The hustle and bustle of the New Year soon faded away, but the spring sowing season had not yet arrived, so the countryside was still in a state of idleness. Most villagers still sleep until three poles a day, and then get up slowly to eat a bowl of batter or sweet potato soup, and then the man drops the dishes and chopsticks and walks to the threshing field at the head of the village, chatting with the villagers while basking in the sun.

As for the women, they had to wash up before going out with needlework and children. They also came to the side of the threshing floor, and sat around with the women of the village to chat and work, while the children began to let themselves go, running around and playing games, and occasionally one or two naughty ones had to run to the mud and dirty their clothes, and naturally they would have a good meal.

This kind of leisurely and lazy pastoral life may be what Lao Tzu said: "The voice of chickens and dogs hears each other, and the old and dead do not get along". Of course, Lao Tzu doesn't care, in order to save food, these villagers only eat two porridges a day and try to minimize the helplessness of exercise.

However, in the eyes of these villagers, such a day of scarcity of materials is already a rare prosperous year. In previous years, wild vegetables should be put in the porridge at this time, and in January, when the green and yellow crops are gone, in addition to the main laborers of the family, other family members will be hungry from time to time.

And this year, they still have more rice and noodles in the rice bowl than expected, which is enough for the whole family to survive the green and yellow months, which is already a life that makes them satisfied and grateful. Of course, there are also some families in the village, because there are family members working in the city, they can still eat dry food in such a season, and the days seem to be more prosperous than others, which has aroused the jealousy and envy of many villagers, but there are also old people who do not think so.

The old people believed that the farmer did not serve the land but went to work in the city, which was not a long-term solution after all. Since he was reincarnated in the village, he should honestly do the things of the villagers, so he went to work in the city from a high distance, and he looked good when he was young, but what should he do when he is old.

Although there is a group of old people in every village who oppose young people going out, there will always be a few young people who do not accept their fate and have to run to see the outside world. Now after all, it is not the past, at that time, the people in the village did not have much contact with outsiders all the year round, as long as the old man intimidated a little, it naturally restrained those young people who knew nothing about the outside world.

However, with the entry of peasant associations into the villages, the establishment of local management systems at the village, township and town levels, and the establishment of various self-help communes and production teams, the villagers' understanding of the outside world began to gradually increase. The full implementation of the compulsory military service law in Hebei gave these young people the first opportunity to leave their villages.

As soon as a young man leaves the village, then soon there is a second, a third, a first... Piece. Since ancient times, except for the rebellion and desertion, there has been almost no movement of the rural population, and with the industrialization movement since Chongzhen's accession to the throne, there has been a very obvious flow situation. Especially with the construction of the railway network around the Gyeonggi area, it has become common for small traders to travel to the capital along the railroad to conduct small trade.

These small traders not only brought a large number of passengers to the railway, but also provided the capital with a large amount of fresh vegetables and other food. And the insights they brought back to the countryside became a powerful weapon to break the old order in the countryside. Many young people are embraced, and the bustling city described by these small traders has broken through all obstacles and run to the city, hoping to find their dreams and life goals here.

Compared to the laid-back life in the countryside, the pace of the city is obviously much faster. Just after the Lantern Festival, the workshops in the city can't wait to open their doors and start working. In the past two years, the imperial court's investment in industrial workshops and the development of new markets overseas have kept the workshops in the Gyeonggi area in a state of high prosperity.

Whether it is the production of leather, furniture, ironware, cement, cotton, porcelain, glassware and canned food, every item in the Gyeonggi market is in short supply. Workshop owners are either expanding their workshops or looking for a place to build new ones.

The literati gentry who went north to the capital passed through the workshop area near the Tianjin River, listened to the never-ending sound of machines coming from those workshops, and couldn't help but mock: "... This is the sound of the machine, and it is clear that the money in some money bag is giving birth to a son. ”

The ridiculed workshop owners were not outraged by this, but felt that the literati described them vividly. Whether liked or disliked, the number of workshops near the rivers in the north is increasing rapidly. This increase in the use of water power has caused a conflict between the workshop owners and the villages near the river to compete for water. As a result, local officials began to restrict the construction of workshops, which led to the desire of workshop owners to find a convenient, stable, and accessible alternative to the unreliable wind and water power that is now available.

For the workers who work in the workshops, the good thing is that their wages, benefits, and working hours are guaranteed. Nearly 30-40% of the goods of the northern workshops are sold overseas and outside Cyprus, which means that these goods can be exchanged for more resources from overseas and outside Cyprus, and these resources are enough to make the lives of these workers improve rapidly, even if they are distributed to the workers in a small way.

