Daming 1805

Chapter 436
After the Lantern Festival in the ninth year of Ankang, Zhu Jingyuan packed his things and left Edo to take up his post in Xi'an, Shaanxi.

This time we are going inland, so we have to take a boat to Suzhou to disembark, and then change to a dedicated train to Xi'an.

There is no high-speed rail now, and the journey from Suzhou to Xi’an is more than 500 kilometers long, and it takes a whole day in the car.

However, Zhu Jingyuan's family was on the special train for the royal family, and the facilities in the train were all top-level guest rooms.

Except for the unavoidable sound of the train itself, it is equivalent to resting indoors for a whole day.

Zhu Jingyuan sleeps at night, and enjoys the scenery along the way during the day while thinking about his future work.

From Suzhou to Xi'an, from the coast to the inland, from the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River to the land of the Central Plains, from the Yangtze River Delta to the Loess Plateau, the environment along the way is very different, and the natural landscape can be said to be very rich.

However, Zhu Jingyuan paid more attention to the social and cultural differences in the mainland of the Ming Dynasty.

Differences between regions, and differences with past life memories.

After the Great Ming of this world started to colonize, the not-so-good fields in the local area gradually fell into disrepair.

The terraced fields in the southern hilly area have long been completely degraded into forests.

Only in a plain area with a large enough area will there be a large-scale farm that can't be seen at a glance.

From the south of the Yangtze River to the Central Plains, there are large farms belonging to the royal family everywhere, and they have been rapidly mechanized in the past few years.

A large number of agricultural workers were sent to cities, reducing the employment gap in some cities.

When the train travels through the Great Plains, you can often see large tractors and agricultural aircraft spreading pesticides.

And what can be seen occasionally, it seems to be a small civilian aircraft flying in the sky for play or training.

The small-scale farming economy here has completely disappeared, and even in the mainland, there are only large-scale farms operated by corporations.

This is the biggest difference between Daming in this world and the country where Zhu Jingyuan lived in his previous life.

After Zhu Jingyuan recovered his memory, every time he thought about this incident, he felt his scalp tingling.

Although the production method of self-cultivating farmers is absolutely backward in production capacity in the industrial era.

But in the traditional Eastern dynasty, it is an important foundation for the stable existence of the dynasty.

According to the sociological theories of later generations that I have learned, the nature of owner farmers is "petty bourgeoisie".

Because they own land, the key means of production, and most of them also have various agricultural tools they own, which are also typical means of production.

On the contrary, the managers and shopkeepers in the manufacturers, as long as they don't get the shares of the manufacturers they belong to, no matter how decent and elegant they are in life, they belong to the proletariat in nature.

Because they do not have the means of production, they are completely dependent on the wages paid by the bosses.

The really largest petty-bourgeois group is the owner-peasants.

Once the land was completely annexed, all the owner-peasants became "long-term workers" and became the proletariat in nature.

Owner farmers are a very stable part of society, while long-term workers are obviously very unstable.

After Zhu Jingyuan confirmed the situation of Daming, the first thing he thought of was those countries in the Southern Yinzhou in his previous life.

After the independence of these countries, the original plantation economy has basically not changed, and the land is in the hands of the farmers.

After the start of the second industrial revolution, a large number of agricultural workers lost their original jobs and had to go to cities to find opportunities, so these countries quickly completed "urbanization".

But if these people can't find jobs in the cities, then the whole country is in a state of extreme instability.

Many countries in Southern Yinzhou cannot develop their industries, and the country has no land to distribute to workers who cannot find jobs. They can only let these people live in urban slums in a state of waiting for relief.

The United States and European countries have a similar situation, but the size of the slums is slightly different.

The slums in typical European and American societies are gathering places for people who have no land and cannot be workers.

Countries around China do not have this concept, because most of the countries in China have completed land reform, and workers who cannot find jobs will return to the countryside to become farmers.

Zhu Jingyuan once discussed with the retired Zhu Zhongliang and expressed his concerns in this regard.

After all, according to my personal experience, the prerequisite for the development of industry and commerce is to first divide the land.

This is to provide a stable social basis for industrialization.

From the Meiji Restoration in Japan to the miracle of the Han River in South Korea, even a bald head had to engage in land reform after running away.

Zhu Zhongliang's answer at that time was that the current industrial development of Ming Dynasty could absorb the surplus agricultural population.

If there really was a large-scale economic or political crisis, a critical situation that the royal family and the court could no longer cope with and control, the emperor could choose to divide the land among the unemployed and refugees.

