Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 674 Using the Spear of the Son and the Shield of the Trapped Son

Chen Qingsong later told Kong Shaoan that in addition to those landlord groups with gentry backgrounds in Jiaodong, there is another group of people that needs special attention.

"The landlord of the common people?"

Kong Shaoan had never heard of such a term, but Chen Qingsong explained it to him.The so-called common people landlords are actually merchants and usurers who buy land in large quantities.

Some of these people bought land for their children and grandchildren, some for returning to the garden for the elderly, and some bought righteous land to dedicate to the clan;The most common means used by these people is the "Ji Zhuang System", changing the name to buy land.

"Don't underestimate these people. Landlords of common people tend to monopolize power in the countryside by virtue of their wealth, which is what is commonly referred to as arbitrariness. A landlord of the gentry, a landlord of the common people, plus public donations from the Qing Dynasty, selling officials and nobles. The landlord class controls the entire economy."

Having said that, Chen Qingsong changed the subject and asked Kong Shaoan another question.

"Xiao Kong, do you also agree with some people's statement that as long as we guide and complete the primitive accumulation of capital, the buds of capitalism in the feudal era can form a prairie fire?"

Kong Shaoan hesitated for a moment, then nodded and said: "When I was in the power plant, everyone would talk about this when they were free to chat. I didn't understand it very much, I just listened to them, but I think it makes sense. As long as I can change The policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce, and striving to promote commerce, can surpass Westerners and complete modernization ahead of schedule. However.”

Chen Qingsong smiled slightly and said, "What?"

"After listening to what you just said, I'm also a little confused. You know, I don't really understand a lot of things, but as long as Mr. Zhao and you say it, I will do it."

Chen Qingsong patted Kong Shaoan's shoulder with a smile, satisfied with his statement, and then explained: "Capitalism has always accumulated productive capital through the production field, not business or other fields. Commodification of labor force In fact, it is monetization.

History textbooks show that there were sprouts of capitalism at the end of the year. This is true, and it still exists now, but this sprout cannot attract a large amount of money capital in the hands of merchants and landlords.Even if it is very profitable, it is only because of the expansion of sea trade and the increasing demand of the urban population for luxury goods, while 90.00% of the rural population does not need it at all. "

"Oh, you said it before," Kong Shaoan thoughtfully turned to the first page of the record, and said word by word: "One of the characteristics of China's feudal economy is the combination of small-scale agriculture and cottage industry of agricultural producers. .”

"That's right!" Chen Qingsong nodded approvingly. It is still strengthening the landlord economy.”

"Oh why?"

"It's still the trinity economic model. It contains a huge power to increase wealth. It combines the safest land rent and the interest of high returns. It is any foundation based on simple collaboration and manual production. The germ of absolute surplus value exploitation is incomparable, and it also has a high degree of flexibility, and wealth accumulation can be invested in the most favorable direction at any time.

"Historical Records. Biographies of Cargo Farming" said that using poverty to seek wealth, agriculture is not as good as work, and work is not as good as business.Don't look at the fact that the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats listed "business" as the last of the four peoples, and said that "businessmen value profits and despise separation", that is just a trick of people before and after.By the way, I know you are from Jining, does the Sun family of 'Yutang Sauce Garden' know? "

Of course Kong Shaoan knew that he used to buy pickles from his family, and since he went to Jiaodong, he would serve a small dish for breakfast every day.

"Sun Yuting was a Jinshi in the 40th year of Qianlong. He was a Hanlin, and he is currently a Yanfa Road in Guangxi. His pickle garden was opened in partnership with others with a capital of [-] yuan. If he wants to be rich, he sells sauce and vinegar. What do you think of him? Ashamed of doing business? The reason why he dared to do this is because the Sun family has [-] mu of arable land in Jining, and they are absolutely big landlords! And I'm sure that his family also runs a pawn shop to lend usury."

"Xiao Kong, what I have told you so much is actually to tell you that despite the fact that those landlords seem to be well-educated and full of benevolence and morality, they actually exploit the bottom-level peasant households very seriously. Commercial profit rates and usury interest rates are based on The land rent rate should be set as the minimum limit, otherwise merchants and usurers would rather collect rents and taxes from local landlords than take the risk of losing money!"

Kong Shaoan nodded, he actually knew all of this.According to the survey data of the Going-to-the-Rural Work Team, in addition to the fixed fixed rent in kind, the four counties in Jiaodong currently have rent deposits similar to deposits, and there are even cases where rents are collected in advance.

