good things, for example, Jiangnan's culture, opera, novels, etc. have all developed greatly. Because the big estate owners, the big landowners, would fund "art."

Compared with the Manchu and Qing Dynasties, which carried out several massacres in Jiangnan, tried their best to maintain the small peasant economy in the early stage, and carried out several major cases to weaken the power of Jiangnan's big landowners, at this time Jiangnan was based on the rise of relying on large landowners and large manor owners. Art, really good.

Whether it was the extravagant humanistic aesthetics of the late Ming Dynasty, novels, poetry, and the style of organizing editorials and discussing politics, Liu Yu admired them here.

The governor of Songjiang Prefecture also talked about some old things while Liu Yu was admiring it.

"Before Xiaguan came to Songjiang, His Majesty summoned him and taught him more about what makes Songjiang unique. He also told him an old story from the previous dynasty."

"It is said that during the Yongle and Xuande years of the previous dynasty, the prefect of Songjiang Prefecture was named Zhao Yu."

"At that time, the people of Songjiang Prefecture would not go to the clan to solve any problems, and they would rarely solve them privately. Instead, they would sue the officials and let the law resolve everything."

"After Zhao Yu came, he had to change the customs. If the case was not serious, he would just say 'come tomorrow' to the complainant."

"As time went by, there was a song in Songjiang Prefecture, saying, 'The Governor of Songjiang will come tomorrow, but it will be in vain'."

"A few years later, when Zhao Yu left, the atmosphere of Songjiang Mansion was really changed by this harmonious method. With the changing of customs, ordinary cases did not come to the government, and were either resolved by the clan or privately."

"Later generations passed it down as a beautiful talk and regarded it as the true Confucian way."

Speaking of this, the Songjiang Prefecture Yin cupped his hands and said: "However, before the official came, His Majesty deliberately told this story. But he said: This time, that time."

"Today, Songjiang Mansion is a prosperous place for industry and commerce, and an important place for finance and taxation. Everything must be done according to the rules. If you can follow the law or resort to litigation, you must not let it be settled privately."

"In the past, Zhao Yu changed Songjiang's habit of being litigious for his own merit; now the lower officials have to change Songjiang's habit of not being litigious in order to make a career."

"Jinghou likes rules the most. This industry and commerce has just been established, and there are more rules. Fortunately, there are many people in the new school who can be officials. Otherwise, you don't have to do anything else every day, just deal with these lawsuits. "

Liu Yu smiled and said: "Since His Majesty chose you to be the Yin of Songjiang Prefecture, it is because you are talented. You and I are both from Wude Palace, and the court officials are outside. This Songjiang Prefecture is now a financial and taxation center, and there must be no shortage of talents. Your Majesty, your Majesty is wise, this place is not as good as before. In the past, there were mostly small farmers, and they were all locals. It was okay to settle lawsuits. Now this is an important place for industry and commerce. It would be inappropriate to continue fighting. "

Just as he was about to talk to Songjiang Fuyin about the development of industry and commerce, a disciple came to report: "Jinghou, Mr. Fuyin, there are more than ten squires outside asking for an audience. I just said that I have something to tell to Jinghou, and they are all famous. of."

Liu Yu turned sideways and glanced at Songjiang Prefecture Yin with a slightly doubtful look, thinking to himself, are you looking for something to do for me?

A suspicious look flashed across his eyes, and then he said in a teasing tone: "Is it possible that these people have some grievances, but they have no way to redress their grievances. Knowing that I am here, they want to go straight to the Duke?"

Songjiang Prefecture Yin smiled bitterly and said: "Jinghou is joking. We all have fame and honor, how can we have any grievances? We have been here several times before..."

After that, he motioned for the doorman to go out first, and after there was no one else in the room, he said: "I really didn't expect them to bother Marquis Jing at this time. In fact, this matter is not a big deal or a small matter. The main thing is that Songjiang Prefecture's industry and commerce have developed in recent years, and a large number of refugees have come to work here. The court has exempted grain and rice from tariffs, and even encouraged grain shipments from overseas. "

"In this case, this matter will be settled."

