I want to be emperor

Chapter 565

Kong Kaikang had resentment about his position in Liaodong.

He was a big boy who was born in a land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River, but he never thought that one day he would come to the bitter cold land of Liaodong... and he would stay for several years if nothing happened.

He hates the coldness in Liaodong, and hates the greedy military in Liaodong. He also complains that the yamen staff in Liaodong are all focused on food production. They directly moved thousands of laborers from the locals, and everyone shook their heads.

Although intellectually he can also understand the thinking of local officials, the world is the biggest food, and the first thing they need to solve is the food problem, not economic development.

On the contrary, Ji Dehua, the governor of Liaodong, was thinking about industrial development. He thought that if Liaodong wanted to get rid of the current embarrassing situation of the crying land, it had to open up a new situation. The rich natural mineral resources of Liaodong were the best stepping stones.

However, even Ji Dehua never thought that the upper echelon of the empire would move so quickly. Only a few months after Liaodong was recovered, a delegation from the Ministry of Industry came over, followed by more than [-] medium and large factories/mines. The construction plan has already been finalized.

This made Liaodong's preparations seriously insufficient.

Originally, according to Ji Dehua's estimation, Liaodong still had to base itself on agriculture and restore people's livelihood in the first year, at least to achieve self-sufficiency in food, and then some more food to supply military and industrial needs.

In this way, the industry can be developed in a logical way.

At the same time, during the first two years of developing agriculture in the early stage, it could just be used to survey various minerals in Liaodong, and at the same time make various reports to the upper echelons of the empire to persuade the upper echelons of the empire to prepare for the establishment of a national industrial zone.

So it just fits in...

But he didn't expect that the top management of the empire would be so impatient...

When Liaodong was still poor and self-sufficient in food, a huge industrial development plan had already been finalized, and the plan was not mentioned, but it started directly...

Nima, there is a shortage of labor in Liaodong now, and the only labor has to be invested in restoring people's livelihood and agricultural production. The woolen industrial zone... Now I can't even find workers to build factories in the industrial zone...

Therefore, Ji Dehua is both happy and helpless now, but helplessness is helplessness, and things still need to be done.

The high-level empire has finalized the plan, so it will definitely not give up easily. If he, Ji Dehua, does not do a good job, cannot effectively coordinate and balance the development of agriculture and industry, and cannot bring Liaodong to a new height, then the high-level empire will never give up. Without hesitation, another person will be the governor of Liaodong.

Therefore, Ji Dehua took the initiative to find a group of large government-run enterprises that were newly established and did not even have a signboard, and invited their supervisors for a discussion.

The main content of the talks is how to solve the urgently needed labor force for industrial development.

Ji Dehua first stated at the meeting that the existing population in Liaodong, especially the young and strong, healthy women and even half-children, are the foundation of the people's livelihood in Liaodong and are to be used to vigorously develop agriculture.

The Liaodong Governor’s Office has already allocated the land in different ways according to the population, such as returning, selling in installments, and opening up wasteland, etc., which has allowed nearly one million local people in Liaodong to have land per capita. From last year to next year, these people will be on the land. Work on the ground, in order to completely solve the food shortage in Liaodong this year, and to produce rich grain next year to supply the industrial population and military supplies.

The great development of Liaodong is based on sufficient food.

And considering the extremely high cost of food transportation, it is impossible for Liaodong to always rely on the import of food in the customs, because the food in Liaodong must be self-sufficient.

Under such circumstances, the existing nearly one million people must all be invested in food production.

Ji Dehua's first statement made a group of corporate officials in the Ministry of Industry look bad... Damn, if a single labor force refuses to move out, then you still ask us to have a fart meeting, I am not your subordinate...

For government-run enterprises directly under the Ministry of Industry, the organizational relationship of the company officials is with the Ministry of Industry, which has nothing to do with the locality.

For example, Kong Kaikang, although he was transferred to Liaoyang Prefecture in Liaodong Province to serve as the co-organizer of Benxi Coal Mine Company, his files were not directly transferred to Liaodong Province, let alone Liaoyang Prefecture, but belonged to the Mining Affairs Department of the Ministry of Industry.

