"After all, the reason why those wastelands were recovered was not to be handed over to the people for reclamation!"

Zhu Mingzhong's words were not loud, but Luo Lun still let out an "ah" in surprise, and he even looked at this rather young Jianghuai envoy with some puzzlement.

"Oh? Why is that? ”

When he asked rhetorically, Luo Lun thought of the "Reclamation Regulations" that he mentioned when he was walking around Huaibei a few days ago, chatting with a local magistrate, and he mentioned that he was going to report to the "Reclamation Regulations" of the Economic and Strategic Envoy Office, according to the "Regulations" drawn up by the magistrate: "Each household is given 60 acres of land, and the public middle school lends three stones of seed and grain, three taels of silver for making and running farm tools, four taels of silver for repairing houses, and 18 taels of silver for two ploughing cattle, or father and son farming, or brothers living together, or hiring gangs to accompany each other, all according to two people as one household, and give rations, salt, vegetables and silver...... Since the spring ploughing, in eight months, each household has been given about 55 taels of silver, and the government will be repaid with interest within ten years. Still imitating the system of camping fields, ten households are assigned to a tun chief, and fifty households are sent to a tun to be ......"

In other words, this is a trend in which the local government is preparing to carry out large-scale reclamation, and it is clear that the local government has already benefited from the reclamation, so it is planned to carry out this large-scale official reclamation, although in Jiangbei, the fields belong to the government, but they believe that with such favorable conditions, they can still attract many displaced people from other places. But now, Zhu Mingzhong, as the de facto ruler of Jiangbei, directly told him that the fields in Jiangbei would not be handed over to the people for reclamation.

Why is that?

After all, the more displaced people are recruited, the stronger the financial resources of the local government, how can Zhu Mingzhong do the opposite? Isn't he afraid of the exiles going to other places to enrich other places?

"Because the land is finite!"

Looking at Luo Lun, who seemed puzzled, Zhu Mingzhong explained with a smile.

"Now, according to the rule of the government, Jiangbei currently has a total of more than 36 million mu of wasteland, plus more than 16 million mu of abandoned salt farms and grasslands, that is, 50 million mu of land......"

There are many wastelands in Jiangbei, the former is because of the massacre of the Manchu Qing Dynasty that led to the abandonment of a large number of fields, and the latter is the two Huai salt farms after the implementation of the salt drying method, the original tens of millions of acres of salt-boiling grassland are abandoned and do not need to become "stove waste", but many of those stove wastes are low-lying wasteland.

Despite this, this 50 million mu of wasteland is still a huge wealth in Jiangbei's hands, but unlike local officials in other places who want to use wasteland to recruit displaced people, Zhu Mingzhong has long made up his mind to use these lands for other purposes.

"There is so much wasteland!"

Luo Lun secretly exclaimed in his heart, no wonder those magistrates were very excited when they mentioned the reclamation, the reason is undoubtedly - there are too many wastelands in Jiangbei, and this also means that Jiangbei has suffered extremely heavy massacres.

"I wonder what I'm going to do with this land?"

Loren asked tentatively. Originally, he thought that the other party would keep it secret, but he didn't expect Zhu Mingzhong to answer directly.

"Place!"

Looking at Luo Lun, an outsider, Zhu Mingzhong replied bluntly.

"Now there are nearly 100,000 conscripts in the Loyal Army, how will these people be resettled in the future? After three or four or five years, they will be discharged from the army directly, of course, this is the promise given to them by the officer, but they have served the country for several years and have not received a military salary of one or two, and the maximum monthly allowance is 600 wen. ”

600 Wen allowance!

This is the monthly allowance of the conscripts in the Loyal Army, six hundred yuan, but it is only barely enough for their usual expenses, although there is some left, but at most, that is, one or two hundred yuan left, if you are lavish, there is nothing left at all.

"They have served their country for many years and deserve something in return, so ......"

Zhu Mingzhong's voice was not loud, and his tone seemed very flat.

"The officer is prepared to reward them with 30 mu of "meritorious land" for every year of service, "100 mu of meritorious land" for three years of service, 40 mu per year from the fourth to sixth years, and 50 mu per year from seven to 10 years. ”

Zhu Mingzhong only mentioned it slightly, he did not mention that these gongtian have the right to be exempted from military service, and gongtian is exempt from forced labor. Of course, in fact, as the owners of the fields, they enjoy more than simply "exempt from forced labor", they also have a series of other rights.

