Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 412 Developing the Northeast

"Wow—"

At the beginning of June, with the passage of time, the midsummer that made the whole north extremely tense is finally coming to an end.

This kind of atmosphere is particularly noticeable in the south of the Great Wall, but for some tribes and people in the north of the Great Wall, especially those who are surrounded by mountains and rivers, they don't think summer is so scary.

What really frightened the herdsmen and farmers in the north was the Ming army soldiers and horses who had been running around since mid-May...

"Drive! Drive..."

On the vast Horqin Grassland, the well-equipped cavalry of the Ming Army rode their horses southward, heading towards the Yanshan Mountains.

Not only them, cavalry from Liaodong, Duoyan, Daning and other places rushed, but there were not many of them, and they seemed to be guards for important figures.

When they passed by, many herdsmen who surrendered to Daming and farmers who migrated to the north looked at them deliberately, without any fear.

Everyone knows that the Ming army is strictly disciplined, and the King of Qi is more lenient than the common people. Every year, he gives repeated orders to all the troops not to bully the common people in the garrison.

Such strict military regulations made many soldiers of the Ming army behave honestly. Of course, this is only part of the reason. The real reason is that since the four years since the apocalypse, the imperial court has been paid enough every year, and there is no need for soldiers to rob people.

If the imperial court fails to pay the military salary, then the strict military discipline will collapse in a short time.

Looking at the hundreds of cavalry troop galloping south, two thin old farmers, one Mongolian and one Han, started chatting unavoidably.

"That seems to be Sun Zongbing's flag?"

"Seems to be……"

"It's only been a few days since Zongbing Cao and Zongbing Guan went south. Why did Zongbing Sun go south? Could there be a war?"

The old Han farmer touched the goatee on his chin, while the old Mongolian farmer next to him scratched his beard:
"It will be fine if you beat the North Prisoner..."

"Huh?" The Han old farmer looked at the Mongolian old farmer with a hint of doubt, but he didn't want the other party to stare at him, and shouted in unproficient Mandarin:

"I'm from Daming now!"

"I didn't say you weren't!" The old Han farmer yelled at him.

"Baa—" the flock of sheep next to them also shouted.

"Grazing!" The angry Mongolian old farmer turned around and continued to herd herds, while the Han old farmer curled his lips when he saw this, and let go of his herd.

The relationship between the two is basically the Mongolian-Han relationship in the three prefectures of Taining.

Daming opened government schools for the surrendered Mongolians, distributed pastures, cattle and sheep, and opened imperial stores, so that they could easily taste the sugar and silk that only "Mongolian nobles" could eat.

For this group of Mongolians who used to be slaves and ordinary herdsmen, Daming is much more realistic than the illusory Hutuktu Khan.

Of course, among the many Mongolians, the one who lived the most nourishing life was the former Ulut tribe.

The Mongols in Ulutt got the vast and fertile land at the foot of the Yin Mountains, while their leader, Batuer, and their uncle Saihan lived in the capital.

For the taxes of the herdsmen, the imperial court did not collect much, basically three taxes and one tax, and the requirements were also horses.

If there are three members of the herdsman, then one horse is enough every year. If there are five members, it is one horse and two sheep.

Generally speaking, one person has one sheep, and three people have one horse.

This seems a lot, after all, the price of a horse ranges from five taels to twenty taels.

But the problem is that the herdsmen don't have so many channels to sell horses, because the large livestock in the north are basically monopolized by the officialdom.

They can only be sold to the officialdom, and the officialdom is sold to the south, and for them, it is actually not difficult to raise horses.

The grasslands of the Ming Dynasty outside the Great Wall were roughly two to three hundred million mu, and the imperial court gave the grasslands to herdsmen for free to graze, and distributed all the captured cattle, sheep and horses to them.

When dividing cattle and sheep, there were as many as 32 ordinary Mongolians who surrendered to Ming Dynasty. For them, Zhu Youjian distributed five sheep, one cow, and one horse per person.

After being divided, many herdsmen finally became their own masters from working slaves under the nobles.

Since the four years of the apocalypse, they moved and grazed under the regulations of the government, and the number of cattle, sheep and horses has more than tripled.

The reason why they can grow so much is naturally because in winter, they can go to the imperial store to buy grain, soybeans, and forage for livestock to eat.

What nomads are most afraid of is white disasters, and yurts are added with briquettes, plus optional Huangdian grain, salt, iron, and camellia, and the growth rate of livestock is naturally very fast.

