Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 382 Land Consolidation
"Ge Lao, long live to give Sun Chuanting the Shang Fang sword..."

Things in the court cannot be hidden from the outer court, and when Zhu Youxiao asked to give Sun Chuanting the sword of Shangfang, the news had already started to spread to the outside world.

Lying on the couch, Gu Bingqian, who was on sick leave, heard the news, he slowly opened his eyes, and after looking at the ceiling for a long time, he closed them calmly and naturally:

"Look at the reactions of the people below, and don't react in the mansion for the time being."

"Yes..." The manager bowed obediently in response, and Gu Bingqian's appearance also let him know how to arrange it.

He withdrew from the courtyard, and then arranged for people to go to the Ministry of Officials and the Cabinet to continue taking sick leave for Gu Bingqian.

It can be seen that before the matter of Sun Chuanting is finally over, Gu Bingqian will not easily stand up and be burned.

Going out now is to be grilled by the people below, how can he, Gu Bingqian, He De, be pushed up to fight King Qi.

An old bone, I'm afraid it will fall apart before it even gets on stage.

"Father, I heard that you are on sick leave again?"

Gu Bingqian was lying comfortably, and his eldest son Gu Taishuo walked into the courtyard wearing Taoist robes.

Gu Bingqian glanced at him, only to feel that Gu Taishuo couldn't sit still, and his face was slightly anxious.

Obviously, being dismissed from office for two months made him suffer.

"Shuo'er, who asked you to ask..."

Gu Bingqian closed his eyes again, and asked without looking, while Gu Taishuo sat in front of him, hesitantly said:
"It's not that others asked the boy to ask, but the boy was a little flustered."

"The people below come to the house every day. If Sun Chuanting's matter is not resolved, my Gu family's matter will not be resolved."

"Father, do you think I, a member of Zhongshushe, can still be taken back?"

What kind of father you have, naturally what kind of son you have.

Gu Bingqian is an official fan, and Gu Taishuo is no different.

It's just that his words sounded a little funny to Gu Bingqian, he propped himself up, then opened his eyes and said calmly:
"Whether you can sit back with this organ, dad is [-]% sure."

"There are still six points?" Gu Taishuo frowned slightly, while Gu Bingqian said calmly:
"There are still six points on His Highness's side. When this matter will end, it depends on when His Highness wants to end."

"The people below think that they have great power, so they can negotiate terms with His Highness."

"They forgot that His Highness is still young. If His Highness is old, such threats will be accepted, for the sake of peace in the world."

"It's just that the New Deal is still being implemented at the moment, and they will stand up when everything is uncertain. Once the trick is revealed, His Highness doesn't mind killing others."

"At a time like this, our Gu family can't reveal our secrets."

"That's why you keep asking for leave?" Gu Taishuo understood a little bit, and Gu Bingqian's nod afterwards also confirmed his guess.

"It's easy to remove people, and you don't even need a reason, but you need a reason to kill someone."

Gu Bingqian talked eloquently, and Gu Taishuo listened carefully.

"His Royal Highness killed so many people earlier, and now the people below have learned to be good. In the document library of Nanzhen Fusi, each of them is as clean as paper."

Gu Bingqian explained everything, but Gu Taishuo asked in doubt:

"Then why are we still taking leave to hide at home?"

"Hiding at home, in fact, I don't want my family to cause trouble." Gu Bingqian was a little disappointed to see that he had to ask Gu Taishuo clearly about everything.

Inquiring into everything in officialdom, such a person can't go far.

"Okay, there are some things that Dad can't tell you, you just study at home with your brother honestly."

Gu Bingqian didn't want to talk about it anymore. He felt that he had told Gu Taishuo about this kind of thing. In his mind, it was not a good thing to hear too much.

Gu Taishuo was also very helpless about this, but his father didn't tell him, and he couldn't ask, so he could only bow and leave the courtyard.

Like Gu Bingqian, Shi Fenglai and Feng Quan hid more simply. The two of them asked for leave for a month in one go. Counting the two months before, they had not gone to court or went to the outer court to handle government affairs for three months in one go.

The two of them were with Gu Bingqian, and all three of them were foxes.