Not only him, but all other officials of mining enterprises directly under the Ministry of Industry are directly under the jurisdiction of the Department of Mines, because the Department of Mines is responsible for the management of all mining enterprises directly under the Ministry of Industry.

Therefore, Kong Kaikang and the others have nothing to do with the Liaodong governor's yamen. Although Ji Dehua is a second-rank senior official, he can't control them.

Of course, if Kong Kaikang really wanted to manage it, he could manage it. After all, these companies were all in Liaodong and under his rule, Ji Dehua, but that was the relationship between the local government and the company, not the same concept as the relationship between personnel.

Therefore, the supervisors of these enterprises gave Ji Dehua face to come to the meeting, but if Ji Dehua continues to talk nonsense, then don't blame them for being too lazy to talk to him.

Fortunately, after Ji Dehua stated that the local labor force in Liaodong could not be used, he immediately stated that Liaodong will provide strong support for major enterprises to introduce labor from the customs.

I won’t talk about other falsehoods, but only one thing, that is, to provide cash subsidies. Major enterprises recruit labor from within the customs, and the Liaodong local government will give certain cash subsidies according to the situation to reduce the cost of recruiting workers for enterprises.

They were also invited to go with the Liaodong governor's yamen to the pass to recruit reclamation personnel, forming a large agricultural and industrial recruitment group to go to the pass to recruit.

The local yamen of Liaodong also planned to recruit immigrants from the customs, but all the recruits were land reclamation personnel.

After all, Liaodong has a vast land and abundant resources, and there is still a large amount of black land along the Liaohe River. These places can grow food on a large scale, but Liaodong has few people now!
The Liaoxi Corridor, the area along the Liaohe River, and even the Liaodong Peninsula area, etc., now have a lot of wasteland that can be reclaimed and has a good suite waiting for development.

For this reason, the Liaodong Governor's Yamen has already formulated a plan to attract at least 300 million agricultural immigrants in the customs within five years.

As long as you come to open up wasteland, the land will be allocated for free.

This subdivision is not limited to immigrants, but also locals.

To put it simply, no matter who you are, as long as you are willing to open up wasteland, the government will give you a certain area of ​​land to open up wasteland. The land that is opened up is yours and can be passed on to future generations.

At the same time, there will be a preferential agricultural tax policy of tax exemption for the first three years and tax for the next two and a half years.

Land reclamation needs to be encouraged in this way, otherwise what are farmers working so hard to reclaim land?
Moreover, this does not conflict with the policies of returning land and purchasing land in installments implemented in the Liaodong region. Although the previous series of land policies were all subdivision of land in essence, they were all cultivated fields that had been reclaimed. There is no preferential agricultural tax for ripe fields.

The preferential policies for land reclamation given by the governor of Liaodong are aimed at reclaiming more wasteland and attracting immigrants to increase the population.

And this does not conflict with the recruitment of major factories.

Not everyone is willing to drag their families and move directly to the bitterly cold place in Liaodong. Some people think about running there alone to work and earn money, and then send money to support the family, or save money to go back to their hometown for a better life. Life.

And these people can be recruited to work in factories in Liaodong. These people may resign and return to their hometown after working for a few years.

Ji Dehua, governor of Liaodong, stated that he could give recruitment subsidies, and at the same time took them to the provinces in the customs to recruit workers, and made official arrangements to provide various conveniences along the way.

This made the supervisors of major enterprises nod slightly.

At this moment, the governor's yamen of Liaodong finally did some personnel affairs.

Anyway, they are all going to recruit workers in the customs. It is naturally better to have Liaodong Governor's Yamen to help with various trivial matters.

Although the ranks of these enterprises directly under the Ministry of Industry are not low, no matter what, they don't have the face of a provincial governor.

It is a good thing that Ji Dehua personally stood on the platform to help them recruit workers.

As a result, an agreement was quickly reached, and it was agreed to send multiple recruitment delegations to the provinces in the pass, mainly in places with many people and little land.

