Ming Dynasty: Ask Zhu Yuanzhang to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 224 Yang Shiqi’s method of collecting grain from all over the world!

Zhu Yunhuan's expression froze slightly.

Of course he had heard of the rat-eater.

This tax has been levied since the Song Dynasty.

The reason for the collection is very simple. Part of the collected grain will be eaten by sparrows and mice.

Therefore, when the people were required to pay grain taxes, they were required to pay an additional 20% to 30% of grain, which was called "sparrow and mouse loss."

Historically, after the imperial court changed its collection of grain to silver, the "queshuhao" was changed to "huohao".

The tax rate is still around 20% to 30%.

The loss caused by rats and birds is a real loss.

In feudal times, it was difficult to completely keep rats out of granaries.

As for fire consumption, there is actually some, but it is very little. An increase of 20% to 30% is obviously just a tax increase.

Most of the fire-consumption silver went into the officials' personal pockets, and part of it was used to maintain the normal operation of the government office.

After all, the imperial court allocated very little funding to government offices, which was not enough.

It was not until later that the policy of "fire consumption is returned to the public" was implemented.

……

At this moment, when he suddenly heard Yang Shiqi talking about "sparrow and rat", he couldn't help but evoke memories of Zhu Yunhuan's previous life.

I was born in the countryside when I was a child. My family was poor at that time and we had not yet built a Western-style building. We still had the original mud house.

Every autumn harvest, the grain collected would be handed over to the state. After purchasing the grain, the remaining grain would be packed into snakeskin bags and stacked at home.

Rural people at that time did not have the habit of buying food. They would store the millet they produced themselves. When they needed rice, they would take two bags of rice to "thresh" (that is, use a special machine to remove the husks and beat it into rice).

However, a considerable portion of the millet stored at home would always be eaten by mice.

This makes the already poor family even worse off.

But no matter what method was adopted, the mud house at home could never keep out rats.

Rats would dig holes in the ground and walls, sneak in and steal the rice.

For this reason, the family later got a cat.

Cats can greatly reduce the presence of mice.

But cats can never completely eliminate mice, they can only suppress them and minimize food losses.

As for rat poison and the like.

A lot of mice were indeed killed by the poison, but as a side effect, cats were also killed.

The rats soon returned, becoming more numerous and more rampant than before.

And next time, the same rat poison will be ineffective.

The mouse has a very sensitive nose and will not eat it anymore.

After learning a few lessons, I found that the best way is still to keep a cat.

Although there is no way to exterminate rats, overall, the food loss is minimal.

Later, life became better and better, and every household built a small Western-style house.

With cement as a barrier, it is very difficult for mice to enter the house and steal food.

of course there are exceptions.

For example, wooden doors will have holes bitten by mice.

If you are not careful, cement plastered walls may fall off because they are too thin, allowing rats to drill holes in them.

But no matter what, compared with the old earthen houses, there has been a great improvement in rat prevention.

Later, the family used a barn made of iron sheets.

Although one or two mice can still be seen occasionally, they have become very rare and it is generally difficult for them to steal food in the house.

Cement... rat-proof?
Yup!

When the mud house was transformed into a small Western-style building, the number of rats suddenly decreased.

The small western-style building was not actually well-protected against rats, but its structure made it much more difficult for rats to invade it than the original mud house.

What if the granary is specially built with cement?
In later generations, the grain stored in national granaries was never eaten by rats.

However, even in later generations, according to statistics, about 15% to 20% of the world's grain is still eaten by rats every year between harvest and sale.

An average urban family would only buy a small amount of rice each time, take excellent precautions, and live in high-rise buildings made of reinforced concrete, so they would never experience the horror of rats eating their food.

But in fact, the amount of food consumed by mice every year is astonishing.

Especially in some backward countries.

Because they have no facilities and conditions to prevent rats.

The same is true of the Ming Dynasty today.

Every farmer who grows crops will store grain.

But now, the houses where ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty live are basically thatched huts, tiled houses and mud houses. How can they possibly keep out rats?
Not to mention them, even if it was a government granary, it would be extremely difficult to completely keep out rats.

The sparrow and rat consumption is different from the fire consumption, it is real.

But with cement, all this changed.

Yang Shiqi said: "With cement, we can build a granary that can completely block rats from entering."

"When we were fighting a grain price war with local tyrants, the imperial court allocated funds to build a lot of new granaries."

“They are all made of cement.”

"I went to inspect it specially. The newly built granary is extremely well-protected. As long as it is properly managed and mice are not allowed to sneak in when the door is open, they will not be able to drill a hole to get in."

"Not only that, cement is also very waterproof and moisture-proof, which can prevent food from getting damp and becoming moldy."

"If all the grain in the country is stored in this type of cement granary, the loss of grain can be reduced by more than 20%."

Zhu Yunxun's eyes lit up, and he said, "Then I will immediately allocate funds and order local governments to build new granaries with cement."

Today, the cement production in Daming has reached a very high level, and a large number of skilled workers who can produce cement have been trained.

"It's not that simple."

Yang Shiqi shook his head slightly.

"It turns out that there are only ten parts of grain in the world, but the grain stored in the national treasury granary is less than one part."

"Some time ago, His Royal Highness took advantage of the grain war with the local gentry to go to the countryside in advance to arrange for storage."

"After the autumn harvest, the grain collected and the grain collected as taxes and levies account for about 10% of the world's grain."

"This also requires that tax collection this year goes smoothly and nothing goes wrong."

"But even so, 90% of the world's grain is still in the hands of ordinary people and those landlords with large estates." "The court can't force them to hand over all the grain stored in their homes, right?"

