Daming: I help my wife be the empress

He Tengjiao said: "At present, the promotion of pedal threshing machines is the smoothest, and it has spread to all provinces in Ming Dynasty.

The promotion of hydraulic threshing machines in the south is not bad, but not many people use them in the north.

One is because there is a lack of water suitable for driving machines in the north, and the other is that most of the households that can afford a hydraulic threshing machine have cattle, and they think it is the same to use animal power to thresh.

As for the steam threshing machine, the people's acceptance is higher than that of the hydraulic threshing machine, but the number of steam threshing machines manufactured by Nanjing Machinery Bureau is limited, and the supply is in short supply. "

Auntie Zhu nodded slightly after hearing this.

What He Tengjiao said did not surprise her.

The pedal threshing machine is a product that has passed the historical test of later generations, and it must be easier for the common people to accept it.

Water-powered threshing machines were indeed easily replaced by animal power, and the supply of steam threshing machines was also in the imperial court's plan.

At present, the steam engines manufactured by the Machinery Bureau are in short supply, and they are not for sale, let alone steam threshing machines.

In fact, only ten sets of steam threshing machines were produced, and each set was equipped with special guards. They are currently being used on a trial basis within Yingtianfu, and have not been sold to anyone.

After thinking for a while, Auntie Zhu said, "Since this is the case, there is no need to promote hydraulic threshing machines and steam threshing machines. Let's do our best to promote pedal threshing machines."

"Yes."

After He Tengjiao stepped down, Zhu Yuxi thought that perhaps it was time to divide the Nanjing Machinery Bureau and the Chengdu Machinery Bureau, and form different machine manufacturing bureaus according to the application direction.

Such as Military Machinery Manufacturing Bureau, Industrial Machinery Manufacturing Bureau, Agricultural Machinery Manufacturing Bureau, and so on.

"Your Majesty, Mr. Ma Ge asks to see you." An eunuch came into the palace to report.

Auntie Zhu came back to her senses and said, "Let him in."

Ma Shiying was outside the hall, came in very quickly, bowed, and said, "Your Majesty, by the end of September this year, the work of clearing Zhang Zhang's farmlands and stalls' farmland mus in 24 provinces of the Ming Dynasty has been completed. This is an overview of the taxation of farmland mus in each province."

After finishing speaking, Ma Shiying presented a thick memorial, Lianqiao took it over and put it on the imperial case.

Auntie Zhu looked through it, and saw that it mainly stated the number of acres of fields that the provinces paid taxes to the imperial court before and after the Qing Dynasty, and the difference in between.

Although it had been expected long ago, the numbers on this memorial still shocked Auntie Zhu.

"Bring over the summary records of the fields and acres of the Ming Dynasty that I had prepared a few days ago."

Auntie Zhu also knew that all the work of clearing Zhang Zhang’s land would be completed this autumn, so she asked the secretariat to sort out the relevant documents of the Ming Dynasty and compile it into a "Summary of Fields in the Years of the Ming Dynasty" for her reference.

Liu Shuying, who was working at the side, heard the words, and immediately found a thick booklet from the bookshelf next to her, and took it over.

Aunt Zhu asked Ma Shiying to step back first, and then turned the pages slowly.

Speaking of it, the founding of the Ming Dynasty was relatively smooth in the past dynasties.

Counting from 1351, when Dayuan governed the Yellow River and changed banknotes, which triggered the uprising of the Red Turban Army, to 1368, when Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne in Yingtianfu and proclaimed himself Emperor Jianyuan Hongwu, it took only 17 years.

And in that year, the Ming army went northward and broke through the capital of Yuan Dynasty in one go.

Even if you count Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu and other places, as well as Sichuan and Yunnan, it only took more than [-] years. Compared with other dynasties, the time of chaos in the world is really not long.

Therefore, the family background that Da Ming inherited from Da Yuan is not too thin.

According to official records, in the 14th year of Hongwu, there were nearly 6000 million people - but at that time there was still a Yunnan that had not been captured.

As for the area of ​​arable land, it is about 360 million hectares.

Afterwards, starting from the Hongwu period in the Ming Dynasty, both the court and the people began large-scale land reclamation.

By the middle of the Ming Dynasty in history, probably during the Hongzhi period, there were more than 400 million hectares of land registered in the imperial court administrative system (the Ministry of Households).

At that time, the Weisuo system was still in existence, and there were still many fields under the Daming military system, which were not under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Households, and their area was about the same as that under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Households. A figure in the "Records of Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty" also confirmed this point, that is, more than 835 million hectares (this figure is controversial, because the fields under the military system are a mystery).

However, there were already a large number of hidden fields at that time, and most of the fish scale books held by the household department were outdated, confusing and untrue. In fact, there must have been a lot more folk fields.

Sure enough, in the Wanli Dynasty, after Zhang Juzheng carried out a nationwide large-scale clearing of Zhang's fields, the number of cultivated land under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Households directly increased to 700 million hectares!

If you add more than 400 million hectares of military farmland, there are more than 100 million hectares!

In the 31st year of Wanli, the highest number of acres of Daming land in history appeared - more than 1161 million hectares!
It should be noted that Zhang Juzheng’s reforms were not thorough, and the government had died. Qingzhang Tianmu was said to be nationwide, but in fact there are still many places that have not been implemented. Privileged classes such as the royal family, vassal kings, and nobles also avoided Qingzhang.

Therefore, the actual arable land area of ​​Daming at that time must be more.

After Wanli, during the twenty-odd years of Apocalypse and Chongzhen together, the south was fine, and only Guizhou suffered from the She'an Rebellion, but the north was full of natural and man-made disasters.

