Red Mansion: I am Jia Lian

Chapter 588 Window Theory

The tense and depressing atmosphere was somewhat relieved by this little episode.

In principle, Jia Lian likes to abide by the law, and solving the problem legally is the root cause.

The problem is that abiding by the law often doesn't solve the problem! Grassroots gentry have countless ways to evade legal sanctions.

This is still a matter of ancient times. In modern times, there are still bizarre cases like that of Mr. Sun.

It is never a new thing for people in power to use their power to escape punishment. It has existed in ancient times, it has existed in modern times, and it has always existed.

"In any case, resisting land expropriation and convicting people of rebellion is unacceptable and unacceptable!" Lin Ruhai spoke decisively, leaving Jia Lian no chance to quibble.

Everyone finally felt Prime Minister Lin’s responsibility and directly denied it!

Lin Ruhai further explained: "Once this precedent is set, it will cause endless harm! If the person can exercise self-discipline, others will not be able to do so. Then the law is bound to be abused."

This is the truth, how could Jia Lian not understand it? If he understood it, why did he go to such trouble?

It is still Lu Xun's window opening theory that we should not make a bottom line right away. Never underestimate people's malice at any time.

"In this case, I cannot guarantee the progress of the project. The land acquisition alone may take three to five years or even longer." Jia Lian had to make the difficulties sound more serious.

Lin Ruhai didn't buy it and retorted directly: "Don't give me that. You are an important official in the court. What can the gentry below use to fight you? What can the gentry of a county use to fight a behemoth like the Railway Affairs Bureau? You have plenty of ways to achieve your goals."

Jia Lian did not speak, but turned to look at Qiu Shian. The old eunuch smiled and said, "The sage does not care about this matter. You gentlemen should discuss it."

Jia Lian's face was devoid of smiles, and he looked around at the gentlemen with a sullen look: "My lords, if you still have different opinions on Jia's report, please speak now, and don't settle the score later."

Everyone felt relieved. Jia Lian compromised. It was not easy. He was finally forced to bow his head. When he looked at Qiu Shian just now, everyone was worried.

After all, the emperor can be unreasonable!
"Is it necessary to have a railway protection team? Can't the safety along the way be handed over to the local government?" Yue Qi stood up and asked.

Jia Lian still had a dark face, and he was trying to restrain himself as he saw that his patience had reached its limit. He said, "A railway is thousands of miles long, and the counties are not subordinate to each other. If there is a problem at the junction of two counties or even two provinces, who should we turn to? Can the efficiency of the local government be guaranteed? If the railway is delayed due to the delay of the local government, who will be held responsible for the loss? Will it be yours? Prime Minister Yue!"

Yue Qi just struggled a little bit, but when it was fruitless he shut up and sat down.

At this time, everyone was tactful and stopped asking questions, and Jia Lian was about to explode.

If you really offend someone, Jia Lian's temper will torment you for the rest of your life.

After about five minutes of silence, Lin Ruhai said, "Since there are no more objections, the Railway Safety Law and Operation System submitted by the Railway Affairs Bureau are officially approved."

Although many people felt that something was not right, no one dared to object at this time.

In fact, what everyone is more concerned about is the public announcement, which is disgusting.

As a result, the questioning meeting had just begun, and the matter came to an end. No one would offend Jia Lian, a minister who was destined to enter the cabinet, for the benefit of the public.

"In that case, Jia Lian will take his leave. There are a lot of things waiting to be dealt with in the capital, and I am not as relaxed as you gentlemen." Jia Lian folded his hands coldly and left. No one spoke to keep him.

After Jia Lian left, the Minister of Revenue said quietly, "It is not appropriate to make this public announcement. What do you think?"

This time, Li Qing directly confronted him: "Why didn't you say it just now? It's hindsight!"

In this way, the first formal state-owned enterprise law was introduced. Of course, in ancient times, they were not called state-owned enterprises, but government-run enterprises.

The reality is that with this beginning, all state-owned enterprises will be governed by this bill in the future.

The contents of the bill were announced to the whole country in the form of a gazette, and were immediately reprinted by newspapers across the country.

The majority of the public were in favor of the bill, and because it was born out of the railways, it was also called the Railway Law.

The Railway Affairs Bureau is essentially a state-owned enterprise, so its efficiency is still very high. Before the summer was over, the relevant rules for the purchase of stocks were issued to the public through official newspapers and private newspapers. First of all, because there were too many people who wanted to buy stocks, a lottery was adopted. Anyone who wanted to buy stocks could go to the operation hall of the Railway Bureau to buy a subscription ticket first. There was a number on the subscription ticket, which could be used to participate in the lottery. Those who won the lottery could purchase the first batch of stocks to be withdrawn, and those who did not win the lottery would enter the next round of lottery.