According to the statistics of the three prefectures of Taining, there are currently more than 73 cattle, more than 82 horses, and more than 600 million sheep in the three prefectures.

The more than two million cattle and sheep seized by Zhu Youjian from Hetao and Tumote in those years have nearly tripled now.

Of course, it is also difficult to raise so many cattle and sheep. Occasionally, plagues will kill them in droves.

However, at this time, the local government will give cattle, sheep and horses to the herdsmen who died of cattle and sheep, but these need to be returned.

The reason why they are so kind to the herdsmen is also because they have their own needs.

For example, hundreds of thousands of sheep on the grassland are driven south by the imperial shop every year, and sold in the south of the Yangtze River at a price three to five times higher than that in the north, and even inferior horses are sold at high prices.

The herdsmen in the three prefectures of Taining directly and indirectly create wealth for the Yumajian close to 200 million taels of silver every year.

However, all of this money will not go into the national treasury, but will be used to purchase medium and high-grade horses, as well as some adult cattle.

These horses will be given to the army, while the cattle will be given to the migrated Han people.

The Han people who migrated to the three prefectures of Taining could choose to receive cattle for farming, or they could learn to herd.

If you choose to herd, the government will also distribute cattle, sheep and horses to the Han people according to the number issued to the Mongolians, and will find a Mongolian herder as a teacher for the Han people.

In this way, many Mongolians learned the official language of Ming Dynasty, and many Han people also learned Mongolian language, and the two sides got along harmoniously.

Their harmony actually proves that class conflicts are the ones that really need to be resolved.

It took only six years for the Mongolian and Han tribes who beat their lives to be called brothers, but the Mongolian and Han nobles still regard them as ants.

This is also some new education received by the Mongolian herdsmen. They knew that the division of cattle and sheep was ordered by Zhu Youjian, and they were naturally grateful to Zhu Youjian. Many people even prayed for Zhu Youjian every day.

Later, the Han immigrants who imparted knowledge were also embarrassed, so they could only pray for the two brothers Zhu Youjian and Zhu Youxiao with the Mongols.

Such a situation is weird and harmonious. Ten years ago, the two sides were probably still fighting each other.

"Drive! Drive..."

The Mongolian and Han people in the three prefectures of Taining and Ning lived in harmony. However, their peaceful years were based on the background of strict border patrols by the Ming army.

When nearly [-] cavalrymen poured into Yanshan from all directions, they arrived in Yanshan County in just two or three days, and built a military camp outside Yanshan County, looking like they were going to live forever.

"Your Highness! Your Highness!"

The sound of armor rang out in Dading Palace, and Sun Shoufa, with a beard on his face, trotted and looked around, calling "Your Highness".

He yelled from the entrance of Dading Palace to Changchun Palace, and finally ran into the palace. When he saw Zhu Youjian, whom he hadn't seen in four years, he knelt down excitedly and made a big salute.

"Your Highness! I finally see you again!"

"Get up, you are also the general of a province, be careful..."

Zhu Youjian, who was reviewing the memorandum, looked at Sun Shoufa's unchanged character and appearance in the past few years, felt helpless and at the same time felt a little lucky and secretly happy.

After the rebellion of the Qi royal party, the rapid decline of the Yanshan faction, and the corruption and bribery of Jinyiwei and Yumajian, he was full of doubts about the people around him.

He was naturally happy to see people like Sun Shoufa at this time.

"I didn't want to be released as a general soldier. It was Your Highness who forced me to stay."

Sun Shoufa muttered and stood up, rubbing his stomach at the same time. Obviously he didn't eat on the way and he was a little hungry.

"You are the farthest away, and you came last. Cao Meng, Guan Fumin, He Shixian, Sun Yingyuan and the others are all here. We just had lunch an hour ago."

Zhu Youjian explained, but at the end he did not forget to say to Wang Chengen who was standing in the corner:

"Get this guy some food, don't wait for him to go back to Taining Mansion and say that I treated him badly."

"Yes..." Wang Chengen responded with a smile, while Sun Shoufa moved a chair by himself, sat ten steps away from Zhu Youjian, and said in armor:

"Your Highness, are you going to fight Jianlu this time?"

"Hmm..." Zhu Youjian responded to Sun Shoufa while processing the memorial, and said at the same time:
"After you have eaten, I'll take you to the Nuan Pavilion to say hello to Long Live, and then I'll talk about beating Jianlu..."

