I want to be emperor

People eat for food.

Luo Zhixue has always believed that a big country is what a strong country should look like if people have enough to eat and live a good life.

A country, no matter how good-looking its economic data is, no matter how powerful its army is, these things are important, but these things are essentially just a tool to make people's lives better.

Therefore, the core task of the powerful national defense industry of the Great Chu Empire and the powerful army of the Great Chu Empire after the unification war is to make the people of the Great Chu Empire live a good life.

Specifically, it is external expansion and overseas colonization!
And what is the purpose of foreign expansion and overseas colonization?
It is to obtain more land for survival, to obtain more industrial raw materials and economic crops, not simply to expand the territory.

Incorporating more land and aliens into the rule of the empire is actually of no practical significance. If you die, you will satisfy your vanity... because the means of production you obtained from foreign wars did not bring any actual benefits to the people of your country ...or aliens.

This is also the reason why the Great Chu Empire pursued more immigrant expansion in Siberia, Southeast Asia and other regions.

The land obtained through wars, diplomatic negotiations and other means is used to settle more immigrants and feed more people.

Use the guns and cannons of the Great Chu Empire to fight for more living space for the people of the Great Chu Empire.

This is the basic principle of the Great Chu Empire's external expansion.

This is perfectly reflected in a series of immigration policies of the newly established Luzon Province.

After the preparatory work for the past year, the governor of Luzon appointed by the Great Chu Empire has arrived in Manila to take office, and then the administrative division of Luzon Province has also been officially determined. It is a prefecture and three states, with a total of twelve counties.

These administrative divisions are basically based on islands, based on the colonial cities previously established by the Spaniards on the Luzon Islands.

However, although the administration is divided, and there are even basic principal officials, there are not many people.

In the past, the Luzon Islands were an area controlled by the Spaniards. During the Spanish control period, although many people from the Great Chu Empire went to the Luzon Islands to do business, there were still relatively few foregone conclusions.

After the Spaniards withdrew, the local personnel of the Great Chu Empire were mainly soldiers and commercial personnel who were on defense. In fact, few people actually settled in the local area!
Under such circumstances, the Luzon governor's office followed the example of the previous Malacca province and formulated a series of policies to encourage and attract immigrants.

One of the most core ones is that as long as the self-financed immigrants want to settle in Luzon Province, they will be granted land for free according to the population, and the amount of this land is very large.

In the Malani area where the development is relatively mature and the conditions are relatively good, [-] mu of land per capita can be granted, and in some places where the development is not very mature, as long as you settle down, at least [-] mu of land will be allocated for free...and this is only the lower limit, If conditions permit, more free land can be obtained.

At the same time, you can apply for a certain amount of interest-free agricultural loans to develop and cultivate these lands.

There will also be a five-year agricultural tax exemption and five-and-a-half-year tax incentives.

These are ordinary agricultural immigrants for family units. If they are some investment-based planting enterprises, there will be great preferential measures. At the same time, armed force protection will be provided to ensure that the investment of enterprises will not be damaged by the indigenous people.

In addition, precious funds will be spent to organize official immigration. The cost of official immigration is actually even greater, because official immigrants are basically poor people who are penniless and cannot even afford a boat ticket or food. .

The food, drink, and sleep during the immigration process all need to be paid by the government.

However, because the cost of government-run immigration is huge, and at the same time, many places do not necessarily require this kind of government-run immigration with full government investment. Therefore, since Chengshun 18, government-run immigration has classified organized immigration.

One is the original immigration policy, which means that all expenses are fully covered by the government. You only need to go there, but you have to go to places designated by the government, and these places are basically unwilling to go to ordinary immigrants, such as Siberia and Southeast Asia. Some places where the development is immature and the conditions are not very good.

Another is that the official organization of immigration is still required, but the corresponding expenses need to be borne by the immigrants themselves. Considering that the immigrants are penniless, they can use interest-free loans to pay. This interest-free loan will be repaid through the income after immigration. About ten years in installments, that is, interest-free immigration.This method of immigration allows you to choose the immigration area by yourself. Of course, this self-selection is actually limited in scope. Although it is not very bad, it is still not a good place.

It's a really good place, people have sources of immigrants at their own expense, but they don't need the officials to spend their own money to organize immigration there.

The above two kinds of government-run immigration, in fact, are essentially official money to send some immigrants to places that are not good.

But this time, Luzon Province has opened up a third immigration method, which is to provide ferry ticket subsidies and settlement subsidies for immigrants who arrive in Luzon Province at their own expense for final settlement.

