This issue is not only an academic issue, but also a political issue at a time when the Ming Dynasty is facing such a crisis. As a soldier who is in a high position and has a great influence on the political situation, he is not good at academics, and he is unwilling to interfere too much in politics, so it is naturally difficult to answer at will.

"Actually, I don't know." Zhu Youlang smiled bitterly and sighed.

"The Ming Dynasty is corrupt and incompetent, and he is terminally ill; As soon as the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners also immediately declined. The reason why I have been able to survive to this day is precisely because after the Eight Banners have hardcore crops, their combat effectiveness is no longer so strong. ”

After saying this, Zhu Youlang covered his face with his hands, as if he was crying in a low voice.

"Some people say that the Manchu Qing Dynasty has Yangzhou Ten Days, Jiading Three Massacres, Jiangyin Eighty-one Days and so on, but could it be that during the Chongzhen and Hongguang years, the officials and troops did not ravage the place?"

As the former righteous son of Zhang Xianzhong, Li Dingguo knows very well how the officials and soldiers treat the locality; And as the Jin king of the Ming Dynasty today, Li Dingguo also understood what the Manchus would do to the cities that refused to surrender.

Sticking to the Xinhui to eat women is the best portrayal of the Qing army's slaughter of the city!

But. Don't the officers and soldiers eat people? The current green battalion soldiers, who has not been a soldier of Emperor Chongzhen?

In careful comparison, the "official army" was not much better than that of the Manchus.

"But, I know better."

"From now on, the Ming Dynasty will be civilized to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which led beasts and cannibals!"

Zhu Youlang decided to cut to the chase: Since the Manchu Qing Dynasty was able to spread the land into the mu under the coercion of the Eight Banners clique, the fire consumption was returned to the Gongsheng, and the prosperous Shiziding would never be endowed, and the feudal society would be pushed to the peak, so as long as the army was allowed to listen to itself, what reform could not be done?

The Manchu Qing Dynasty can roll the heads of the people killed in Jiangnan, and they can also kill them all the way; The Manchus bombarded the fortified city with artillery, and they also had the gunpowder coffin of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom directly blasted; If the monk can touch it, I can't touch it?

"King Jin, the reason why the Manchu Qing Dynasty was able to steal Shenzhou was nothing more than hundreds of thousands of Eight Banners bowing down to their ears, presumably, the loyalty of King Jin is not inferior to them, right?"

In fact, the internal fighting within the Manchurians is also relatively intense, but they know how to fight but not break.

"The minister's loyalty to His Majesty can be seen by the sun and the moon!"

After such a long period of foreshadowing, Li Dingguo also roughly guessed the purpose of the emperor's summoning him this time, and his face became excited for a while.

Li Dingguo has the talent of a general, but his talent for governing politics is weak. This is also the reason why Li Dingguo has a lot of faith in Ma Jixiang: "The concubine really can't do it!" ”

And the emperor cut Ma Jixiang, in fact, Li Dingguo's heart was also panicked.

Ma Jixiang, who has a good relationship, was killed, does it mean that the emperor wants to cut his wings?

If the emperor feels that he is highly meritorious, even if he is loyal to the country, it is difficult to ensure that his subordinates do not see it that way.

Historically, after Li Dingguo's death, the rest surrendered to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, although this is a desperate move to restore the country, but it can also be seen from this the difference between Li Dingguo and his subordinates.

On the one hand, he was worried that the emperor would find an opportunity to make him cheap for the Manchus, and on the other hand, he was worried that his subordinates would not care about the overall situation... Li Dingguo is like the grinding heart of two grinding discs, the mouse in the bellows. In just a few months, Li Dingguo, who is middle-aged, has a few gray hairs.

Although the emperor didn't show it at all, he was more favored to him on the surface, but the emperor's heart was unpredictable.

"The reason why Daming lost Shenzhou is, in the final analysis, a land issue. Only by thoroughly solving the land problem can the emperor be made permanent. ”

When Li Dingguo heard that it had nothing to do with what he thought, the stone in his heart finally fell to the ground.

"It seems that Your Majesty is only engaged in state affairs, and has not taken precautions against me."

"When the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, there were 250,000 eight banners, so they were able to take and demand from the big landowners in the south of the Yangtze River; If China has an elite army of millions in the future, what is the use of stupid worms in the countryside? ”

The army of one million has actually reached it in ancient China.

Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty conquered Goguryeo and mobilized 1.1 million troops. Of course, the results are known to everyone.

However, the standing army only exceeded one million people in the Ming Dynasty.

And a considerable part of this million people are military households!

Military households, after the Tumubao, have almost become synonymous with serfs, and there are a large number of military households fleeing all over the country. Naturally, this million-strong army is only a book number.

As for the relatively elite troops, they have been less than 100,000 for a long time. And Guan Ningjun alone consumes tens of millions of taels of silver a year!

Now that the emperor said that he wanted to make an army of millions, wouldn't it cost hundreds of millions of taels of silver a year?

Chongzhen's increase in three salaries is only 20 million taels a year... Hundreds of millions, Li Dingguo suspects that he can't get together so much after selling himself.

"Your Majesty, there is a saying among soldiers, raising soldiers for a thousand days, and using soldiers for a while. Raising soldiers made the soldiers not engaged in farming, reducing the food in the treasury, and the soldiers themselves had to eat, and they had to buy weapons and clothes... The cost of raising soldiers is huge, and the cost of raising elite soldiers can even reach millions, tens of millions! If it is Heqing Haiyan, the ministers think that only 100,000 forbidden troops are needed to deter a few places, and there is no strong enemy around China except Manchuria, why should a million army prepare? ”

"Besides, I can't afford it."