Bi Ziyan is also a fox, but Bi Ziyan has too many things to deal with at hand, so he can only bite the bullet and go up.

Gu Bingqian's leave of absence was caused by the newly appointed cabinet assistant Yuan Keli.

This cabinet minister who came to Beijing from the three prefectures outside the customs, did not even drink a sip of hot tea, so he changed into an official uniform and began to deal with the cabinet's mountain of memorials.

Fortunately, with Sun Chengzong's help, although there were many things, they were dealt with quickly.

While dealing with matters, he was also observing the current situation in the capital.

Generally speaking, the initiative is still on the side of King Qi's mansion, and the officials of the Gu party have made troubles to such an extent that unless Zhu Youjian nods, they will not be able to return to the King's party of Qi.

"Okay, it's all done, and it can be sent to Prince Qi's Mansion and the Hall of Mental Cultivation..."

After summarizing the memorials that need to be dealt with today, 67-year-old Yuan Keli pushed the memorials to 66-year-old Sun Chengzong.

It was already late at night, and the two of them were on duty together in the Wenhua Palace. Apart from the Hanlin editor at the gate, there were only the three guards of the imperial city walking in the outer court.

Sun Chengzong took over the memorial, but after sorting it out a little, his movements froze suddenly, then he raised his head and said to Yuan Keli:
"Sun Chuanting's matter has been discussed by a lot of people recently. Today, Long Live issued the Shangfang Sword. I'm afraid the matter will not end so soon."

"It's strange that things can end easily like this." Yuan Keli picked up a cup of tea that he had stayed up all night, and took a sip leisurely.

Seeing this, Sun Chengzong also slowly took off his black gauze hat, sat aside holding the black gauze hat, and then said:

"There shouldn't be so many controversies about this matter, but now there are so many controversies, I'm afraid it will involve things that you and I don't know."

Although he is a cabinet minister, the information Sun Chengzong can receive is very limited.

Compared with him, Yuan Keli has a more thorough understanding of the current matter.

He put down the teacup, slowly took off his black gauze hat, and then said:

"Under the severe drought, the land cannot be cultivated, and there is only input but no output. It is very difficult for the people under such circumstances."

"The Ming Dynasty endured for three years, and the common people also endured for three years."

"Right now, small and medium landlords have turned into rich peasants, rich peasants into poor peasants, poor peasants into victims of disasters, and victims of disasters into dead bodies."

"So many people are blocking that Sun Chuanting. To be clear, they are nothing more than taking a fancy to the fields in the hands of the people."

Yuan Keli breathed a sigh of relief, and then said:
"During the three-year drought, the imperial court issued a total of 760 taels of relief silver and 4000 shi of relief food."

"Officials want to eat money and food, and gentry want to annex the land. If the two coincide with each other, or hit it off, it will naturally be difficult."

Yuan Keli's words explained most of the matter, and Sun Chengzong heard the words and frowned:

"You mean that officials are greedy for money and food, deliberately prevent money and food from flowing into the people to stabilize food prices, deliberately make the people poor, and then let the gentry come out to buy land at a low price?"

"Heh..." Yuan Keli sneered helplessly, shook his head and said:

"It's not like you haven't seen this kind of method before."

"Back then, Shen Yiguan and others were in Zhejiang. Every year when the south of the Yangtze River was hit by floods, they actively raised funds for disaster relief on the surface, but secretly did nothing to help the disaster. When the victims in the south of the Yangtze River couldn't survive and began to sell their fields, they began to buy land and sell grain."

"They bought more than half of the land, or when they ran out of money, they slowly began to provide disaster relief."

"In my opinion, the so-called King Qi Party, Gu Party, and Yanshan Party are actually the same as the Zhejiang Party back then."

"Sun Chuanting's arrest of officials was superficially to investigate corruption and block officials' corruption. In fact, he blocked the source of income for the local gentry, and blocked the source of income for the high officials."

"If that wasn't the case, why did all the officials in the court hold him so tight?"

"After this severe drought, I don't know how many gentry and grain merchants have been fattened up, and how many corrupt officials have been arrogated."

"Your Highness asked Sun Chuanting to arrest people below, as a warning to them."