People in the future may see in history books that when a certain celebrity was in the countryside, he led his servants to protect his masterpieces, farming and reading, idyllic pastoral, reading and reciting poems, so comfortable.But in fact, their comfort and leisure are all based on the blood and sweat of poor farmers.

Since the Han Dynasty, the general land rent rate in China has been more than [-]%.However, due to the popularity of the "permanent tenant system", the burden on the bottom farmers was even heavier.The ownership of land is separated from the right to cultivate it. It is called Tiangu Tianpi in the south and Tiandi Tianpi in the north.Land transactions in later generations generally talked about the sale and purchase of the right to use, but in this year, they have to be discussed separately.The tens of thousands of mu of land owned by many big landowners is probably just the land, not the ownership.

As far as the above-mentioned good irrigated fields are concerned, the skin of the field will be more expensive than the bone of the field; so as long as the cultivation rights are obtained, they can be leased out by changing hands and earn a lot of profit.For the bottom-level peasants, after harvesting, they first have to pay the landowner a rent, and then they have to pay the owner of the farming right a leather rent.Although the height of the two varies according to the abundance and barrenness of the land, it also makes the poor poorer.

Why do Fujianese go to sea to Nanyang since the Ming Dynasty?Without him, it is because the leather rent is too high.There is already a shortage of arable land, eight mountains, one water and one field, and the leather rent in some areas even exceeds the rent by several times, resulting in the poorer the more the land is cultivated.

If Beihai Town wants to take the land in the pass into public ownership, it is useless to just get the field bone, and it doesn't even matter if you can't get it temporarily. The field skin is the most important thing.On the contrary, there is no such problem outside the customs, and all the means of production are provided by ourselves; to put it bluntly, when Zhao Xin first recruited refugees, he wanted to set the land rent to "downwardly [-]", and there were people rushing to do it.

How fresh, no production materials are required, and the working efficiency of the tractor is so high, the refugees only pay half or even a third of the hard work, and they can get higher farming profits than those in the customs. When it comes to the permanent tenancy right of [-] acres of land, no fool will join it!

After Chen Qingsong said so much in one breath, Kong Shaoan also had some thoughts.

"Mr. Chen, then I will start by reducing the rent when I go back. What do you think?"

"Well, I'm afraid it won't work just to reduce rent. You have to be careful about the corruption of public power by monetary power. If you don't cut this line, you won't be able to reduce rent and interest. Then there is the landlord's control over the rural commodity economy. We must get 50% of the position. We must not let them control both commercial capital and usury capital!"

"I understand that they cannot be converted between land rent, commercial profits and usury."

Speaking of the issue of usury by landlords, one person has to be mentioned——Gu Yanwu's nephew Xu Qianxue.This person was a famous scholar in the Kangxi period, and once served as the censor of the left capital and the minister of the Ministry of punishment.It is said that the Xu family’s usury in Kunshan is well-known in the annals of history. When he was impeached and returned home, Mingzhu’s nephew collected evidence of the Xu family’s crimes for revenge. Among them was the usury of five cents. Xu Qianxue was so frightened that he vomited blood and die.

But in the Qianlong period, a five-cent profit was nothing!Very profitable.

The Qing court once restricted the interest rate of private lending, requiring a maximum monthly interest rate of three cents.However, the landlords and gentry who controlled the usury market from the cities to the countryside did their best to make it a formality. In some places, [-]% annual interest has become a common phenomenon.As for the "Beijing debt" used by officials in the capital to bribe and buy officials, it is a profitable business; you must know that as long as scholars start to go to Beijing to take the exam, they will definitely deal with money shops and accounting bureaus.

The reason why Beihai Town will provide a subsidy to all the scholars who come to take the exam is also considering that they may borrow usury, which will eventually lead to the monetization of power.

After this conversation, Kong Shaoan finally realized that what he wanted to do was not just a simple reduction of rent and interest, but a revolution from the city to the countryside, from the economy to politics, and people from all walks of life would be affected. No one was spared.

So when he returned to Wendeng, his base camp, he again called the members of the work team from the four counties to hold a mobilization meeting.At the meeting, he raised the meaning of the land reform movement to a higher level, bluntly saying that this revolution is to "strike the local tyrants", but it is by no means just dividing up the land to complete the task. This is a revolution that affects everyone. In this way, the people at the bottom will not be lifted out of poverty, and the goal of an "industrial country" will not be realized.

".I have told you so much, and I have drawn them on the blackboard. I believe everyone understands how the landlords and gentry exploited the common people in a trinity. Our task is to break their two legs first and cut off their wealth. Circulation. Haha, the discount I'm talking about is not really rushing into the other party's house and knocking off the legs of the old man, but using the spear of the son and the shield of the trap!