"There is no such thing as this."

"If we really do this, I'm afraid all the people in the world will rebel."

"But if we don't collect the grain, and only rely on the grain in the imperial granary, even if rats don't eat a single grain, the extra grain that can be left in the country will only be one or two percent of the total."

Zhu Yunhuan was stunned.

Feudal society is different from later modern society.

In later times, it was considered a lot for ordinary people to store enough rice to last for one or two months.

In later generations, most of the grain was stored in the national treasury granaries.

But in this era, every household stores grain.

Most people have enough food stored at home to last until next autumn's harvest.

This is their life-saving food.

Without this food, they would have to worry about their entire family starving to death.

These grains are also the lifeblood of the people.

If the imperial court were to forcibly collect all this grain, the people would be left with no choice but to rebel.

Even the most cruel monarch would not do such a stupid thing.

However, if the grain is not collected and stored in thousands of households, it will be impossible to eliminate the losses caused by rats.

It is obviously not something that can be achieved in one or two months, or even one or two years, to make every household live in concrete houses and to protect themselves from the invasion of rats.

This takes quite a long time.

"Your Highness, don't be disappointed. If we can get one or two more grains, we will have enough food to feed millions of people. This is already an unparalleled achievement."

Yang Shiqi comforted.

He was filled with emotion.

An invention of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has such a great effect.

Not only were all the roads, big and small, in Jinling City turned into cement roads, they were also a hundred times easier to walk on than before and no longer became muddy and difficult to walk on due to rain.

Now, it is used to build granaries that can prevent rats.

Such an achievement, if placed on an ordinary citizen, would be enough to make him famous in history and admired by all generations.

To His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, it seemed as if he had only done a very insignificant thing.

With such a person in power in the Ming Dynasty, why should we worry that the country will not usher in an unprecedented era of prosperity?

"Cement can also be used to build ponds and reinforce embankments."

"The court gradually increased the construction of ponds and dikes to fight drought and flood, so that grain could be harvested every year."

"If the Academy of Sciences can develop effective pesticides, Ming Dynasty's grain production will be able to reach a higher level."

"I have specially visited the steam engine that Your Highness has high hopes for. It is truly a magical device to use to pump water."

"With the strategy of reclaiming wasteland, and taking multiple measures, why worry about the shortage of food in the Ming Dynasty?"

"Since ancient times, even in times of peace and prosperity, ordinary people could only eat until they were seven or eight full."

"Now that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is governing the country, the treasury is more abundant than ever before, and the people have enough food and clothing. This is truly something that no sage emperor in history could match."

Increase water conservancy construction and use steam engines to pump water to fight drought?

In fact, the early steam engine in history was invented to pump water from underground mines.

Pumping water was also the biggest use of early steam engines.

Later, it was used in looms and other industries, and its uses were gradually discovered.

Compared with the human-powered keel carts of this era, the efficiency of steam engine water pumping will undoubtedly increase by more than a hundred times.

Compared to driving the ship forward, it is undoubtedly much easier to just pump water.

But even if the Ming Manufacturing Bureau successfully manufactures the steam engine now, and immediately starts mass production, it will take until next year before farmers everywhere can use it.

Obviously, Yang Shiqi wanted to say more than that.

Zhu Yunxun smiled and said, "Don't just flatter me, tell me about the current measures."

Yang Shiqi said seriously: "The above measures are the fundamental solutions, so they are mentioned in the front. Because the fundamental purpose is to increase grain production. As for the current method, it is nothing more than two words - collect grain."

"The common people in the world still have a lot of stored grain, and the rich families have even more."

"Don't even mention the good weather and abundant harvests in Ming Dynasty in recent years. Even in the years of great disasters and famines, when thousands of people starved to death, many wealthy families still had mountains of grain in their granaries."

"As long as we can collect this grain and distribute it equally to the people of the world, instead of leaving it in the warehouses of wealthy households to mold and spoil, or be eaten by rats or rot, it will be equivalent to increasing the grain supply by 20% to 30% out of thin air!"

"With this amount of grain, the Ming Dynasty will never be short of food until next autumn."

"Your Highness can also keep the price of food low."

Zhu Yunhuan smiled bitterly and said, "I know what you said, too."

"But it is harder than climbing to the sky to collect all the food in the world!"

That is the lifeblood of the common people.

Let the common people hand it over?
Wouldn't that force the common people to fight to the death with the imperial court?
Obviously, no ordinary people would believe something like it's for your own good.

As for only collecting grain from the rich, beating the local tyrants and dividing the grain... this will also cause chaos in the world, with disastrous consequences.

The later generations were able to do this because they had done a lot of work beforehand, from the spread of Western learning to the New Culture Movement, to the spread of new ideas, and then to the establishment of a strict organization to overthrow the original rule...

A few more years passed, and after sufficient ideological work and mobilization, the land began to be distributed.

At that time in the Ming Dynasty, ideological construction was still in the enlightenment stage, and doing so would be tantamount to destroying the Great Wall.

Not to mention anything else, all the officials within the court, big and small, would have to rise up in opposition, and oppose it with all their might.

This is not the case in later generations.

In later generations, at least within the imperial court, there was support.

Yang Shiqi smiled slightly and said, "This is the normal way. No one can collect all the grain in the world."

"However, in all previous dynasties, no one has ever been able to collect all the money in the world."

"But His Royal Highness used the Ming Bank to easily achieve this."

"Now, why not try the same old trick again?"

"How about collecting all the grain in the world into the national treasury granary, just like collecting money?"

……

(End of this chapter)