What is the use of food

This question is simply retarded, because everyone knows that food is for eating. But the question is, what if the food is gone?

Oh, and you can store some of it for waste. However, grain is not gold, it has a shelf life, so there must be a limit to preparing for famine, if you store grain for famine, you still can't eat it

That is, the current situation in Huguang has to be sold, otherwise it will only rot.

There are also particulars about selling, such as the grain in Huguang, which is mainly sold to the south of the Yangtze River.

It must be explained here that the Jiangnan region was the main grain producing area in the early Ming Dynasty, and was known as "Suhu is ripe, and the world is full". But in the middle and even late periods, no one mentioned this word, and it became "the lake is wide and ripe, and the world is full", because the economic structure of the Jiangnan region has undergone great changes.

In short, the Jiangnan region has changed from an agriculture-led economic structure to a commerce-led economic structure, and a large number of fertile fields in the past have changed from growing grain to planting cotton, mulberry and other cash crops, thus forming several large-scale cotton spinning and silk centers with Suzhou as the core, and at the same time greatly strengthening commercial activities and forming a commercial core.

There is a way that there is no agriculture and no stability, no work is not strong, and no business is not rich. There are both workers and merchants in the Jiangnan area, but there is a shortage of farmers.

Fortunately, it doesn't matter, because Huguang and Jiangxi have been greatly opened, and agricultural production has been rapidly improved, and it can already replace the Jiangnan region as the main grain producing area. And because of the relationship between the Yangtze River waterway, the cost of transporting grain from Huguang and Jiangxi to Jiangnan is not too high.

There are industries and merchants in Jiangnan, so naturally there is no shortage of money, so since there is a surplus of grain in Huguang, the best way to deal with it is naturally to sell it to Jiangnan.

But now what Gao Pragmatic needs is not Huguang's grain to go to the south of the Yangtze River, but needs them to go north to support the Central Plains and Hebei regions, which is more troublesome.

These northern provinces, whether in terms of industry or commerce, are far from being compared with the Jiangnan region, and in terms of transportation, they do not have the huge advantage of convenient transportation of the Yangtze River waterway. As long as the Huguang businessmen did not have a bad brain, how could they not sell their grain to the south of the Yangtze River, but to Henan, Shaanxi, and even Beizhili and Shanxi

In terms of economic structure, Huguang's "local tyrants" actually don't need many foreign goods, because in the era of small-scale peasant economy, Huguang was completely self-sufficient, and it lacked almost nothing.

Even if it is silk and cotton, the fist products of the Jiangnan region, Huguang can produce it himself. Cotton cloth does not need a special introduction, and silk, Hunan embroidery is one of the four famous embroidery with Suzhou embroidery, you say how much Huguang's external demand for silk can be, although its silk output is not comparable to Jiangnan, but it must be more than enough to meet itself.

As for porcelain, Huguang's Liling is also one of the eight major porcelain centers, especially underglaze colored porcelain, even in later generations, it is a world-renowned hard binding goods, which shows that Huguang is not short of porcelain. In general, Huguang's dependence on foreign commodities is very low.

So what does it lack, it may only lack money

Because some of Huguang's economic prefectures and counties have now carried out a whip law reform, such as Hanyang Mansion, Wuchang Mansion, Yuezhou Mansion, Changsha Mansion and other places, have changed from the past tax in kind to pay taxes in silver, so now what Huguang lacks is not materials, but money.

However, in terms of money, Henan and other provinces will definitely not be able to do Jiangnan, so this road is not passable.

So in this way, there is no way to think about operating according to the normal way of thinking, and the only way to be pragmatic is to do it according to the ideas of the future, that is, there is no demand, I will create demand for you

There are few things that Huguang lacks, but it does not mean that it is not in trouble, and there are two main troubles in Huguang at present.

First, there are also floods in the Yangtze River basin. Floods in the Yangtze River basin have always existed, but at present, the area of Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake has not been greatly reduced, and it can have some role in flood storage, but this does not mean that there are no floods in the Yangtze River basin, and large and small floods still occur from time to time.

As I said before, the Ming Dynasty basically had neither money for disaster relief nor water conservancy, and relied on local officials to make a little fuss. Since it is just a small fight, of course, it is difficult to achieve any climate, and there is no overall plan to speak of, so there will still be floods when there should be, and it will not play a big role.

Another trouble is the issue of law and order. In the inland border areas at the junction of Hubei, Henan, Shaanxi, and Sichuan provinces, because of the dense mountains and dense forests and the small population, the measures of "leaving the land empty and prohibiting the displaced people from entering" were adopted in the early Ming Dynasty. But by the middle of the Ming Dynasty, it still caused chaos among the Jingxiang refugees. After pacifying the turmoil, the central government of the Ming Dynasty decided to set up new institutions such as Yunyang Mansion and Huguang Xingdu Division here to strengthen management, and set up Yunyang Fuzhi to govern it, and since then the "border area" has evolved into a "political region".

However, that does not mean that this area will be stable for a long time, in fact, until the early Qing Dynasty, it was a turbulent area, and it has not been peaceful. The frequent civil unrest is one aspect, and bandits and bandits are another.

However, this aspect is not easy to use, does Gao Pragmatic want to tell the local yamen in Huguang that I will send a family member to help you suppress the bandits, and you will give me food

Therefore, this second article cannot be used for the time being, and we can only think of ways from the first article, if Huguang vigorously renovates water conservancy, it will definitely be beneficial, which can not only reduce the losses caused by disasters, but also further increase grain production, and these two articles are beneficial to the "local tyrants" who control a large number of local fields.

The benefits that Gao Pragmatism can bring to the north are obviously free riding and selling cement, because the emergence of cement has made the reinforcement of the embankment simpler, more efficient and stronger than before, so now even the general yamen of the river has already been purchasing in large quantities. In other words, if Huguang also overhauls water conservancy, it will definitely consider buying cement on a large scale, that's for sure.

The question now is whether the local yamen in Huguang have the ability and motivation to do this

In the past, it would definitely not be. The local yamen in Huguang are the same as the local yamen in other parts of the Ming Dynasty, firstly, the funds are extremely limited, and secondly, it is better to have more than one thing, so why is their consciousness extraordinarily high, and it makes no sense to think about doing projects everywhere like servants of the people all day long

But now it's different, the current Huguang magistrates are not right, and now the magistrates of the Ming Dynasty, as long as they still have hope for their careers, or even as long as they don't think about hanging up the crown and leaving, almost all want to do things, especially things that can really improve their political performance

This seems strange, how did the magistrate of the Ming Dynasty suddenly become diligent

In fact, this is due to Gao Gong's examination method that added the idea of "quantifying political performance" with high pragmatism.