Each subscription voucher is worth ten silver dollars, which can be used to purchase stocks of the same price. The subscription vouchers are limited in purchase, and each person is only allowed to purchase ten subscription vouchers. The Railway Bureau will sell subscription vouchers in the first phase in the three cities of Beijing, Jinling, and Guangzhou. Please prepare relevant identity certificates. Once cheating in identity certificates is discovered, severe punishment will be imposed.

After the Railway Bureau issued the first announcement, the world was shocked and it once again sparked heated debate.

The focus of the debate is often like this: [Is Shandong not worthy of buying stocks?] [Is the Central Plains, a vast land with a history of thousands of years, not even on the list? How sad!]

Anyway, all the provinces and cities that were not selected jumped out to sing sad songs, but no one cared about these boring groans.

Rich people tend to go out in advance and go to three cities to wait for the sale of the first batch of stock subscription coupons.

Suddenly, the three cities were crowded with people from other places, and people were everywhere trying to find connections to get IDs. For the people in Beijing, it didn't matter if they didn't have money to buy stocks, they could make a small fortune by selling IDs.

Well, I don't know who was smart enough to lead the way, but the people of the capital city were applying for identity certificates. For a while, the county offices under Shuntian Prefecture were lined with people like long queues, all of whom were applying for identity certificates.

So who is the smart guy who took the lead in doing this? Take a guess!
The answer is obvious. Naturally, it was Jia Lian who came up with the idea, and the people who implemented it were Jia Rong and Ni Er.

They bought ID cards from citizens at a "high price" of one silver dollar, and then hoarded them in their hands, waiting for the price to rise. The two of them took the initiative and hoarded tens of thousands of ID cards. After the popularity of ID cards was aroused, they stopped and waited for the price to rise before selling them, making a small profit.

In the cabinet, after Lin Ruhai "discovered" this, he immediately held a meeting and demanded that Shuntian Prefecture must make good use of this opportunity to reorganize the Yellow Book of the capital and basically find out the population situation of the capital and Shuntian Prefecture. This can be regarded as a less formal population census. After Emperor Chenghui learned about this, he was also amazed and said to Lin Ruhai: "Buqi has a good brain and can think of such an idea. I have tried to reorganize the Yellow Book many times, but there was a lot of opposition from both the upper and lower levels. After the land tax was distributed, the situation has improved slightly, but it is not enough."

Lin Ruhai said: "There are many hidden families among the people, so take your time. Find as many as you can."

This was the case in ancient times. If you wanted to conduct a census, unless the emperor of the founding of a country did it under the opportunity of equal distribution of land, there would be no chance to do it later.

Don't even mention the ancient times, there are still illegal immigrants in modern times.

It can only be said that the hidden household registration in the agricultural era was indeed a very serious problem. Without a household registration, people could not have a travel permit, and without a travel permit, they could not leave their hometown to make a living.

One of the most important foundations of industrialization is labor, and modern society cannot solve the problem that individual laborers have very low bargaining power.

As Jia Lian, he can only look at the overall situation, and cannot be compared with the modern Dongda, which was first a bloody and cruel armed struggle, and then a social revolution to lay the foundation.

Everyone talks about the demographic dividend, but how can there be a dividend without a well-educated population?

Of course, this problem did not exist in the era when Jia Lian lived. After all, as a worker, anyone with hands and feet could go to the factory and work like a slave.

There are many frustrations, and Jia Lian is helpless. All he can do is to develop first and leave the problems to future generations to solve. If future generations cannot solve them, the problems will eventually explode, and then there will be another Li Zicheng.

As a secular country, it really has this confidence. Otherwise, how could the Qing Dynasty have turned into such a B-like country and turned things around?
A few years ago, the cultural heritage was truly unique in the world. For a country that had not experienced secularization, the possibility of industrialization was almost zero.

(PS: Luke Wen has a video on Bilibili, about Iran. When he talked about revolution, I commented that how could a regime with this kind of faith have a social revolution? There is no soil for it!)
The subscription vouchers are meant to increase the income of the people in Beijing. After all, this money is in the hands of the poor and will definitely be spent.

It is actually very difficult for rich people to spend money because they are a minority group and no matter how much they spend, it is difficult to affect the basic foundation of society.

So, the gap between the rich and the poor in a country is widening, and this is the early sign of a serious illness.

This matter caused a lot of commotion. It was not until early August that the Railway Bureau launched the first batch of stock subscription coupons, targeting the Beijing-Liaoning Railway, that is, from Beijing to Liaoyang.

