Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 216 The "turn over" song in this era is difficult to sing
When Zhao Xin returned to the square in the town, it was almost dusk, and he happened to see Shen Jingdan walking over.At this time, Shen Jingdan became more respectful to Zhao Xin because of Beihai Town's victory over the Qing army again.

He came here on a special trip to find Zhao Xin, and wanted to invite him to his house for a banquet tomorrow.

"Master Zhao, Ah Quan hasn't seen you for quite a while, and he's often depressed recently, what do you think?"

Zhao Xin thought, no matter how busy he is, he still has time for a meal.Besides, I haven't seen the little beauty for a long time, and I miss it a little, so I readily agreed.Shen Jingdan was overjoyed when he heard that, knowing that the other party still had something to do, he bowed his hands and said goodbye.

Looking at the back of Shen Jingdan leaving, Zhao Xin smiled and shook his head.He could see Shen Jingdan's thoughts very clearly, he just wanted to use Shen Xuan to hug his thigh.

When Zhao Xin met Chen Qingsong, the other party had just returned from school.It seems that he is very tired, and his voice is hoarse.Zhao Xin was about to take Chen Qingsong to the cafeteria to have a makeshift meal when he heard a woman's voice outside the door.

"Mr. Chen is back?"

Zhao Xin opened the door curiously and saw that it was the Qinghe girl with a food box in her hand.This girl is sixteen years old, looks very majestic, and her beauty scores 85 points according to modern people's aesthetic standards.Qing He doesn't know piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, but she has learned a good skill in cooking.

However, the aesthetics of people in the Qing Dynasty is very different from that of modern people. A woman must have a sad eyebrow, a delicate flower shining in the water, and a weak willow supporting the wind to be considered stunning.Qinghe is a beauty in the eyes of modern people, but she ranks second among thin horses.The main reason is that she is not as thin and weak as sister Lin.

Seeing that it was Zhao Xin who opened the door, Qing He blushed slightly.Putting down the food box in his hand, he said a blessing: "But I didn't know that the adult was there, Qing He was rude."

Zhao Xin smiled and said, "Miss Qinghe, are you here to bring Lao Chen dinner? I wonder if it's enough for two people?"

Qing He replied straightforwardly: "It's not easy. Now that Mr. Zhao is here, I'll go back and prepare a copy."

Zhao Xin said: "Don't bother me too much, just serve me a bowl of noodles."

Qing He said: "It's not troublesome. It's just two extra dishes, and the rice is ready-made. Sir, I'll bring it over later." After speaking, she turned around and left quickly.

I don't know when, Chen Qingsong's three meals a day were handed over to Qinghe.He also likes to eat the rice cooked by Qinghe, so once he is too busy with work, Qinghe will prepare a meal and send it to him.

Zhao Xin brought the food box into the room, put it on the table and opened it, and it really was a bowl of braised pork, a plate of fried cabbage, and a bowl of rice.Zhao Xin said in surprise: "The standard of living is pretty good!"

"Come here! If you want to eat, there are plenty of girls in the group rushing to cook for you." Chen Qingsong washed his hands and wiped his face with a towel.

"Forget it, it's the hardest thing to bear the favor of a beauty. I don't provoke it if I can." Even if the beauty's favor is easy to bear, Zhao Xin's waist can't bear it.

The two chatted for a quarter of an hour, and when they heard someone knocking on the door, Zhao Xin smiled and said, "It's really fast." He got up and went to open the door, but when he opened the door, it turned out that Tang Xiao was carrying a food box.

"Hey? Miss Tang, why are you here?"

Tang Xiao's two dimples moved, his face flushed, and he said with a smile: "I just happened to meet Qing He, she is too busy there, so let me send it to the adults."

Zhao Xin took a closer look with the light at the door, Tang Xiao unexpectedly became more beautiful.This girl was originally a beauty, but in the past few months since she came to Beihai Town, her three meals a day are no longer controlled like a woman used to be, her whole body is no longer so thin, and her face has become plump.

Seeing Zhao Xin staring at him, Tang Xiao couldn't hold back his face anymore, lowered his head and handed the food box in his hand to Zhao Xin, coquettishly said: "Don't delay the adults' discussion, I'll go first." After speaking, he leaned on a wooden stick , turned around and left.

