I looked at Cheng Qi's manuscript and listened to him preach about the condition of the working class. Hong Chengchou thought for a moment and asked: "Since ancient times, there have been countless cases of the government not caring for the people's feelings and causing chaos. However, there is no catastrophe and famine today, and the four seas can be described as peaceful. Is your so-called workers' revolt a bit unfounded? ”

The Xiaoice period in history caused the Central Plains to be deprived of harvests, and the northern barbarian tribes also flocked south, eventually dragging down a decaying feudal dynasty and returning to a slave society. But in this plane, with the development of the chemical industry and the large-scale construction of hydraulic projects, the natural impact of the Xiaoice period was greatly reduced, and the continuous import of grain from overseas colonies also gave the imperial court the ability to help the most affected northern regions.

And the most important thing is that the Ming Dynasty of another plane belongs to the Ming Dynasty called holding a golden rice bowl to ask for rice, the English, Spanish and Portuguese of that plane have already built a bridge for maritime trade, if the Ming government can adapt to the changes in current affairs to open the sea ban, develop maritime trade, through overseas tariffs can also make up the so-called "three salaries". However, it was precisely because of the obstruction of the Donglin Party and the lack of conservative forces that the Ming Dynasty continued to increase the tax burden on the peasants in his last decades, and finally forced the already desperate northern people to break the jar.

In this plane, more than half of the financial and tax sources of the Great Song Dynasty were maritime trade and profits paid by the colonies. In the face of long-term natural disasters, the Great Song Dynasty was obviously much more comfortable in dealing with them. What's more, this Xiaoice River period, which lasted for many years, had an unexpected benefit for the Song Dynasty: because the output in the fields was too low, a large number of peasants were forced to enter the city for their livelihood and become urban industrial workers.

In the last 30 years, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Households, the population of the major capitals in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Henan and other roads in the north of the Great Song Dynasty has increased significantly, and the number of factories in the cities has also increased steadily.

However, the growth of the number of workers does not improve the status of workers. On the contrary, the average pay of workers has fallen because of the influx of labor.

When Hong Chengchou was a teenager, his family was poor and made a living by selling dried tofu. Later, he was accepted as a disciple by Hong Qiyin, an elder of the same clan, and then began to slowly embark on the road to getting ahead. His early experiences had a great impact on his character, and unlike those Donglin Party members from the official family, he knew very well what was going on below.

Unlike the peaceful and prosperous times sung by poets, the gentlemen's feasts were always based on the exploitation of the lower classes. It is not uncommon for scholars and doctors to eat half a year's income of a medium-sized family in one meal, and on the flower boats of Jiangning Mansion, those famous prostitutes can provide food and clothing for a hundred children.

Mr. Hong was in the maritime business in Fujian, and he knew the plight of the dock workers. While many scholars enjoyed the lucrative profits of factories and plantations on the grounds that "gentlemen do not enter the kitchen", but paid no attention to the plight of industrial and agricultural workers, Hong Chengchou knew that the resentment of those workers was growing day by day.

Sixteen years ago, he dealt with an incident in Songjiang Province in which workers smashed a textile machine. Songjiang Province is the world-famous textile industry center, with tens of thousands of cotton textile factories large and small, and hundreds of thousands of workers. On the Dragon Boat Festival that year, workers from dozens of cotton textile factories gathered to go on strike to demand more wages from their bosses.

To this day, Hong Chengchou still seems to be able to hear that song: Iron Weaver Niang, Iron Weaver Niang, weave Daoshou clothes for people, weave the head Dao to the overseer wolf, and the leather whip is vicious and the stick is long; Erdao weaved to the factory owner's mother and gave birth to a son, Saihu Wolf......

Sixteen years have passed, and there are still news of workers destroying machines and holding strikes in various places from time to time, but will these sparks really form a prairie fire? Although Hong Chengchou felt a little alarmist, he was an extremely cautious person and was still willing to listen to Cheng Qi's statement.

Cheng Qi said: "Unorganized workers, of course, are like a plate of loose sand, individual strikes or riots, the only future is failure. But what if they were organized? In the past few days in Luoyang, I have visited such a piece of information, the year before last Luoyang's water transport dock workers had held a joint strike, demanding a reduction in the intensity of work at noon in the summer, the strike lasted for 10 days, the dock owners finally compromised, agreed to the workers' demands, and also provided free salt water in the summer. This is just a small first appearance, what kind of scene will it be if the workers of the entire Luoyang City go on strike in the future! ”

As long as Hong Chengchou thinks about the Quanzhou wharf he operates, if the 100,000 workers go on strike together, he will feel a cold sweat: the organized workers are more terrible than any barbarian tribe. This simple fact is not clear to the Donglin Party, but he knows it very well.

"So how do you keep them from organizing?"

Cheng Qi smiled indifferently: "Chen Shi and Wu Guang were not without delays before, and it was not that there were no religious societies among the people before the Yellow Turban and White Lotus. The general trend of the world is already like this, and what is missing is just a leader. And now there is already a kind of Mohismism in Liao, I don't know if Mr. Heng Jiu has ever heard of it? ”

"Mohistism?" Hong Chengchou thought for a while and shook his head: "This may be an academic thing, but the old man hasn't heard much about it." ”

Cheng Qi said: "A few years ago, it may have been just an academic thing, but now it has become a social trend. And it has crossed the border and spread to the territory of our Great Song Dynasty. ”

"Oh? I would like to hear about it. ”

"Mohistism calls for equality and advocates economic, political and social equality. Economic equality is to allow business owners to spit out the wealth exploited from workers and distribute it equally to workers, political equality is to allow workers to have the right to vote to decide on national affairs, and social equality is to abolish all inequalities based on wealth or origin, and advocate that all people are equal and have the right to full independence and freedom. ”

"It's a bit too shocking."

"Yes, these ideas were also greatly suppressed in the Liao State, so they came to the Great Song Dynasty, which was more relaxed and tolerant of all kinds of heresy. They also intend to use this as a base to propagate their Mohist theories. ”

Hong Chengchou thought about it for a while, and felt that something was wrong; "These propositions should be very much in line with the appetite of those workers."

"Exactly. Workers are water, Mohism is fish, and when the two meet, they are like fish in water. The reason why they failed to make a big storm in Liao was because there were not enough workers in Liao, but the industrialization of Song was close to completion, and workers were spread all over the major cities. The Mohists only need to make some adjustments according to local conditions, and they can do a lot of things with us. ”

Peng Youzhi also gasped: "In this way, it's not going to turn the sky upside down." ”

Cheng Qi smiled slightly: "The soldiers will block the water and cover the earth, and the wine and meat in Zhumen stinky road and the frozen bones can't be hidden from anyone." Sooner or later, the workers will come to their senses, and instead of waiting for them to be mobilized by Mohism, if the princes in the court can understand some of the principles of casting a long line to catch big fish, the millions of workers in the Great Song Dynasty will only become the pillars of the country, not the surging flood that will break down the causeway. ”

Hong Chengchou sat more upright: "Please also ask Mr. Xiao to teach." ”

Cheng Qi raised two fingers: "I have two strategies, internal and external, I don't know which one Mr. Hengjiu is willing to listen to first?" ”

"How about listening to Nei Ce first?"

"The internal policy is to change the law, promulgate a social welfare bill, improve the treatment of workers, and make Mohismism a rootless tree and a sourceless water, and it can no longer set off storms."

"I want to hear about it."