The Railway Administration cooperated with various banks to sell subscription coupons at various counters and deposit the funds into accounts. The banks were naturally enthusiastic about cooperating, and they wanted to see more of this good thing.

The banks almost came to blows in their fight to win over this big client, but the Railway Bureau stepped in to settle the matter, and everyone got a share.

When it comes to economic development, the benefits it brings to banks are not obvious from the outside. For the capital, the biggest changes are outside the city.

Many new buildings and communities have emerged in the section from Tongzhou to the capital in the east and from Changxindian to the capital in the south.

To put it bluntly, the population of the capital is constantly increasing. Excluding the permanent population, the number of foreign population is increasing visibly.

After the completion of the Beijing-Tianjin Railway, this trend became more and more obvious. As housing prices in the city rose, more and more people had to choose to live outside the city.

Through this subscription opportunity, Shuntian Prefecture roughly got a feel for the situation. The number of permanent residents from outside the capital has reached 300,000. These people are mainly concentrated in factories and mines in the suburbs. Most of them come from the counties under Shuntian Prefecture and choose to live in the suburbs because of job opportunities.

The completion of the railway still had a significant impact on the canal, but this was inevitable. The unemployed people along the canal had to find other ways to make a living. The once busy Tongzhou wharf has become much quieter over the past year. Although there are still many ships docking, they cannot compare with the masts that blocked out the sun a year ago.

The horse and carriage business was also affected, and their business was not as good as before. In the past, coal shipped from Kailuan had to be landed in Tongzhou, and the distance to the capital was entirely transported by horse and carriage. Now it is transported directly to the city gate by rail. As the defense building of the capital, the city wall has hindered the smooth flow of logistics inside and outside the capital to a certain extent at this time, which is also helpless.

There are some benefits, that is, the prices of coal, iron, grain and oil in the capital have shown a clear downward trend. For ordinary people, this is a great benefit.

The drop in oil prices was mainly caused by the King of Dongping. He planted a large amount of soybeans, which required little management and saved labor, so he planted a lot and harvested a lot. There was so much that people and livestock could not consume it all, and there was still a lot left, so he had to use it to press oil.

Soybean oil has a bit of a fishy smell, but it is cheap. If it is shipped to Beijing and sold, it will double the profit. The people of Beijing warmly welcome the emergence of this low-priced oil. The R&D Department also signed a huge purchase agreement with the King of Dongping, saying that it was to help the local industry of the King of Dongping, but in fact it was used for industrial production. The soybean meal produced by oil extraction further promoted the development of the breeding industry in Northeast China.

These products rely on quantity and can only be transported by water for the time being, so King Dongping has an urgent need for railways.

In the 19th year of Chenghui, when the economy of the Zhou Empire was developing rapidly, the Ottoman Empire, far away at the junction of the Eurasian continent, was in a passive position on the battlefield.

The only rifled musket unit in hand became a firefighter, going wherever there was danger. Coupled with a certain advantage in artillery, the two sides were really deadlocked for a while.

Overall, Tsarist Russia had the advantage, and the Ottoman Empire was still not as strong as its opponent.

At the critical moment, Ibrahim's fleet returned to Istanbul. After dozens of ships docked, they attracted a large crowd of onlookers.

When the people learned that a large amount of arms had arrived from the Zhou Empire, they cheered loudly.

Don't underestimate these tens of thousands of guns and one hundred cannons. Based on this, a part of the Ottoman Empire Pasha's guards completed the refit at the fastest speed, and gave the Austrians a surprise in their first performance on the battlefield. The fierce artillery fire combined with the accurate shooting of rifled rifles caused the 20,000 Austrian troops to suffer heavy losses in the field battle and were beaten to flee in embarrassment.

Pasha's victorious Guards were awarded the title of the First Guards Army and were subsequently sent to the Caucasus region.

The battlefield, which had been in a stalemate, was greatly affected by the addition of this new force.

The First Guards Army won victory after victory, defeating the main Russian corps in field battles one after another, forcing the Russian army to retreat 30 kilometers, and only relying on a few fortresses to maintain the situation on the battlefield.

Tsarist Russia urgently launched diplomatic activities in the hope of gaining support from Europe, but the result went against its wishes. At this moment, Europe was on the eve of a storm.

In France, one of the most important powers in Europe, the conflict between Louis XVI and the parliament has intensified, and the old revolutionary base is now a powder keg that may explode at any time.

The other powerful country, Britain, naturally paid close attention to the political situation in France, and no one cared about the life or death of the Tsarist Russians.

(End of this chapter)