"The last general takes the order." Sun Shoufa pretended to hold his fists together, Zhu Youjian shook his head, and could only sigh secretly that this fellow was still so muddled.

He was here to deal with the memorial, and Wang Chengen quickly sent someone to bring the meal to the hall, and moved a table for Sun Shoufa.

The meal in Changchun Palace is very simple, nothing more than three vegetarian dishes with two plates of meat, a bowl of soup and a bowl of rice.

"The meals in the palace are not good, so you can make do with it."

Zhu Youjian took a look at Chuanshan, which was basically the same as what he ate at noon, so he told Sun Shoufa not to dislike it.

"Hehe...it's not that the palace is bad, it's because His Highness is used to frugality." Sun Shoufa smiled, and his words were surprising, which made the maid and eunuch who passed the dishes feel tight.

On the contrary, Zhu Youjian and Wang Chengen smiled and shook their heads without saying anything.

Sun Shoufa often asks Zhu Youjian to write military newspapers for greetings. When he is diligent, he can keep one for three days, and when he is busy, he can keep one for ten days.

Although he was stationed in Taining Mansion, the food he ate was not bad.

Although Taining Prefecture is a prefecture, after more than four years of relocation, there are only three counties, fifteen towns and hundreds of villages, less than [-] Han people and [-] Mongolian herdsmen.

Compared with it, there are more people in Duoyan Mansion, with a population of nearly 60 in Mongolia and Han.

But 10 people, plus the remaining capable people in Donglin who were thrown away by Zhu Youjian, the people's livelihood naturally does not need to worry about Sun Shoufa, he is responsible for managing the three guards in his hands every day.

The three guards and horses have nothing to do, so they will invite Guan Fumin, Cao Meng and others to hunt in Harawen Mountain almost from time to time.

Eat bears today, eat tigers tomorrow, and eat all the delicacies and wild game in their stomachs.

Speaking of which, Zhu Youjian is really not as good as him when it comes to food.

"I've been outside the customs for four years. Tell me about the current situation in Taining Mansion."

Zhu Youjian sorted out a book of memorials, and asked Sun Shoufa who was wielding his chopsticks, and he also said while eating:

"Taining Mansion is not bad, the herdsmen live a nourishing life, and the common people also live a nourishing life..."

"At the end of the day, I specifically asked Fan Jingwen. According to him, Taining Mansion currently has more than 57 mu of arable land, and each household has two or three cattle."

"This year Taining Mansion is going to pay the land tax. He asked me to tell you, Your Highness, that Taining Mansion can pay 15 shi for the land tax this year, more than [-] taels of tax silver, and less than [-] cattle, sheep and horses for herding tax." .”

"15 shi? Is the yield per mu in Taining Mansion very low?" Zhu Youjian was a little surprised when he heard this.

"The yield per mu is not high..." Sun Shoufa said while eating:
"The fields cultivated by the people of Taining Prefecture this year, the high ones are no more than one stone per mu, and the low ones are no more than eight buckets. Most of the people are nine buckets of wheat."

"Have you used chemical fertilizer?" Zhu Youjian frowned, while Sun Shoufa nodded:

"If you use it, if you don't use it, you may not even have Qi Dou."

"..." Hearing this, Zhu Youjian was slightly silent. After the seven buckets of wheat were removed from the husks, they looked like five and a half buckets, about eighty catties.

With a yield of [-] catties of wheat per mu, if the middle peasant economy cannot be established, the people of Taining Prefecture will not even be able to be self-sufficient once they leave Daming, and Zhu Youjian wants the Northeast to feed back the customs in the future.

According to Zhu Youjian's plan, Daming had to go all out to promote farming outside the customs, use tractors to reclaim cultivated land, develop the amount of cultivated land outside the customs to 20 million mu, and increase the population outside the customs to 2000 million within [-] years.

Calculated, this is almost 1000 million mu of arable land added every year, which is not fast when using tractors.

Of course, the premise is that Daming has to provide enough tractors for the people outside the customs to form a village collective to cultivate.

According to the yield of five and a half buckets of pure grain per mu, at least six mu of land is needed to feed an adult.

That is to say, when there is not enough fertilizer and the mainland does not provide blood transfusions to Taining and Duoyan, the local 10,000+ people need at least 500 million mu of arable land to ensure that their staple food will not be interrupted.

According to the fact that a tractor reclaims an acre of wasteland in about five days, except for the half month of busy farming and the five-month winter period, the remaining time for a tractor is six and a half months, which is less than [-] days. Ten acres of land.

