After the Yantai Navy exercise, Li Guolou followed Li Hongzhang and carried out inspections in the Zhili area, and each provincial city held a thousand-person meeting to bring the spring breeze of the Qing Dynasty reform to various places, generally by Li Hongzhang as the main report, Li Guolou made a deputy report, and local officials made a concluding speech

For more than a month, Li Guolou was miserable and worked hard, not to mention that he couldn't take care of his own business, and being an official was a meeting, Li Hongzhang received court documents every day, and he also consulted Li Guolou's opinions, which simply used him as a book

Li Guolou sent a few complaints, wanted to return to Beijing as soon as possible, did not want to deal with local officials, was severely criticized by Li Hongzhang, a notice admonished him to be hasty, patient, and reasonable, if you want the government decree to be smooth, you must handle the relationship with the following, face-to-face communication is effective, administrative orders do not rely on a piece of paper edict to communicate with people, properly solve all kinds of problems is the way to be an official, Li Hongzhang said a lot, care about the local people's suffering, long speech, let Li Guolou stand for a long time

Li Guolou sincerely made a thousand-word written inspection, which was only then to get Li Hongzhang's understanding, taking advantage of the gap between the meeting, Li Guolou also inspected the local people's feelings, sympathized with the difficulties of the officials below, and took the four wives to do warmth activities

Along the way, there are mostly tiled houses on both sides of the official road, but as long as it is a small road, it is mostly thatched houses, lively towns, begging people are gathered, and the people of the Qing Dynasty are struggling on the poverty line, wearing rags, holding a broken bowl, holding a dog-beating stick, calling Huazi, seeing that the horse team has immediately come to the spirit and kneeling on the ground to beg for money

Li Guolou watched this scene all the way, his mood became heavy, he did not make much contribution to rural construction, only carried out disguised land reform, but did not shake the rural gentry class fundamentally, the countryside is still poor and backward, the poor are still poor, his road to industrial restructuring in the Qing Dynasty did not benefit the vast number of peasants, and also let the appearance of the city and the countryside add secondary differentiation, which is a bad omen, and will make many people hate the rich mentality

How to improve the living standards of the vast number of peasants? Li Guolou had this idea for the first time, and then during the inspection, Li Guolou appeared, and he discussed this issue of people's livelihood with local officials in the countryside

The territory of the nobles of the Qing Dynasty was smaller than that of the previous dynasty. After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, a part of the Ming Dynasty's aristocratic Zhuang Tian was changed to a famous field, which was a measure to transform the Huang Zhuang into a private field, although the Gyeonggi region carried out a large-scale enclosure and established a large number of Huangzhuang banner land, but later it was gradually transformed into a private field, so relative to the Ming Dynasty, the domain of the Xun Qi nobles Zhuang Tian actually shrank, but outside the royal family and nobles, the bureaucratic gentry still occupied a large amount of land, and with the passage of time, the strength of this part of the landlord class has developed, at least there is no sign of weakening

The reason why the bureaucracy was able to quickly annex a large amount of land did not simply depend on him, the Qing Dynasty bureaucracy was quite low, and the annual income of a first- or second-class official was only more than 100 taels, and in addition to the so-called maintenance of honesty, but the average calculation of the maintenance of honesty was only six times that of the regular income, and it could not be completely guaranteed, and it was obviously impossible to satisfy the huge amount of land of the bureaucracy by relying on the righteousness and maintenance of honesty alone, and the reason why the bureaucracy was able to concentrate a large amount of land was mainly to rely on the privileged position of the bureaucracy, embezzlement, bribery, and ingenious seizure

Officialdom has always been a place of corruption and bribery, and the income from corruption and bribery can be calculated, but the income from corruption and bribery cannot be calculated, and the annual income of a governor is only more than 100 taels, while the annual income of a governor and the yamen of a governor accepts gifts from his subordinates every year, which is more than 10,000 taels in Guizhou and more than 110,000 taels in Shandong

The feudal bureaucracy relied on its privileged position to seize the land by cunning, and the bureaucracy often took it upon himself to annex the land

Another characteristic of the distribution of land rights is that the merger of land by merchants is conspicuous and conspicuous

Merchants were closely associated with land annexation and the activity of commercial capital, and the bureaucratic landlords relied heavily on political power in their annexation of land, while merchants relied mainly on economic power in their annexation of land

