I want to be emperor

After the successful conclusion of Luo Zhixue's northern tour in the second half of Chengshun 29, Luo Zhixue also returned to Jinling City and resumed his normal life and work rhythm.

But although the Northern Tour is over, the follow-up impact of the Northern Tour has just begun!
In particular, the issue of protecting the interests of workers has received a lot of attention. Luo Zhixue gave a public speech when he was still on the northern tour, and announced it to the whole world in the form of an imperial decree.

The imperial decree says that the interests of workers should be effectively protected.

To this end, several senior officials in the Great Chu Empire submitted memorials one after another, asking for a minimum wage and maximum working hours.

Regarding these memorials, Luo Zhixue always took the policy of staying in the middle and not publishing them.

But basically people with some political savvy will know that since the emperor has mentioned the issue of improving the welfare benefits of the workers, there will be no real opposition.

Today's stay in China is more about finding out the opinions of more subjects, considering the pros and cons, and finally coming up with a compromise plan acceptable to all parties.

Therefore, after Luo Zhixue returned to Jinling City, the center of the empire, there were still people in the local area paying attention to this matter.

The facts are the same as many people have guessed, Luo Zhixue definitely wants to improve the welfare of workers, this does not even mean that Luo Zhixue really cares about the poor workers.

But to better consolidate the ruling foundation of the empire!

Improving workers' welfare benefits involves the foundation of imperial rule, and this is not nonsense.

What is the ruling foundation of the Great Chu Empire?
If it was the early days of the empire, especially before the overthrow of the former Ming Dynasty, the answer would be unquestionable: the army!
Because the empire of the Great Chu Empire was actually established on the basis of the rural protection army back then, and later the three armies of the empire.

There is an army first, and then there is a country!
This is the fact, regardless of the many messy things you say, the country of the Great Chu Empire, Luo Zhixue's throne as the emperor, was built on the hundreds of thousands of troops back then.

All other measures, whether it is the development of industry and commerce, preferential treatment of farmers, land reclamation, water conservancy facilities and other measures, are all to better support the army in fighting.

This can be seen from the fact that military expenditures accounted for the vast majority of the central financial expenditures of the Great Chu Empire.

However, this situation gradually changed after the overthrow of the former Ming Dynasty, especially after the killing of the Eastern captives. Zhungeer was wiped out.

But in fact, since the overthrow of the former Ming Dynasty, the focus of the high-level work of the Great Chu Empire has actually shifted to the restoration of people's livelihood and the development of industry and commerce.

War is no longer mainstream.

To put it bluntly, at that time, the Great Chu Empire had changed from conquering the world to governing the world.

And how to govern the world?
This is a very macro issue, but if you put aside all the messy things, then it can be simply summed up as: maintain the rule!

Forcibly promote a unified agricultural tax, continue to carry out multi-year agricultural development plans, and improve farmers' living standards;

Suppress gentry and landlords, support new types of industry and commerce, and develop local economies.

Even to the subsequent continuous expansion and so on.

All this is in fact to maintain the rule.

And to maintain the rule, then you can’t make people resist, um, unwilling to resist and not daring to resist are both effects, you can use either.

Of course, the combination of the two works best.

Almost all internal and even external policies of the Great Chu Empire are based on these two points: the people are unwilling to resist and the people dare not resist!

The latter is relatively simple, just maintain a continuous high-pressure military deterrence!
Many ordinary people in the empire seldom pay attention to one point. Although the Great Chu Empire has continued to fight abroad in recent years, in fact, it has not sent many troops abroad. The Army of the Great Chu Empire alone has a scale of more than 150 million people.

Among the army of more than 150 million people, only a few thousand were sent to North America, only 3 to [-] were sent to Southeast Asia, and there were more in Burma, India and Africa, but only [-] to [-].

The troops stationed in overseas regions across the oceans add up to 10 people.

There are more frontier areas in the northwest, but Central Asia and West Siberia add up to more than [-] people.

So where are the remaining nearly 130 million troops deployed?
The hinterland of the empire!

The southwestern region, including Qingkang, Yunnan-Guizhou, and Sichuan, has more than 20 troops.