Of course, this is the case of a plain without forests. If it is a place with forests, this efficiency will be greatly reduced. Basically, only ten acres can be reclaimed a year.

A tractor worth 130 taels can reclaim ten to forty acres of land a year. This is not as efficient as a large machine in the later generations that can dry hundreds of acres in a few days, but it is absolutely cost-effective in this era. production equipment.

However, this thing does not mean that you can easily produce dozens or millions of units if you have money. The production line is an important problem that plagues Daming.

The six steam engine factories invested by Zhu Youjian have an annual output of only [-] agricultural steam engines, and it will take three years to reach this number.

In addition, he also needs to build a supporting agricultural equipment factory, otherwise there will only be a steam engine, and there will be no place for assembly, and the steam engine can only pump water.

"We must let the Northeast feed back Daming in the shortest possible time, but we must ensure the local food problem."

"According to the yield per mu of nine buckets of wheat and seven buckets of pure grain after using fertilizer, it takes five mu of land to feed a person."

"The yield per mu in Liaodong is slightly higher, but it is estimated that it will not work north of the Great Wall."

"Liaodong, Taining, and Duoyan have a total of more than 760 million people, and to feed them requires at least 4000 million mu of arable land, but..."

Zhu Youjian settled the accounts in his heart, and at the same time he remembered the amount of cultivated land in these places with a headache.

Even though Liaodong has undergone a large-scale development supported by imperial immigrants and has been continuously developed for seven years, the amount of cultivated land in the area is only more than 200 million mu, including Taining and Duoyan, which is only 400 mu. About [-] million mu.

There are still more than 600 million acres of vacancies in the local area, and Daming still needs continuous blood transfusions from the mainland.

"600 million acres... [-] units..."

Zhu Youjian calculated that if the factory goes well, it should be able to produce 40 tractors in three years, and there is a high probability that [-] to [-] tractors will be developed in four years. million acres of arable land.

After the factory reaches an output of 24 units in the fourth year, it should be able to increase [-] mu to [-] mu of cultivated land in the fifth year...

The growth rate of these hundreds of thousands of acres of cultivated land is really too little for Daming.

"It is still necessary to increase manpower for reclamation, especially the cultivated land in the Liaohe River Basin..."

Zhu Youjian could only focus on manpower reclamation. Although their speed of reclamation was slow, it was better because of the large number of people.

"Chengen..." Zhu Youjian looked at Wang Chengen, and the other party bowed to show that he heard it, and he also followed the trend and said:
"This year, a new policy has been issued to Liaodong. Those who are willing to go outside the Great Wall to reclaim arable land, the imperial court will distribute a farm ox and thirty shi of food stamps."

Before, Zhu Youjian lowered the grain standards for the Liaodong land reclamation immigrants. It was because the severe drought was too severe, and Ming Dynasty did not have so much surplus grain to supply them.

Now that the severe drought has subsided slightly, and with the return of blood from the two large charging treasures of Yingzhou and Jiugang, Zhu Youjian can completely restore the original policy, so as to increase the cultivated land in Northeast China by 600 million or even thousands in the next three years ten thousand mu.

His guess was not groundless, but because he had read some related materials on Northeast development when he was in the poverty alleviation materials in his previous life.

He remembers very clearly that in 40 years, the arable land area in Heilongjiang and Jilin has soared from less than 160 million mu to [-] million mu by using only human power.

Including Fengtian's arable land, there are a total of about 5000 million mu, of which more than 2000 million mu belongs to newly reclaimed land.

This still does not have any official support, but belongs to the situation of the people's spontaneous reclamation.

In the next ten years of Zhang Zuolin's strong support, the amount of cultivated land in the Northeast increased rapidly by nearly 5000 million mu.

Zhang Zuolin's policy of benefiting farmers is nothing more than the same as Zhu Youjian's distribution of farm tools and livestock, while Zhu Youjian's more policies than him include the direct distribution of grain.

Zhu Youjian's policy is fine. Before he supported immigrants and arable land in Liaodong, there were less than 300 million people in Liaodong and less than 1000 million mu of arable land.

In the ninth year after he promulgated the New Deal, that is, in a few years, the population of Liaodong has reached 700 million, with 200 million mu of arable land.

The population has more than doubled, and the arable land has more than tripled.

This is also the result of his lowering the standard of reclaimed grain six years after the apocalypse, but even so, the cultivated land in Liaodong is still growing at an annual rate of 300 million mu.

