The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 450: The beginning of eternal peace

Chen Yanzu was just greedy, but not stupid. Or rather, he was not stupid enough to think that the militia he had assembled could fight against Dayu. His brother Chen Huizu also understood this.

Therefore, Chen Yanzu from Hubei actually just came here to buy time. His most important role was to use the gentry of Hubei to delay Dayu and wait for his brother to complete the integration of various forces in Hunan.

According to Chen Huizu's estimation, as long as he completed the integration of the four prefectures of Changsha, Changde, Baoqing and Yueyang and the state of Lizhou, the gentry of the four prefectures and one state would be able to form a united front.

Then there will be a super local force with a population of 9 million, 22 million acres of arable land, and a militia of over 100,000.

In order to get them to surrender, Emperor Guangzhong had to give them at least one Grand Secretary and eight to ten high-ranking officials above the third rank, and also reduce the land tax silver and land tax grain.

As for the equalization of land, suppression of mergers, and relaxation of personal control over tenant farmers that would definitely be implemented after the establishment of the new dynasty, don't even think about it.

However, they had no idea that they were facing a new regime that was completely different from any previous regime.

They had everything planned out, but they didn't know that Mo Zibu had already figured out their plan and had no intention of accepting the support of such an old vested interest.

So even though it was approaching the Chinese New Year, Mo Zibu still stayed in Jiujiang, and court officials would also stay in Jiujiang to celebrate the New Year.

In the former Jiujiang prefectural office, Mo Zibu was giving lectures to local officials from Jiangxi and Anhui, led by Yin Chengfang, the governor of Jiangxi, and Min Eyuan, the governor of Anhui.

Even in class, facing these officials whose minds are full of the idea that the Celestial Empire has everything and that it would be best if they could live a simple life behind closed doors, Mo Zibu must introduce them to the upcoming new world so that these old officials will at least not hold him back.

Mo Zibu first explained the importance of coal and iron, as well as the importance and current situation of Nanyang to the whole of China.

"To sum up, the current Nanyang is no longer the barbaric wasteland we once thought it was. Mr. Jianzhai and Mr. Xibao called Nanyang the next Jiangnan, and I think it is very appropriate."

Yuan Mei and Yao Nai have almost become Emperor Mo's mouthpieces. No matter what, Mo Zibu likes to use them as remarks.

Of course, these two people also like this feeling. Which scholar doesn't like the feeling of being a prince in white and serving as the emperor's teacher?

Especially an emperor like Mo Zibu, who is relatively easy to get along with and willing to give rewards.

"To securely capture Jiangnan, which is a hundred times more powerful than the rest of the world, not only does it require a large number of civilians to migrate, it also requires coal and iron. More precisely, it requires muskets and artillery made from coal and iron.

Without muskets and cannons, our immigrants would not be able to easily suppress the local natives. If we cannot easily suppress the local natives, we will not be able to attract enough immigrants to complete the colonization.

To build such a huge coal and iron base, it was necessary to carry out industrial reforms, introduce a series of machines such as steam engines from the West, and send students to the West to learn Western technology and broaden their horizons.

At the same time, we cannot just build coal, iron and other related industries. Other industries must also start construction, and construction means a large amount of output.

But as it stands now, after purchasing porcelain, silk, tea, rhubarb, bristles, lacquerware and other items produced in China, Western countries can no longer consume many other products.

So we have to find a group of people who can buy the materials that will be produced in large quantities.

This group will not be the gentry class, because the gentry is only a very small part, and even if they consume freely, they can't consume much. "

Hearing this, Min Eyuan, who was quite smart, understood, "Your Majesty, are you saying that the only people who can afford these things are the 200 million ordinary people?"

"Yes!" Mo Zibu nodded. "Only the vast majority of people, relying on their numerical advantage, have the ability to digest all kinds of products."

"But..." Min Eyuan said hesitantly, "Your Majesty, you know that ordinary people really don't have much money."