"It's just that from the looks of it right now, they're not even afraid of death, so why would they be afraid of His Highness?"

Yuan Keli's words are easy to understand, but this kind of vision is very inferior to military affairs.

Listening to his words, Sun Chengzong couldn't help tapping his fingers on the table. After a few seconds, he couldn't help but said:

"Grain merchants, gentry, tyrants, officials..."

"It's not that easy to clean up this entangled force. One carelessness is another big case."

"It's not that it's a big case by accident, but it's already a big case." Yuan Keli interrupted Sun Chengzong.

He sat on the seat, grasping the armrest tightly with both hands, with a serious face:
"The issue of land annexation in our dynasty has reached the point where there is nothing to do."

"The solution to this problem in all dynasties is nothing more than increasing revenue and reducing expenditure."

"Open source is nothing more than increasing land, introducing new crops, constructing water conservancy, encouraging the reclamation of wasteland, and expanding abroad..."

"Throttling is nothing more than reducing population, internal and external wars or natural disasters."

"His Highness introduced sweet potatoes, potatoes, tomatoes and other crops, and expanded abroad, allowing Daming to add hundreds of millions of acres of land, and encouraging the people to reclaim tens of millions of acres of wasteland. You and I have seen all of this."

"Oh..." Yuan Keli sighed, and then said:

"The number of common people is too large, and the gentry's powerful annexation of land is too fast."

"How many fields that were issued in the first year of Taichang existed, and were acquired because of this severe drought?"

"There are hundreds of millions of acres of arable land overseas, but there are also many people who can move out. It is impossible to divide out those who have no land and those who have little land."

"On the gentleman's side, if His Highness can't grasp it, the world will still be in chaos sooner or later."

"How about one size fits all?" Sun Chengzong couldn't help but say, the so-called one size fits all is to divide the land by local tyrants, but this kind of thing can be done by Xinxing Dynasty, but Ming Dynasty can't do it.

This is not a relationship that Zhu Youjian wants to do, but a relationship that involves whether anyone supports him.

Divide the fields?Whose land will be divided?Is it to divide the royal party's land?Or is it the land of the Yanshan School?Or is it divided into five armies and governors' mansions?

In this era, land is the means of production. Everyone who has power needs it, and those who do not have power need it even more. No one is willing to let it go.

You, Zhu Youjian, can have the order of the Qi royal party to divide the land today, tomorrow you may divide the land of the Yanshan faction, and the day after tomorrow you may divide the fields of the five army commanders' mansions.

Will the generals under his command feel chilled seeing this situation?Will this situation happen?
Unless the regime has nothing to do with the old dynasty, if you want to make a revolution, you are building a house on an unfounded foundation, which will collapse sooner or later.

Therefore, after Sun Chengzong said this sentence, he also realized that something was wrong, and quickly changed his tone:
"His Royal Highness should be clear about how things should be done. He is holding back right now, maybe he is waiting for an opportunity."

"Perhaps..." Yuan Keli echoed, but he knew in his heart that it would be difficult for Zhu Youjian to solve this problem alone.

This problem has existed since the beginning of feudal autocracy, but if someone can solve this problem, the 300-year limit of the dynasty will not make the ruler fearful.

The only one that did not expand the land, open up outwards, and continued its rule was the Southern Song Dynasty. However, the Southern Song Dynasty actually encouraged the people to engage in business, and then increased various taxes to squeeze the people.

If Zhu Youjian is willing to squeeze the people, then he doesn't need to fight with many parties for many years...

Facts have also proved that Zhu Youjian never thought of squeezing the people in exchange for the continuation of the dynasty.

Yuan Keli and Sun Chengzong were talking about Zhu Youjian, but Zhu Youjian was standing in the empty and spacious Chengyun Hall of Qi Wangfu, looking up at the large "Daming Kunyu General Map" above his head.

He knew better than anyone the reason why Sun Chuanting encountered such great resistance. After all, it was he who made Sun Chuanting the governor.

In the final analysis, at that time, he was lacking in skills, the capital needed him, and the local area also needed him.

