The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 399 Cui Guodong's purchase of land and Zhu Jingkun's report
Cui Guodong didn't have to go to Tongzhou in person to buy the land. He could have just written a letter of authorization, and even Ko Sidi didn't have to go in person.

But Kosidi wants to use his and his uncle's status to choose the most suitable place possible.

At the same time, I planned to take my uncle to understand the market situation and explain to him on the spot why he should buy that land, so I took my uncle there in person the next day.

Both men's wives stayed at home, but each took his older son out to broaden his horizons.

The two families still took the bus provided by the supply company to Tongzhou. Along the way, Kosidi introduced and analyzed the surrounding situation to his uncle.

In the area near Shuntian Prefecture, most of the area is still large farmland.

There are only a few large buildings scattered on both sides of a few main roads, which are various tertiary industry facilities developed by the imperial court and private businessmen.

Moreover, these buildings become increasingly sparse as they get farther away from Shuntian Prefecture City, but become slightly more numerous as you get closer to Tongzhou City.

It was not until they passed through the Tongzhou urban area and came to the east of the old Tongzhou city wall that the buildings suddenly became densely packed.

Although the houses still did not fill the entire field as far as the eye could see, there were already houses of all kinds everywhere.

Kosidi introduced it to his uncle:
“The houses in the east of Tongzhou are almost all residential, while the houses in the west of the city, including Shuntianfu, are almost all commercial buildings.

"However, the commercial buildings near Tongzhou basically supply the local demand of Tongzhou, while those under Shuntianfu city supply Shuntianfu."

Cui Guodong was a little confused about this situation, and his son Cui Deren asked directly:
"Brother, since the land in the east of Tongzhou can be bought at any time to build houses, and the land in the west of the city can be bought at any time for business, it seems that there is no shortage of land.

"Why can we make money by buying land here now? We can just buy it directly if other people use the land."

Kosidi smiled and said:
“From an outsider’s perspective, this is indeed the case. Now, even if ordinary people come to Tongzhou directly, they have the opportunity to buy land directly.

“But the land around Tongzhou City will soon be sold out, or at least the land available will become increasingly remote.

“If we wait a few more years, the land around Tongzhou City will be full of houses. Even if it is not, there will be no land left to buy.

"So if I can get a few plots of land in good locations before this, I can just sit back and collect money in a few years."

Cui Deren asked uncertainly:
"Cousin, is your judgment really infallible?"

Kosidi explained with a smile:

“I’m not making this judgment out of thin air. I work for a supply company and I can directly see the actual data here.

“Now every year…even every month, more and more outsiders come to Tongzhou to buy land, and the growth rate is getting faster and faster.

"The companies that manage the land and houses here are starting to recruit more people and transfer them here..."

Cui Guodong already understood that this was actually internal intelligence:

"Then hurry up and buy it. Is there much land left to buy in the suburbs of Tongzhou, or even in Tongzhou city?"

Kosidi immediately explained:

“Tongzhou City was too small, and the land inside the city was occupied by government factories and banks from the beginning, and there was basically no land left in the suburbs on the east and west sides of the city.

“But there is still land in the north and south suburbs. The land in the north and south suburbs is actually better, especially the land in the south suburbs. However, the land is planned to be large blocks and will not be broken up into small pieces for sale.

“People who don’t have enough status or assets have no chance and can’t buy it.

“Most of the nobles with high enough status already have houses in the outer city, so not many of them are thinking of buying land in Tongzhou for the time being.

"That's why I want to bring you here, uncle, and use your status to choose a good piece of land in the southern suburbs of the city."

Cui Guodong laughed:
"I understand……"

The cars of the nephew and uncle's families circled outside the city, then entered Tongzhou City again and went to the land company's headquarters here.

It was a semi-open garden with a six-story office building in the middle and a lobby open to the public on the ground floor.

Now the courtyard and the hall are full of people coming in and out, with all kinds of accents making a lot of noise, just like a vegetable market.

At several windows inside the hall, some people were filling out forms and going through formalities. The rows of seats in the middle of the hall were also full of people, obviously queuing.

But Cui Guodong and Ke Sidi, one is a top noble of the new generation and the other is a senior executive in the same system, so of course they don’t have to queue.

When the two got off the car, the local steward came out to greet them and led the two families directly to the reception room on the side of the hall. After serving them tea, he politely asked about their purpose of visit.

Kosidi said with a smile:
"I have brought you a big client. Mr. Cui wants to buy a piece of land in the south of the city. Please bring out your plot map directly."

The hall manager cooperated with Kosidi with a smile on his face, helped Kosidi choose the land, and Cui Guodong paid the money with a deposit certificate, completing the procedures as quickly as possible.