Meanwhile, Yin Chengfang, a staunch believer in old-school Confucianism, was overjoyed. "Your Majesty, are you going to equalize land ownership and distribute the rich's land to the common people? This will be a great thing for generations to come!"

"It counts, and it doesn't count." Mo Zibu said slowly, "I say it counts because I have this plan, and I say it doesn't count because even if I divide the land equally, it will be of no use.

For example, in Hunan, after equal distribution, the average per capita land area around the prosperous Dongting Lake may be two mu and four fen, while in other areas, the average per capita land area may be less than one and a half mu, and the yield will be even lower.

For example, in the most prosperous area around Dongting Lake, a family of five has twelve mu of land, and the yield per mu of land is about 280 kilograms of rice.

The total amount of grain for the whole year is 3,360 kilograms. Excluding the cost of saving seeds and hiring people during the harvest season, there are still a maximum of 2,800 kilograms of white rice left.

If five people share it, each person will get 560 kilograms of rice per year, which is an average of 1 kilogram, 5 ounces and 3 cents per day. Even if the elderly, the weak, women and children eat less, it is still not enough to feed two strong men.

Of course, you can choose not to eat white rice, and basically only eat whole grains, and add some fishing, picking, and planting some crops such as sweet potatoes and soybeans during the slack season, then the whole family will have enough to eat.

This level is already the best in Hunan Province. Southern Hunan and western Hunan would never dream of reaching this level.

Therefore, equalizing land ownership is not enough to ensure that people have enough to eat, let alone enough money to spend.”

This is truly a heartbreaking reality. People pretend not to see it on a daily basis and continue to survive, but when it is presented in numbers, saying it is shocking is an understatement; it should be called bloody.

It can be imagined that even in the Qianlong Dynasty, which was known as a prosperous era, only 10% to 20% of the people could have enough food to eat all year round, and a large number of people were still struggling below the poverty line and on the verge of starvation.

As for Chinese officials, compared with those black-hearted nobles and high-ranking clergymen abroad, their moral qualities are relatively more conscientious due to thousands of years of Confucian teachings and norms.

There are indeed some officials who care about the people, and are willing to make some concessions, at least when it does not directly affect their own interests but only harms the overall interests of officials.

Most people in the room fell silent. The newly appointed Chizhou prefect, Chen Chuzhe, the top scholar in the Yichou exam in the 1769th year of the Qianlong reign (), a native of Yuanhe County (Wu County) in Suzhou, took a breath and said to Mo Zibu:

"People's livelihoods are facing great hardships. Previously, officials of our generation, bewildered by the propaganda of the prosperous Qianlong era promoted by the rebels against the Qing Dynasty, almost turned a blind eye to this.

Now that the new dynasty has just been established, and it is also the dynasty of great righteousness of our Han Dynasty, if there are still such people struggling on the brink of starvation, it is the fault of us officials. How can we talk about serving the people!"

"Well said!" No matter what Chen Chuzhe thought in his heart, it was good that he said so. When it comes to officials, you can only judge by their deeds and not their intentions.

After praising Chen Chuzhe for a few words, Mo Zibu continued, “So according to the calculations of the Luantai attendant civil officials, in order to allow the people of Hunan to live well, they must even have extra money to spend.

Then, prefectures like Changsha and Yueyang will need at least six mu of land per capita, and the rest of the country will need at least ten mu of land.”

After hearing this, all the officials were waiting to see what Mo Zibu would do, and some of them guessed Mo Zibu's strategy.

"This is why I will not surrender the brothers Chen Huizu and Chen Yanzu. The gentry of Huguang, taking advantage of supporting the Qing Dynasty's plan to send people from Huguang to Sichuan, have been aggressively annexing land in the two provinces and controlling the personal freedom of their tenants, acting like local tyrants.

Now they still hope to unite and gain greater benefits than during the Qing Dynasty. This is a dream. I will never allow them to continue to exist.