Overseas trade, which is backed by the state, pays more attention to exchanging industrial products for local raw materials, rather than gold and silver. If the industrial party on the Internet is concerned, this is a typical harvest of profits from industrial countries to agricultural countries. Daming transported all kinds of raw materials from overseas and outside the country, and then processed them into finished products, some of which were used to continue to exchange for overseas and foreign raw materials, and the other part was consumed in China.

In this constant cycle, the capital of the workshop multiplies, the workers receive wages, the state receives taxes, and the people receive consumer goods. As far as Daming himself is concerned, there is no harm, but for the people overseas and outside the country, they are supporting Daming with their own labor.

Of course, in Zhu Youzhen's eyes, the current industry of the Ming Dynasty is still too weak and rudimentary, and the living labor drawn from overseas is not enough to make the whole of northern China enter the industrial society, and can only barely let Hebei, Shandong, and Shanxi barely have a little shadow of industrial society.

However, for those young people who came out of the countryside, the days of working in the workshop were harder, but they were much happier than in the countryside. Not only are the meals provided by the workshop filling, but they can also see meat once every three days, although it is only cleaned pig offal or some seafood tails that cannot be sold, but it is already a rare delicacy for them. Those small landlords in the countryside may not eat as well as their workers on weekdays.

But for the workshop owner, in Tianjin, a large commercial port city, whether it is pig offal or seafood tails, it is basically a fairly low expense, sometimes even cheaper than fresh vegetables. After all, the rise of distant-water fishing has made Tianjin the largest fish market in the north. The rise of the oil extraction industry has made the pig industry that consumes oil residue soybean cake prosperous.

The prosperity of Tianjin and Beijing has led to the great development of the catering industry in the two places, which has also made the seafood tail goods and pig offal that cannot be put on the table become the food of the poor people and apprentice workers in Tianjin.

Of course, for the workers who still have a few dollars in their hands, they will occasionally go to the teahouse in the morning after work to taste the breakfast of Tianjin Wei, and listen to the chatter of those tea customers by the way. For them, it's all a new life that is new and worth exploring.

On this day, several young workers had just drunk half of the morning tea, when they saw a middle-aged man wearing a half-worn plain green robe walk into the teahouse, and several workers quickly got up and greeted him warmly: "Teacher Shu, you have come to eat breakfast, please sit here, we still have an empty seat here." ”

The middle-aged man glanced up at the young workers, recognized them as his students in the night school, and enthusiastically agreed, and walked over quickly. Several workers greeted the shopkeeper and couldn't help but order breakfast for the middle-aged man, and at the same time asked him respectfully, "Mr. Shu, did you bring today's newspaper?" Can you tell us what's in there? ”

The middle-aged man, who couldn't refuse, had no choice but to accept the kindness of the workers, sat down and spread out the newspaper in his hand, and read the contents of the newspaper for them.

The front page of today's newspaper is the five-year plan just promulgated by the imperial court, and the middle-aged man just glanced at it in a hurry, and there were several data on it that made him remember deeply, one is that the imperial court intends to base on the total output of 410,000 tons of pig iron and 21,000 tons of steel in the country last year. It is expected that in five years, the annual production of pig iron will be increased to 1 million tons, and the annual steel production will be increased to 50,000 tons.

In addition, based on last year's grain output of 41.1 million tons, with an annual growth rate of not less than 2%, it will increase to more than 45 million tons in five years, so as to ensure a food ration of 365 catties per person per year.

The middle-aged man only read a few words about the five-year plan, and then he knew that the workers around him could not listen to such boring data, so he flipped the newspaper over and read other news for them.

As a result, the first page turned made the middle-aged man pause for a moment, and only at the urging of the workers on the side did he fold the newspaper and seriously read the article that made him like it at a glance.

“… The people should open their eyes and see, when the soldiers defended the country with their lives at the border gates, when the workers worked day and night in front of the roaring machines, when the merchants risked their lives to open up trade markets for the Ming Dynasty overseas, the old-fashioned gentry and our enemies would only tell us that this is not good, and that is not good.

But the victory of Uiju, the disarming and surrender of thousands of enemy troops, tells us. The reforms that began in the first year of Chongzhen are correct, and it is precisely because we are on the right path that our enemies are declining day by day, while we will get better day by day...

It can be seen from this that many problems in today's Ming Dynasty cannot be solved by relying on the words of the master and the sage scriptures. Only by drastically carrying out radical changes to the country, society, and our daily lives can we solve the problem of food and clothing for the people and finally embark on the glorious road of the world of great harmony. Therefore, I would like to appeal to you: be bold, be bolder, and completely eliminate those decadent and outdated concepts, and the Ming Dynasty will be saved, and China will be saved..."