When political power plays a leading role in land annexation, the transfer of commercial capital to land lacks the necessary security and thus the corresponding impetus

At this time, the aristocracy, bureaucrats, and gentry were still privileged landlords, but their privileged position was weakened in the Ming Dynasty, and the power of merchants increased with the expansion of the commodity and monetary economy, and the merchants of Shanxi, Lianghuai, Salt merchants, Guangdong merchants, Fujian maritime merchants, and merchants of Anhui Huizhou and Dongting merchants of Jiangsu Province had formed capital, and tens of thousands of merchant groups were formed

Merchants do not seem to be as good as bureaucrats in terms of the number of land annexed, but they are very active, they have a relatively large amount of capital in their hands, and wherever there is an opportunity to annex land, they will come to Shanxi merchants as far as Henan to annex land, Huizhou merchants to buy land in northern Jiangsu, Guangdong merchants to buy land in Guangxi, Shandong, Shanxi and other thirteen provinces, there are a large number of facts, and there are as many as 61 counties in Shandong alone

Since the merchant's capital had a relatively large liquidity, the merchantmen were able to buy land at a lower price when the peasants suffered from famine and hunger, and when drought occurred in Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, and other provinces, the salt merchants in Yangzhou, Hankou, and Huizhou all planned to cross the border to buy property in order to make profits, and there is no doubt that this method of annexing land brought double disasters to the peasants

In the process of merging land, usury is a powerful tool for merging land, merging land, or when grain prices are high, lending grain at a discount to farmers who are short of grain, collecting usury, exploiting peasants to bankrupt their homes, and then "discounting fields and houses" to achieve the goal of annexing peasants' land, or accepting peasants' pawn land, through pawning, finding and selling out, so that usury plays a huge role, Shanxi businessmen are merging land through usury, typical Fujian rural land sales, there are a large number of pawn land cases, Jiangsu even has a kind of "pawn more than field" The landlord's pawn interest is both his main income and his main means of annexing land

The annexation of land through usury is not limited to merchants, bureaucrats, landlords, and even ordinary landlords, but also often extorts peasants, usurers, and big bureaucrats Gao Shiqi, Xu Qianxue, and He Shen all own quite a number of pawnshops or silver trumpets at the same time

Li Guolou once made a fortune in the country, taking advantage of a wave in Shandong and the big landlord Wang of Qilitun to cooperate, Shandong enclosure did not show the mountains and did not show water, and occupied nearly 10,000 acres of land, although then he set an example and donated all the encircled land, and built 10,000 acres of land in Shandong into a large farm, and recruited displaced people in the form of state-owned to invite him to try out his land reform, but he did not want to serve the country and the people, but used despicable means to rely on the brand of his uncle Li Hongzhang to make ill-gotten gains

But now, Li Guolou's ideological realm has made a great leap forward, and he has long since stopped doing things to compete with the people for profit, but has fed back and wants to find a way out for 300 million farmers

At this time, in order to solve the livelihood of the people, the Qing government introduced many high-yield crops from South America, introduced corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes to promote them in various places, and also published a number of agricultural books to teach farmers to plant corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes

However, sweet potatoes and other high-yield crops also have great weaknesses, that is, single nutrition, taste deviation, deep processing, less value, as a temporary emergency can still be used as a long-term staple food, which will inevitably lead to malnutrition of the human body, such as vegetables, and a significant decline in physical fitness, which will also inevitably affect the normal intellectual development of the human body

High-yield crops from the early Qing Dynasty to the Qianlong era flourished and flourished, the "sweet potato boom" has tasted the bad fruits, the people have become weak and unbearable, the quality of the race has dropped sharply, the Qing Dynasty adults are less than one meter seven, the body is thin, rickets is common, crooked melons and cracked dates are widespread in the countryside, and the disabled can be seen everywhere in the towns, which also causes the combat effectiveness of the Qing army to decline, the Qing army cannot defeat the Eight-Nation Alliance, and there are also people who have racial weaknesses after hand-to-hand combat

The advantages and disadvantages of the race are also the key to victory or defeat, the Han people fight the southern barbarians, that is, they rely on their strength, do not lose Li Guolou, the road to enriching the country and strengthening the army, of course, we must consider the combat effectiveness of the soldiers, at this time there is a big gap between the yellow race and the white race, the yellow race has become an inferior ethnic synonym, do not talk about the question of national self-esteem, this is related to height, body shape, and complexion, and the same normal Qing Dynasty and foreigners stand together, and immediately distinguish the advantages and disadvantages