The Yangtze River Basin to the east of the Three Gorges is also a heavily fortified area for the military. More than 6 guards and more than 30 army troops are deployed along the banks of the Yangtze River.

Among them, Xiangyang, Hantian Wuchang, Changsha, Jiujiang, Anqing, Yingtianfu, Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, Jiangyin, and Wusong are all areas where the Chu army is heavily stationed, and each place will have at least a second-class standing division or even a first-class combat readiness division.

There are also Fujian and Zhejiang in the south of the empire, and the Guangdong and Guangxi regions also have a lot of troops.

Not to mention the north, Chang'an in Shaanxi, Zhengzhou in Henan, Xuzhou in Jiangbei, Tianjin in Hebei, and Shenyang in northeast China are all areas heavily defended by the Chu army.

It's not just the strategic locations, the defense areas of big cities, in fact, the Great Chu Empire will garrison a certain number of regular troops in every county, ranging from dozens to hundreds of people, although the local troops in these places are all C-level garrison troops , but still a regular army.

Why did the Great Chu Empire deploy such a large number of troops in the hinterland of the mainland?
Is it to defend against foreign enemies?
Stop being funny.

These days, how can any foreign enemy be able to hit the hinterland of the Great Chu Empire...

The more important role of these large numbers of regular troops is actually to suppress internally and deter all potential rebel forces.

The purpose of deploying an army of more than 100 million people is to tell those potential careerists and even some ordinary people who are dissatisfied with society: Don't make trouble, or your whole family's ashes will be taken away.

This is 'dare not to oppose'.

However, military repression and deterrence are only the last insurance, and they are even things that treat the symptoms but not the root cause. If you want to really maintain the rule for a long time, you still need to make people unwilling to rebel.

If you can live a good life, except for crazy and ambitious people, who would be willing to play rebellion?

The vast majority of ordinary people still hope to live in peace and stability. If life can be a little better, then it will be even better.

The series of domestic and foreign policies of the Great Chu Empire are actually driven around the goal of making people unwilling to rebel.

Formulate a unified agricultural tax, reduce the burden on farmers, support agricultural development, etc., it is not that the high-level officials of the Great Chu Empire really care about the life and death of these mud-legged people... They are the new dignitaries who are high above them, how can they really care about the life and death of these mud-legged people? .

Neither is a class of people!

The nobles of the empire improved the living standards of the peasants with a simple goal, to enable the peasants to survive, and even eat, drink, live and wear well, so that there would be no large-scale refugees or even rebels.

How did the Ming Dynasty fall?On the surface, it was overthrown by the Chu army, but in fact, before the rise of the Chu army, the Ming Dynasty was already riddled with holes. All the rebels in the northwest region were about to dig the roots of the Ming Dynasty... Even without Chu Army, according to the situation back then, the Shaanxi uprising army could finally force Chongzhen to death on Meishan.

These lessons, the high-level people of the Great Chu Empire can see clearly, so the high-level people of the Great Chu Empire are extremely vigilant against refugees and potential rebels, so once a certain place is hit by a disaster, the empire will be impatient. A kind of relief and relief, and even transfer the victims to other places for immigration.

It is to avoid the emergence of large-scale refugees, and thus avoid the emergence of insurgents.

Over the past 20 years, the Great Chu Empire has spared no effort to develop agriculture and improve the living conditions of farmers, and it has achieved certain results. At least there has not been a large-scale famine in the Great Chu Empire, let alone large-scale refugees.

Therefore, on the issue of farmers, the Great Chu Empire has been relatively successful.

Of course, it is not without cost. For example, in the pre-Ming period, all kinds of powerful landlords and gentry classes were suppressed and almost wiped out. Especially in the early years, the governments of various places in the Great Chu Empire found excuses to play against the landlords under their rule. Ransacking the family and exterminating the family... The most frequently used excuse is tax evasion.

The few remaining landlords were also forced to give up a large amount of land during this process and transferred to industry and commerce, and then evolved into a part of the new business class of the Great Chu Empire.

So strictly speaking, under the rule of the Great Chu Empire, there is no longer a class of landlords who own a large amount of land. At most, there are some small landlords and rich peasants.

And these disappearing landlord classes, their interests did not disappear, but were transferred to the peasants.

