September of the 19th year of Hongxing in the Ming Dynasty, the Yangtze River.

A convoy of 40 or 50 200 to 400-ton dwed-weight galleys is forming two columns, sailing upriver on the Yangtze River waterway bound for Wuhan. Among the fleet, there is a large galley warship with the largest hull, which weighs more than 400 tons as soon as it is visually downloaded, and a total of 24 6-pound bronze cannons are placed on the side of the ship.

However, the reason why this warship attracted attention was not because of its size and armament, but because on the rear mast erected on the high stern of this warship, there was a hunting and fluttering red flag, and the red flag was embroidered with seven big characters in black thread - the reincarnation of Emperor Taizu Gao!

Anyone who knows a little about the military affairs of the Ming Dynasty knows that this banner symbolizes that Zhu Cihong, the son of the Great Tomorrow, is driving the expedition in person!

The Great Tomorrow Son himself is actually in this not too large fleet!

He is now standing under the banner of "The Reincarnation of Emperor Taizu Gao", holding on to the railing, looking at the water surface of the Yangtze River and the endless fields on the north bank of the Yangtze River.

The river is still quite lively, there are many ships coming and going, most of them are ships going to the east, most of them are full of grain, wood, iron, porcelain, some of the sailors on the merchant ship found the "Taizu Gao Emperor reincarnation" flag, knowing that it is the Ming Emperor himself, so they are all on the deck to worship and cheer at the warship where Emperor Zhu is located.

The sound of cheers spread across the river, and it was still very loud when it reached the ears of Emperor Zhu.

"Long live my emperor, long live, long live......"

This should be a sailor on a merchant ship from the two lakes, Zhu Cihong heard a little kind Xiangyin, and a pleased smile appeared on his face - from these cheerful voices, he could feel that the economic development of Huguang in recent years has been very good!

Not only agriculture has been bumper year after year, but mining, forestry, and handicrafts have also developed well.

In particular, Daye Iron Mountain in the eastern part of Wuhan Province has been developed on a large scale, including the Royal Chamber of Commerce, the Shachuan Gang and the Yiguan Party, the three major consortia, all of which have invested heavily in Daye Iron Mountain, not only to develop mines, but also to establish iron factories on the banks of the Yangtze River with convenient waterway transportation, all of which are large-scale iron factories with blast furnaces, frying furnaces, crucible furnaces, forging furnaces, and hydraulic forging hammers. The iron mills under these three consortia alone can produce tens of thousands of tons of wrought iron every year!

If you count the iron factories in Pukou, Shanghai, Xuzhou, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou (Foshan), the output of wrought iron in Daming now almost exceeds 100,000 tons, which is the first in the world!

These 100,000 tons are not crunchy coal iron, but high-quality charcoal (charcoal) iron, and the use of lime removal and slag removal (the blacksmiths of the Ming Dynasty knew about lime slag removal) and 100 forging into steel (repeatedly forged with a hydraulic hammer) technology, can produce wrought iron of quite good quality. If the soda steel method (pig iron nozzle) is used for case hardening, it is possible to produce high-quality ironware.

And high-quality iron tools, especially agricultural tools, undoubtedly play a huge role in promoting social production.

However, the greatest impetus to the social production of the Ming Dynasty, especially agricultural production, was not these high-quality iron farm tools, but a "land reform" that lasted more than 20 years. The nature of this "agrarian reform" is, of course, capitalist!

This is because the focus of the reform is not the equal division of land that people like to see in later generations, but the clarification of the ownership system and the "rational circulation" of land.

The former is mainly to abolish the "land into the system" for the purpose of tax reform and the recovery of public land - now there is no private land (public land rent) that does not pay taxes on the land of Daming Province, not to mention that the land of officials and nobles has to pay taxes, that is, the imperial land owned by the royal family, the same must be taxed, that is, the sacrificial field used to worship the tomb of Taizu Xiaoling, must also pay taxes according to law! Of course, vocational fields, meritorious fields, Huangzhuang fields, and imperial mausoleum fields can all be refunded.

Pay first and then refund, pay the tax in the locality, and the tax refund is responsible for the household department!

