New Shun 1730

The whaling industry and the development of kerosene are closely related to the demand of the textile industry.

The factory certainly hopes to work 14 hours a day.

Even under the subcontracting system of Songjiang Prefecture, rural women still have to work during the busy farming season. Spinning yarn at night requires light.

It is definitely expensive for a family to light a lamp, and lamp oil is also a considerable expense, so there is a situation where the Zhang family today and the Li family tomorrow.

Each family lights a lamp once, rotating every day.

This is probably the real life of the middle peasant level at this time. Some misers in novels still extend two fingers before they die to save lamp oil and candles, because this stuff is really expensive.

Ordinary people hold steamed buns in their hands and there is no drop of oil in the dishes. This is considered a good life.

Just like in the kitchens of rural areas at this time, there is generally a copper coin.

A wooden stick will be tied to this copper coin. If there are guests, when making soup, this copper coin will be used to probe into the sesame oil bottle. Everyone knows that Brother Kong Fang is empty and exposed in the middle. Because it is hollow, this thing is used to add sesame oil, and only a little bit is added each time. And at this time, there is a "good-intentioned pseudo-common sense of life" in Dashun rural areas, that is: if too much sesame oil is added, it will not be fragrant at all, and the less the more fragrant it is.

If eating oil is like this, how can you bear to light a lamp?

Even though the family's identity as a tenant farmer is fake, and they are actually middle-class tenant farmers, they are reluctant to light a lamp at night.

However, even so, it is much better than the tenant farmers in the northern rural areas that Liu Yu saw in Wendeng Prefecture.

Listening to this farmer talking about growing cotton in the future, and worrying that the profits from growing cotton and mulberry in the future will be too much so that the landlords will raise the low price, Liu Yu thought that this is probably possible, and your worries are not unreasonable.

However, this also reminded Liu Yu of one thing, that is, the special situation in Dashun. Small landlords may be able to operate independently, but large landlords are unlikely to operate independently.

It is not impossible to do this. A large number of skilled middle peasants have become the main force in renting and leasing land. The real poor peasants and tenant farmers were squeezed out and went bankrupt, either to work or to go to Southeast Asia with a 50% mortality rate.

This was contrary to some of his previous plans.

Originally, he thought that the loan interest rate in Europe was so low, and the loan interest rate in Dashun was so high, could he use this interest rate difference to make some loans to help farmers.

Wang Anshi's Qingmiao Law was bound to fail in its full promotion, because small farmers had the lowest repayment ability. But Liu Yu thought that maybe he could try it in some slightly developed economic areas, with low-interest loans from Europe, as long as he could guarantee 15% interest and give European financial capital a 10% return rate, both sides would be able to accept it.

He still had a lot of respect for Wang Jinggong, although he knew that what he did was really difficult to implement, and even banks in later generations knew that it was best not to lend to small farmers who had no repayment ability. But sometimes thinking about it, looking at the miserable lives of small farmers, he still wanted to try to do something.

However, I am afraid that after it is done, the money will not go to the land, but to places with higher profit margins. The deposit required for the rent-back system has risen rapidly.

This is like having your cake and eating it too.

If you want to do redemption, reclamation, equal distribution of land, permanent tenancy, or even serf liberation similar to that in Russia, this kind of bank that helps farmers in rural areas should be feasible.

But if you want to do rent-back, mortgage, and land transfer management rights, it seems useless: the fake tenants who get the management rights will not blindly take loans, and basically do not need them; and the real tenants who have no money to rent-back may not be able to repay the loans at all, even if the interest rate is as low as 15%.

Liu Yu himself knew that the system of thirty-year redemption was just a mouthful.

If the upper system cannot be moved, then this kind of bank is meaningless. If you really want to do thirty-year redemption, the Qingmiao Law is very useful.

Dashun continued the call for "permanent tenancy" at the end of the previous dynasty. If you want to implement it, you can only rely on the power of government bureaucrats to force it to be promoted.

But the government bureaucrats are all against permanent tenancy because they are the class that collects land rent.

In this way, it seems that the rent-deposit system that appeared in Songjiang Prefecture does not require government coercion, but is the landlord's active choice, which seems to be more feasible.

Liu Yu did not rebel, but was within the system, which led to him dancing with shackles. In some policies, he had to consider the interests of the ruling class and whether they could accept it first.

Is there a way to promote this rent-deposit system faster? Can we use Western European financial capital to host a bank for middle peasants, lend money to middle peasants, and deposit rent to landlords, so that a large amount of funds can be transferred to landlords, and then from landlords to industrial and commercial investment, and by the way, complete the promotion of the rent-deposit system in one prefecture, accelerate the bankruptcy of poor tenants, go to work or go to Southeast Asia?

If it is purely commercial considerations, we only need to make the interest of this bank higher than the expected return on investment of European financial capital. This is quite simple.

But things that are not a problem in theory often have big problems in reality.

Who is responsible for selecting who is eligible to get a loan? Who can guarantee that the landlords will not use these low-interest loans to invest, rather than preventing the land operators who really need loans from getting the money?

When the government lends money, how can it make the loans flow in the direction the government wants? This is a difficult problem that will be a headache for future generations.

With the grassroots organizational capabilities of Dashun at this time, I am afraid that the real world can be turned into a magical world.

Thinking of this, Liu Yu tentatively asked the farmer: "If the court runs a bank and lends money to you at an interest rate of 15% per year, would you be willing to borrow money to mortgage more land?"