After many policies, the good living standards of the peasants in the Great Chu Empire are achieved. Although they will not completely get rid of poverty, and even a considerable number of peasant families cannot eat enough food all year round, they are still better than any traditional feudal dynasty. Times are much better.

And there will be a series of policy advancements in the future, and the sixth phase of the agricultural development plan will start next year.

As for the basic plate of farmers, the Great Chu Empire has a very firm grasp.

Needless to say, the new industrial and commercial class can develop because of the many supporting policies of the Great Chu Empire and the emphasis on industry and commerce. To some extent, they are actually the same group of people as the bureaucratic class in the Great Chu Empire.

What books do you read without money?What university do you want to take?What kind of official did you become without going to college?

The fees for secondary and higher education in the Great Chu Empire were very expensive.

As for the problem of class mobility, it is not a problem, because the education system of the Great Chu Empire also has a scholarship policy for poor and talented children. As long as you have enough ability, you can study for free all the way, then go into politics and business, and integrate into the Great Chu. Among the interest groups of the empire.

In other words, it is possible to continuously absorb talents from the bottom into the ruling class.

Without the talented people in the mud legs to take the lead, a group of mud legs who haven't read the book for a few days will not be able to rebel if they want to rebel!

Therefore, the talents in the mud legs, the emerging industrial and commercial groups, and the bureaucratic groups are actually the same group of people.

It belongs to the state of me in you and you in me.

In this case, although there will be conflicts of interest, they are all internal conflicts. As long as they are properly coordinated and handled, there will be no problems.

The peasants, the new business class, the bureaucratic class, plus a powerful class that is actually very small in number and seems to have a great influence, but actually has little influence, together constitute the various interest groups in the Great Chu Empire.

However, with the development of industry and commerce, a new interest group has emerged in the Great Chu Empire: workers!

In the beginning, there were actually not many workers, even hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of people were nothing.

After all, the population of the Great Chu Empire was more than 1 million in its early years, and the millions of workers back then were nothing compared to this huge population technology.

Even if they all rebel, the Great Chu Empire can mobilize an army to suppress them in minutes.

But in this situation, with the continuous development of industry and commerce in the Great Chu Empire and the continuous transformation of the economic structure, the output value of the secondary and tertiary industries accounted for an increasing proportion of the economy, and the corresponding population of the secondary and tertiary industries also increased. After more and more, then the problem will gradually become serious.

A million workers is nothing, but 100 million? What about 1000 million?Or even the next 5000 million?
To protect their interests in this way, or to put it more simply, how to ensure that they will not rebel, this is what Luo Zhixue focused on after this northern tour.

During this northern tour, Luo Zhixue saw many industrial cities, and saw that some cities had tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of workers. He was very pleased to see the rapid development of industry and commerce, but he was also very vigilant and even worried: so Once the interests of a large group of workers are suppressed for a long time, various dissatisfaction will arise.

In the beginning, they might just go on strike, but if there are ambitious people to instigate during this process, then the strike will turn into a riot. Once the riot becomes large-scale and normalized, it will become a rebel army... The uprising will also come up.

Even to a certain extent, the army and even senior bureaucrats will choose to acquiesce or even join them for their own interests. At that time, it will be time for the regime to change.

In the agricultural era, farmers were the main force of the uprising.

But in the industrial age, workers are the main force of the uprising.

This is determined by productivity. To be honest, Luo Zhixue didn’t notice this before. Instead, he focused his work on the peasant group for a long time, thus ignoring the worker group.

But after this trip to the north, Luo Zhixue felt that improving the welfare of the workers and appeasing the workers was very urgent.

Because there are already tens of millions of workers in the Great Chu Empire, and even more workers in the tertiary industry are counted. Among them, the number of workers at the bottom or people in the service industry is extremely large.

At the same time, the standard of living of the workers is not very good.

The industry and commerce of the Great Chu Empire is developing rapidly, and the economic growth rate is very good every year, but the living standards of the workers have not been improved correspondingly.

It seems that the wages have increased. For example, in the early years, the average monthly salary of ordinary workers in Songjiang Mansion was about two Chu yuan, but now it has reached four Chu yuan.

But the living expenses in Songjiang Mansion have also increased a lot, especially the local real estate prices have not only doubled, but several times.