Zhao Xin returned to the house, opened the food box and saw that besides Chen Qingsong's three dishes, there was also a bowl of braised fish.Chen Qingsong made fun of it when he saw it: "Succeed, the treatment is really different. It seems that Xiao Tang is thinking about you."

Zhao Xin didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and said: "Pull it. I don't think that Qing He has any thoughts about you?"

Chen Qingsong shook his head and said, "She's only sixteen, what nonsense! Hey, what's the matter between you and Teacher Xiao Shen? Her father, Shen Jingdan, has asked me insinuatingly several times."

"What did he ask?"

"Ask you if you have any idea of ​​marrying a wife. He also said that he is worrying all the time now, and that Teacher Xiao Shen is almost eighteen. Even a fool can tell what he wants to do."

Zhao Xindao: "He will invite me to his house for dinner tomorrow."

Chen Qingsong said: "If it's not like this, after the new year, let Mr. You and the others help you propose marriage to the Shen family."

It is said that Shen Xuan will be seventeen after this year, and she is considered an "old girl" in this era.However, Zhao Xin has always been worried about whether he should take root in the eighteenth century, in short, it is all kinds of hypocrisy.He said casually: "Let's talk."

The two had a quick meal before they started talking about business.Zhao Xin asked about the meeting for the refugees in the afternoon, and Chen Qingsong said: "The problem of domestic refugees is far more complicated than we imagined. Originally, I wanted to wait for you to come back, hold a meeting, and then show all these people's deeds of prostitution." Burn the fire, let's also 'turn over and become the master'. Now it seems that we have to wait."

"Oh?" Zhao Xin took out a cigarette and handed one to Chen Qingsong. After the two lit it, they asked, "How do you say it?"

Chen Qingsong said: "The production method under the small-scale peasant economy is fundamentally different from ours here. I picked a dozen of them in the afternoon and had a general chat. After knowing how they farm the land, I feel that this person is attached to the land. The system must be maintained for a period of time, otherwise, if they let it go, this piece of black land will have to be harmed by them."

If you don't ask, you don't know. If you ask, you will be shocked.Floods and droughts are certainly a major reason why Henan is impoverished in this era, but the corruption of officials and oppression of landlords in Chen Qingsong's imagination were not the main problems.The most important reason why the refugees in Henan are poor is that the agricultural production technology is too backward!
Throughout the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, due to the frequent occurrence of various natural disasters in Henan, local farmers were basically in a state of relying on natural harvests.However, the reality of frequent floods and droughts makes it doomed that the possibility of relying on the sky for food is slim.Occasionally, there are a few years when the rain is adjusted smoothly, which is already a rare harvest year.

For these refugees from Henan, relying on the sky for food is precisely the way they are used to in agricultural production, and they must be corrected through coercive means.

Chen Qingsong learned from the conversations with the representatives of the refugees that these people had previously adopted extensive management in agricultural production.The main problem is that they do not pay attention to fertilization when farming is not heavy on agriculture; after sowing, they do not know how to manage the land and wait for the harvest.

One word, lazy!

"Let me give you the simplest example. I asked them how they plowed the land after the autumn harvest every year, but no one knew that they had to plow the land after the autumn harvest. The group of people told me that they never plowed the land after the autumn, and only did it in spring. start."

"Ah?" After two years, even Zhao Xin, who doesn't know much about agriculture, now knows that after the autumn harvest, the land must be plowed as soon as possible.

Chen Qingsong shook his head helplessly and sighed: "This situation is very common. The land is not grown according to the weather, nor according to the nature of the material. It is too lazy to accumulate manure. It is only fresh if it can be planted well! The old saying goes, 'Plowing never tires of hoeing'. I I asked a lot of people, they generally planted millet and sorghum in the past, and there was very little wheat.

To plant these crops, it is said that at least three times in the beginning of spring, the field must be hoed if there is grass or no grass.As a result, when I asked guess what, they hoeed once or twice at most, and a few people from Wuyang said they never hoe.I was stunned when I heard it! "

Zhao Xin said in surprise: "I'll go! This is too lazy!"

Chen Qingsong said: "There are even lazier ones, which make you dumbfounded."