"Sent to the fields of retired soldiers? Could it be that Jingluo is preparing to restore the old things of Gaohuang Bingtun? ”

Luo Lun almost instinctively thought of the military department of this dynasty, although he was not an official in Jiangbei, but still said.

"Do you want to repeat the mistakes of military households?"

Almost immediately, he thought of the old story recorded in the history books about the erosion of the complete combat effectiveness of the military households, when the soldiers were dressed in their own clothes during their service in the guard station, and their food and salary did not increase due to the birth of children and the increase in population, so the wives and children of the soldiers were often poorly clothed and hungry. Military households are also not exempt from some conscription because of the provision of military personnel, and their living conditions are inferior to those of civilian households. Because of this, the status of military households is very low, and even civilian households look down on them.

In addition to sending more than one ding to the guard to fill the army, each military household also paid one more ding to serve with the army. There is no time for war. Soldiers were also often enslaved by the state capitals, eunuchs, and magnates as objects of hard labor. In some guard posts, the sergeants' tun fields were encroached upon by Haoyou and the generals, and the generals asked the sergeants to farm and cultivate the land for them, and even let the sergeants fish and collect wood for them and sell smuggled goods. The sergeants became slaves in their hands.

"Of course not, the land of the military household in the old days belonged to the guard, so the military attache of the guard can be corrupt at will, plus the tuntian grain is also handed over to the guard, which naturally also provides an opportunity for the military general of the guard to be corrupt, this military household is not so much a military household, but similar to the current Tuntian people."

Shaking his head, Zhu Mingzhong directly denied Luo Lun's statement, restore the military household?

Yes and no.

In the past year, he has thought more than once about China's future, especially how to build the future of the country's military force and restore the country's martial traditions, and in this era when literati have dominated China for thousands of years, how to restore the nation's martial traditions is even more important than the restoration of force.

The reason why the literati are strong is because they rely on the imperial examination system, so that millions of poor children may become the backbone of the country by virtue of reading, and a steady stream of poor scholars are supporters and beneficiaries of the "scribe class", and the reason why the nobles and warriors who founded the country in the past dynasties cannot confront this class is not only because they are either addicted to enjoyment or do not coarse writing, the most fundamental reason is that their group is too small compared to the millions of scholars who rely on themselves to read.

Even in the Ming Dynasty, how many nobles were there in the Ming Dynasty? How many officers are there who are hereditary in more than 100 households? However, there are only more than 10,000 people, and compared with the huge group of scholars, whether they are poor scholars or rich families, whether they are children or scholars, they are all literati, and millions of so-called scholars constitute the backbone of this country. Under these circumstances, the "emphasis on literature and the neglect of words" and the so-called contempt for "martial artists" naturally became the unanimous goal of the literati.

The reason why those literati despise the warriors is also because of interests, because in any dynasty there are only three groups in the court, one is the noble group with the emperor's relatives and the founding military generals as the core, and one is the civil official who was promoted by the imperial examination, and the other is the military attache who was promoted through various channels such as martial arts and hereditary. The latter is because it is half of the imperial court, and it is the greatest threat to civil officials, and only by suppressing them can the civil officials be monopolized and hold the power of the imperial court.

It is precisely because of this that the status of military attachés has plummeted, and only under the premise of constantly suppressing the status of military attaches and martial artists can the status of civilian officials be guaranteed, and only through the suppression of martial arts can the rise of martial artists be avoided.

"A good man is not a soldier, and a good iron is not a nail!"

Behind this sentence is an idea deliberately promoted by a large group of people for personal gain. And the reason why it will be accepted by the people is because this group is too large. It was so large that even the emperor could do nothing about it, unless, like the Manchus, a group of minions, Manchu officials, were used to occupy half of the civil and prominent official positions, such as the Manchu Shangshu, who was the secretary of the Manchu people, and was in charge of the decrees of the headquarters. Its status is above the Han Shangshu, and in the appointment of Manchu officials, there is no need to pass the scientific examination, there is a Qing generation, the Manchu Qing is through the Manchu officials to split and tame Han officials, and finally tame Han officials into slaves.

