Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 309

"From now on... once a baby boy or girl is born in each prefecture, they must register and register, and those who violate the rules will be fined three hundred cash..."

"Liaodong, Jiugang and other places have started to resume taxation. Those with babies in their families can get six stones of land reclamation grain from the government, and exchange land reclamation subsidies for male and female babies, or relocation orders."

"Relocate people in Hetao, Jiugang and other places, no matter men, women, old or young, all have ten acres of land."

"Whoever dares to abandon a baby girl in the wilderness, or drown a baby girl, the whole family will be sent to the army, and if the neighbors don't report it, they will be exiled directly?!"

On the tenth day of the first lunar month, in less than ten days, the notice of the imperial court was posted in more than [-] counties in the sixteen provinces of the two capitals, and nearly Wanji town.

Watching the notice, the people in Shangkoufang Town, Guangxin Prefecture, Jiangxi whispered:

"Isn't it? Is there really someone who abandoned a baby girl?"

"It must be a villager in the countryside, right? I have never heard of anyone drowning a baby girl in the city, and most of them are placed at the entrance of the nursing home."

"The crime of abandoning and drowning female infants has been strictly enforced by the imperial court since the founding of the country. When has it been enforced? Let's see..."

"I can't say that. After all, King Qi and His Majesty share the power at the moment. Haven't you seen how many merchants and officials in Guangxin County have been punished?"

"No matter how old King Qi is, can he manage the countryside?"

"If there are baby girls here, they will be able to lead the fields. Presumably there won't be many people drowned and abandoned, right?"

"Don't think about it that way. Back then, the King of Qi did not discriminate between male and female babies when he distributed the army to garrison fields. As long as it was an individual, he also rented farm cattle to the common people. Didn't someone secretly abandon the baby girl in the end?"

"People in the countryside can't afford the dowry for a baby girl when she grows up. Abandoning a baby girl is a common thing in the past. It's just that King Qi is so aggressive this time, I'm afraid it won't end easily..."

After all, Shangkoufang Town is a market town, and there are not a few people who can read and write, even more talented people.

Therefore, they can still analyze some problems with the imperial court's policies, and they are not so stubborn on the issue of men and women.

To put it bluntly, those who can live in market towns basically rely on handicrafts to make a living. In addition, the Weaving Bureau of Yumajian Nanchang has a large demand for silk, and women in towns are also considered as an important labor force.

Men farm and women weave, men rice and women mulberry, this is basically the custom in the Jiangnan area since the Jiajing period.

Men are not as careful as women in picking mulberry and raising silkworms, and the price of silk and cloth is not cheap. Women in Jiangnan naturally have a higher status than other places.

It's just that in the south of the Yangtze River, women can still pick mulberry and raise silkworms, but in the arid north, the value of women's labor will be greatly reduced...

"Damn! Another loser was born!"

In an unknown village in Henan, when an old woman learned that her wife had given birth to a daughter, she immediately looked viciously at a seven or eight-year-old baby girl lying next to her behind the door.

The marriage customs of the Ming Dynasty were exactly the opposite of those of later generations. When a commoner married a daughter, he had to prepare a dowry for the man’s family.

It is obviously not worthwhile to raise a daughter who has worked so hard to give it to someone else's family. This is why daughters are "losing money".

Women in ancient times liked to wear jewelry, including bracelets, rings, necklaces, and headgear.

When marrying a daughter, a whole set of jewelry needs to cost a lot of money. Some families face the situation of marrying a daughter to the point of bankruptcy because they have many daughters.

The amount of dowry prepared by the natal family for the daughter is also related to whether the daughter can find a good husband's family, as well as the treatment and status after marrying into the husband's family.

Even for an ordinary family like Lao Mo, if they want to find a family with good conditions for their daughter, they must prepare enough dowry for their daughter.

Marrying a daughter with a high dowry and comparing each other has become a custom in the Ming Dynasty, and it has also become a great burden for the common people.

If there is less dowry, outsiders will look down on them, and daughters will be wronged when they marry into their in-laws.

Driven by this custom, in order to save the dowry money, or fear that their daughters would not be able to marry because they could not afford the dowry, after giving birth to their daughters, many ordinary people let the midwives directly throw them into the basin and drown them.

Therefore, from the Hongzhi period, in order to curb the occurrence of female infant drowning incidents, the imperial court would use propaganda methods such as writing articles and drawing pictures to persuade the people not to drown female infants.

At the same time, a law was enacted to prohibit the drowning of girls, and anyone who was found to have given birth to a girl who had drowned would be sent to the frontier for hard labor.