A team leader from Linzhang told Chen Qingsong that the farmers in their area just waited for the summer harvest after plowing and sowing in spring, and did nothing about watering and fertilizing.If there is a drought, just wait for the rain, and don't even bring water.Chen Qingsong was dumbfounded when he heard it.This is the Central Plains area, is there still such a farmer?

The Linzhang man explained at the time that Henan has suffered from floods all these years, and after the floods, there will be droughts and grasshoppers, and no one will be able to take care of the land.After coming and going, those good crops moved away; and the farmers who stayed in the local area, they couldn't do a lot of crop work, and gradually became a state of relying on God's food for food.

"I asked them if the government had built water conservancy projects to facilitate field irrigation. They said that the Manchu Qing court, oh, that is, the River Governor's Yamen, invested a lot of manpower and material resources in the maintenance of the Yellow River every year. As for the other dozen There are only a few tributaries, and no one cares about them at all. So as long as there is a lot of rain, some rivers will burst."

For the Chinese government of all dynasties, the maintenance of the Yellow River was ranked first, and it was the same for the Qing Dynasty.Kangxi and Qianlong even inspected many times.However, the Qing government and the Henan local government focused all their attention on the Yellow River, and completely ignored the water conservancy repairs of the other dozen rivers in Henan.Therefore, even though there are many rivers in the province, few can provide timely irrigation.

Zhao Xindao: "This is a vicious circle. When a famine hits, farmers in Henan begin to migrate to neighboring provinces, either renting land or reclaiming wasteland, or finding other jobs. With the loss of agricultural technical talents, production will continue to decline. behind."

Chen Qingsong said: "Besides, even in years without famines, there are many problems with their methods of land reclamation. Do you know how they land reclamation? These people went into the mountains to reclaim land, cut down the big trees, and threw the trunks aside. Instead, the branches are cut down and dried to make firewood, and the leaves are dried and burned into plant ash as fertilizer. In this way, we only know how to plant without preserving moisture, and within a few years, a mountain will be completely destroyed."

Zhao Xin was stunned when he heard that.According to this number of roads, the Sanjiang Plain will experience desertification within a few years.

Historically, Henan, which experienced the three dynasties of Kang, Yong, and Qian, had a relatively rapid population growth due to the absence of wars, but the per capita cultivated land area continued to decline.Coupled with the low grain yield per mu, it is difficult to meet people's basic food needs, so that the contradiction between man and land has become increasingly acute.Due to the pressure of survival, many farmers who were squeezed out of the land went to the mountainous areas one after another, and went deep into the deep mountains and old forests with severe terrain to engage in the road of deforestation and land reclamation.

Chen Qingsong said: "My opinion is that the master-slave relationship formed by the sales contract cannot be dissolved. As the biggest landlord, we must force them to work, and we must not follow their temperament!"

Zhao Xindao: "I agree. After they have tasted the sweetness after working for two years, they will naturally abide by our system. When everything is on the right track, we will abolish the personal dependence system. This time, at least four or five years, to form a habit Just do it."

Speaking of which, the current agricultural production model implemented in Beihai Town is actually a kind of "collective farm system" that refers to later generations, and at the same time combines the four characteristics of the feudal personal attachment system.

Families who were allocated land had permanent use rights, and productive materials such as seeds, large-scale agricultural machinery, horses, and livestock were provided by Zhao Xin, a big landowner, and organized by Chen Qingsong.The civil affairs department has the final say on what to plant and how to plant it, and farmers have no right to decide.

In addition, Chen Qingsong had to formulate an annual agricultural production plan.Such as planned total output, output per unit area, sown area and structure, etc.At the same time, with the help of large-scale agricultural machinery and equipment, only some people in Beihai Town are now organized to farm the land, and the rest are either working as migrant workers or serving as soldiers.

After various necessary deductions (such as large-scale agricultural machinery and water conservancy facilities) have been made in the field output of each family, the remaining harvest directly goes to the farmers.Farmers can keep small tools and a certain amount of livestock and poultry, and operate the specified land next to the house and family sidelines as supplementary income.For example, growing vegetables in front of and behind the house, and family production of tobacco and matches.

However, although it was said that the harvest belonged to the farmers, Zhao Xin turned back and took the grain back through unissued currency as part of the grain reserves of the entire Beihai Town.