Therefore, after the Huguang Campaign, all the gentry in Huguang who had fought against the imperial army had their land confiscated and were exiled to Southeast Asia to cultivate the land.

At the same time, the people of the two provinces must select some to continue to populate Sichuan, and some to prepare to go to Southeast Asia to colonize.

Jiaqing Province and the old Siamese territory are full of vast plains, but they lack people to farm them. Those who remain in Huguang will be divided into equal shares according to this number of people."

At that time, Sichuan, including Chongqing, had a population of just over 10 million, so there was clearly still plenty of land to be redistributed. However, the problem was similar to that of Huguang: a large number of officials and wealthy relatives who had immigrated there earlier had already occupied large tracts of land.

Some officials even went to Sichuan first and occupied the good farmland in places like the Chengdu Plain, just like the Manchus who were grabbing land, with one family occupying hundreds or even thousands of acres.

Then they deceived the people who were moving to Sichuan and told them they were resettling as immigrants, but they ended up becoming their tenants.

Therefore, in the future, Sichuan will not only have to immigrate, but also directly go to the Jinyiwei to cooperate with the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Justice to thoroughly investigate these bad apples.

Yin Chengfang looked at the emperor who was talking above, and suddenly felt that he was not like an emperor in the deep palace, but more like a great scholar, a teacher.

Yin Chengfang also understood the emperor's logic, which is that although there is a large population and a lot of land now, a large amount of land output is basically eaten up by the people who need to make a living.

In order to avoid hunger and cold, they have already consumed all they have obtained and have no ability to consume anything else.

Since the people have no money to spend, the large-scale production of goods is naturally restricted. If goods do not need to be produced on a large scale, the accumulated wealth of the gentry can only be used to buy land.

When they buy land, they will definitely not be honest. Instead, they will deliberately create various tragedies to force the people to sell their land.

This will cause more self-cultivating farmers to go bankrupt, turning them into tenant farmers who can only struggle for survival. As a result, no one will have money to consume.

So in order to break this cycle of suffering, the most direct way is to use war as an excuse to kill the top landlords.

At the same time, the surplus population will be relocated so that the remaining people can live a good life with surplus.

When these people's lives get better, they will come out to consume, so opening a workshop and so on will make much more money than farming and raising tenants.

This has other more profitable projects, and the court also supports it. Maybe he can even obtain the coveted qualification of member of the Republican Parliament.

With so many benefits, the number of people buying land will decrease, allowing the land to return to its original price, and naturally land mergers will be reduced.

This cycle was something Yin Chengfang had never imagined in the past few decades.

He has always believed that the way to give the people a good life is to equalize land rights. This is equivalent to opening up a new world for old-school officials like Yin Chengfang, who also have some conscience.

Make them understand that what they thought was a good life for the people was worse than pigs and dogs in the eyes of the emperor.

At the same time, Yin Chengfang also knew that the emperor's theory could only be implemented because he had a vast South Seas. He was equivalent to recreating a China for everyone to share.

Only in this way can everyone's life be taken a big step forward, without tens of millions of people struggling in the mainland.

While Yin Chengfang was thinking, Mo Zibu was still speaking in high spirits: "The land in Huguang is fertile, so people can live a good life with a maximum of ten mu per person, but that's not the case in the north.

In the future, when we go to Henan, Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi and other provinces, every family must have 100 to 150 acres of land.

My future wish is to establish a large number of small landlords with more than 150 acres of land on the northern plains, and the extra people will be expelled to me.

Go to the Northeast, go to the Western Regions, and develop everywhere. This way, everyone can not only have enough to eat, but also live well! "

Yin Chengfang's blood boiled with passion, but he also offered his own opinion, "But if that's the case, a family of five in the north with over a hundred acres of land wouldn't be able to grow anything. On average, each person cultivating fifteen acres is probably the limit!"

