national surname chiming

Chapter 283 Those who have no property have no perseverance
If it is ordinary good people who are improperly managed by the government and forced to protest against taxes,

Even if Fang Yizhi used force to kill a group of people and successfully suppressed them, his official title would probably be seriously affected.

Fortunately, during Shen Shuren's absence, the troublemakers were only Zhang Xianzhong's former subordinates who surrendered. These people have bad deeds, so as long as they can be extinguished, Shen Shuren can suppress them and don't report them to the court.

However, summing up experience and learning lessons must be done carefully. Shen Shuren really paid attention to this matter, so he reviewed it carefully with Fang Yizhi.

Fang Yizhi was also very helpless: "Last month, the cause of these people's troubles was that our Huguang side charged too much rent for the government settlements where refugees were resettled.

From Wuchang Mansion to Changsha Mansion, the land is granted by the government and the refugees are resettled to cultivate it by themselves. The [-]-[-] open, [-]% of the rent is collected, and the period is several years.

If you are a self-cultivator who has owned land locally before, naturally you don't have to pay so high, as long as you pay according to the normal national tax plus the three rates fixed by the imperial court.

In addition, for new high-yielding crops such as corn and potatoes, regardless of whether the seeds are obtained from the government, they need to add [-]% to the rent, and the government takes [-]%. Keeping [-]% to protect them from other exploitation, to give birth with peace of mind, and to have food and clothing. In the autumn of national calamity, it will cost a lot, so there is no way. "

Shen Shuren recognized the data Fang Yizhi said.

The regular tax of the Ming Dynasty was indeed not high. If the three rates were added, if there was no additional apportionment, and there was no such thing as "the rich and powerful do not pay taxes, and the apportionment is doubled for those without privileges", the common people would definitely be able to bear it. .

After all, there is going to be a war. If you don’t pay so much, where will the military rations come from?As long as the production can be done well, there is no problem.

The three prefectures of Changde and Hengzhou in Changsha, after all, have just been massacred by Zhang Xianzhong this year, and the population has been halved at least, so there will be vacant land for the government to distribute.

These refugees assigned to the fields, at any rate, there are no landlords to exploit them. Individual self-employed farmers directly hand over the rent to the government, and there are no middlemen to make the difference.

Therefore, after Shen Shuren sorted out the data, he couldn't figure it out for the time being: "Just this ratio of tax collection and rent can directly force the resettlement refugees? This is too unbelievable. The government provided them with some farm tools anyway Let them produce as soon as possible. Could it be that when they were ordinary people, the rent they had to bear was obviously less than this?"

Fang Yizhi sighed, with an expression of "Sure enough, you are also kept in the dark": "So, the problem lies here-after the Changsha rebellion was quelled, I made many inquiries to learn more about their early years in Shaanxi. , Henan's people's conditions, the situation, to know.

In Shaanxi and Henan, the national tax and three rates are of course not less, and because there are more refugees and fewer people left behind, they will be apportioned more severely.Therefore, in Shaanxi, the portion that a poor peasant has to hand over to the imperial court and the government will only be more than here.

but!In Shaanxi, since the Tianqi period, even as early as the end of the Wanli period, if the poor peasant rented and cultivated the land of the landlord, the part of the rent he gave to the landlord was already lower than that in the south!In the south, under normal circumstances, the biggest burden for the common people is actually the part that the landless peasants give to the landlord, and the part that goes to the court and the government should be the small head. "

Shen Shuren was taken aback: "How is it possible? Could it be that the landlords in Shaanxi have a good conscience and can collect so much less rent? Then these people are used to seeing 'benevolent landlords' in Shaanxi, but they can't bear it when they arrive in Huguang?!"

Shen Shuren found it very unbelievable, this statement was definitely beyond his intuition.

Fang Yizhi shook his head: "Of course it doesn't depend on 'kindness'. How can there be so many benevolent landlords in the world? It depends on the fact that Shaanxi's population has been exiled and starved to death since the end of Wanli, and gradually the population is sparse.

The tyrants couldn't control their tenants from running away, so they had to reduce the rent to attract farmers under other powerful landlords to plant their own fields, so the landlords competed with each other, and the rents collected by the farmers became lower and lower. up.In the last year of Wanli, Shaanxi was only reduced to the fourth landlord of the sixth agricultural land, and in the early years of Chongzhen, it was further reduced to the third landowner of the seventh agricultural land. "

Shen Shuren suddenly realized:
During the Little Ice Age in the north, there were successive years of famines, and the land was sparsely populated. That is, the landlords competed with each other to attract farmers to plant their own land.