With legal constraints, the incidents of drowning female infants have decreased, but the incidents of abandoning female infants have increased. Some families secretly abandoned female infants in the wild grass after giving birth, or died of freezing and starvation, or were swallowed by wild animals. .

Although some baby girls were discovered by the villagers, no one was willing to adopt them, and they had to be sent to the orphanage or the county government in the end.

"Grandma Li, what are you going to do with your house? Send it to a nursing home?"

When the curtain was lifted, a stable woman came out holding a baby girl who hadn't been cleaned yet, but Li's mother-in-law, who was in her forties, frowned and said:

"I have to make a trip to the Yuyingtang, besides, the witch Zhang in the town said that my Erlang only has two children in his life."

"Just drown her!"

Mrs. Li said this to Mrs. Wen, and Mrs. Wen was about to go into the house and drown the baby in the delivery basin.

But before she took a few steps, a Han man in coarse linen with a pole hurriedly pushed the fence from the courtyard and trotted in:

"Mother! How are the children and Mother Liu?"

"I gave birth to a baby girl, and Mrs. Liu is fine. She can work after a month's rest."

Seeing that the male master of the Li family came back, Mrs. Wen also held the baby girl and spoke, and the man of the Li family immediately breathed a sigh of relief:

"Mother and daughter are safe..."

"Whatever? Goddess Zhang said that you only have two children in this life, and our family can't afford the dowry that this girl grows up, so forget about drowning."

The Li family's mother-in-law had a very ugly expression, while the Li family's male master said:
"When I went to Ji Town to collect firewood, I saw a notice issued by the government, saying that if someone drowns a baby girl in private, she will be exiled and served as an auxiliary soldier in the frontier army."

"Besides, the imperial court said that when a baby girl is born, she can receive six shi of grain for reclaiming wasteland, three mu of land for reclaiming wasteland, and ten mu of land for each person when they move to Nanyang Old Port."

"Mom, we have land to support this baby."

"Are you confused?" Li's mother-in-law said angrily, "Did you forget what Goddess Zhang said? So what if you can get the dowry? You don't want a boy to carry on the family line of our old Li family?"

"Then after all..." The man from the Li family hesitated to say anything, wanting to say that it was the sorceress who said it after all, but he hesitated in his heart.

But at this time, a teenage youth trotted all the way to the gate of Li's courtyard, and shouted at Mrs. Wen:
"Mother-in-law, the government has issued a notice to help drowning girls and those who don't report to the police will send their families to the army. The village is asking you to go to the village."

"Ah?!" She was startled when she heard that the drowning person wanted to send her whole family into the army, and immediately put the baby girl in Li's hand:
"Grandma Li, don't be confused. If you drown this baby, I will report you."

Wen Po's voice changed suddenly, obviously she was afraid of hurting her family in this line of work.

After all, it has only been a few years since he got the land from the government, and if he really wants to be exiled, no one can stand it.

"You!" Li's mother-in-law's face was livid with anger, and the man of Li's family quickly took the baby girl and said:
"Mother, you have also seen that the government's investigation is too strict. If our neighbors really drown this girl, there will be no way how many people will report us."

The Li family man looked around, and Li's mother-in-law followed his gaze and saw many neighbors looking at them.

Obviously, the word "exile the whole family" is too destructive, if one person is not strong-willed and breaks the news, seven or eight families will suffer.

At this moment, their eyes seemed to be watching the prisoner, and when Li's mother-in-law saw this, she seemed to be holding her neck in one breath, unable to get up or down.

In the end, she could only curse and say:

"What does the imperial court know? When the child grows up, he will pay the dowry!"

"Okay, mother, let's go in first..." The man from the Li family pushed Li's mother-in-law into the room, and then began to tidy up the lady Liu who was lying on the bed.

Such a scene didn't just happen in this village, but in places big and small.

It's just that the regulations in the Ming Dynasty were really strict, and there were always a small number of such people. Most people had land and could still bite the bullet and raise children.

"Recently, more than [-] acres of land reclamation posts have been issued, and His Highness's continuous sitting system is still somewhat effective..."

In the palace of Prince Qi on February [-], when Bi Ziyan, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, came to report, Zhu Youjian slowly put down the military newspaper in his hand:

"More than [-] land reclamation stickers, that is to say, at least more than one million stones of baby food have been distributed?"

"Almost, the specific amount is changing every day. Looking at this scale, I am afraid that baby food will become a burden on the court..." Bi Ziyan said worriedly.