In less than half an hour, the two families left the hall with the newly acquired land deeds, went to the southern suburbs to look at the land, and then returned to Shuntian Prefecture.

Cui Guodong really didn't worry about it. He handed over all the land matters in Tongzhou to Kosidi and just took care of the relocation matter briefly.

Then I concentrate on entertaining my colleagues and visitors, and finally prepare to pack up and return to my hometown. I plan to go home before the New Year.

When Cui Guodong was packing up his new home, he soon met his neighbors and neighbours.

Tian Yiming also became a Duke after the last battle, and the Duke's Mansion was arranged to be next to Cui Guodong's residence.

Opposite Cui Guodong's house is Liu Biao's house. Liu Biao is the most senior general among those who were awarded the title this time. He had already served in the Ming Dynasty's native military before the establishment of the Wu Kingdom.

Although Liu Biao was only a low-level team leader at the time, he could barely be considered one of the last batch of officers who had gone from the mainland to the State of Wu and then back to the mainland.

Before this war, Liu Biao's title was already Duke of a County. After the last battle, he was conferred the title of Duke of a State and moved into a new home of the same standard as a Duke of a State.

Next door to Liu Biao's house lived Zheng Ruian. Zheng Ruian was originally the eldest son of the Duke of Min, but he gave up the title of Duke of Min on his own and let his younger brother inherit it.

He stayed in the Ming Dynasty to serve as a general instead of following his father to establish a country overseas. Now he has earned the title of Duke in the Ming Dynasty.

Like Liu Biao, Zheng Ruian already had a county mansion. This time he moved to a new home after being promoted to Duke.

These four top nobles had different backgrounds and their life experiences were also completely different, but now they are all Zhu Jianxuan's absolute direct descendants.

The four men have equal titles. Tian Yiming is the youngest and was born in Japan.

So after Tian Yiming moved in, he first took the initiative to visit Cui Guodong, and then the two of them went to visit Zheng Ruian and Liu Biao together.

Finally, the new neighbors gathered together for a feast and discussed their own past and the future of the Ming Dynasty.

The current Ming Dynasty is different from the founding period of any previous dynasty. The current Ming Dynasty does not need to care too much about the reputation of its generals.

The reason why founding heroes of ancient dynasties were often difficult to get rid of was that rebellion was too easy in ancient times.

Relying on his prestige in the army, a general can directly lead a group of soldiers to rebel, and even find a group of blacksmiths on the farm to forge weapons and armor.

With weapons, armor and food, an army can barely continue fighting.

But now times have changed. The highly mechanized New Ming army will soon be paralyzed if its supplies are cut off.

Therefore, whether it is overseas or local garrisons, they have no ability to be self-reliant and can only aim to be promoted to the highest level. In addition, the cultural level of officers is getting higher and higher, and now the military generals of the Ming Dynasty are becoming more and more like civilian officials.

The higher the seniority of the general, the more he behaves like a civilian and acts like a civilian.

Of course, civil officials forming cliques will also make people wary, but it is obviously much safer than traditional military generals.

As time slowly approaches the end of the year, Shuntian Prefecture is still very lively inside and outside, but the trend of the liveliness is beginning to change.

Officers whose homes were away from home began to return home by train or plane.

At the same time, the eldest son of the emperor, Zhu Jingkun, who had been struggling in Jiangnan for more than half a year, wrote a summary report at the end of the year, sealed it and sent it to Shuntian Prefecture by post.

Zhu Jingkun did not send it via telegram because he felt that some things in the report were not suitable for public disclosure and should be handed directly to his father for personal decision.

Zhu Jianxuan was quite serious when he received the confidential report from his son. After sending his attendants away, he opened it and read it carefully.

The report begins with a summary statement that directly points out Zhu Jingkun's main findings.

"The problem of Jiangnan women's imperial examinations is not pure."

Zhu Jingkun conducted investigations throughout Jiangnan for more than half a year and believed that private businessmen in the region were secretly encouraging more women to work in factories.

To this end, they have created momentum in many ways, intending to change the mindsets of ordinary people and make them accept the idea that women can show their faces in public.

Encouraging women to take the imperial examinations was just a transitional means to achieve this goal.

Because becoming an official through the imperial examination was generally considered a noble thing.

The vast majority of people think that women should not show their faces in public, and the vast majority of people strongly oppose their wives and daughters working in factories.

However, when investigators told these people that if their wives and daughters were allowed to appear in public to take the imperial examinations or even become officials, most of them would be able to reluctantly accept it.

This is because the people trust the emperor and the court and are willing to allow their wives and daughters to participate in activities organized by the court.