Kong Kaikang also started to get busy when the delegation to the customs to recruit workers set off.

Before the recruiting delegation came back with a large number of workers, he had to take care of other matters first. Let alone other things, at least he had to prepare the places where the workers lived.

As for the Benxi Coal Mine Company, it is a planned large-scale enterprise, and the number of miners hired in the first phase will reach more than 2000, and the eating, drinking and messing of so many people will have to be solved.

For this reason, Kong Kaikang continued to run around, pinching his nose first, spent a large amount of food donations, found the Liaodong Provincial Garrison Command, and temporarily invited hundreds of prisoners of war to carry out the preliminary layout of the mine. As well as construction of various types of buildings, especially housing.

Because of this, Kong Kaikang was disgusted!
Those people in the military are so popular, they say that the task of military ration supply and production is very heavy, and at the same time they say that there are wave after wave of companies coming to find people, and the few manpower vacated can't be arranged at all.

There is no way, Kong Kaikang can only increase the price.

Because the price for hiring prisoners of war was too high, Kong Kaikang paid attention to some local labor.

Of course, don’t count on those young and strong laborers. These people are all willing to open up wasteland under the organization of the local government. Kong Kaikang dared to poach people, but he dared to raise the price of grain and let the people of the Benxi Coal Mine Company eat the Northwest. the wind goes...

To be precise, it wasn't the local government that raised the price, they didn't have the ability, but the people from the Liaodong Branch of the Great Chu Empire Grain Corporation raised the price...

People are now selling grain at a loss, and they are waiting eagerly for Liaodong to be self-sufficient in grain.

If Kong Kaikang and the others dared to poach the farmers and send them to the mines, resulting in no one growing food and being unable to be self-sufficient in food, they would immediately dare to raise the price of food for you.

This price increase... is not a price increase of a few percentage points, but a double increase...

If you say a few words, people will dare to cut off the grain directly, and let you transport the grain in the pass by yourself, and the price will be even higher.

For today's Liaodong, food production is the most important thing. Whoever dares to hinder food production will have serious consequences.

Kong Kaikang naturally didn't have the guts... However, not all the locals are capable of reclaiming wasteland and farming, there are also some old and weak children who can't do heavy physical work, but ordinary physical work and some light logistical tasks It can still be done.

Recruiting a group of prisoners to let them do what they can do can also allow the prisoners of war hired at a high price to devote themselves to heavy physical work.

In Liaodong these days, the young and strong are used as cattle and horses, and the old and weak are used as young and strong!

-

While all kinds of affairs were going on in Liaodong, Jinling City was as calm as ever.

In the eighth year of Chengshun's Great Chu Empire, let's not talk about it later, at least the first few months at the beginning of the year were calm.

There is no large-scale war outside. The Dongcap people in the northeast region have already fled into the deep mountains and old forests. In addition, the long winter and heavy snow cover the mountains. It is impossible for the Chu army to launch an attack. Therefore, the Chu army in the Liaodong region adopted In order to maintain a strategic defensive posture, relying on the Liaodong Great Wall and various fortresses to garrison troops, at most they occasionally send cavalry troops out of the city to attack.

But the scale is not large, and the impact is not great, especially when the Dongyao people further evacuated from the edge of the Great Wall, even the cavalry attacks were less.

The fighting in the Monan Mongolia area has also subsided. Many local tribes have surrendered to the Great Chu Empire, and a few who have not surrendered have also begun to migrate far away to avoid the attack of the Chu army. In addition, it is also because of winter, so During the winter assembly, the Chu army did not have any large-scale operations on the front line of Mongolia.

The western front is still the same, and there are no large-scale wars. The Yarkand Khanate and the empire in the northwest are better. With the support of the empire, the Yarkand Khanate is resisting the attack of the Zhungeer Ministry.

The chieftains in Qinghai and Kangzang areas are now under the attack of the Heshuo Special Forces, and they have no spare power to invade the border. Instead, the Chu army finds various names for small-scale expansion and infiltration, and at the same time keeps going All kinds of weapons were imported into this area, inciting local chieftains and Heshuo special troops to fight to death.