After all, the land tax of the Ming Dynasty was about [-] million shi, and the scale of food for infants seemed to require tens of millions of shi for food every year.

Converted into silver, it basically takes up one-fifteenth of Daming's finances.

Although there are not no such examples in history, it is the first time that so much food has been distributed.

But Zhu Youjian didn't panic at all about this, on the contrary he was rather happy.

There are [-] mu of land reclamation subsidy, and one baby has three mu. Calculated, more than [-] babies are born every month.

After one year, there are almost two million babies, and these are still babies who have survived.

More importantly, it is only the beginning of the implementation of the policy. Many places do not know about the baby food and land reclamation subsidy. If they know about it, the number of children born in Ming Dynasty will increase every year.

It is normal to have financial pressure, and it is enough to transfer the conflict to the outside world.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian said without raising his head:
"Hong Chengchou returned the military report to me. While ensuring the southwest, the governor's troops of the two armies in the southwest can send up to [-] battalions, a total of [-] troops."

"Hong Chengchou specially reported back to the army, saying that there is no need to transfer the land tax and silver from Huguang and Sichuan, and he will find a way to solve the problem of rewarding silver and grain and fodder."

Hong Chengchou is a fine individual, he knows how to win Zhu Youjian's favor, so he deliberately rejected the land tax and silver from Sichuan and Huguang.

You must know that without the land tax and silver of these two provinces, the land tax and tax silver of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangdong and Guangxi alone are at most less than two million taels for the two divisions of salt tea and population tax, and the land tax is at most less than four million shi.

Even if the army of [-] is transported by sea to reduce the consumption of the march to one-third, it still needs [-] civilians to provide logistics for them.

In other words, the silver of less than two million taels and the land tax of less than four million shi needed to support [-] people to take down Annan, which sounds incredible.

But Zhu Youjian knew very well that Hong Chengchou knew how to collect military pay and food, so he didn't have to worry about it at all.

He told Bi Ziyan that he hoped that the officials in Huguang and Sichuan would evade land taxes and tax money by pretending to be fake.

"Since this year, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Beizhili, Sichuan, and Luoyang, Henan, have seen less rain and more wind and sand. Xu Guangqi went to Shu and said that the water volume of the Yellow River has dropped..."

Zhu Youjian held the memorial with Xu Guangqi written on it in his hand, his eyes were cloudy, and he continued:
"The Ministry of Households must be prepared in case drought occurs in these places..."

If Zhu Youjian spoke meaningfully, it is impossible for Bi Ziyan to know that from this year onwards, there will be a full-scale drought in the Little Ice River, and once he just bowed as usual.

Zhu Youjian also knows very well that if the imperial court has money and food, then it will naturally provide disaster relief, so if you want to resist natural disasters, you still have to rely on money and food.

He leaned back on the chair, took out a booklet and said:

"There are more than [-] Enke students this year. Students who need to be admitted to the wine department will be selected. In addition, the Ministry of Households has newly established a disaster relief department, which will be..."

Zhu Youjian paused, thinking about whether there was a suitable candidate, and finally said:

"Zuo Guangdou, Zuoqian Capital Censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, will also be in charge. In addition, you go back and tell Gu Bingqian that the Ministry of Officials must prepare for the abolition of a group of officials."

"What do you think about this?" Zhu Youjian asked Bi Ziyan bluntly, but Bi Ziyan said after thinking about it:

"Abolishing officials should be done. I have long-standing abuses in my government, and the redundancy is serious."

"Although His Royal Highness has abolished it, there are still more than [-] civil servants and more than [-] million subordinate officials."

"According to the official system discussed by Your Highness and Your Majesty, if Da Ming wants to distribute salaries to all subordinates in the world, and the salaries can only occupy one-fifth of the national treasury's annual revenue..."

"After the official salaries are tripled in the current situation, the Ming Dynasty can use at most one-fifth of its annual revenue to support more than [-] officials and more than [-] subordinates. The salary expenditure is about [-] million taels."

Zhu Youjian has never raised the salaries of officials in the Ming Dynasty, and did not distribute salaries to subordinate officials other than Yanshan students. In the final analysis, the reason is that there are too many people and the court does not have so much money.

In the first year of Tianqi, the number of civil servants in Ming Dynasty was [-], and there were more than [-] million subordinate officials.

Since Zhu Youjian began to use Gu Bingqian to solve the problem of redundant staff in the fourth year of Tianqi, in more than three years, more than [-] subordinate officials and more than [-] households of subordinate officials have been solved by fighting corruption and abolishing them.