Li Dingguo's idea is actually very reasonable, at least, it is the truth of this era.

For the feudal dynasty, it was the fiscal policy of all dynasties to save money as much as possible on the basis of living within the limits of income for emergencies. The everyday way of describing the wealth of a dynasty is that "the treasury is full", and even the rope of grain and money is rotten.

Naturally, raising an army of millions of people has nothing to do and burn money to play, which goes against this principle.

However, Zhu Youlang is a modern person.

In the pre-time period, China's economy even grew by more than one-tenth of a year.

In those days, money was only good for the economy if it was liquid.

Therefore, Comrade Zhu Youlang did not plan to save money at all.

"What the King of Jin said is very true, now that there are many people in the Ming Dynasty and there is little land, no matter how many people there are, they will not increase food output. So, the court needs to save money, right? ”

"Yes."

"But what if there was a stone that could increase or even double the amount of food?"

In later generations, agriculture was based on pesticides, water conservancy projects, improved seeds, chemical fertilizers, and mechanization, and the land area became less and less constrained by food production. For Zhu Youlang, this is not a hypothesis, but a fact.

"If that's the case, then..."Li Dingguo touched his ears, "but it can be more relaxed." ”

"Well, indeed."

Zhu Youlang wanted to say something like "money itself only represents human labor", but he thought that Li Dingguo was a martial artist after all, so he retracted the words on his lips and stated the topic.

"And to do that, the premise is for people to mine and make these stones."

"Nine times out of ten, the people of the world work on the land, but there is not so many people in the land. Fewer people farming will not reduce food. However, the stones they dug up could increase the amount of food. ”

The increase in food is naturally a good thing, and if the food is enough, Li Dingguo will not be adopted by Zhang Xianzhong as an adopted son to embark on this road.

"If what Your Majesty said can be realized, it will naturally be a good thing for the benefit of the country and the people."

"No, no, no, King Jin is wrong, the scholars don't think so!"

Zhu Youlang shook his head and began to complain about these guys again.

"If there are fewer people on the land, it will be less likely for the landlords to collect higher rents and make less money. Is it really living on the court? Since this is the case, to the detriment of their interests, they naturally want to come out and speak. ”

"What kind of local people are simple, overseas mining corrupts the atmosphere, etc... Akari is lamenting the local moral turpitude, in fact, lamenting the shrinkage of their money bags. ”

"Preserve the principles of heaven and destroy people's desires." In the eyes of Taoists, everyone is on the line of food and clothing, and they have no chance to think about other things, which is to destroy people's desires with heavenly principles. They are afraid of everything that will bring about change, because only if everyone is like this, they will have the opportunity to use their "desires" to the fullest.

The desires of Taoists are the principles of heaven.

"Yes, yes, obediently listen to the words of the patriarch, planting and learning fields, paying the sacrificial fee is simple, doubting their statement, rising up to fight is not simple, do they think they are me? Extremely daring! The mouth is full of isms, and the heart is full of business! ”

Li Dingguo lowered his head and didn't dare to make a sound, but his head kept spinning.

During the Chongzhen period, even the always rich Jiangnan was enslaved year by year, and on the barren Loess Plateau, Li Dingguo realized how ugly the landlords were from an early age.

But don't your generals and lords want land? Even Li Dingguo himself had the idea of buying a house and land after half of the Ming Dynasty was restored.

At that time, even if Li Dingguo doesn't care about this income, how can Li Dingguo convince others? What's the use of being clever about things that go against your own interests?

"What does the King of Jin think the land is to the scholars?"

"Your Majesty, please give me advice."

"Suppose that one acre of land produces five cents of silver in a year. Then, one acre of land is an extra five cents of silver per year for the scholars. ”

"If we exchange it for a piece of paper, this paper can be exchanged for five cents of silver at the imperial court every year."

"So, there's no difference between an acre of land and this piece of paper, right?"

Li Dingguo thought about it and felt that it seemed to be this reason, but he felt that something was wrong: "But, where would anyone believe it?" ”

Since the Song Dynasty, paper money has been printed in China: the Northern Song Dynasty Jiaozi, the Southern Song Dynasty Huizi, and the Yuan and Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes, but without exception, they all collapsed due to the indiscriminate issuance of paper money, and the only official credibility of this era was built on violence.

"What if everybody believes?"

"If that's the case, it shouldn't make a difference."

"So, if the landlords can make money, they don't really care about the land itself, but because the land is directly linked to wealth. Otherwise, the wealthy families in Jiangnan would not be in business. ”

"It makes no difference to the landlord. But for the imperial court, it was very different, the landlords were separated from the land, and there would be no one to restrain them to dig stones, and the more stones they dug, the more food they had. ”

"Is Your Majesty planning to redeem all the land under heaven?"

Under the whole world, it is not the king's land, which is nonsense in an economic sense--- and the emperor often has to pay for the finances out of his own pocket. The emperor can copy one or two powerful people by virtue of his likes and dislikes, but if he steals all the land in the world, it will be a long time for the birthday star to hang himself.

"No, I heard that even if the king of Jin is the ancestral home of northern Shaanxi, an acre of land costs a few taels of silver, and there are about more than 10 billion acres of land in the world, and I am afraid that there are no billions of taels of silver in the whole world?"