Mo Zibu pointed at all the officials present and said, "Then this is the responsibility of you officials!
How to popularize a large number of oxen in the north, how to improve agricultural tools, how to get people to help each other, and how to mobilize people from relatively wealthy areas to rush production and harvest, this entire system requires you to explore and practice.

What is Zhang Hengqu talking about establishing a mission for the people? This is establishing a mission for the people! "

"We understand, and we will do our best!" Officials from Anhui and Jiangxi provinces quickly stood up and responded, bowing in greeting.

"In addition, you must go back and tell your relatives and friends that I did not implement such drastic reforms in Jiangnan because the economy in Jiangnan is vibrant, there are a large number of workshops where the people can work and survive, and the economic output of the land in Jiangnan is much higher than that in Huguang, so the people are still relatively wealthy.

Therefore, when you get benefits, you must know how to cherish them. Don't continue to think about tampering with the land, and don't tamper with the payment of taxes.

Let me be frank, if there really is something fishy going on in these areas, I will not send the Ministry of Justice to do it, but I will let the Inner Court Transportation Department, the Jinyiwei Northern Pacification Department, and the Criminal Law Department, the tax supervision and inspection team formed by the three Inner Court departments, to supervise and conduct the trial.

Anyone who wants to be exiled to Southeast Asia to live with the natives, anyone who wants to be imprisoned in the Imperial Court, or even wants his entire family to lose their heads, I am happy to let him see it for himself! "

"I dare not. I will definitely restrain my family and convey your majesty's will to the local authorities."

Mo Zibu nodded in satisfaction. In fact, even in the current Jiangnan area, there are still many poor places.

For example, places like Wenzhou in eastern Zhejiang, southern Jiangxi in Jiangxi, northern Anhui, and even prefectures and counties like Xuzhou and Huai'an in northern Jiangsu are not rich.

Therefore, these places still need to carry out reforms, but the situation is better than that in Huguang. Now it depends on whether the local gentry are aware of the situation.

Three days later, after teaching the officials, Mo Zibu took a group of schoolchildren aged twelve to fifteen who were about to go study in Europe to experience farm life in the fields.

Mo Zibu looked at these future stars trained by Huang Jue, a direct descendant of Huang Zongxi, and said:
"In fact, my current policies can only solve the problem of food and clothing for the people. If we want them to truly live a good life, we must rely on you.

To be precise, it depends on science.

Nowadays, Westerners are ahead of us in this regard, which is why you go to the West to study.

I firmly believe that in the future study of alchemy, we will be able to use the method of alchemy to refine various elements suitable for the growth of crops.

I believe that the current mainstream Western theories on humus and vitality contain great fallacies.

This world must be made up of a large number of elements that we cannot see, and the elements that affect plant growth are also among them, as long as we can find them."

Mo Zibu held up a clay bowl filled with lush green vegetable porridge. He gulped it down in two mouthfuls, wiped his mouth roughly with his sleeve, and continued:
“Food is the most important thing for the people. It is the foundation of the Way of Heaven. If the people are not well fed, everything else comes to an end.

I promise you that whoever can truly use Danhua to discover and produce fertilizers that can greatly increase per-acre yields will be successful.

Regardless of his origins, family background, or age, I will personally carve a statue for him and place it on the altar of state, allowing him to be worshipped alongside heaven and earth!"

Ding bang, click, and exclamations!
A large number of bowls and pots fell to the ground, and most of the children, who were in adolescence, screamed in fear.

To have a statue erected on the altar of state and grain, worshipped alongside heaven and earth, what a high honor this must be! Zhang Hengqu's words about bringing peace to the world for eternity were probably just like this.

In the crowd, a petite schoolgirl who looked a bit like a little girl had bright lights in her eyes as she looked at Emperor Mo with excitement and admiration.

Mo Zibu smiled and nodded at her, not caring at all. He just thought it was not surprising that the little boy was so pretty at that time.

(End of this chapter)