In the south, there are relatively few disasters, and the people do not flee. There are more people and less land, that is, farmers are entangled with each other, competing to plant land for the landlord.

There are many people, many people, and many lands,
Which kind of production factor is not scarce, which kind of production factor is involved, this is a natural principle, MKS has said.

But soon, a bigger incomprehension popped up in Shen Shuren's mind: Landlords have reduced their rents, so why are farmers in Shaanxi unable to survive?Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong all came from there, so it can't be faked, right?
He also naturally asked this question.

Fang Yizhi also seemed to have expected this question a long time ago, and directly took out a volume of notes, which turned out to be the work of Sun Chuanting. It is estimated that it will be included in "Jian Lao Lu" in later generations, or it may be "Bai Gu Ji" , has not yet been officially named.

Fang Yizhi spread Sun Chuanting's books there, and said: "I have also read a lot of Governor Sun's early notes, which mentioned the details of how he raised military rations, supervised taxation, and encouraged farmers in Shaanxi for many years. , I couldn't understand it at first, but now I understand his difficulties.

Governor Sun was curious about why since the early years of Chongzhen, whenever he went to various places in Shaanxi, he saw people farming land and never repairing water conservancy. Landlords wanted to repair it, but they couldn't organize it.Even when the common people are farming, many people do not fertilize at all, but just sow thin seeds casually,

Within a few years, the fertility of the land is exhausted, and there is no stable irrigation. During the drought year, it is completely barren. Without the root system of plants and trees to fix the soil, the good soil on the surface will become floating soil. Loess, sandy soil.Good places turned into bad places.

Then, because the land is vast and the population is sparse, and the people are not afraid of migrating when they have no surplus wealth, and they are not afraid of running out of land to grow wherever they go, a few tricky people, after three years of disaster, a piece of land turns into yellow sand, and they change to another county to become refugees. In places that no one knows, pretend to be good, find a new landlord to rent the land, and plant it for a year or two before changing the place after the disaster is over.

To be honest, most of the people in Shaanxi are actually pure and simple in nature at the beginning, and they don't want to, but a few tricksters are mixed in, and the government can't ban them, and if someone becomes an honest person, the landlord may not be able to guarantee "I fertilize and maintain the water conservancy fields well, and they will always be planted by me in the future."

Maybe when he promised to fertilize and build water conservancy, the main condition he asked for the land was that he would only charge me [-]% or [-]% of the land rent.

But once the land is well maintained, some refugees from next door will come over in a few years and ask for a higher price at the beginning, pretending to be willing to pay the landlord [-]% of the land rent, then the landlord may "have pity on these poor people" and give them the good land for planting.

Farmers who originally fertilized and maintained water conservancy on this good land cannot protect the interests of "permanently renting this land".Regardless of whether you are a farmer or a landlord, good people get no rewards. The honest ones starve to death first. In the last 20 years, the big waves wash away the sand, and all the loess is left in Shaanxi. The good people and gentry also starve to death. "

Shen Shuren was completely shocked after hearing this long speech.He was afraid that Fang Yizhi's conclusion would be wrong, so he specially spread out the notebook of Sun Chuanting to study and compare it carefully.

After a long time, he finally determined that all these are the simplest effects in later generations of economics:

To the landowner, it is the tragedy of the commons;

For farmers, it is bad money driving out good money.

To give the simplest example, ordinary judges of future generations can understand it: as long as future generations have stayed in the countryside, or at least watched farmers complaining about agricultural disputes on Douyin, they generally know these common sense points.

In the 21st century, one mu of land is generally rented in China. Depending on the quality of the land, the cheapest land rent is about four to five hundred a year, and the most expensive good land is seven to eight hundred to nearly a thousand.

But there is a kind of land where the rent is very expensive, that is, renting to grow watermelons. Almost all of them in China cost at least 1500 yuan per mu per year.

This is because modern watermelons are particularly good at absorbing nutrient waste in the land. After one year of watermelon planting, the land must fall fallow for a year, and then rotate legumes to fix nitrogen and increase fertilizer to restore soil fertility.No matter how good the field is, the most watermelons can be planted in three years, and it may take six or seven years to plant watermelons in poor fields.

