In Zhu Pingjin's previous life, the most valuable of people's family assets was not cars, stocks, cash, gold, silver and jewelry, but real estate made of sand, gravel and cement.

In Zhu Pingjian's lifetime, the role of real estate has changed to that of local products.

With land, the people have the basis for survival; With land, the people have a lifetime of social security; With land, even if the family is poor, the people are still a propertied person.

In the consciousness of the common people, the land is linked to the prosperity of the family and clan. With money, the people will definitely regard land as the most important asset allocation direction, whether their money is from official corruption or business earnings. The sale of land is associated with moral trials such as unfilial piety and ruined families, so there is a slang saying among the people that scolds people, called "The cub sells the field, and he doesn't know the heartache!" ”

However, the Ming Dynasty came to the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, and the iron law of only buying and not selling land was broken by the imperial court's continuous increase in tax policies.

After the Wanli whip, the tax of the imperial court tied up the land and implemented the "measurement of land". Almost all the types and amounts of taxes are distributed according to the number of acres of land, that is, the so-called "counting acres and levying silver and discounting them to officials".

The state tax was a lot, and it was simplified into agricultural tax and land tax, and the imperial court was satisfied, but the peasants who depended on the land for their livelihood accumulated a belly of resentment.

After Wanli, the remaining types of taxes such as mining taxes, customs duties, commercial taxes, and tea taxes were finally abolished or abolished in disguise by the righteous men and gentlemen of the imperial court. However, the court spent more and more, so the amount of taxes had to be added to the land on which the peasants depended for their livelihood again and again.

Frequent natural and man-made disasters, three salaries and a variety of additional assignments became the last straw that crushed the Ming Dynasty. In order to escape the imperial grain and national taxes, one ordinary peasant after another had to abandon the land that their ancestors had worked so hard to obtain and became homeless people with no food and clothing. In order not to starve to death, and in order to vent the hatred in their hearts, some of them threw away their hoes and shoulders and picked up knives, guns and clubs. A few became officials and soldiers, but many more became rogues.

Therefore, the significance of Zhu Pingjin's campaign to reclaim land in Sichuan is by no means as simple as economic relief. Behind it there is a greater pursuit:

Through the redistribution of land, the interests of all social strata should be adjusted, and social contradictions should be eased, so as to form a new vested interest group that is consistent with Zhu Pingjin's pursuit of career ideals. Under Zhu Pingjin's slogan of "defending the fruits of victory," this vested interest group will gather under the banner of the National Protector Army to fight to protect their own interests.

However, there are gains and losses.

The emergence of new interest groups will inevitably touch the old order and harm the vested interest class. Therefore, this reclamation movement is essentially a Ming version of the agrarian revolution.

Since it is a revolution, it will inevitably lead to rebellions in some regions or classes.

In the process of brewing the agrarian revolution, Zhu Pingjin has gradually realized that a small storm is inevitable. Since storms are inevitable, as long as they can be controlled within a certain range, it is better to arrive early than late!

Zhu Pingjin uses the class analysis he is good at looking at the reclamation movement, but his wife's perspective is very different.

Luo Yuhong believes that we should not engage in class struggle at every turn.

Problems in the economic field are, in essence, nothing more than a struggle and balance of interests. The Shu royal mansion, the government, the gentry, the peasants, and the tenants were all only participants in this game of interests, and none of the participants occupied the moral high ground.

Luo Yuhong acknowledged that Zhu Pingjin's agrarian revolution would inevitably lead to conflict, but privately ridiculed Zhu Pingjin's idea of providing production to households. The spring of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen that she sang in her mouth became autumn in the fifteenth year of Chongzhen.

Luo Yuhong believes that the decline of Sichuan's agriculture is not a matter of one or two days. Rural irrigation facilities, transportation roads, land consolidation, livestock feeding, storage and processing all need to be examined, restored, and improved from the perspective of modern agriculture.

Guaranteed production to households is a kind of primitive and direct performance appraisal, which can indeed exert magic in a short period of time and greatly arouse the enthusiasm of farmers for production. However, in the long run, the package of production to households will inevitably degenerate into a disguised system of small land property rights, which in turn will hinder the improvement of agricultural productivity.

Inshou was the first area to practice the division of land and land, but recently there have been problems.

For example, the construction of reservoirs and irrigation canals is the lifeblood of agriculture. Everyone understands the grass label farmers, but they just refuse to sacrifice their little bit of land to let the main ditch cross. In order to prevent rainwater from draining down the ditches and flooding the fields, some farmers even destroyed the channels that the coolies had worked so hard to repair on dark and windy nights (Note 1). Renshou Wangzhuang couldn't find the murderer, and the channel couldn't give up halfway, so he had to work hard to get an overhead bamboo pipe water line.