When Zhu Yu became emperor and proclaimed himself emperor, many lands in the north were abandoned, and the people died or fled, not one out of ten.

Under such circumstances, the vassal kings, nobles, and landlords could not survive, and fled to the south. Naturally, they did not take the opportunity to annex the land.

Therefore, after the Qingzhang farmland mobilization initiated by Aunt Zhu this time, the six provinces in the north such as Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Shanxi, Beizhili, and Gansu, although some more land was also obtained through the Qingzhang, but it is not an exaggeration.

But several provinces in the south seem to be going too far.

Among them, the number of acres increased by Qingzhang in Zhejiang is the most exaggerated.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the 26 years of Hongwu recorded as many as 5100 million acres of fields in Zhejiang, which was reduced to more than 4700 million acres during the Jianwen period.

People who don't know it may be wondering, didn't it just mean that the initial land reclamation increased the area of ​​cultivated land?Why did the area of ​​cultivated land decrease during the Jianwen period?

This is because the so-called arable land refers to the fields where food is grown.

During the Hongwu period, agriculture was emphasized and business was suppressed, and food production was the main focus. Even though Zhejiang was known as "seven mountains, one water and two fields", if the government wanted to allow food to be grown on mountainous land, then mountainous land would naturally be considered arable land.

With the passage of time, people began to pursue material pursuits in other aspects besides filling their stomachs. Coupled with the relaxation of government control, and even policy changes, cultivated land was changed to economic crops or directly planted trees. decreased.

In fact, the area of ​​cultivated land in Zhejiang, the Great Xia Kingdom in later generations, was only about 2019 million mu in 2000—it’s not that the ability to open up cultivated land is not as good as that in the early Ming Dynasty, but that there is no need for so much cultivated land.

However, Auntie Zhu does not need to compare with the later Great Xia Kingdom, but only needs to compare with the Wanli Dynasty.

As for the Tianqi Dynasty and the Chongzhen Dynasty, the data are all copied from the Wanli Dynasty, and there is no sense of comparison at all.

Before the Qingzhang of the Wanli Dynasty, the area of ​​cultivated land in Zhejiang recorded in the classics of the Ministry of Households was more than 3900 million mu, and after the Qingzhang, it was more than 4300 million mu, which means that more than 400 million mu of hidden fields were found in the Qing Dynasty!
This time, the Qingzhang team first collected the scale books of various prefectures and counties in Zhejiang, calculated the total number of cultivated land, and found that the cultivated land in Zhejiang has dropped to more than 3700 million mu!
Finally, after clearing Zhang, the actual arable land area was 4100 million mu, and 400 million mu of hidden fields were cleared again!
If we count the more than 200 million mu of land that became forest land due to the replanting of mulberry and other economic crops, it means that after ten years in Wanli, Zhejiang land mergers and hidden fields sprouted in a solid state, and it took only about 60 years to lose another 600 million mu of arable land.

In addition to being angry, Auntie Zhu couldn't help thinking deeply about the reason.

I feel that it is inseparable from the several major natural disasters in Zhejiang during the Chongzhen period, as well as the excessive levies and miscellaneous taxes imposed by the imperial court.

Under natural disasters and heavy taxes, many people were forced to sell their land, which naturally gave the landlord class an opportunity to annex and hide their land.

Speaking of which, the area of ​​hidden fields discovered by Zhejiang Qingzhang is only an exaggeration compared to the total area of ​​cultivated land in Zhejiang.

It was Nanzhili and Hunan provinces that really found out more hidden fields.

This is because Nanzhili was separated from Jiangbei, and Huguang was divided into Hubei and Hunan. Otherwise, there would only be more hidden fields found in Huguang and the original Nanzhili...

After browsing around, Aunt Zhu turned to the back, and finally saw the total arable land in Daming—more than 1350 million hectares!
That is 13.5 billion mu!

Seeing this number, Auntie Zhu couldn't help frowning slightly.

Second more.

Good night~
【Description①】

Regarding the two 850 million hectares of fields recorded in Hongwu and Hongzhi years, the author personally tends to believe, and this article also adopts this data.

I checked a lot of information today, and read some articles denying the data, most of which said that I copied it wrong.

This is the data recorded in the "Daming Huidian". It is okay to say that the Hongzhi Dynasty copied the wrong data, but Hongwu Dynasty dared to copy such important data by mistake?Do you think Lao Zhu dare not kill people?

It is also said that some provinces will report errors, and even add an extra zero to the data, which is even more ridiculous, and they are too lazy to refute.

In short, this article assumes that there are more than 400 million hectares of land farmed by the army under the Weisuo system, which is not under the control of the household department.

【Description②】

A lot of historical data really need to be understood in light of the background of the times, otherwise it will be confusing and even suspect that there is something wrong with it.For example, the area of ​​cultivated land.The area of ​​cultivated land in Zhejiang in the Ming Dynasty was larger than that in modern times, because our modern Zhejiang does not need so much cultivated land to ensure food supply.

Cultivated land is cultivated land when food is planted. It doesn't matter whether the land is suitable for growing food or not.

If Lao Zhu asked the whole country to grow food on a large scale, would the people below dare not grow it?If it is planted on rocks, then the rocks have to be counted as cultivated land, haha.

In the same way, the territory of Dayuan was so large, why was there not much cultivated land inherited in the early Ming Dynasty?

The war is the secondary reason, the main reason is that Dayuan converted a lot of land into pastures!
I didn't check the information, but the impression is that most of the north of Dayuan are pastures, right?Most of the Han Chinese were driven to the south.This is also one of the reasons why there was so much arable land in Zhejiang in the early Ming Dynasty.Forced.

Afterwards, the Ming Dynasty returned grazing land to farming, and the natural cultivated land increased sharply.