Lu Ming

Chapter 318 Land Policy
"how is the situation?"

Seeing Mi Shuo enter the door, with a square face and big ears, Liang Letian, who was leaning on a desk full of documents, asked with a smile.

"There are joys and sorrows!" Mi Shuo sat down on the chair: "The seedlings are in good condition, but Huo Xiong caught him and promised 2 mu of feed fields."

Liang Letian laughed when he heard the words: "Sooner or later, wouldn't it be fine if you promised him earlier?"

"The problem is that in this way, the pressure on the 30 mu of new land we originally planned will be much greater."

"Yeah, there's a lot of pressure." Since Liang Letian became a cabinet minister, he has lost a lot of his time.

He leaned back in the chair, rubbed the center of his brows with his fingers, and said in a helpless tone, "In the morning meeting, I specifically talked to Zou Guoqing. The problem now is not only the tractor, but another accident happened in the chemical plant two days ago , Six of the sulfuric acid production lines died in one breath, the scene was... ugly, and now the entire line is shut down for maintenance.”

"Damn it." Mi Shuo, who has always been kind-hearted, couldn't help scolding his mother after hearing the news: "It's raining all night when the house leaks!"

Sulfuric acid is the raw material for the production of quick-acting phosphate fertilizers. Struvite needs to react with sulfuric acid to change from slow-release fertilizers to normal phosphate fertilizers that are easily absorbed by plants.

Among the three major fertilizers of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, nitrogen and potassium, which are difficult to collect as raw materials, need not be mentioned. The process of synthesizing sulfuric acid from sulfuric acid from Taipei volcano + guano from islands to synthesize phosphate fertilizer was originally the only stable fertilizer in the kiln area. Supply routes - although this poor phosphate fertilizer production is less than 1 tons.

It's good now, the sulfuric acid production line has stopped, and Mi Shuo immediately realized that the phosphate fertilizer will also be finished.

After cursing, Mi Shuo asked again: "What about the tractor?"

"It is said that the combustion chamber pressure research team failed. I don't really understand. Anyway, the delivery of the promised 10 tractors has to be delayed."

When Mi Shuo heard this, he was powerless to complain.

In later generations, a large tractor pulling an 8-meter-long folding plow can plow 180 mu of land in one hour.In other words, three acres of land can be cultivated every minute.However, the gas tractors made by Transit can only plow 50 mu of land per hour, and the efficiency is not even a fraction of that of others.

This kind of scene of tractor plowing the land cannot be seen in most parts of the country in later generations.Still the same sentence: Only cattle can be used in mountainous areas.A small number of large plains like the Northeast also involve issues of land rights—unless the land of an entire village or township is contracted, and then small private plots are combined to form a large field, no one will buy a tractor to plow the field.

The current situation faced by the time-traversing people is exactly the opposite of that of the later generations: there is too much land, a large area of ​​wasteland, and far from enough tractors.As for private owners, there is no such thing at all. Here again, the issue of land policy is involved.

Theoretically speaking, all the arable land in the Tainan Plain now has land rights allocated by the government to the Grain Corporation.Therefore, as the legal person of the head office, Mi Shuo is the number one landowner in Tianzi in name: Tainan has a total area of ​​more than 4000 square kilometers, which translates to 600 million mu of arable land.

Of course, one day in the future, the Grain Corporation will definitely divide the family property. In a capitalist society, if you don’t distribute the family property to the cross-travelers, what do you guys start with?
So even now, the crossing regime has not rejected private individuals to buy land: the ultimate goal of the crossing people is to divide the plains into private farms similar to North America, so as long as someone comes to buy, the general landowners are welcome.Otherwise, the gentlemen will plow those millions of acres of land by themselves?
Yes, anyone can buy land from the grain company and become a landlord—as long as they meet the requirements.

what request?The first is of course rich.

The starting price for selling farms here is 500 mu, while the grain company's warm recommendation starts at 2000 mu.Therefore, 99.99% of the poor immigrants who came to Dayuan could not afford to buy a farm.

However, a small number of rich locals and merchants with silver dare not buy them.

Different from the land in Tu Lao Cai's concept, the farms in Chuan Zhong are not for Lao Cai to recruit and rent.On the land here, not to mention that tenants could not be hired at all, even if they were hired, Lao Cai's family would have to beg for food after the end of a grain season.

Yes, a certain government's tax rate for private farms is set according to one farmer + several temporary workers.

That is to say, the farmer’s family hires a tractor to plow the land, buys pesticides and fertilizers, and then uses mechanized harvesting to harvest 2000 mu of land. After paying all the costs and taxes, it is just a rich farmer, or a middle-class family.

This situation is very common in the United States in later generations: rednecks who own private ranches or farms are all millionaires, but their assets are real estate, and liquidity is very scarce.

Most of the farmers are owed loans from the banks. In the event of natural or man-made disasters, these wealthy people will also lose their ancestral family property.