In view of this, Luo Yuhong instead advocated the implementation of agricultural industrialization, farm enterprises, and peasant workers, referred to as the "new three rural principles". And the Ming Dynasty, whether it was the government, the gentry or the common people, did not have the funds and insight to complete all this. What can be done, looking at today's world, is none other than Miss Taluo. And the prerequisite for her completion was a large amount of land and a unified organization of agricultural production.

As a result, when the draft Reclamation Ordinance recognized the separation of the field skin from the field bones, she purchased the field skin on a large scale;

The officials and thieves in northern Sichuan passed everywhere, leaving a large amount of ownerless wasteland, so she packed it and ate it;

The price of bones in the barren mountains and hills was low, so she colluded with the local government to steal the bottom.

Not only that, Luo Yuhong also used the currency issuance right in his hands to conduct zero-cost transactions with wildly printed silver banknotes.

When the silver money inevitably entered the crazy capital market, she first sat back and watched the stock price skyrocket, and then took the opportunity to reduce her holdings at a high level, making a lot of money. If Zhu Pingjin hadn't resolutely stopped it, she would have continued to issue silver notes and buy more land. When the stock market hit a new high, she let a large number of Wang-owned enterprises go public, and used the method of issuing new shares to bring the additional currency back to the banks, and at the same time reduce liquidity, suppress stock prices, and ensure the stability of grain and other prices.

Zhu Pingjin took action to stop his wife's rapid advance, not only despising his wife's three changes in a day, but also suspecting that her "new agriculture, agriculture, and rural doctrine" had slipped into a "new great leap forward."

Back then, Zhu Pingjin and Luo Yuhong worked hard to save money to travel abroad, and those wealthy farmers in France and Italy envied their greedy and vain wives for a long time.

The peasants in France and Italy were in fact the owners of the estates. They enjoy the tremendous progress of agricultural science and technology, strict tariff protection of agricultural products, and hundreds of millions of dollars, and they no longer play with cars and watches, but with helicopters, yachts, and horse races. Therefore, Zhu Pingjin guessed that his wife's fickleness was not only related to the fickle nature of women, but also related to what she saw and heard during her travels.

But Zhu Pingjin was suspicious, and the main reason for stopping him was because of Liu Zhibo in front of him.

A few days ago, Liu Zhibo once again bluntly wrote a book, calling the prince of Shu the king of Shu, not the king of the Shu Palace. The Shu Wangfu took advantage of the war in northern Sichuan to occupy a large amount of land, although the proceeds of the land were used in the great cause of protecting the country and the people, but it was difficult to ensure that the interests of ordinary people were damaged, and it was difficult to ensure that the people scolded their mothers behind their backs. Therefore, he strongly advised Zhu Pingjian, who was known as a benevolent and virtuous person, to spit out what he had eaten and distribute the land to the poor people who had no land and no land.

Zhu Pingjin cannot always turn a blind eye to Liu Zhibo's opinions, because Liu Zhibo is not a person, he represents a voice, a trend of thought, and even a force. If Zhu Pingjin, who covets the world, pretends to be deaf and dumb about this, then he will have to endure the pollution and belittling of his political reputation. When Zhu Pingjin's career becomes bigger and stronger, his old bottom will be turned out and examined by political opponents, and it will become a weapon for political opponents to attack him.

However, Zhu Pingjin's wife did not have so much foresight.

She almost instinctively launched a confrontation posture, and this Baoning meeting was the battlefield where she and Liu Zhibo duel.

……

After repeated revisions, the draft of the "Reclamation Regulations" has been further enriched and improved on the premise of continuing to insist on separating the land from the bones and skin.

First of all, the system of separation of soil and bone skin has a specific implementation guarantee. There are two types of valid land licenses. One is the red deed of the bones; One is the red deed of the field skin, which is issued by the government and the deed tax is levied. This land, which adopts the tax standard of the Ming Dynasty, is the general name of "Tiantu Shandang". As for the civil white contract, the reclamation regulations clearly deny its legal significance and resolutely deny it.

Second, the regulations clarify the definition of "wasteland" and divide "wasteland" into two categories: "ownerless wasteland" and "ownerial wasteland".

For the ownerless wasteland, the principle of "official ownership of land bones and preemption of land skins" was determined.