At the same time, the prosperity of the empire's industrial and commercial economy has not only doubled, but has also doubled many times.

In other words, the workers did not actually enjoy the benefits brought about by the rapid development of industry and commerce in these years!
The uneven distribution of benefits, or the large gap between the rich and the poor, is a serious problem in the Great Chu Empire.

After more than 20 years of high-speed economic growth, the living standards of workers have not been greatly improved!
Most of the benefits of industrial development have been taken away by capital.

It even includes a large amount of official capital and royal capital.

Luo Zhixue didn't have a deep feeling before, but after this trip to the north, even if what he saw were superficial and even beautified things, after a series of data comparisons, Luo Zhixue could still perceive that the gap between the rich and the poor was too large problem has become more serious.

Although at present, the worker group does not have much self-awareness, when comparing life, they will compare it with the pre-Ming period or the early days of the founding of the country.

After comparison, I feel that the current way of life is still acceptable. That is because the workers of this generation were either born in the pre-Ming period or in the early days of the founding of the country.

They experienced a lot of hardships in the early days of their lives. At that time, it was a luxury to have enough food. Therefore, it is a rare life to be able to make themselves and their families barely enough to eat through hard work. They have already Satisfied.

But... what about the future?

After 20 years of Chengshun, how about these people who were born 30 years after Chengshun grow up?

When they grow up, the comparison of living standards is not in the pre-Ming period or the early days of the founding of the country, but in the 20s and 30s, when the imperial economy grew rapidly.

It is no longer their pursuit to be exhausted and barely have enough to eat, but a better life is their pursuit.

Human desires change with the times.

This also means that the economic policy of the empire must continue to innovate with the times!

You can't always satisfy people's desires, but you have to maintain a minimum balance.

Even, you can make everyone poor together, but you can't have people on one side who are so poor that they can't get rid of the pot, while people on the other side are eating hot food and drinking spicy food every day.

After all, people don't suffer from poverty but from inequality!

If the current wealth distribution model in the Great Chu Empire is still carried out in the old way, Luo Zhixue reckons that in his lifetime, he will probably see a large-scale worker uprising!

After all, no matter how well-developed the country is, no matter how good the economy is, it is of no use if the benefits do not fall on ordinary workers. Even if the gap between rich and poor grows, it will have a negative effect: arousing the anger and even resistance of the workers.

They will ask: the country is so powerful, and I have worked hard, why can't I still support my family?Let the children afford to go to school?

The average life expectancy is not even as good as that of farmers...

Where did all the money go?Who has taken away the benefits of the country's economic development?
They don't think too much, let alone think about the righteousness of the country and the nation. They don't hesitate to think that all the money has been stolen by the powerful and capitalists.

They will be dissatisfied and angry!
Then it evolved into situations that Luo Zhixue didn't want to see, such as strikes, swings, uprisings and the like.

Of course, these are the most extreme situations, and Luo Zhixue will not let this extreme situation happen.

Therefore, when he saw that the economy has grown rapidly in the past ten years, but the living standards of workers have not increased accordingly, he has noticed the problem and is ready to improve immediately!
This led to the original public speaking and the current initiative to set minimum wages and maximum working hours.

Luo Zhixue should also take the interests of workers into consideration, so that workers and peasants can become the foundation stone of the empire, rather than a floating unstable factor.

Farmers, workers, businessmen, and bureaucrats must be integrated together to maintain a basic balance, and there must be channels of circulation between them.

Only in this way can the interior of the empire be truly stabilized and maintain a state of rapid development.

These issues were the focus of Luo Zhixue's consideration and attention after returning to Jinling City.

After careful consideration, and after many courtiers submitted corresponding memorials one after another, Luo Zhixue finally decreed in December 29 of Chengshun to hold an enlarged meeting of the imperial councilors to discuss the establishment of the minimum wage standard and the maximum working hours. , labor contracts and a series of policies to protect the interests of workers.

After the news was announced, even though the meeting had not yet reached a result, it still caused a great commotion in the world, and the majority of workers shouted "Long live Your Majesty!"

From ancient times to the present, there has never been a ruler who really cared about the interests of the workers, until the current Emperor Luo Zhixue of the Great Chu Empire!