"If you judge a gentleman with a villain's heart, the land rent in Songjiang Prefecture is mostly based on a bushel of rice. Most of these people with fame have land in their families. When the price of food drops, their income will naturally drop, and they will naturally be dissatisfied."

"If we talk about a gentleman's affairs with a gentleman's heart, it is still 'rice is cheap and hurts farmers.' To put it more seriously, there is still a fight between the bottom and the bottom."

"Songjiang Prefecture's industry and commerce are also becoming increasingly prosperous. Now just looking at Songjiang Prefecture, the industrial and commercial taxes, customs taxes, stamp duties, etc., far exceed the amount of land."

"Looking only at industry and commerce, the lower the price of grain and rice, the better."

"But after all, there are still many small farmers here. If it were just these people, it would be okay. But they are holding back the will of the small farmers, which makes it difficult to handle."

"Last year, Siamese rice came into the country again, and it coincided with a good harvest. The price of rice was extremely low. And the people paid taxes, except for the rice, and used silver. The merchants lowered the price when harvesting rice... These people were instigating in the countryside, and suddenly The crowd is excited.”

"Your Majesty sent me to Songjiang, naturally, not to collect this small amount of silver from Songjiang. Which is more important, I can save it. However, this matter cannot be solved by lowering the official, so it can only be postponed."

"You can't be reasonable, but your subordinates can't do it. You can't say that cheap rice hurts farmers, right? And you can't say that small farmers should go bankrupt?"

"However, I really don't think this matter is troublesome, and I just want to leave it to Marquis Jing to solve it. However, when these squires learn that Marquis Jing is coming, they must ask for an explanation, so that God can hear it."

Hearing this, Liu Yu smiled bitterly and said, "I can't solve it either. But people are already coming to your door, why can't they just disappear? But, you haven't come up with any solution?"

Songjiang Prefecture Yin said: "I am not thinking of a solution. I have also thought about folding the land silver into rice and collecting the rice without collecting money. Abandoning the currency tax and reinstating the tax in kind. But if you collect rice without collecting money, this is not the case." It’s a long-term solution. Even if there is less exploitation by merchants during harvest time, small farmers still have to sell rice to make a living.”

“Cheap rice hurts farmers, expensive rice hurts workers.”

Speaking of this, Songjiang Prefecture Yin sighed, cupped his hands and said: "Now we know the profound meaning of His Majesty's words before I took office. This moment is actually different from that moment. At that moment, Zhao Yushi's Songjiang It is completely different from the Songjiang Mansion under Xioguan’s rule at this moment.”

"Is there a way to have both ends of the world? Is it not a failure to industry and commerce and not to agriculture?"

"Looking at Songjiang alone, in terms of taxation, it must protect industry and commerce but not agriculture. But this cannot be said. It cannot be said that this sage's way is useful here but useless elsewhere. It is not a matter of liberalization. Is it true everywhere? They use this to talk about things, and they just ask me, isn’t it right that the price of rice hurts farmers? Most of the people in the world are small farmers, isn’t it?”

"It's really difficult for me to deal with this."

Liu Yu rubbed his forehead and sighed: "It's hard for me to deal with it. Come on, in that case, let's meet him. It's not good if we don't meet him."

The governor of Songjiang Prefecture breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly called for the squires to come.

Now that he has fame and honor, he refuses to bow to officials. Moreover, Liu Yu was not from the imperial examination and had no reputation, so these squires would not worship him.

After the ceremony, he looked at several old men in their sixties or seventies, wearing scarves and blue shirts. Liu Yu was not too arrogant, so he could only ask people to sit down.

I don’t know if they are really poor or pretending to be poor, but a few people still have patches on their bodies.

If it were someone else, he might be sad to see it. But Liu Yu also witnessed the disaster in Wendeng Prefecture that year, and just a patch was not enough to make him cry.