Then Zhu Jingyuan suddenly realized that the Ming Dynasty in this world completed industrialization spontaneously, instead of entering the industrial age as a chaser in Shenzhou and neighboring countries in the previous life.

Land acquisition, industry, and urbanization, if the three are completed simultaneously and spontaneously, the result will indeed be the current state of Ming Dynasty, and this is also the case in Germany, Britain, France and other pre-industrial countries in history.

However, there is a huge difference between Daming and them. The land of Daming has indeed been completely annexed, but more than half of it has been annexed to the royal family, and the emperor can choose to divide the land when necessary.

This is actually an attempt by the royal family to keep an extra hand with "foresight".

In Zhu Zhongliang's view, this is another hole card in the hands of the royal family, a hole card for quickly stabilizing the social system in times of crisis.

But Zhu Jingyuan was worried, would the emperor be able to divide the land if he said so?

Zhu Jingyuan was worried that in that state, such measures might not be able to take effect quickly.

So whether to try or not to try, the problems that can be solved in the city should not be involved in the countryside.

In normal times, we must carefully maintain the balance and development of the entire society, and prevent the passing of time.

As the train continued westward and gradually penetrated into the inland area of ​​Daming, the size of the cities encountered on the road began to shrink significantly.

Zhu Jingyuan also realized again that, compared to his previous life, the Great Ming of this world didn't pay much attention to the interior of the mainland.

After defeating Lucia during the Renwu Dynasty, after completely controlling Shenzhou and the eastern coastline of Xianbei, they really maintained peace with Lucia for more than 100 years.

After helping Persia to quell the rebellion, it did not find a way to annex Persia and turn it into an internal vassal. It also allowed Kazakhstan, Khiva, and Persia to retain a high degree of independence.

Compared to Lucia, Daming's desire for inland land seems to be very restrained.

If Ming Dynasty is a landlocked country, or if its sea power is very weak, if the routes in the surrounding sea areas are controlled by hostile or uncooperative countries, then it must turn its attention inland.

No matter how inconvenient the inland is, the resources in the inland must be developed in a way, just like Lucia in later generations.

But in this world, after Emperor Shizu rebuilt Daming, he quickly established a rather powerful sea power.

Most of the expansion direction of the Ming Dynasty was placed on overseas land.

After all, the ocean is a natural low-cost transportation platform, and it is easier to go from Yingtianfu to Xiyang Cape than to Yili.

Especially the emperors of all dynasties knew where the most important resources in the world were.

The massive amount of iron ore that may be needed after industrialization is located in Tiannan, and the massive amount of oil needed for future industry is located in Dashiguo.

Precious metals such as gold mines that ensure currency stability are mainly in Yinzhou and Mozhou, and copper mines that are used to make low-level coins and are also important industrial raw materials are also mainly in Yinzhou.

Moreover, the origin of these resources is not too far from the coastline.

After the popularization of steam sailing ships, it is much easier to transport these overseas resources back to China than from Western Xianbei to the southeast coast.

The coal and iron mines needed to start the first industrial revolution can be provided by the Liaodong region.

Shaanxi, Shanxi and other places also have very rich coal mines.

The purpose of the Ming Dynasty to control the inland territory west of Shaanxi and the purpose of retaining the three independent khanates in Anxi was mainly based on geostrategic considerations.

You must control all the commanding heights of the entire Shenou continent in your own hands, and you must also control all the mountains, rivers and plateaus around the core area of ​​​​the mainland.

Of course, the Ming court will not deliberately suppress the inland land that has already been controlled.

It's just that I didn't devote too much energy to building it.

Without the special care of the imperial court and without special resources in the inland, the normal speed of industrial and commercial development is definitely not as good as that of the coastal areas with convenient transportation.

So after arriving in the Great Plains of the Central Plains, it is rare to see large-scale cities.

The scenes in some places even made Zhu Jingyuan feel as if he had regressed from an industrial society to an agricultural society.

However, it is also understandable that the most high-end part of the current industrial level of Ming Dynasty has reached the Cold War era.

But these aspects were forcibly brought up by Zhu Jingyuan relying on the experience of later generations.

Before Zhu Jingyuan intervened, and where Zhu Jingyuan did not directly intervene, the industrial foundation of the natural development of Ming Dynasty had actually just begun the second industrial revolution.

Therefore, the key construction of high-tech industries in the southeast coast now seems to have surpassed the era of World War II.