Therefore, the land rent for melon farmers is very expensive, 1500 a year, in order to collect the rent in advance for the subsequent years of raising land.And the most vicious liars will often tell the lessor when signing the contract that the land will be used for other types of land. If the lessor is negligent in supervision, they will secretly replant watermelons, and then rent for only one year to squeeze out the land. Carrying buckets and running to change places.

The major land lease disputes that Shen Shuren's later generations found on Douyin were basically breaches of contract and stealing watermelons.

The nature of the current problems in Shaanxi is almost the same as that of fraud and stealing watermelons.In the beginning, there were a small number of traitors who were good at deception. They took advantage of the shortage of population and used a relatively high promised land rent to deceive them into good land to plant.

Then whoever is honest will suffer, honest people can't survive, and finally they are forced to imitate.

In the final analysis, the laws of the Ming Dynasty were too imperfect, and the government’s regulations on household laws were too rough and rigid, and there was no more perfect "permanent tenancy" clause like the later Qing Dynasty, nor the "easement" clause in the West.

There is one thing to say, although Shen Shuren was an imperial Han, even before he traveled through time, his affection for Ming Dynasty would definitely crush Qing Dynasty.But when it comes to economic issues, Zhu Yuanzhang, a guy who has a strong desire for control and knows nothing, has really caused disasters for Ming Dynasty for hundreds of years.

As long as the economic governance of the Ming Dynasty has a fraction of the flexibility, encouragement, and clarity of the Song Dynasty, it will not be the last way to die.

Zhu Yuanzhang's enemy businessman, the protection of subdivided economic rights and interests is too backward.He didn't allow the Great Ming Law to be changed, only to increase it, so that later emperors couldn't do anything about it, and the bureaucracy was happy to see it succeed, wishing to make peace like this and give them more room for manipulation.

If the laws of Ming Dynasty could be more lenient and more detailed, and protect some rights that have not been defined yet, then these situations will definitely be different.

For example, if the government strictly enforces the law, "The farmers signed a contract with the landlord, and I promise to fertilize the fields every year, and promise to spend two months every year to maintain the irrigation system in this area, then you have to guarantee that I can at least grow this area." For 20 years, I can’t change people and land halfway because someone else promises to pay a higher rent than me”, to ensure that it is implemented in place.

In this way, it is equivalent to having at least the "permanent tenant right" to the degree of perfection of the Qing Dynasty. The farmer will not worry about his long-term labor on this land and the benefits that take a long time to pay back, and be taken away halfway.

Just like later generations, the laws of a country stipulate that after the owner has rented the house, the landlord cannot increase the rent until the decoration depreciation aging period expires. Then only some people in this country's physical store business will work hard and use a long-term mentality to manage Dry.

If it is allowed to increase the rent at will after the decoration is completed, then who would not want to make quick money quickly?Exhaust the pond and fish?Of course, he picked up a bucket and ran away after getting a ticket.

Of course, rights and obligations are relative. While strictly enforcing laws and legislation, severely punishing landlords who "arbitrarily sublease land with long-term added value of farmers' labor"

For those farmers who took the lead in stealing and cheating to plant the land without fertilizing, or similar to the later generations who "devastated the cultivation of watermelons and destroyed the cultivated land", they should also be severely punished.

Just because he is a farmer, he is absolutely right and not punished—punishing the tricky traitors among the few farmers is precisely to protect the honest people among the majority of farmers, so that they will not be driven out by bad money.

Because if tricksters are not punished by law, landlords will treat all honest farmers as tricksters, guard against them, and raise prices.

For example, although the laws of later generations will not punish people who "get pregnant right after entering the job", this is legal, but over time, women's employment opportunities will be reduced as a whole.In the end, the simple and honest people among the majority of women are paying for the actions of these tricky people.

It is also hard to imagine that in the 21st century, if a large farmer who contracted land planting secretly breached the contract, signed a contract for a different type of crop, got the land at a low price, and finally secretly changed to watermelon, a destructive crop, and sued the court, Such fraudulent contractors will definitely be severely punished and compensated.

Shen Shuren's departure is nothing more than to confirm rights and clear responsibilities, settle disputes and stop disputes, give honest people more protection, and at the same time severely punish fraudulent renting and fraudulent renting.

After trying to understand all this, Shen Shuren finally understood how to solve it, and also understood what happened in the field of agricultural production in Shaanxi in the late Ming Dynasty in history.