That is subsidized immigration!
The main purpose is to attract immigrants at their own expense.

After all, as far as the contemporary Great Chu Empire is concerned, although there are a lot of immigrants, most of them are immigrants at their own expense... Speaking of immigrants at their own expense, most of them are actually poor, and many of them borrowed money to buy boat tickets, and then went to the place Territory-free land, and then apply for immigration loans to spend the initial period.

On the whole, the number of official immigration is actually relatively small... After all, the places where government immigration is located are either remote or dangerous.

Because many people prefer to borrow money and loans, but also freely choose where to immigrate.

However, whether it is borrowing money or getting a loan, the burden on immigrant families is still relatively large, after all, the ferry ticket is not cheap.

In order to attract immigrants, Luzon Province introduced targeted immigration subsidy policies to reduce the burden on immigrants.

Coupled with other policies such as free land delivery and agricultural loans, it can greatly reduce the burden on immigrants.

This immigration subsidy policy, coupled with the fact that the Luzon area is quite well-known in the Huaxia area, and the distance is also close, immediately attracted many people who planned to immigrate.

In the first half of Chengshun's 25th year alone, Luzon Province has absorbed more than 2 self-financed immigrants. In addition to the various immigrants attracted last year, as well as government-run immigrants, etc., the Luzon Province of the Great Chu Empire is a foregone conclusion. The settled population has grown from a few thousand to more than 3 in just two years.

It is estimated that after the end of this year, the population of Luzon Province is expected to reach more than 5 people.

This is already a good number for a newly occupied area.

With the base of 5 people and the strong support of the military, they can also carry out large-scale colonial expansion.

Why do you want the basic population in the early stage?

On the one hand, it is to solve the food problem on the spot, and it is impossible to transport a large amount of food from the local or other places all the time.

On the other hand, only when there is a sufficient immigrant population can enough young adults be selected to form the militia, and then expel and expand.

Just like in Malacca.

How did the Great Chu Empire do its colonial expansion in Malacca Province?

First, the main regular army was used to carry out a devastating blow to the local indigenous organized forces. Whether it was the indigenous state regime, tribes, or some big landlords, as long as it was an organized force, it was within the scope of the attack.

After the main regular army is used to completely destroy the local organized resistance, a large number of immigrants will enter the local area to open up village-level and town-level settlements, and militia teams will be set up in these settlements for self-protection.

These militias are basically equipped with flintlock guns and light artillery. When the regular army is in action, these militias will cooperate with the military.

On weekdays, in order to protect themselves and prevent the settlements from being attacked by the natives, the militia will also take the initiative to expel and clear the natives in the surrounding areas.

Such a settlement can not only protect itself, but also control the surrounding area.

And there will be a lot of such settlements, and they will be connected one by one along the main rivers and roads, gradually extending from the port to the inland.

In the end, most of the places suitable for living and farming were controlled. As for the original natives, they were gradually expelled in the process.

Today, in the 25th year of Chengshun, there are already 30 immigrants from the Great Chu Empire in Malacca Province, and they have almost completely controlled the major rivers and roads in Malacca Province.

And because the immigration development in Malacca Province is very mature, and the security is far superior to other colonies, so although all official immigration has been stopped, and even self-funded immigrants have no subsidies, there are still a large number of self-funded immigrants pouring into Malacca one after another.

If you go there, you can get a lot of land for free, and you can be tax-free for many years. This is an irresistible temptation for some poor families, especially farmers who dream of owning a large amount of land of their own.

If things go on like this, it will not be a few years before the population of Malacca province exceeds one million.

In time, Malacca Province will become the core territory where the Chinese people live and live, just like the eighteen provinces in Guannei.

The immigration expansion policy in the Malacca area was quite successful, and it naturally became a model for other colonies to learn from firefighting.

how to learn
Very simple!
First use the regular army to sort out the scheduled colonial area several times to defeat any organized resistance.

Then the immigrants set off from the seaside port, along the rivers and roads, gradually established settlements inland, and organized the young and strong in the settlements into a militia team under the jurisdiction of the garrison command.

Regular troops and militias work together to ensure the security of the migrant settlements.

When settlers settle all over the colony, the success of settler expansion can be declared.

What Luzon Province is now imitating is the series of immigration expansion policies pioneered by the Malacca region.