"Tian Gu Guan has" is absolute. That is, all the ownerless wasteland is owned by the government, that is, the government forcibly occupies the ownerless wasteland without compensation;

"Fieldland preemption" is relative. That is, the government can adjust and recycle the field at the appropriate time.

For owner-owned wasteland, the regulations provide for a compulsory reclamation system. Those who cultivate land and obtain a harvest in one season are permanent tenants and automatically obtain the land skin. As long as the reclamation is reported to the government and the government confirms it, the license should be issued. The former landowner lost his land but could claim compensation. The regulations stipulate that the compensation limit shall be 40% of the 20-year output of the abandoned land, which shall be converted into silver notes and divided into 20 years' compensation.

Thirdly, the regulations added the content of "rent reduction during the Fifth Five-Year Plan".

The "Five-Year Plan Rent Reduction" is mandatory, and the government does not protect more than 50% of the rent. In other words, even if the landlord and the tenant reach an agreement and write the lease agreement, as long as the tenant repents when paying the rent, it is useless for the landlord to file a lawsuit.

In addition, the landlord shall bear the tax and shall not pass the tax on to the tenant under any pretext such as a righteous warehouse.

The Hongwu Nian's stipulation that "each cultivates its own land and never has a class" has long been written in vain, and the regulations have been clearly abolished.

In addition, the regulations have strengthened the guidance and coordination of land reclamation, emphasizing the organization and management of displaced people, prohibiting land reclamation on steep slopes, and preventing the phenomenon of rushing up and digging indiscriminately during land reclamation.

A series of policies to support land reclamation have been promulgated, stipulating that loans for farm tools, seeds, and cattle will be issued uniformly, so as to prevent everyone from reaching out and competing for loans.

For the gentry not planting land under the pretext of famine, the regulations set out comprehensive remediation measures. The regulations stipulate that the land clearance of the whole province of Sichuan should be gradually started, and the scope should be expanded from the land clearance of the Wanli Whip to the land survey within the whole province.

The one-size-fits-all tax policy should be gradually applied to all the land in the province, and the land should be divided into seven tax grades: upper, upper, middle-upper, middle-lower, lower-middle, and lower. For those who do not cultivate the land, regardless of whether the land is productive or not, they must pay taxes according to the approved prefecture-level standards, so that they can increase the cost of the land. In the future, it is necessary to expand the scope of land and real estate transaction tax (deed tax) and further restrict the disorderly circulation of land by raising costs.

The regulations also adopted the opinions of Li Chongwen, Tian Qian, and others, and added provisions to support the overall comprehensive development of land. For those individuals, businesses and units that have the ability to carry out the construction of roads and water conservancy projects in the reclamation area, priority is given to land reclamation and tax deductions.

……

The draft of the "Reclamation Regulations" formulated by Liu Zhibo was aimed at those local tyrants and inferior gentry on the surface, but secretly it also aimed at the Shu Palace. Because the largest landlord and landlord's wife in Sichuan are Zhu Pingjin's sons. The land clearance and survey throughout the province will provide sufficient and detailed data bullets for Liu Zhibo to attack the Shu Wangfu covering too much land.

But Liu Zhibo didn't dare or wanted to kill Zhu Pingjin and his family. He only asked the Shu Wangfu to give part of the land interests to the ordinary people in order to maintain the image of Zhu Pingjinren as the holy lord, so he skillfully left enough policy space for the Shu Wangfu.

According to the provisions of the Bill, any land that has obtained a government red deed is not terra nullius. Therefore, the Shu Wangfu used the power of the army to obtain legal ownership of millions of acres of arable land and countless barren hills occupied from Mianzhou, Jianzhou, Tongchuan, Shunqing, Baoning, Hezhou and other places. Even if some wasteland has not obtained the red deed issued by the government for various reasons, in accordance with the principle of "the official ownership of the field bones and the first occupation of the field skin", the Shu Wangfu has also passed the "first occupation" and obtained the field skin, that is, the right to cultivate.

Zhu Pingjin's wife is not stupid and is also very well-informed.

Through all kinds of information, she confirmed Liu Zhibo's true intentions at the first time. She knew what Zhu Pingjin was worried about, and she knew his bottom line, so she not only couldn't refuse Liu Zhibo's request today, but also showed a high attitude of encouragement and appreciation.

She believed that although Liu Zhibo was impulsive, he would raise his hands and feet in favor of her city meeting sooner or later.

In her heart, she is not worried about Liu Zhibo at all, the person she is really worried about is her husband Zhu Pingjin!

Note 1: Taken from a real case in a rural area in China in the 21st century.