We must first mobilize the poor peasants who are the most exploited at the bottom, rely on them to organize peasant associations, and then use the strength of the peasant associations to wrestle with the landlords.You go down this time to tell the peasants, don’t be afraid, everything is backed by the Military Control Commission and the Beihai Navy!We are here to let everyone have enough food through their own labor! "

With the end of the mobilization meeting, more than 100 rural work teams composed of Beihai Navy, civil affairs officers, and agricultural technicians set off again.From July 1793, 7, Beihai Township began to promote peasant associations in the four counties of Jiaodong, and announced relevant laws.Among them, the decree clearly requires that under the leadership of the work team, three-level peasant associations should be established in counties, townships, and villages.Non-direct agricultural operators-such as those who only collect rent and do not cultivate land after renting out bone and field skins, are not allowed to join.The leasehold department under the peasant association mediates disputes over leasehold through negotiation and arbitration.

Like Zhao Xin’s farmers’ association in Java, all members of the farmers’ association will receive a set of production tools and high-quality high-yield seeds for free, and the farmers’ association at the township level will provide its subordinate villages with horse-drawn seeders and harvesters. A full set of agricultural machinery services; the construction and improvement of farmland water conservancy facilities in various townships by the administrative office will be carried out around the members of the peasant association.

Immediately afterwards, the Jiaodong Administration promulgated the "Regulations on Land Management and Private Lending". Taking into account the habit of using the lunar calendar in inland areas, the specific implementation time was set on the first day of the seventh lunar month.It mainly includes the following contents:

30. Landlord households in the four counties, regardless of their size, can keep [-] mu of paddy fields or [-] mu of dry land, and the rest of the land will be expropriated by the military control committee in the form of currency;The ownership of the land after expropriation is publicly owned by the government, and the members of the peasant association lease the land for farming, and cannot transfer the land to the tenants.

30. In terms of expropriation compensation, the landlord can get 70% cash compensation, and the remaining 8% will be paid with land bonds issued by the Beihai Town Civil Administration, which will be paid in equal amounts over ten years with an additional annual interest of [-]%.

40. Members of peasant associations rent from landlords, and the maximum percentage of the total rent for field bone and field skin shall not exceed 40% of the output of the year, and fixed land rent shall not be implemented.If the existing land rent is higher than [-]%, it must be reduced to this standard, and if it is lower than this standard, it cannot be raised. Otherwise, the tenant has the right to give up farming, and all economic losses will be borne by the tenant.

6. Landlords are not allowed to collect rent in advance in the form of mortgage rent, and should lower it in case of poor harvest.The lease period shall not be less than [-] years. After the lease expires, unless the landlord takes back the land for self-cultivation, it shall still be leased to the original tenant; Right of first refusal.

2. In terms of self-cultivating farmers, self-cultivating farmers with less than 5 mu of land are exempt from all taxes, and only a 1% fixed tax is levied during the sales process. In addition, if you are a member of a peasant association, you can enjoy a [-]% tax reduction.

50. The administrative office will allocate [-] yuan to establish a rural credit department in Jiaodong area to provide a series of services such as loans and deposits for farmers' association members.

[-]. As for the behavior of lending usury among the people, once the military control committee seizes it, the borrower only needs to repay the principal, and no interest is required; those who cannot repay can be repaid in up to ten installments.At the same time, the military control committee will impose a high fine of five times the principal on the lender and investigate criminal responsibility.

The release of relevant decrees immediately caused an uproar in the four counties of Jiaodong.The gentry and landlords who had been smiling at the work team met the members of the work team again, and either tried to persuade them with "don't compete with the people for profit", or they were in panic all day long.Without exception, these people sent their own entourage to the poorest tenants in their villages and townships to deliver food and ask for their relatives.All of a sudden, the gentry in every township and village became great benefactors.

However, what they didn't expect was that the farmers were not fools, and they knew exactly who was sincere to them.The work team had already won their goodwill in the previous six months of investigation work. These people never went to the landlord's house to eat and drink, and opened fire alone every day, and often used their own rations to help those poor households.So many people told the people in the work team about the hardships they had personally suffered in the past.

What do people say?Peasants have to save themselves, and only by working together can they change their way of life.

Anyway, we are so poor, why not give it a try?
　In history, Zeng Guofan once borrowed a debt from Beijing. At that time, he was already the minister of the Ministry of Rites, but it took him 12 years to pay it off.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)