And the few laocai who went to Dayuan are now facing this situation: under the land policy designed by Chuanzhong, Laocai's inefficient tenant + hoe model will go bankrupt in the first year after buying the land.

So after studying the land policy, all the enthusiastic Lao Cai knelt down—they couldn't understand this strange land policy, and most people thought it was a trick of the local government to cheat money.

You know, a family of high-efficiency farmers, enjoying the harvest of 2000 mu of land to themselves live so tensely, and the old rich continue to mess with the tenants, that is certain death.

In fact, besides a little money in his pocket, Lao Cai is also an ordinary family with no power or power. Fame and fame in the Ming Dynasty are not available to high officials, and he does evil, let alone think about running rampant in the countryside.

So now the situation is twisted.

The grain company can't wait to sell all the open fields to private farmers, and they are only responsible for providing technical support.However, apart from the poor ghosts here, there are old riches full of old ideas. There is no new type of farmer with knowledge, technology, and financial resources that the traveler expects.
So the land has never been sold.

This is why Mi Shuo and the others have a headache: the whole society is too new and immature, lacking a qualified middle class.In this way, those who have resources can't concentrate on upgrading their technology, and can only bury their heads in plowing and opening up wasteland. This is actually a waste of time travellers.

After hearing the two bad news, Mi Shuo had a headache and was already thinking about the way out: "Oh, if this is the case, then we can only reduce the number of acres for land reclamation."

However, Liang Letian sat up from the chair at this time instead: "No, not only can't it be reduced, but the land reclamation area must be expanded!"

"Loss outside the embankment is repaired within the embankment!" Liang Letian stood up and walked around the room with his hands behind his back when he said this: "If the fertilizer can't keep up, the planting area should be expanded. If you do a good job in field management, no matter what you say, it will be better than that in the Ming Dynasty." Those arable lands are highly productive."

Having said this, Liang Letian raised his hand to look at his watch: "Today is too late, I have a lot of things to do here, let's go down and have a look around tomorrow."

Mi Shuo nodded and went out the door.After Liang Letian took a short break, he was immersed in endless paperwork and meetings.

Originally, according to his temperament, it was just right to take a field trip as soon as he said it.But not now: by the end of 1628, the number of permanent residents under the control of the Chuanzhong had soared to 40, and the number of floating population was also more than 5.

Even in later generations, 45 people is the population of a standard county.To manage these populations, it is necessary to have some off-duty cadres who sit in the office. For example, the cabinet ministers, such as some supporting clerks.

This is not bureaucracy.When the scale of a power reaches a certain level, there will inevitably be full-time civil servants.Liang Letian can no longer be the same as before, wandering in the fields, with a few subordinates behind him to work on the spot.

Early the next morning, the two set off from the Chikan District Government, still sitting on a three-wheeler, with the office director.

From Chikan all the way to the east, after passing through a large number of residential areas, as the road surface material degenerated from asphalt to cinders and gravel, fields with various plants appeared on both sides of the road.

Since the Tainan Plain in this period was still very primitive, and the coastal land near the strait was all saline land and lagoons, so the land that crossing people chose to reclaim was gathered on the plain between the central mountain range and the coast—the mountains The adjacent land is also unsuitable for agricultural activities due to the underlying rock formations.

In other words, the Chikan District and a large number of residential quarters built along the Taijiang River today are all built on saline land without encroaching on farmland.

So when the crops appeared on the side of the road, the tricycle had actually driven nearly 10 kilometers eastward from the beach.

There are many varieties of crops on the roadside: rice, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, sugar beets, soybeans, sugar cane, sorghum, barley... and so on.

In short, there are test fields allocated here for crops from all over the world, whether they are Ming or Western, whether they are indigenous or imported.

These experimental fields for almost all crops were started last year when Liang Letian and Mi Shuo first arrived in Dayuan.

This is a homework that must be done: there is no record in history about the climate and soil conditions of Tainan after 1627; Make adjustments above.

The Dutch who were entrenched here in the original time and space recorded some simple weather data in their diaries, but the content of this information is too simple, far from meeting the requirements of Liang Letian and Mi Shuo, who used to be agricultural technicians.

After more than a year of cultivation and planting, the food company has mastered detailed data on Tainan's soil, climate, water conservancy and other aspects.It can be said that these data are the basis for the smooth growth of various field crops in the future.

Looking at the farmland passing by along the way, smelling the fruit smell of various crops, the two travelers who were riding on the electric tricycle felt much better at the moment.

After waving his hand to signal the car to stop randomly on the side of the road, Liang Letian stood on a ridge of soybean fields full of vines, stomped his feet vigorously, then raised his head and said, "I think the old method is still reliable. All new fields are sowed for the first time, and the varieties are the same. Choose soybeans, and ignore other crops."

(End of this chapter)