A small soldier of the frontier army in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 657 "Fiefdom"

In the 15th year of Chongzhen, in the middle of May.

Every year in May of the lunar calendar, it is almost the harvest season of summer grain in various places in Ming Dynasty. The land tax in Ming season is divided into summer tax and autumn grain. The summer tax does not exceed August, and the autumn grain does not exceed February next year. In the government, there was a great plague of locusts, and the people peeled off bark, sawdust and miscellaneous chaff to eat, or dug white mud from the mountains to eat, and it was called Guanyin powder.

In Wu County, Suzhou Prefecture, the price of rice is as high as three taels of silver per stone, and two taels of money per stone.

From the year of Longqing to the end of Chongzhen, hundreds of millions of taels of silver flowed in from overseas. However, there were often famines in the south of the Yangtze River. This is a strange phenomenon. In Hangzhou and other places, the crops in the fields were replaced by raw silk and raw cotton.

Someone in the Ming Dynasty once wrote: "Suzhou, in the past, there were very few people chasing after the end, but now the number of people who go to agriculture and change to industry and commerce is three times that of before. It's two or three. Roughly speaking in terms of ten of the common people, six or seven of them have gone to farming."

The temptation of commerce has led the local people to switch to cash crops and rely on the sale of raw silk, cotton yarn, cotton cloth, etc. to buy food. In this era of relatively backward transportation, buying food across regions can easily cause a food crisis, especially due to natural disasters When there was a food shortage, the affluent Jiangnan area also suffered a very serious blow.

During the period of Zhu Yuanzhang, the price of one stone of rice was two cents and five cents of silver, which was equivalent to 250 cents of copper coins. In the middle of Ming Dynasty, it rose to five cents. This price remained for about a hundred years, and did not rise to seven cents until the end of Wanli. , unless there is a catastrophe, never more than one or two per stone.

From the 12th year of Chongzhen, the price of rice in Suzhou, Hangzhou and other places has been hovering between two and three taels. It is a normal year to buy a tael of rice for two silver, and it is a little nervous. If a tael of rice exceeds one tael of silver, there will often be famine.

Therefore, the price of rice is unbearable even for the people in the south of the Yangtze River. In the past few years, a large number of people starved to death, and many luxury houses were sold at low prices and no one cared about them. It looked extremely weird.

In Xuanfu Town, the harvest of summer grain also began. In the whole town of Xuanfu Town, the original officials saw that there were more than 7000 hectares of farmland. There are about 40 million mu of land, except for more than [-] mu of land in Baoan Prefecture, most of the rest are camp farms.

Of course, although various measures were taken, the enthusiasm of the villagers to cultivate and camp the fields is obviously not as good as that of dividing the fields into households. Moreover, the hundreds of thousands of disaster victims brought back from the 12th year of Chongzhen have also lived in and outside the East Road for many years, and they have a strong sense of identification with the shogunate. So starting from this year, all these camps will be allocated to the villagers of the old Tunpu, and all of them will become Chinese.

For Wang Dou now, there is no threat outside the Great Wall, or there is very little threat, and he is too lazy to compete for a little bit of land with the officials, generals and gentry in the town, so his plan is to attract Xuan Da, or Shanxi has no land. Military households, civilian households, or refugees, etc., reclaimed and set up forts in Shacheng outside the Great Wall, Xinghe, Yinning, Dongyangliu, Haliutuhe and other places.

This piece of land, including Guyuan County, Kangbao County, Zhangbei County, Xinghe County and other places in later generations, has six to seven million mu of arable land, and seven to one million mu of grassland and woodland. There are also abundant coal, lead, iron and other minerals, and the operable space is very large.

Not to mention, beyond these places, to the north and west, there is still a vast and boundless territory. For Wang Dou, the land can be described as endless, so it is not a problem at all.

His plan is to attract 100 to [-] million refugees in a few years. In these places, densely set up forts and set up camps.

By means of horse plowing, naked oats, wheat, flax, sugar beet, cotton and other crops are widely planted, and then livestock farms are opened to raise chickens, ducks, horses, cattle, mules, and sheep, and then grain and meat are used as raw materials to form a series of Department of handicrafts and industry.

"Nong, the foundation of the world, gold, pearls and jade, are not as hungry as food, and as cold as clothing. They are not as good as grains and silk... The cold is in the clothes, not light and warm. The hungry is in the food, not in the delicacy. Hunger and cold, Disregarding shame. Human feelings, if you don't eat for a day, you will be hungry, and if you don't make clothes for a whole year, you will be cold..."

At the shogunate meeting, Wang Dou emphasized the importance of agriculture and mulberry. Prosperous commerce cannot save Ming Dynasty. No matter how prosperous the commerce in the south of the Yangtze River is, the collapse of agriculture in the north will still drag the whole country into a wave of extinction.

Furthermore, there is no agricultural revolution, nor can there be an industrial revolution. Therefore, for Wang Dou, in the next few years, he will focus on the development of agriculture and animal husbandry. Except for the military industry, the rest of the industry should let nature take its course and not be suppressed. There is no emphasis on support.

In order to produce more grain, Wang Dou will also encourage Xuanda merchants to go out to do business in order to produce more grain. After the opening of Sino-French, the business village has flourished, especially Shanxi merchants, who are vigorously farming in the Nine Sides. People at the time once said that Hongzhi In the past, the military warehouses in the frontier were full and the soldiers' salaries were sufficient. The main reason was the prosperity of the commercial villages.