Under such circumstances, it is unlikely that the officials and nobles would take advantage of the tax inequality to enter the consignment system and occupy the people's land - no matter who is the head of the household department, it will not be easy to ask for money from the household department!

Local land taxes, commercial taxes, mining taxes, and so on are gradually linked to the revenues of local officials and the budgets of local yamen.

Moreover, the officials below the county level (including the prefecture and county) are usually held by locals (the state and county level and above are usually appointed by foreign officials), and the amount of taxes collected is directly related to the interests of the local bureaucracy, and there is no incentive to collect less.

As for the annexation of public land, it is even more difficult, because after several rounds of land inspection, public land and hidden land have already been included in the fish scale atlas, and there is also a yamen subordinate to the household department responsible for bidding and renting. I dare not say that there is no corruption and greasy in the process of bidding and renting, but it is basically impossible to embezzle and annex it.

After burying the "land transfer system" of dividing land by rights, Zhu Cihong began to gradually promote the rational circulation of land...... Under the capitalist system of the Ming Dynasty, it was impossible and uneconomical to stop the circulation of land.

After all, operating land is also a risky business, and it is the general trend that the business will lose money and make money, and those who lose will withdraw, and those who make money will take over, and the industry will slowly concentrate.

It stands to reason that Zhu Cihong should not interfere in land management, but through the Northern Expedition and the Liaodong War, the Ming court obtained a large number of "terra nullius" in the north.

A portion of this land was made into land vouchers to pay for military expenses...... And the redemption of land vouchers is full of mysteries again.

This was an opportunity to establish big agriculture in the north – big agriculture usually found in wheat-producing areas because the wheat fields were dry fields and could be cultivated with high efficiency. Moreover, in the 17th century, the yield of dryland was not stable, which was very detrimental to smallholder production. Therefore, it is more conducive to the establishment of large farms......

Therefore, the disposal of "terra nullius" in the north and the trading of land vouchers were aimed at promoting the emergence of large farms.

Although this process is a bit dark - the so-called "ownerless" is actually the deprivation of the northern landlord class! The fluctuation of land vouchers has caused many speculators to go bankrupt and many military personnel who hold land vouchers to sell at low prices...... However, the result that Zhu Cihong wanted basically appeared.

Of course, the concentration of land is also related to the beginning of the era of colonization and capitalism in the Ming Dynasty. The former provided the possibility for the "non-eldest men" of landless peasants and aristocratic bureaucratic families to seek opportunities abroad, while the latter made it possible for the large cities in the southeast to absorb this part of the population.

The progress of agriculture in the Ming Dynasty has strongly supported the development of industry and commerce, especially the southeast industrial and commercial towns - now the economy of the Celestial Empire is running around the industry and commerce in the southeast of the Ming Dynasty! Moreover, a rather virtuous circle has been formed, which has made the economy of the Ming Dynasty and even the entire Celestial Empire civilization a little prosperous.

Oh, it's not that the entire civilization of the Celestial Empire is prosperous, there is still a little bit of undesirable local development, that is, the area ruled by the Liukou who claimed to be the Great Shun Dynasty.

The information about the economic development of the Dashun Empire, which was sent to Emperor Zhu from various channels, all illustrates the fact that the economy of the Dashun Empire is obviously declining, and they are facing this huge economic crisis, a crisis that they did not expect and at the same time cannot be overcome.

Therefore, after Zhu Cihong learned the news that Li Jicheng plundered India and returned with a full load, he made up his mind and opened the prelude to the demise of the Liukou regime......

At this moment, the sound of leather boots hitting the plank reached Emperor Zhu's ears, and he glanced back and found that it was Huang Xiaobao, the master of ceremonies, who walked over quickly, and his face was happy.

"Your Majesty, good news!" Huang Xiaobao said, "I just received a 600-mile rush from the sailor's express sentry ship, and the Yamen, the governor of Yunnan-Guichuan, reported that the traitor Li Guo died of illness!" ”

Zhu Cihong nodded lightly and smiled: "He died well...... Good luck, you can be comfortably buried in the ground! ”