And this is obviously not what Zhu Mingzhong needs, what he needs is to re-establish a group, a group that can compete with the civil officials, or can balance the situation of his own dominance! Therefore, he needs these soldiers, and he needs to build a new group, or a new social class, through retired soldiers.

"And in the future, the retired officers and soldiers of the Loyal and Righteous Army, after retiring, they will become soldiers in the township, they will get less than 100 acres, more than hundreds of acres of land, of course, their land belongs to themselves, so that it will not be plundered by officials, and their land is also forbidden to be sold, 100 acres of Yongye field is enough to maintain their family to live a decent life, and when the imperial court is called, they can also be conscripted to serve again at any time."

Not only is it quite decent, after having 100 acres of land, they will become quite wealthy families in the countryside, and even hire a few long-term workers, so as to live a worry-free life.

But can such days last?

Of course, this kind of life cannot last, because "rich no more than three generations", "rich no more than three generations" is not because it gave birth to a peddler, but because after the separation of three generations, the 100 acres of land, after two generations of several or even a dozen families, each family only has a dozen acres or even a few acres of land left.

If he has two sons, each son is divided into 50 acres, his life is only barely well-off, and then his grandson's generation, how much land is left after the family is divided?

Rich for no more than three generations!

In this case, how to maintain the decent life of the second and third generations of "new military households", and eventually they will also fall into a situation of poverty, even without the exploitation of the chief of the guard, this cannot be changed.

It is precisely for this reason that although this policy has not yet been implemented, when allocating "meritorious fields" to the bereaved families of martyrs, Zhu Mingzhong formulated the basic principles of "indivisible meritorious fields" and "inheritance by the eldest son". In order to protect the interests of the eldest son, it is also required that the second son must leave the family when he reaches adulthood, and of course, the eldest son who inherits the family business is responsible for providing him with one year's land income as compensation for the division of the family.

Now this kind of policy is only implemented among the martyrs, although many people do not understand, but for ordinary people, they almost take it for granted that this is the grace of the government, after all, this grace cannot be given to everyone, only one eldest son, and it is also natural.

And for Zhu Mingzhong, what he needs is to build a class—a vertical class in a society with a lot of productive resources and a rich life, they are not scribes, and they don't even need a promotion channel for scribes, they are soldiers, they have served the country for generations, in order to go to war, and in return, they can enjoy a rich life, as well as a higher status - rich economic income determines their status in society.

And what did the people see?

They saw that joining the army was also a way to change their fate, just like why many rural children in later generations were willing to become soldiers at any cost, because in the case that studying could not change their fate, the promotion of cadres in the army was the only opportunity to "jump out of the farm". Even though the chances are slim, they are still willing to take that opportunity!

Benefit!

Only driven by interests can the status of martial artists be enhanced, and only driven by interests can the martial arts of the people be re-established.

However, Zhu Mingzhong did not say these words, although this is only a rough idea now, after all, there are still some issues that need to be solved, such as whether the eldest son is suitable for military service and other issues. However, in this era, there is at least a chance to change the "customs" of this nation for thousands of years, so that a "samurai group" that disappeared in China after the Han and Jin dynasties will re-emerge in this country, although it is not comparable to the historical Spring and Autumn Warring States period and the Han and Jin dynasties, but at least it is an opportunity.

"This method is very good, if it can not only supplement the old system of "military households" in our dynasty, but also if it can be improved, it will definitely benefit millions of soldiers in the world! ”

Luo Lun did not realize that Zhu Mingzhong did not explain the most critical core of this "new military household", what he saw was only that under this system, soldiers could benefit from it, so that the government could reduce military salary expenditure, so that almost instantly, he showed his support position, after all, the situation of insufficient military salary has been plaguing Jiangxi, and one of the purposes of his visit to Jiangbei this time is to solve this problem.

(After decades of the 15th day of the first month, for the first time, there was a quiet 15th day of the first month, pushing the environmentally friendly pot to the people to put flowers and firecrackers, this pot reminds me of the barbecue somewhere.) Heck, that's a lot of reasons. I'm depressed, I was going to take my son to see the flowers, but now it's gone! ）