Half of the two meals a day for the common people are considered rich peasants, and most of the peasants take sweet potatoes and potatoes as their staple food, Li Guolou in the countryside looks at the farmers' rice tanks, cares about the problem of yield per mu, and sees the big vat at the door of the farmer's house, which is the main camp of the farmer's fertilizer, which relies entirely on human and animal manure, and Li Guolou knows how to help the peasants get out of poverty

Li Guolou wrote an article "The Urgency of Building a Fertilizer Plant in the Qing Dynasty" He discussed the reason why the yellow race became an inferior nation, not by victory on the battlefield, but by the improvement of the human race, to change the structure of people's democratic food, in order to make a country look good, first, to implement chemical fertilizer on a large scale in order to increase crop yield, as for the pros and cons of chemical fertilizer, also analyzed, to make people abandon fear, reasonable fertilization will not produce adverse consequences, and then denounced the evil consequences of the annexation of land by officials and businessmen, and expressed the ideal of the cultivator to have his own land, but did not talk about the practical plan, and did not do anything, and the governance thought of the society was the central idea of his exposition, Li Guolou did not dare to mention "equal wealth and poverty" Advocating that it should not cause a civil war, knowing that it will not work, advocating an idealized society and high-sounding empty words as a conclusion

Li Guolou knew that Li Hongzhang had the habit of reading excerpts in the morning, and left the pavilion early in the morning to go to Li Hongzhang, Baoding Zhili Governor's Mansion, Li Hongzhang lived in the backyard, and Li Guolou did not need to pass the excerpts directly to Li Hongzhang

Shouted: "Uncle, uncle, I will come by myself", Li Guolou sat down and drank porridge and said: "Uncle, I haven't slept all night, you just look at the front to build a fertilizer factory, I can only contract the main raw materials in the Zhili area is phosphorus and potassium, and make some pesticides, which can increase the yield per mu by three to four percent, or even double, and it is possible that the transportation cost will go up, and the people will not be able to afford to build fertilizer factories in various places, I can't help you, don't want me to do this money, I don't want to make money, let the people benefit."

Li Hongzhang was only interested in industry, and after reading Li Guolou's excerpt, he really closed the fold halfway through it and said: "Xiaolou, on the issue of agriculture, I am a layman, and I have no right to speak in the court, you can discuss the gains and losses with Zuo Zongtang, first hand over the excerpt to the household department, let the household department Shangshu Yu Shuzhen study it, but you don't have to be discouraged, the Liangjiang area is tried by you, I will blow the wind, and use administrative means to let the people use chemical fertilizers, so that they do not lose money, and are worthy of conscience."

"Master Fu Xiang's fertilizer factory is related to the people's livelihood, I will exclude the investment, and after the investment is withdrawn, I will let the Jingshu run this industry is a thousand times better than the silk village, and you can buy a Baoding mansion." Li Guolou told the truth, he is not three-headed and six-armed, Nezha always has a limit, foreign investment is familiar with this area, he can find the Tianjin Concession, the French minister Luo Shuya, and even the British minister Wei Tuma, can also compare a price difference, in the future, the trust monopolizes the operation of the fertilizer industry, earns 300 million peasant money, or gives a big gift to Li Hongzhang, so that Li Hongzhang will not shirk, regardless of the people's life, can be significantly improved

Sure enough, Li Hongzhang immediately took the bait and picked up the fold again, this time looking at it carefully, nodding frequently: "Well, to build a fertilizer factory with an annual output of 400,000 tons, I will do things in a small building, I can rest assured that I will go to Tianjin to talk about business with foreigners before the end of the year, you are reliable."

Li Hongzhang was at ease with Li Guolou, because only this clan grandson would not accept kickbacks from foreigners and damage the interests of the Qing Dynasty, although Li Guolou accepted bribes from the British and took a garden house in Yantai, which was the unspoken rule of officialdom diplomatic negotiations, he could not hand it over to the treasury, but Li Guolou truthfully showed that Li Hongzhang was upright and upright, worthy of the conscience of heaven and earth, as for Li Hongzhang to let him accept it, it was also in line with the trend, everyone will have a silt pond and not be stained