Shen Shuren also read many novels in the late Ming Dynasty in his previous life. He had actually heard about the objective fact that the farming conditions in Shaanxi were deteriorating, but in those books, it was often explained as

"The natural disasters in Shaanxi are too serious. It is not easy for farmers. The harvest ratio is less than one to six or seven. That is, if one bucket of millet is planted as seeds, the harvest at the end of the year is less than six or seven buckets, and the capital will not be recovered. What kind of fertilizer is there? So they have a reason, and they really can't survive."

Are these historical data objective facts?Of course it is an objective fact.

But such a simple and crude writer, with this single way of interpretation, is shameless enough to spend money to read books in order to please readers from peasant backgrounds.

More importantly, the law is too vague, law enforcement is too casual, honest people have no basis to be protected by the law, and in the end everyone has to be tricked.At the beginning, there were only a very small number of people who were tricky, but in the end most people were forced out by bad money driving out good money.

Shen Shuren is not afraid of offending people, he never hides that he just wants to severely punish those who take the lead in making tricks, even if they are farmers, he doesn't feel that punishment is a violation of ZZZZ.

"My order, although it is said that the legislation should be gradually perfected and strictly enforced in the future, but in troubled times, heavy codes must be used. Recently, this happened, so I have to pick a few models to show the public first.

In the past two months at the end of the year, in Yueyang Prefecture, Changsha Prefecture, Wuchang Prefecture, a surprise investigation was carried out to see if there was any "tricking the tenant farmers to build water conservancy and increase fertilizer fields", but in the end the farmers sublet these lands at a higher rent Landlords of others.

Anyone who encounters them will be arrested and punished directly, and those who can be beheaded must be beheaded, and they must be shown to the public.

Our bowl of water is flat, and we will kill all the landlords who deceived and violated the farmers' permanent tenancy rights, and the farmers who promised to participate in water conservancy construction and promised to fertilize the land when they planted, but in the end did not repair or fertilize, fraudulently destructive development.After killing and intimidating people, we will take the opportunity to formally announce the new law, affirming the counties and townships.

Explain to those people who are originally from Shaanxi that it makes sense for us to collect high rents for farming here.Because our land is good, we have a long-term guarantee for the maintenance of water conservancy and fertile fields. Others can't just take it away. If you don't agree, you can't exchange the land with you. You can grow this field forever.

Therefore, we should cherish the field as our own, and we should not use the mentality of changing fields after two years of planting to exhaust the soil and destroy the fertility of the soil.Mencius said, those who have a permanent property have perseverance, those who do not have a permanent property have no perseverance, and if there is no permanent property, there is nothing wrong with warding off evil spirits!This is what it is all about!

A piece of land, only if it is guaranteed to be rented and planted by him forever, will he protect it well!The biggest harm of refugees is to destroy the enthusiasm of farmers to protect the land, and only think about destroying the land!
If Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, who have no perseverance in property and perseverance, continue to make trouble, in a hundred years, Shaanxi will completely become a loess plateau! "

Shen Shuren's policy can be said to be resounding, and Fang Yizhi is also admired.

It is estimated that if people like Shen Shuren are allowed to legislate and enforce the law in future generations, then the landlord who casually increases the rent after others have renovated the shop, and the melon farmer who fraudulently replants watermelons after renting land at a low price will be severely punished by him.

He is very fair, the tricky lessor will be severely punished, and the tricky lessee will be severely punished, without favoring any party.

-

PS: Today’s question is not to reverse the verdict, but to read so many late Ming articles that did not explain the economic principles of refugee destruction, so I can’t complain.

Accidentally one chapter is more than 5000 words, if it is not easy to disassemble, then don’t dismantle it, let’s leave it like this today.

My writing has tried to be as balanced as possible, and I have even emphasized it repeatedly because of being a bit wordy for the sake of stability.But I know that according to the traffic tonality, someone will definitely criticize me for being inconsiderate of farmers, and I admit it.

This is a complicated world, if a bowl of water is leveled, point out the bad guys on both sides, and often the result is that both sides are offended.To be honest, this is the fate, but fortunately, I admit that my grades are poor.

To put it bluntly, in my original discussion on some issues of property rights law and economic principles, it often appeared that "the tenant who rents out scolds me for being biased towards the landlord, and the landlord who rents out also scolds me for being biased towards the tenant".

It is also a skill for a person to be scolded by both the renter and the renter at the same time.

It made me wonder whether there are no vested interests in this world anymore, because they all feel that they are the one who loses money and are a vulnerable group, so they want to criticize me.

(End of this chapter)