In this case, he could only regard Sun Chuanting as his avatar, and let Sun Chuanting do some things that should have been done by him, and could only be done by him.

Governor of the world...

If Zhu Youjian did this by himself, the officials below would like to sew their mouths shut, and no one would dare to stand up and sing the opposite, but after Sun Chuanting did it, things would be different.

This is like in a company, the corrupt person may not dare to face the boss directly after the incident, but he will definitely bark at the auditor.

Sun Chuanting is currently on the same line as Zhu Youjian. After all, they are both fighting against the general trend of land annexation.

Under the general situation, the strength of the two seemed insignificant.

In ancient times, land annexation was basically an unsolvable problem, because land was the only property with high value in ancient times.

Of course, in some local occasions, cattle and sheep livestock, mulberry silk, workshops and shops are also property.

It's just that on a larger scale, the only common and common form of property is land.

If one wanted to borrow money for medical treatment or burial of family members, the only property that could be sold or secured was land.

If one wants to expand one's wealth, the only investment available is land.

If a person wants to give someone a great gift, the most expensive gift is land.

If a person dies, the most noteworthy inheritance has to go back to the land.

Therefore, as long as there is a flow of wealth, there must be a flow of land. Unless the normal flow of wealth in a country is completely static or completely destroyed, the flow of land is a demand that cannot be stopped by any artificial means.

The flow here is by no means limited to land ownership, but refers to more levels.

Modern people like Zhu Youjian’s understanding of land is basically limited to the two forms of ownership and leasehold rights, and legal professionals also know some legal forms of usufruct rights.

However, in the many years since he came to Daming, he probably has a clear understanding of the value of land in this era.

A piece of land can be transformed into various transaction models and arrangements stipulated by laws or formed by local customs and habits, such as field surface/field bottom, dead sale/live sale, dead pawn/live pawn, short-term tenancy/permanent tenancy, etc.

The trading habits of the Ming Dynasty can roughly divide the land into two layers, that is, the surface of the field and the bottom of the field.

These two layers can be transferred or disposed of separately, but these transaction models and arrangements were not designed in advance by the "Law of the Ming Dynasty", and the terms may not be protected by the imperial court and the "Law of the Ming Dynasty".

This model was invented and created consciously or unconsciously by common people and gentry tyrants under the framework of the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" in order to meet the actual needs of the market.

The purpose of some arrangements is even to circumvent and break through the restrictions of the "Law of the Ming Dynasty". For example, in the Ming Dynasty, land attached to ancestral graves or land nominally belonging to the clan also had some trading and circulation methods in various places.

From the perspective of the imperial court, it is an impossible task to use the death system to prohibit the living from engaging in all wealth transfers and land transactions.

This is to say in detail, and if it is a little bigger, although the agricultural society is a very stable social model, agriculture itself is actually extremely fragile.

Even in later generations, agriculture is still an industry with meager income and is extremely vulnerable to interference and blows from external factors such as droughts, floods, diseases and insect pests.

Scattered self-cultivating farmers want to maintain normal agricultural production and land distribution order for a long time only in a specific historical period when the environment is in good weather and the court is functioning well.

To put it simply and crudely, even if there were no real factors such as the government or big landlords, some farmers would inevitably go bankrupt due to various reasons such as natural disasters, diseases, and improper management, and there would inevitably be a divide between the rich and the poor.

It can only be said that the more land a farmer owns, the stronger the ability to resist risks.

But on the other hand, if there were such a good time, then a growing population and growing commerce would also disrupt the static order of land distribution.

The allocation of one or two acres of land per capita, even if it is evenly distributed, is actually very fragile. This is similar to Zhu Youjian's allocation of land to the people, but has not been able to improve the living environment of the people.

Before the severe drought, Zhu Youjian ensured that the vast majority of the people had two to three acres of arable land, and a few even owned ten or twenty acres of land.

However, after a severe drought, the speed of land annexation was faster than Zhu Youjian thought.

His idea and plan to curb land mergers and give people more living space has actually been declared bankrupt in many provinces due to the three-year natural disaster and severe drought.

The failure of the plan made him understand a lot of truths.

In this era, in order to maintain a stable land distribution order, more or less five hard conditions need to be met.