On the whole, the entire western region poses no threat to the current Great Chu Empire. In order to resist Moxi Mongolia, various local khanates and chieftains basically chose to befriend the empire, and even sent tribute to request canonization.

The Great Chu Empire, on the other hand, enshrined a large number of so-called khans and living Buddhas through diplomatic means, and swore suzerainty in name to counter the eastward invasion of Moxi Mongolia. Well, they also looked for opportunities to directly annex the nearby Some toast or something.

In just a few years, more than a dozen chieftains in Qinghai and Kangzang, which are close to the areas controlled by the Great Chu Empire, have been brought under the direct rule of the Great Chu Empire. Some of these chieftains have won the official title of the Great Chu Empire, and they have changed Became officials of the Great Chu Empire, and some directly became the fertilizer of the earth... There are all kinds of consequences.

How should I put it, for all kinds of messy local Khans, chieftains, living Buddhas, etc., the Great Chu Empire is actually no better than Moxi Mongolia, but the Great Chu Empire's eating is more hidden, and the means are superficial. It looks milder.

But in fact, in the end, it is all about controlling the vast Qinghai and snowy areas and border areas
In this regard, the strategic goals of Moxi Mongolia and the Great Chu Empire are the same.

On the southern front, the barbarian regimes in Myanmar, Vietnam and other places have basically sent envoys to the Great Chu Empire to pay tribute in exchange for peace and trade rights, and the Great Chu Empire has nothing to do with this rotten place in the southern peninsula for the time being. Interest... It's not that I don't want to, but I tried it and found that the cost is too high, the place is not a place to be treated, and the non-combat casualties are too terrifying.

Therefore, there is no war on the southern front!

On the sea, although there are still disputes between the Great Chu Empire and Spain, Portugal, and the Dutch, the mutual interests are greater... Even if the empire was completely squeezed out of the Fusang trade route, the Dutch, who lost a lot, also because of the I have tasted a lot of sweetness in the trade with the Great Chu Empire, and now I don’t mention anything about the Fusang route. I am discussing with the Great Chu Empire about the peaceful transfer of the colonial stronghold on Dayuan Island.

In the early years, the Great Chu Empire had great conflicts with the Dutch because of the foreign colony on Dayuan Island. Focus on negotiation.

It's just that, in fact, negotiation is useless. If it can be won by negotiation, it has been won long ago. The real reason for the Dutch and Spaniards to withdraw from Dayuan Island is because of the opening of the sea ban by the Great Chu Empire. After opening many trading ports, they no longer need the colony on Dayuan Island as a trade transfer point with the Huaxia region.

The Dutch and the Spaniards, why did they establish a colonial stronghold on Dayuan Island?

The direct reason is that they wanted to trade with the Ming Dynasty, but the Ming Dynasty imposed a sea ban and ignored them... The only people who can openly trade with the Ming Dynasty are the Portuguese in Haojing, and the Portuguese want to monopolize the official trade with the Ming Dynasty , directly rejecting the Spaniards and the Dutch, and not allowing merchant ships from other countries to enter Haojing at all.

Later, the Dutch and the Spanish all set their sights on Dayuan Island, because the opposite of Dayuan Island is Quanzhou, and the Jiangnan area in northern Zhejiang is nearby, with a large number of raw silk porcelain and other commodities.

After they established a colony on Dayuan Island, they could purchase raw silk and other goods from various Chinese maritime smugglers nearby.

To put it bluntly, they established a colony on Dayuan Island to facilitate trade with China.

The Dutch also took the Fusang route with them in the early years, but the Fusang people ignored them. They only traded with Zheng Zhilong before. After Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the Great Chu Empire, the Fusang people are currently only trading with the Great Chu Empire. National ships enter the port of Fuso.

The role of Dayuan Island lies in trade, and once the Great Chu Empire directly opened many coastal trading ports and welcomed ships from any country to trade in China, Dayuan Island will lose its status as the most important trade transfer point in the contemporary era. effect.

In addition to the Fusang route that also passes through Dayuan Island, the maritime trade from the South China Sea to Huaxia no longer needs to pass through Dayuan Island.