After being polite, just as Songjiang Prefect said, he directly talked about the cheap rice hurting farmers.

"Jinghou, Lord Fuyin. Now it's time for foreign ships to dock again. Nanyang rice has entered Songjiang, and the people have no way to survive."

"It is said among the people: Nanyang rice and Eastern wheat are piled up like mountains and as cheap as dung. Farmers are suffering and businessmen are laughing. This year, the harvest will be three to five dou more, and the loan debt will be increased by sixty or seven yuan. In the good year, we can only hope for a famine, and the price of rice will soar. So I can pay back the money..."

"Farmers are the foundation of the country. The low price of grain hurts the farmers. This is the ultimate principle of heaven and earth. Even though Marquis Jing rarely reads the books of sages, doesn't he know this truth?"

"The ancients said: Carving and carving harm the farm work; brocade compilation harms the female workers. Farming is ruined and female workers are injured, which is the root cause of hunger and cold."

"Nowadays, Songjiang Mansion is mainly engaged in carving and engraving, which are sold to the East; brocade compilation is sold to the West."

"If this wind becomes strong day by day, there will be great famine in the world and cold for all the people."

"I am here today, not for ourselves, but for the hundreds of thousands of people in Songjiang Prefecture, and for the tens of millions of people in the world."

"Everyone in Songjiang is seeking profit. If this trend spreads across the country, will all men go to work and women go to spin and embroider in the future? In the end, it will just accumulate mountains of gold and silver, and what's the use?"

Liu Yu originally wanted to ask directly, how much land does your family have?

But after thinking about it for a while, I felt that it was really cruel to ask this question. In any case, it is true that the development of industry and commerce in Songjiang Prefecture has greatly damaged the interests of the small farmers.

This is not to say that the development of industry and commerce caused the interests of the small farmers to be damaged, but was caused by the rise of overseas trade, the advancement of Dashun's navigation skills, and the supporting tax-free grain import system to ensure the development of industry and commerce in Songjiang Prefecture.

For industry and commerce, the cheaper the price of food, the better. Even if Dashun's labor costs are low, if it wants to maintain handicraft production, it must ensure that those who work do not starve to death so that they can continue to work.

Of course, because after the tax reform, physical taxes were replaced by monetary taxes on silver, the merchant class often lowered the price of rice during harvest.

Positively speaking, this is an inevitable trend in the development of commodity economy.

On the other hand, it is easier for farmers to go bankrupt than before.

This is not the farmer of later generations. It's too cheap and it's a big deal that we won't sell it.

At this time, small farmers have to pay taxes, rent, and repay debts. As soon as new rice comes, they have to sell it quickly to make money.

However, the root cause is still caused by land annexation and high land rent. However, this root cause cannot be cured at all, it is equal to nonsense, and there is no need to consider it.

Seeing that what the other person said was so reasonable, Liu Yurao felt a little impatient and could not refute it directly at this time.

"This officer is also aware of this matter. You are all people who read the books of sages and have the most benevolent and compassionate hearts. It is really beyond the reach of those businessmen who only know profit but not justice."

"I have some ideas for this matter. Let me tell you what you think?"

"The first step is to inventory the land and implement the method of permanent tenancy. The land rent in the fields will be reduced, and 35% of the harvest per acre will be the maximum rent limit. This is a temporary solution."

"The Northern Confucian's land equalization policy will be implemented again for thirty years. After thirty years, all the land will be owned by the tenants. This is the root cause."

"If the people suffer, then you gentry who read the books of sages will have to suffer too. How can the great principles of benevolence and righteousness be compared to the mere rent of land?"

"I think it's a good idea to try it out in Songjiang Prefecture. We can also ask the people first whether they are willing to endure the price reduction of foreign rice, but the land rent is reduced and they will keep it for 30 years? Or would they rather keep the current rent and taxes unchanged, but only import foreign rice?"

"Choose one of these two. The people's will cannot be violated."