First of all, the first one is that the weather is smooth, there are no serious droughts and floods, and agricultural production is relatively stable.

Second, the operation of the imperial court must be relatively good and the maintenance cost should not be high, so that each commoner can enjoy some minimum government benefits, such as benefits such as pilgrimage exemption, so that the financial pressure shared by farmers is relatively low, and the corresponding risk resistance ability is relatively strong.

Article [-]. There must be less land and more land supply, or the growth rate of land should be equal to the growth rate of population.

Article [-]. The private market is not active, the demand for land transfer is relatively low, and the people are generally poor so that they have no wealth to flow.

Fifth, the introduction of new crops increases the grain output of the land, which also delays the problem of more land and less land.

These five items basically explain why many land annexation problems in the early feudal dynasties were not acute, because the above conditions were relatively easy to meet.

It’s just that these conditions are actually beyond human control, so it’s impossible to design a political system to keep these conditions constant.

Zhu Youjian was able to divide the land at the beginning because he led a group of landless people to divide the land.

But the problem now is that the group of people he brought were allocated land, and many of them also participated in the land annexation under natural disasters.

At this time, he wants to use the people who participated in the land annexation to solve the land annexation, which is equivalent to asking the people below to perform "I kill myself".

Fortunately, Zhu Youjian left a retreat for himself, which was a policy formulated when the land was divided, that is, "the land belongs to the Yumajian, and the land cannot be bought and sold."

In the final analysis, the common people who allocated nearly [-] million mu of arable land were all tenants of the Yumajian, but their autonomy was greater than that of the tenants, and no one above them was in charge of them.

However, once Zhu Youjian started to take care of it, the allocated land could actually be traced back, because these lands belonged to the "imperial court" in name.

This is why Sun Chuanting can catch a batch of "big fish" every time he goes to governor.

Things went back and forth, to the situation in the first year of Taichang.

At the beginning, Zhu Youjian needed to cultivate a new organization that would not be contaminated with too many interests to solve land annexation and distribute land to the people, but now he needs a new organization to clean up the people who merged the land, and the land that was annexed by them Spit it out.

Sun Chuanting is currently an executor, but his ability alone is limited, and the scale of the organization he can organize is also limited.

Of course, the more difficult point is not how to deal with people, but how to deal with natural disasters.

If natural disasters are not eliminated, even if Zhu Youjian collects all the land and distributes it to the people, but after severe droughts and man-made disasters, the land in the hands of the people will be annexed no matter how they are divided. .

This natural disaster lasted too long, and Zhu Youjian couldn't wait, because he could only wait for the people to rebel, so he could only use one method to appease the people first.

"Industrial Revolution……"

Standing under the "Daming Kunyu General Map", Zhu Youjian muttered to himself.

He set his sights on South Asia, which has one-fifth of the world's population.

Population is the market, and with the addition of Ming and its vassal states, one-half of the world's civilized population will become the economic market of Ming.

As long as Daming stepped into the industrial revolution at this time, the problem of land annexation would be easily solved.

The industrial revolution will bring down the status of land as an absolute means of production, and it will be much easier for him to do it again...

　Chapter 2 will be updated at ten o'clock in the evening, and I will push a friend's book by the way

　　--------

　　"The Legendary Trainer in the Elven World"

　　"Correction" Xiba, who has not yet become the Four Heavenly Kings, Lingfei's journey as a legendary trainer has begun.

　　Silver Elf Academy, he is the fastest graduating student ever!
　　An elf breeder, he created a new school of combining acupoint stimulation and cultivating potions, and his name is forever recorded in the elf breeder association!
　　An elf trainer, each of his elves possesses unique skills, the pliers of the poisonous Scorpion King have terrifying power, and the flying mantis with the characteristics of a technical master possesses superb swordsmanship...

　　Growing up while exploring, and becoming a legend while growing up, Ling Fei gradually made friends with the rumored beasts.

　　Dialga and Palkya who are in charge of time and space.

　　Giratina, the Hades dragon in charge of the inner world!

　　Celebi who can travel through time and space!
　　A dream with the origin of all things!
　　
　　
　
(End of this chapter)