Of course, the case that solved the most in one go is the case of the third lady, and this case is not over yet.

In the hands of Zhu Youjian and Zhu Youxiao, there are still many officials who have not shaken out the fierce information.

This is naturally because the court needs people, and Yanshan students can't provide so many people.

Now it is actually equivalent to a protracted war. Every time the time drags on, Zhu Youjian and Zhu Youxiao will have the upper hand.

But if the time drags on for too long, it will be bad for them. The first is the corruption of Yanshan students...

Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian rolled his eyes, and there was a conspicuous booklet on the table among the memorials of Jinyiwei.

In that booklet, there were a total of [-] people's names, and all of these people were born in Yanshan.

Some people graduated in the fifth year of Tianqi, and some graduated in the sixth year of Tianqi.

The time of their corruption varies from the shortest one month after graduation to one year of corruption.

Zhu Youjian took hold of their handle and dealt with it seriously. By the way, he announced the identity and information of the corrupt person in several colleges in Yanshan, and asked the students to read it every day before class.

The political arena is a big dye vat. Zhu Youjian can't control how to dye and what kind of dye it will be, but he can control the people who enter the dye vat and his patience.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian didn't say anything, and Bi Ziyan bowed and retreated after seeing this.

It's just that when he retreated, a great drought was spreading from the northwest of Ming Dynasty and North China.

More than ten days have passed, and there has been no rain in the capital. Even though the snow on the mountains has melted, the rivers on the land of northern Xinjiang are still lowering their water levels.

Among such declines, the Yellow River is the most serious...

"Dropped three inches..."

At Fengling Ferry in the north of Tongguan, Shaanxi, when a hunched figure sighed, some officials around him also took a bamboo tube to measure.

Their fingers penetrated into the inside of the bamboo tube, and then touched the sand after sinking only an inch.

A [-]-year-old official said to the rickety [-]-year-old man, "Mr. Xuanhu, the Yellow River has another half an inch of silt."

Xuan Hu, this is Xu Guangqi's own name, but at this time he heard the words but looked at the Yellow River rolling away in front of him, and sighed:
"It's not that the sediment has increased by half an inch, but that the water level has dropped by another half inch..."

Since the beginning of spring, Xu Guangqi, one of the officials of the Yellow River dredging project, has led people to measure the water level of the Yellow River and record the dams that need to be built to prevent the Yellow River from bursting.

It's only been three months, and the water level of the Yellow River is constantly dropping. Logically speaking, spring should be the time when the water level of the Yellow River is getting higher and higher.

"Water levels in all state capitals have dropped one after another, but there are some signs of drought."

An official spoke, and Xu Guangqi looked up at the cloudless sky, and said anxiously:

"Since the beginning of spring, there hasn't been a single rain in the north of the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi, and only one in Shanxi. It's hot in Henan. I heard that there hasn't been much rain in North Zhili..."

"We have to send someone to inform Wansui about these things. It happened that Tang Qi, who was investigating the information on the Yellow River section, was dispatched this time to send the news to the capital."

"Yes!" Hearing this, the officials next to him left one after another to prepare for the Yellow River Project.

Soon, more than a dozen Tangtang, who were carrying information on the Yellow River section, rode their horses northward. After three days of horse riding, they arrived in the capital.

In the early morning of the second day, Tang Qi delivered the news to the Ministry of Industry, and the Ministry of Industry also sent a backup copy of the news to Prince Qi's Mansion and the cabinet.

However, Zhu Youjian was not in Qi Wang Mansion this day, but went out of the capital with Zhu Youxue to hunt in Nanyuan on a rare occasion.

Therefore, when the memorial was sent to him and Zhu Youxiao, they were in military uniform, holding bows and arrows and shooting on horseback.

When the memorial and the information were delivered, the two also got off their horses and opened the memorial.

In the Map of the Sections of the Yellow River, Xu Guangqi and Wang Shunding marked [-] embankments of the Yellow River that needed to be repaired, of which [-] had already started construction.

In addition, there are [-] river sections that need to be dredged, and they also directly launched corvee to dredge the river.

At the beginning, the more than two million taels of silver allocated by Zhu Youxiao was roughly spent, and Xu Guangqi's letter was naturally for money and food.

"Xu Guangqi and Wang Shunding said that more than [-] taels of silver are needed to rectify the Yellow River..." In the hunting ground in Nanyuan, Zhu Youxiao handed the memorial to Zhu Youjian.

However, when seeing the memorial, what Zhu Youjian cared about was the signs of drought in the provinces:
"These three hundred thousand taels can be distributed. After all, every time the Yellow River breaches, the imperial court needs to allocate millions of taels for food relief."