Of course, it is now in decline, and Wang Dou still decided to encourage the merchants to fight for financial resources, recruit people to cultivate the fields, and the cultivated fields are mainly meritorious fields that are exchanged for rewards by soldiers.

Since the beginning of the year, batch after batch, the soldiers of the Jingbian Army have exchanged merit points for their grassland and woodland. But Wang Dou didn't take it seriously, because the rewards were all from the land outside the Great Wall, so why not do it?
For Zhangbei County in later generations, a county has 160 million mu of arable land, 100 million mu of forest land, and 160 million mu of grassland. This is the climate and environment at this time. It is impossible to have so many, but it is still very impressive. In just one county, all the meritorious deeds of soldiers can be exchanged.

Even if the soldiers continue to exchange in the future, there will still be endless land waiting for Wang Dou. Even if there are not enough nearby fields, it will be a big deal to capture the later generations of Inner and Outer Mongolia, and even Siberia. How many counties can these places be divided into?
Of course, it is impossible for Wang Dou to distribute the reclaimed and managed fields and pastures to the soldiers. He encloses a piece of soil and estimates that there are high-grade fields, medium fields, low-grade fields, high-quality grasslands, and forests that can be reclaimed. To run, with generational ownership, similar to Junkers in Prussia.

Their "fief" can have a period of tax holidays, and after that, some of the total business needs to be turned over. Generally speaking, the more they earn from their business, the more money and grain they will receive from the Financial Secretary.

Of course, after the land was exchanged, some soldiers would inevitably have the idea of ​​disarming and returning to the fields. Wang Dou didn't take it seriously. That's all.

Wang Dou won't mind their departure. His army has already perfected various systems. One officer leaves, and there are ten waiting to be filled. One veteran leaves, and twenty recruits are waiting to be filled. It's fine if they leave. , Empty seats are conducive to the joining of newcomers and the flow up and down, which is more conducive to the replacement of new blood in the army and the maintenance of vitality.

Of course, as a compensation for fighting for the country, after they are disarmed and returned to the fields, they can "fiefdom" with peace of mind and become farmers, manor owners, and rich men. After all, Wang Dou promised all the soldiers that they would be ordinary soldiers. Everyone can be a wealthy landlord and enjoy prosperity and wealth.

Generally speaking, even after the land was exchanged, most of the soldiers still stayed in the army with peace of mind, and their hearts were not enough to swallow an elephant. If they had a hundred acres of land, they wanted to have a thousand acres of land, and if they had a thousand acres of land, they wanted to There are thousands of acres of land.

I even thought, when I am really unable to fight in the future, I will retire and own a land the size of a county. Those places are all my own. How wonderful it will be?

Of course, although the treatment of the soldiers is generous, but the merchants and ordinary people do not have such a good thing. They are actually renting land outside the Great Wall and within the safe range of their influence. After all, it is not easy for them to obtain meritorious service.

Although, they can also privately farm and operate pastures in some places outside the Great Wall, Wang Dou is hard to stop them, but the countless bandits and tribes on the grasslands also make it difficult for them to survive.

They are also not under the protection of the army. When something happens, they need to pay a heavy "military fee" if they want to ask the people in the nearby forts to send troops. Things, similar to Lai's Manor, the birth of Zheng's Agricultural Bank is based on this.

On May [-]th, Xuanfu Township, the residence of the General Soldier.

"General, the reorganization of the army has already been completed, and the training is also good. Did you go out to hack and kill, or go out to burn waste?"

In the conference hall, Gao Shiyin looked at Wang Dou with eyes wide open, eager to try, with great interest.

In the planning of Wang Dou and the General Staff Division, the four battalions of the Chinese Army and the Cavalry Army were expanded into five armies, with more than [-] people. The soldiers of the second-class battalion, some of the soldiers of the loyal battalion, were tested and selected, and some were selected to join the Jingbian army.

At present, most of the first-class battalions in each battalion are equipped with flintlock guns, and each battalion also has one, which is used for experimenting with gun swords.

Regarding the burning of wasteland, starting from the 14th year of Zhengtong, there was an order in Ming Dynasty, ordering that every July, all towns on the nine borders should send officers and troops to the places where the captives haunted, and set fire to the wild grass three to five hundred miles away to burn the weeds. Eliminate horses, which is called burning wasteland. After the matter is over, the officers and soldiers will be dispatched, the places will be burned, and a book will be made and submitted.

In the past years, Xuanfu Town also had a fire every year, but the burning got closer and closer. From three to five hundred miles away from the side wall in the 14th year of Zhengtong, to three to fifty miles now, most of the towns are like this.

Gao Shiyin is a restless person, and he is also interested in going out to kill people and set fires.

Looking at the huge map on the wall and the sand table in front of him, Wang Dou said for a long time, "It's not just burning wasteland, it's time to stop the threat of the frontier fortress and capture Guihua City!"

He said: "But we have to wait until August or September, when the autumn is crisp and the grass grows and the horses are fat. When the army is exhausted, go out and grab one. Completely solve the ministries outside the frontier, and lay a good environment for the operation of my frontier fortress." Base."

He murmured: "We still need to discuss with Governor Zhu. It is best to make a memorial to obtain the support of the imperial court."

(End of this chapter)