Not only did Luzon do this, in fact, the Great Chu Empire basically did this in other overseas colonies, but some were on a larger scale and some were on a smaller scale, some were more violent and some were milder .

But essentially nothing will change.

And the territories expanded by these immigrants, after the previous years of operation, will soon be able to import a large amount of commercial crops or food to the mainland.

Whether these economic crops or grains are imported to the local area, they can greatly reduce the pressure on the local food supply.

There is no need to talk about direct grain input.

Even the import of commercial crops can greatly alleviate the local food shortage.

Because cash crops also need land to cultivate, and as cheap cash crops from overseas are imported to the mainland, the local side does not need to occupy a large amount of land to grow cash crops, but continues to grow food.

The most typical of these is cotton.

The domestic textile industry has a huge demand for cotton. In the past, due to the lack of cotton import sources, cotton could only rely on self-production, which pushed up cotton prices.

This has led many farmers to grow cotton instead of food for more income.

In this way, the cotton output increased, and the income of the farmers increased, but the grain output decreased. The same thing will happen to the raw silk planting.

Once a huge scale is formed, cotton cannibalism and raw silk cannibalism will appear, which is roughly similar to sheep cannibalism during the first industrial revolution in Britain.

This will inevitably lead to a decline in local grain production and a decline in per capita grain.

However, with the prosperity of overseas trade, after the Great Chu Empire began to import a large amount of high-quality cheap cotton from overseas, although the scale of local cotton planting is still increasing, the growth rate has been controlled to a certain extent. The price is low, which makes it uneconomical to grow cotton in some places where there is plenty of fish and rice, and then replants food.

In general, a large amount of cheap cotton is imported, to a certain extent, curbs the occurrence of domestic cotton cannibalism, and prevents a large number of farmland from growing cotton instead of food.

It can be seen from this that the importance of importing a large number of cheap economic crops is no less than that of directly importing food.

Of course, in order to prevent the income of domestic farmers from decreasing instead of increasing, the Great Chu Empire’s support for local agriculture has never been reduced, and the construction of various water conservancy facilities has never stopped.

Subsidies and preferential treatment for agricultural production tools enterprises have never stopped.

This increases the grain output to a certain extent, and reduces the cost of farmers growing grain at the same time.

But relying on this alone is actually not enough, and it still cannot solve the food problem.

To solve the food problem, a large area of ​​arable land is still needed, and large-scale mechanized planting is required.

This is also an important reason for the great development of the Northeast Plain.

And taking advantage of the development of high-pressure steam engines today, the Great Chu Empire is also trying to promote mechanized planting.

In the summer and August of the 25th year of Chengshun, by the Songhua River in Northern Liaoning Province.

A plain is full of turquoise rice fields. This is the largest farm in northern Liaoning Province, and it belongs to Liao'an Farm of Liaohua Agricultural Company.

Liaohua Agricultural Company leased a large amount of land here and in the surrounding areas, hired professional farmers to plant soybeans, rice, wheat and other crops, and also grazed and raised a large number of cattle, horses, chickens and ducks.

It is a comprehensive agricultural product enterprise with planting, breeding, and agricultural and livestock product processing, and it is also the largest agricultural and livestock product enterprise in Northeast China.

This year, the rice planting situation of their company's farm is very good, and we can usher in a bumper rice harvest without any accidents... But looking at the rice fields that have expanded the planting area by 20.00% compared with last year, subsequent harvesting is also a troublesome thing...

Because they don't have enough workers to harvest!

There are few people in the Northeast, and most of them are concentrated in Liaodong Province and Donghai Province... As for the population of Liaobei Province, the total population is less than one million.

However, large-scale planting and breeding enterprises such as Liaohua Agricultural Company require a lot of labor. However, in northern Liaoning, immigrants basically have their own land, and there is a lot of land, so they will not give it to your farm. Part-time job.

The urban population is not large, and there are also employees of those enterprises.

Liaohua Agricultural Company has long been plagued by a shortage of employees, especially in the two links of sowing and harvesting, which require a relatively high time limit and require a large number of people to work in a short period of time.

In the past, they relied on temporarily dispatching other personnel, such as personnel from the breeding factory, to help, and at the same time went to other places to temporarily hire workers to solve the problem of personnel shortage.

But this year, their rice planting area has expanded by 20.00%, and there is even a shortage of manpower.

Now that everyone's life is getting better and there are more job opportunities, it is not easy to find enough temporary workers at the same price as before.

As for spending more money, it's easy to say, but the cost will expand...and the profit will decrease.