Because the first island refugee families who followed Zhao Xin absolutely trusted Zhao Xin and others, no one did not believe Zhao Xin's promise, and willingly handed over the food to the public.This is not only because the early refugees regarded Zhao Xin as a "immortal descending from the earth", but more importantly, because the current Beihai Town is still engaged in a physical rationing system, and the currency has not entered the field of circulation.

"The issue of currency cannot be delayed any longer. The mint has completed the casting plan you mentioned earlier. Our question now is, how to set the price of food?"

Zhao Xin said: "This is simple." After that, he took a pen and paper and a calculator and began to calculate.

The weight of grain in the Qing Dynasty is very complicated if it is translated into the metric system. The density of grain particles determines the weight of grain in a wooden bucket.And one stone is equal to 120 catties, which is a balance system, not a quantity system.The quantity system is Shi, Dendrobium, Dou, Sheng and He.One stone is equal to two dendrobiums, ten buckets, one hundred liters, and one thousand heaps.

To put it simply, a standard warehouse stone indica brown rice is about 120 catties, or about 143 city catties in later generations; a standard warehouse stone japonica brown rice is about 130 catties, or about 155 city catties; Jin, about 138.25 Jin; a standard warehouse of japonica rice is equal to 165 Jin, about 100 Jin; a standard warehouse of corn is equal to 120 Jin, about 137.2 Shi Jin; a standard warehouse of unmilled wheat is equal to 164 About jin, about 125 jin.

At present, the price of wheat in Guanzhong is mainly based on the Jinan Prefecture Grain Market. The price of a stone of wheat fluctuates around 1.5 taels of silver, and it will exceed 1.7 taels in a disaster year.

If the average price is 1.5 taels, a catty of wheat is 1 cent of silver. Farmers in Beihai Town grow wheat, and according to the yield of 400 catties per mu, the harvest is 4 taels of silver. The production is 200 catties, and the gross income is [-] taels of silver.

After deducting the necessary expenses and making a [-]% discount, such as agricultural machinery, irrigation, seeds, etc., there is still [-] catties left.

In the Qing Dynasty, the daily ration of a rural laborer was one liter of rice and 1.5 catties of white flour, which would be 548 catties a year; and a family of four would be about 2000 catties.In this way, there are still eight thousand catties left.

Sell ​​half of the 40 catties and keep half, and the income is 200 taels of silver, which is 32 silver dollars in Beihai (five Beihai dollars are exchanged for one tael of silver), and the island country Douding silver is [-] taels (one Beihai dollar is equal to four taels of silver).

This income is already scary!Many small and medium landlords in the Qing Dynasty could not earn tens of taels of silver a year just by farming.

Zhao Xin and the others originally planned to launch the currency in the middle of this year, while opening shops and restaurants in residential areas.However, due to the attack of the Qing government, all materials needed to be deployed in a centralized and unified manner, and the issue of currency has been delayed.

Chen Qingsong said: "It seems that the matter of currency cannot be delayed any longer."

Zhao Xindao: "Then it will be before the Spring Festival, the currency is one, and the refugees from the island country change their Chinese surnames and give the same name. The two things should not be later than February next year at the latest."

Chen Qingsong said: "Are you really planning to turn these islanders into Han Chinese?"

Zhao Xin's gaze became sharper, and he said to Chen Qingsong: "This is an urgent matter, starting with the army. Now that we have arrived in this land, we must be naturalized. Manchus of later generations can change their Han surnames, and the islanders have to give them the same. I will change. Next year I plan to use troops against the shogunate, but if I don’t do this, I’m still worried.”

After the two had finished talking, Zhao Xin finally asked, "How do you plan to deal with the problem of the refugees in Henan?"

Chen Qingsong said: "Let's go a few steps. We have to let these people understand our production method first. First, open an agricultural training class, assign some people to attend the class, and then assign some people to work in the iron mine. This winter You can’t be idle, otherwise people will be lazy. In addition, I plan to build a large brick kiln. It’s okay to have fewer people before, but now that there are more people, it’s a waste of resources to cut down trees and build houses.”

Zhao Xin nodded and said: "Teaching classes, building roads, burning bricks, digging dry docks, mining, and building a few more bridges on the Xila River, hehe, this winter is busy enough, so it's decided."

(End of this chapter)