Cars are running all over the place, passengers can travel by large passenger jets, and even private jet competitions have started. Wealthy families have already used washing machines, refrigerators, and air conditioners.

But in the inland areas where the development is relatively slow, internal combustion engines and electricity have not yet been popularized.

Cars are rarely seen in cities, electric lights have not yet been used in rural areas, and horse-drawn carriages and bicycles still account for a very large proportion.

The feeling of Zhu Jingyuan coming to the Central Plains from Jiangnan is like returning to Shanghai from New York during World War II.

Standing by the window of his room, Zhu Jingyuan looked at the city and countryside outside the window with emotion:

"During the process of the prince's administrative training, he should really go to different places, at least go to the inland to have a look.

"If you stay in the east for the rest of your life, in the capital city, you may misjudge the situation of Daming..."

Wang Ya, who was next to Zhu Jingyuan, smiled and nodded and said:
"Of course what Your Highness said makes sense. Reading thousands of books is not as good as traveling thousands of miles. If you don't experience it yourself, you won't know how big Ming is.

"But the concubine feels that Daming is too big, so it is impossible to be completely balanced.

"There must be some places that are richer and some places that are poorer.

"We can't abandon those poor places."

Zhu Jingyuan's palace has formed a practice, and every time he goes to a training place, he will choose two new prince concubines.

But Zhu Jingyuan never had a chance to find a woman who seemed to want her to be his queen.

At the same time, among the concubines already around him, Zhu Jingyuan still felt that Wang Ya was the most suitable for him.

So now Wang Ya has been conferred the title of Princess Dashi.

A pro-vassal prince like Zhu Jingyuan can have one queen and four concubines.

Although the position of queen is still vacant, Zhu Jingyuan feels that he may never choose a queen.

Wang Ya, the concubine, became the natural head of Zhu Jingyuan's harem.

Although Wang Ya was not the first to follow Zhu Jingyuan, the older Liu Muyun and Yu Muxue were not only not strong at all, but even more immature compared to Wang Ya.

After all, the life experience between them is too far apart. Wang Ya, an orphan without father and mother, has a much precocious personality than Liu Muyun, a college student with complete parents, brothers and sisters.

Zhu Jingyuan nodded slightly when he heard Wang Ya's words, and at the same time confirmed some issues again.

Neither the Emperor of Ming Dynasty nor the imperial court paid much attention to the balance of regional development. This may also be the impact of spontaneous industrialization.

This may be problematic in the future.

"Of course we can't abandon the poor areas. Instead, we should find ways to mobilize the power of the rich areas to help the relatively poor areas improve their industries and living standards..."

While Zhu Jingyuan and Wang Ya were chatting, the train whistled again.

Zhu Jingyuan knew that it was close to certain sites or cities.

Sure enough, An Xiaona, who was next to her, took two steps forward and explained the situation to Zhu Jingyuan:

"Your Highness, the next stop is Henan Pingdingshan, which is a relatively large city in the Central Plains. If you want to get off the train and have a look, you can tell the train to stop, otherwise the train will pass through the city normally..."

Pingdingshan is also a place in this world where there are mines first, and then cities develop.

Now it is also a very important coal mine and related industrial base.

Zhu Jingyuan thought for a while, and finally shook his head:
"Don't stay any longer, I didn't come to Henan to take office..."

The train went all the way, and when it really entered the Pingdingshan mining area and the urban area, Zhu Jingyuan was shocked by the scene in front of him again.

It was evening now, and the street lights in the urban and mining areas were turned on.

Shrouded in gray mist and illuminated by dense and bright lights, the outline of this industrial-era city slowly unfolds.

Looking at the lights of the city in front of him, Zhu Jingyuan finally had the feeling of returning to the industrial society again.

Moreover, this Pingdingshan city gave Zhu Jingyuan the feeling that it was very developed as a whole.

Double-track high-standard railways, tall and complicated pavilions, brightly lit streets, and endless traffic.

I have passed through those cities and rural areas that look like the agricultural era, and I seem to be in a different world from the busy and lively industrial city in front of me.

Looking at the picture in front of him, Zhu Jingyuan once again thought of the problem he realized just now.

In the absence of rigid regulation, in the era of rapid industrialization expansion, resource cities can be very rich.

Compared with the cities in the southeast, the current scale of mining cities like Pingdingshan is not small at all.

It's just that this kind of city, compared with places without surrounding minerals, the gap will be particularly obvious.

(End of this chapter)