In addition, the Fusang route is the exclusive route of the Great Chu Empire, and there are no Dutch or Spaniards at all.

Under such circumstances, it was logical for the Dutch and Spaniards to abandon their strongholds on Dayuan Island. In the colonial era, there was no benefit, and the colonial strongholds that had to be maintained at a constant loss were worthless.

Besides, they would definitely not be able to defend themselves in a real fight.

A few years ago, the Dutch simply withdrew their troops from the colonial stronghold on Dayuan Island, leaving only dozens of symbolic soldiers to maintain law and order there...

You must know that when the Great Chu Empire first controlled the coastal areas and landed on Dayuan Island, the Dutch were very nervous. They mobilized a lot of troops from the Nanyang colonies to station on Dayuan Island. At the time, the number of troops reached more than 2000. people.

But now... there are only dozens of people left, and these dozens of people are only used to maintain law and order.

At present, the Great Chu Empire is negotiating with the Netherlands, preparing to peacefully accept the colonial stronghold controlled by the Netherlands on Dayuan Island. It is currently in the final stage, and the Great Chu Empire can only wait for the Dutch to relocate their own people back. Go directly to take over, and it is expected that all the handover will be completed in May this year.

As for the colonies controlled by the Spaniards, they were peacefully handed over to the Great Chu Empire long ago.

In other words, in May of the eighth year of Chengshun, the last colony on Dayuan Island, a colonial stronghold controlled by the Dutch, would return to the Great Chu Empire.

After the matter on Dayuan Island is settled, there will be no obstacles to the maritime trade between the Great Chu Empire and the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and England.

At least, there will be no obstacles until the Great Chu Empire expands to the Nanyang region on a large scale.

This is of great benefit to the import and export trade of the Great Chu Empire. The silk, porcelain, tea, cloth, ironware and other products of the Great Chu Empire will pass through the merchant ships of the Great Chu Empire itself and merchant ships from various countries. It is transported to Nanyang and Fusang for sale, and then transported to India, West Asia, North Africa and even Europe through the transfer of Western maritime merchants.

The export trade is still of great benefit to the primitive industrial system of the Great Chu Empire, which is currently just developing and still in the hydrodynamic period.

Although the market within the Great Chu Empire is also very large, who would dislike a bigger market?

Furthermore, despite the fact that the Great Chu Empire has a population of 8000 to [-] million, in fact the consumer goods market is not as big as imagined.

Take cloth as an example!

China has been a typical small-scale peasant economic system for thousands of years. In the vast rural areas, it is normal for men to farm and women to weave. Therefore, for the rural population, they will not buy you a piece of cloth for ten taels of silver or one tael of silver. cloth, for they themselves have...

Well, if the purchase price is expensive, they will also weave their own cloth and sell it to you...

The British who have entered the mature period of the industrial revolution in the original time and space, their cloth is already cheap enough, but they still cannot open the Chinese market... because this is not a matter of whether it is cheap or not, but the vast majority of the Chinese population does not buy cloth at all .

You take things that people don't need and say how cheap they are, and they don't even bother to look at you!
Cloth could not be sold, and other industrial products were basically useless. In the end, in order to balance the trade deficit, the East India Company began to sell a large amount of tobacco to China, which eventually led to the outbreak of the Opium War.

What happened to the British cloth merchants in the original time and space also happened to the cloth merchants of the Great Chu Empire in the contemporary Great Chu Empire.

Their cheap machine-made cloth has swept the urban market... occupying the living space of a large number of homespun cloth, but their cheap machine-made cloth still cannot enter the rural market.

Hantian Textile Co., Ltd. feels the most about this. Over the past few years, they have thought of many ways to sell cloth in the countryside, but they can't sell it.

At this time, although the export market is still relatively small for the time being, it can continue to be cultivated.

Moreover, when selling cloth in other countries, you don't have to worry about the life and death of rural families like you did in China. You can play all kinds of dumping and forced trade.

The navy has stated that the imperial navy will escort the empire's commodity exports!

(End of this chapter)