"It's about the drought. As my brother and I said, I'm afraid there will be drought in several provinces this year..."

Zhu Youjian closed the memorial, and looked at Zhu Youxiao who was wearing a round collar robe, a simple breastplate, a belt and armguards.

Zhu Youxiao handed the bow and arrow to the big Han general next to him, and waved his hand to signal that he would talk to Zhu Youjian while walking.

Zhu Youjian followed in his footsteps, and the two of them walked on the lush green grass in Nanyuan, which was in stark contrast to the arid southern river in Beizhili hundreds of miles away.

"If there is really a severe drought, based on my brother's speculation, can the treasury provide relief safely?"

Zhu Youxiao frowned and asked, and Zhu Youjian also frowned. He didn't answer immediately, but was counting the population.

He had already asked Jin Yiwei to memorize the hydrology of Daming.

Even if there is a severe drought, it is generally impossible for the main rivers to dry up completely, so he has an idea in mind.

"Shanxi, Shaanxi, Beizhili, Henan, Sichuan and other places have more than [-] million people on paper, but in reality there are roughly [-] million people..."

"According to the standard of survival, each person needs at least two buckets of food a month, and at least two stones and six buckets a year."

"Among them, the number of people living in areas without major waterways is about [-] million..."

Zhu Youjian did not mention the state treasury in every sentence, but every sentence mentioned the state treasury.

The more than [-] million people who do not live in areas with major waterways have no major waterways to irrigate their fields in the event of a drought, so they are the least resistant to severe drought.

More than [-] million people, according to Zhu Youjian's standard of living, need to eat nearly [-] million shi of grain a year.

Ninety million shi... More than eight million a month, can the treasury of the Ming Dynasty provide so much food?
this is a problem……

"The situation will be so serious?" Zhu Youxiao did not believe that there would be such a severe drought, because there had never been a drought of this magnitude in history.

It's not just him, even if Zhu Youjian said this to anyone, everyone would think he was scaremongering.

But for Zhu Youjian, he knew exactly what he was talking about.

The 18-year-long drought in the late Ming Dynasty was the most serious natural disaster with the widest impact in the world for thousands of years.

Similarly, although the scope of the "Dingwu Qihuang" in the late Qing Dynasty was also very wide, the affected areas were only the five northern provinces of Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi, Beizhili, and Shandong, and it also affected northern Jiangsu, northern Anhui, eastern Gansu, and northern Sichuan. other regions and other regions.

But even so, according to the statistics of Qing Dynasty officials, [-] million people died of starvation and [-] million people fled famine.

The population of the late Qing Dynasty was three times that of the late Ming Dynasty. That is to say, based on the data on paper alone, if the Ming Dynasty did not provide disaster relief in time, it is very likely that at least three million people would starve to death...

In order to put an end to such a situation, Zhu Youjian started preparations from the first year of Taichang, and the only thing that could help Daming survive this severe drought was the deployment ability of the Yumajian and the internal food and blood transfusions from Jiugang, Ryukyu and other places.

"The minister has set up a new disaster relief department in the Ministry of Households, and the people's homes are different from those in the Wanli period, with sufficient food."

"If there is a severe drought, we can rely on Changping warehouses and other provinces to stabilize the food prices in the four provinces in the early stage. Don't worry about this..."

Zhu Youjian still didn't want to pass on the panic to Zhu Youxiao, he chose to bear the pressure by himself, and Zhu Youxiao also turned his head to look at him after hearing Zhu Youjian's policy.

It's just that Zhu Youjian's expression is very indifferent, which makes Zhu Youxiao unable to see how dangerous this matter is in the eyes of his younger brother.

Frowning tightly, Zhu Youxiao said helplessly:
"The matter of the drought and government affairs, let my younger brother supervise the country for the time being. If my younger brother wants to go to war, I will deal with it at that time, and it will be time for me to rest."

"My brother should at least share the government affairs in the south of the Yangtze River, right?" Zhu Youjian was afraid that he would be too active, which would make Zhu Youxiao realize that the drought was not easy, so he said with a smile.

"It's natural..." Seeing that Zhu Youjian was still thinking, Zhu Youxiao nodded slightly, smiled and turned away.

But after turning around, he put away his smile and frowned tightly.

Obviously, he sensed something was wrong with his younger brother.

The behavior of my younger brother seems to say that this drought may not be that simple...

　There are still a thousand words, Chapter 2 will come out

　　
　
(End of this chapter)