However, the growth will come to an end, especially since the Liaodong area of ​​Daming is not large, in fact, almost all that can be reclaimed is almost reclaimed.

The common people have concerns, and feel that the Great Wall is too far away, and the land cannot be bought or sold, but can only be leased, and there are harassments from Jianlu outside the pass.

As long as Zhu Youjian resolves these concerns, even without steam engines, Liaodong will still be able to increase millions of acres of arable land three years later.

"Those who want to go to settle outside the customs, the imperial court pays [-] shi food stamps per mu of land, and then sell them to the local people at the original price, and they can receive annual payments."

"In addition, the imperial court will organize troops to escort them northward, and plan villages and towns, and garrison troops to protect them."

"The [-]th battalion of soldiers and horses transferred from Yingzhou will escort the people northward after they are completed, and the governor's mansion of Shangzhi will send troops to protect them later."

Yingzhou transferred back the 370th Battalion of soldiers and horses, which gave Liaodong enough troops. Even according to the plan of "one banner guards one village", they can protect the people of [-] five villages.

Even if there are only 300+ people in these 10,000-odd villages, ten to hundreds of thousands of acres of arable land can be reclaimed every year.

"Your Highness..." Wang Chengen could not help reminding after hearing Zhu Youjian's words:

"Although there are still nearly ten million shi of grain stored in various places, the people still have a lot of land in their hands."

"According to this price, each commoner has four or five acres in their hands. If there are 10,000+ people who want to rush out of the pass, the imperial court can recover 70 million acres of land, and they have to spend 500 stone food stamps ..."

Wang Chengen's words were extremely tactful. In fact, he knew very well that the people of Liaodong had great trust in the policies promulgated by his highness.

If this policy is promulgated, what the local area will have to face will not be just 10,000+ people leaving the customs, but hundreds of thousands...

There are several 10 people, and they have 300 million mu of arable land in their hands. If they really recycle at the price of 4000 shi per mu, the imperial court can't afford [-] million shi of rice and wheat.

His thinking is limited to the data, Zhu Youjian said with a smile:

"The common people took the food stamps, do you think they will exchange all of them directly? They can't take so much food with them, and besides, it will be moldy in at most three years if they are left at home."

"They still have a lot of rice and wheat at home. If there is no accident, they will build a house after going outside the customs, and then spend the winter. They will not exchange for food coupons until their own food is exhausted next year."

"Even next year, they won't redeem all the food stamps at once. The rice and wheat from the autumn harvest in Liaodong this year, plus the 600 million shi of rice and wheat from Yingzhou, are enough to handle it."

What Zhu Youjian said was not wrong. The people in Liaodong do have a lot of food in their hands, and after so many years of promotion and drought, the credibility of food stamps is higher than silver.

People in Liaodong immigrated there, and food stamps accompanied them almost all the time they took root in Liaodong.

From their point of view, once the food stamps are in their hands, no matter how corrupt the corrupt officials are, as long as there is a royal store nearby, they will be able to exchange food stamps for food.

Therefore, as long as the quantity of grain in the local Huangdian is maintained and the grain is placed there to reassure the common people, there will be basically no run on incidents.

In addition, with Xiong Tingbi, Sun Yingyuan, and Yuan Yingtai sitting in the township, Liaodong's official administration is relatively clear compared to other places, so it is almost impossible for the people to pay dozens of shi for grain at a time.

"What His Highness taught me is that the slaves want to fall..."

After Zhu Youjian's explanation, Wang Chengen finally figured it out.

The Yumajian only needs to issue food stamps, and how many food stamps they want to print is entirely up to the Yumajian themselves.

At present, the Yumajian does not have tens of millions of rice and wheat, but as long as they print food stamps and distribute them to the people, the people will think that the Yumajian has them.

At that time, as long as the people do not run on a large scale, the grain in the hands of the Liaodong Yumajian will be enough for the people to exchange daily.

This is actually the same as banks. Most banks do not have deposits on paper, and basically use them to issue loans.

But as long as there is no large-scale run, it can still be used for small-scale exchanges.

"Okay, let's do it like this..." Zhu Youjian stood up, looked at Sun Shoufa who was wiping his mouth, and said with a smile:

"Let's go, take you to pay homage to Long Live."

"Hey!" Hearing that he was going to see the emperor, Sun Shoufa wiped his mouth clean, rinsed his mouth with tea, and followed Zhu Youjian out of Changchun Palace...

　The second estimate is around [-]:[-] p.m.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)