Although Liaohua Agricultural Company also has the official capital of Liaodong and occupies about [-]% of the shares, it is a serious private enterprise and it is pursuing profits.

The Hua family who controlled the company used to be a large grain merchant in North China... After the Great Chu Empire unified the local area, it also promoted grain companies to North China. Although the Great Chu Empire did not implement a grain monopoly system, the Great Chu Empire’s grain The company is there... In order to stabilize the grain price, they adopt the policy of unlimited collection of grain at pricing and unlimited distribution of grain at pricing, which makes the profit of ordinary grain trading houses very weak when they resell grain.

Since then, many grain businesses have gradually changed their careers. Some of them should sell various non-staple foods, and some have started to engage in refined grain processing.

For example, in the refined flour industry, there are actually quite a few flour processing companies. They used to be all kinds of grain merchants... After they saw that reselling grain was not profitable, they began to toss in grain fine processing. Machinery and equipment for large-scale processing of refined flour have been acquired, so many grain merchants have directly switched to become grain processors.

The Hua family also changed their careers to become a grain processor at the beginning, and it grew bigger and bigger, involving all kinds of grain processing. In order to reduce the cost of raw materials, that is, the purchase of various grains, they simply went to a sparsely populated area by themselves. Liaodong engages in large-scale farms to grow food, and by the way, raises horses, cattle, chickens, ducks and other livestock.

Liaohua Agricultural Company was also the first batch of enterprises to go to Liaodong to build large-scale farms. Liaodong officials also gave a lot of support, such as using land use rights as a price to occupy shares, providing certain guaranteed loans, and taxation. The preferential treatment reduces the input cost and experience cost of the enterprise as much as possible.

In this way, Liaohua Agricultural Company has become the largest grain planting and animal husbandry company in Liaodong and even Northeast China, a super large farm with hundreds of thousands of acres of land.

Rice and soybeans are mainly grown. At the same time, corn and forage are processed to feed livestock for self-use; there are also a large number of horses and cattle.

However, in the years of development, the company has been plagued by a serious shortage of labor force. This is also the reason why they have a lot of land, but a lot of land can only be used for grazing, because they do not have enough labor force to cultivate more land.

Even though horse plowing has been adopted for planting, the labor force is still very tight.

After expanding the scale of rice planting this year, Liaohua Agricultural Company has been troubled again... How to harvest so much grain?
Co-organized by the Liaohua Agricultural Company, Hua Tianzhong, the eldest son of the Hua family, looked at the endless rice fields in front of him and frowned. Since he took full charge of the company's planting business two years ago, life has not been easy, especially in sowing and harvesting. During the summer season, it was even more difficult to sleep well.

When the harvest is bad, it is not easy, and when the harvest is good, it is also uncomfortable.

"It seems that the price will increase again this year to hire people. If the labor is more expensive, it will be more expensive. If you miss the harvest season, you will lose even more!"

When Hua Tianzhong spoke, his heart was bleeding again. With such a price increase, it seems that this year will have a bumper harvest, but the actual profit may not even compare to last year.

During the sowing season at the beginning of the year, it cost extra to hire people, and now it costs more to hire people when harvesting.

In addition to the costs of grain seeds, fertilizers, and daily care, increasing the sowing area this year has become a waste of time!

But there is no way to do this. If there is a shortage of manpower, we can only hire people at a higher price.

After Hua Tianzhong finished speaking, a middle-aged man next to him responded, "Your subordinate will make arrangements now!"

After all, the middle-aged man said: "Co-organizer, if there is a shortage of manpower, can we use machinery instead of manual harvesting?"

"People from the Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company came to sell their equipment, and among them was a harvester, which they said could save more labor costs than horse plowing."

Hua Tianzhong said: "Harvester?"

After thinking for a while, Hua Tianzhong said: "Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company, is it the company that supplied us with threshers before?"

The middle-aged man beside him said: "It's them. The threshing machine we are using now is produced by their company. It is relatively easy to use. There have been no major problems in these years!"

"Their threshers are really good, but are they sure they can harvest the grain directly with mechanical equipment?"

The middle-aged man beside him said: "When they introduced it, they talked about hype. They said that their charged swing harvester only needs two people and two horses, and it can harvest at least [-] acres of land in a day."

"And they are still developing a steam engine-powered combine harvester, which can harvest and unpack at the same time. This is more efficient!"

"However, they are only talking nicely. The subordinates have never seen the real thing, so they dare not judge the truth lightly!"