The householder shook his head hurriedly.

"Sir, we are a small family, and we care about how big the bowl is. If the grain price is high, I can save some money and mortgage more land. My wife can do some weaving and save money on weekdays. If the year is good, I can also save a few coins."

"But if I borrow money, I will feel uneasy. The grain price is low, so I dare not borrow money."

"Nowadays, we are afraid of both good years and bad years. In good years, grain is cheap, and in bad years, there is no harvest..."

"As for planting cotton and mulberry, it is okay to plant less cotton, but if you plant too much, how can you handle it? Once it rains during cotton harvest, it is too busy to handle the work, and all the work of a year is wasted. How can you earn money from mulberry planting in two or three years? If you borrow money, the interest in these three to five years will double. Who knows what the market will be like in three to five years? "

"Therefore, if you have extra money, you can pledge the rent; if you don't have extra money, don't even think about borrowing to make a fortune."

"Besides, all loans must have collateral. We are all tenants, not even the skin or bones of the land. We don't have any land, and the land belongs to others. How can we borrow money?"

It seems that the middle peasants with a little ability don't want to take out loans. It may also be that the ancient tradition of usury in the Celestial Empire has made people generally afraid of loans.

The term "nine out and thirteen back" can only appear after the Ming Dynasty, because the official legal annual interest rate in the Song Dynasty was 72%, so there was no need to pay nine out and thirteen back. Since ancient times, the interest rate that can make people ruined, I think the farmers' concerns about this new thing are inevitable, and it is not so easy to change social consciousness.

Liu Yu knew that if he continued to talk, he would probably talk about the grain price issue that farmers were most concerned about, so he had to change the topic.

Indeed, although cotton is good, Dashun has neither slaves nor full-time workers. Unless the transformed agricultural capital operators hire long-term and short-term workers, small peasant families really can't grow much cotton.

If they grow too much, once the cotton bolls crack and it rains, it's all over.

Sericulture is more troublesome than cotton.

Small farmers can't afford the costs involved.

So in the end, the main income still needs food. Food imports guarantee low costs for industry and commerce. If the small peasant class is not dissatisfied, then hell.

Although Songjiang Prefecture has developed industry and commerce, the number of urban residents who are truly separated from the land is still less than that of small farmers. Although the sheer economic volume, industry and commerce are already higher than agriculture, but if you count the number of people, the power of small farmers cannot be ignored. It is still necessary to boil the frog in warm water, and gradually force small farmers to either become land operators or go bankrupt, otherwise the grain price issue will never satisfy most people.

After chatting for a few more words, the attendant who went to prepare wine and food came back.

Before eating, Liu Yu looked at the abandoned baby adopted by the tenant farmer. The little girl was pink and chubby, and she didn't have any problems such as cleft lip, nor any disabilities, but the family couldn't afford to raise her.

Maybe it was because the woman in this family had enough milk, the little girl looked healthy and not so miserable. But this fate is already doomed. If nothing unexpected happens, she will be raised as a daughter-in-law since she was a child, and she will inevitably be bullied in the future. Not to mention that there is no support from parents and brothers and uncles, even if there is, how many mother-in-law and daughter-in-law have a good relationship?

After eating, Liu Yu wanted to throw some silver. But after thinking about it, he finally left nothing.

After leaving the tenant farmer's door and leaving the village, Songjiang Prefecture Yin heard that Liu Yu had never asked about the price of grain from beginning to end, and he didn't bring up any pot.

In the next few days, Liu Yu went to several nearby villages again. I went to the homes of landlords, self-cultivating farmers, and real tenants.

After turning around, a naval officer who was accompanying me to return to Beijing to report suddenly said, "Marquis Jing, I have come up with a solution. Although the taxes of the court are low now, the taxes of the people are heavy. In this case, why doesn't the court directly collect 11% tax? It is still paid to the national treasury according to the original amount, and the majority of the rest will be left in the local area. Above this amount, no random collection is allowed. In this way, the expenses of local service, welcoming errands, and carriages and horses are all paid from the intercepted part, isn't that enough?"

"The ancients said that admiring false reputations leads to real disasters. Why does the court have to have the name of benevolent governance of 30% tax? I think if it can really achieve 10% tax, or even 8% tax, or 5% tax, it will reduce the burden on the people."

"When we attacked Japan before, Japan often collected five officials and five civilians, but Even so, as long as the five officials and five people can be guaranteed, I think their lives may not be worse than the real tenant farmers of this dynasty. "

"Now the court collects 30% tax and 1 billion mu of land. It is said that 0.03 taels of silver are collected per mu of land, which is 30 million taels of agricultural tax. But in reality, how can the court collect so much?"

"The court's agricultural tax is only 20 million a year, but the burden on the people is not lighter than the five officials and five people of Japan. This may be a great disaster for the country."

"Since local officials and gentry are corrupt, levied additional taxes, and increased taxes in the name of national taxes, then the direct 11th tax and 81st tax are still originally escorted to the national treasury. Let them take the rest and spend it. I think it is better than the current reputation of 30% tax and making people miserable."

Liu Yu couldn't help laughing and said, "What a bullshit idea! Come on, just do your old job, draw sea charts, and study warship formations. For this matter, your ideas are not much different from the land equalization method of the great scholars in the north. It sounds good, but it's a mess to implement."