Therefore, businessmen planned to first promote the policy that "women can take part in the imperial examinations and become officials", so that ordinary people would accept the fact that their wives and daughters could "show their faces in public" in the process.

This will further encourage ordinary people to accept their wives and daughters working in factories, “since they can already show their faces in public.”

This behavior of Jiangnan merchants is also driven by interests.

Zhu Jingkun therefore suggested that institutional regulations and certificate withdrawal should be made to control the corresponding conflicts of interest and fundamentally resolve the trend of women taking imperial examinations and even working in factories.

Below the summary is Zhu Jingkun’s own investigation process, the details he discovered during the investigation, and more detailed suggestions.

First, the widow Huang Lu from Shanghai was murdered. The murderer was indeed one of her mistresses, who was instigated by a local businessman to deliberately approach the widow.

Not only did her lover not get much money and property from Huang Lu, but he also provided Huang Lu with many gold and silver jewelry as gifts.

Huang Lu was actually bribed by both people and money, so she deliberately interfered with the imperial examination.

The direct reason for Huang Lu's murder was that she unexpectedly discovered that she might have been used, so she had a conflict with her lover.

The case itself has been investigated thoroughly, but what is more important to the court is the background of the case.

The fundamental reason why Jiangnan merchants pushed women to work in factories was that they had realized that many jobs could be done by women and that the labor cost of women was lower than that of men.

There were already some women's factories in Jiangnan, but their number and scale were not large.

As long as ordinary families could make ends meet, they were not willing to let their wives and daughters show up in public, so most of the people working in women's factories were widows.

But these widow factories provided ideas for businessmen in Jiangnan.

During his investigation, Zhu Jingkun discovered that there are not only factories run by widows in Jiangnan, but also factories run by children and the elderly.

The imperial court had no specific regulations on this method of employment, and it was actually in a gray area.

But these factories are expanding rapidly.

To the extent that the local industry has already developed commonly accepted names and practices for how these personnel are used in factories.

Young and middle-aged male workers are regarded as complete labor force, commonly known as laborers or Ding.

If an employer needs to recruit 30 adult male workers, he will put an advertisement in the newspaper saying "Need 30 men" or "Need 30 laborers".

Adult women, children in their early teens, and healthy elderly people in their fifties are regarded as "secondary labor force", commonly known as "half-laborer" and "half-adult".

If a certain employer wanted to save money and his business did not need able-bodied men to work, he might put an advertisement in the newspaper saying, "Need half-men for fifty, female workers for thirty, and child workers for twenty."

In addition, there are even factories where illegal immigrants of different races work. These are clearly illegal factories and if they are discovered, they will be closed down and deported, so there is no need to specifically mention them.

But a large number of factories are recruiting "half-employees" to do the work, and there are three real reasons that need to be seriously considered.

First, many jobs do not require "able-bodied men" to do them. Even in certain specific trades, some half-able-bodied men may do the job better than able-bodied men.

For example, the internal processing of many smaller items, such as the cleaning and repair of some narrow spaces, etc.

Second, in order to obtain greater profits, factory owners will naturally try their best to reduce costs.

Although the imperial court did not explicitly stipulate that half-men did not have to pay the full minimum wage, the half-men themselves felt that they were not entitled to the same wages as able-bodied men.

Thirdly, it is really difficult for private factories to recruit able-bodied men nowadays.

Although the Ming Dynasty had a large population and a large potential labor force, most of the labor force was still in the countryside.

A large number of people lived in military farms and state-run industries directly under the jurisdiction of the imperial court. At the same time, the imperial court continued to send immigrants to America, Linzhou and Africa.

There is not enough free ordinary labor in the city, especially for private factories.

Since the Tiangong year, most years have been good weather and good harvests. Even when floods and droughts occurred in some places, it was the military garrisons and land companies that took the risks and provided relief.

Ordinary people will hardly be displaced by floods or droughts anymore, and they don’t need to actively go to the city to find a way to survive.

The court built many factories and plants, and the key was to have perfect wage and welfare management.

Most ordinary people aim to work in state-owned industries. Those who are eager for adventure can also go overseas to open up new land. They are not keen on working in private factories and may even dislike it.

This results in frequent labor shortages in private factories.

Especially if a group of factories suddenly open and an industry suddenly starts to gain momentum, workers in the city are often in short supply.

In particular, some work in factories does not necessarily require full labor and can be completed by secondary labor.

If the compensation required for secondary labor is significantly lower than that for full labor, the factory will tend to hire secondary labor.

Therefore, there came into being factories employing women, factories employing children, and factories employing the elderly.

(End of this chapter)