Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty salt iron official camp, except for the Eastern Han Dynasty period slightly relaxed, the feudal government of successive dynasties has always firmly controlled the iron industry in their hands, as the pillar industry on which the dynasty depends, so the iron official camp has become the inevitable of the feudal era.

However, by the Tang Dynasty, this situation had changed.

Although the Tang Dynasty controlled the iron ore resources of the whole country and was under the jurisdiction of the central salt and iron envoys, it did not all implement official management, but "let the iron ore not mined by the government be privately mined, and the government collected its taxes"!

The Song Dynasty inherited the iron industry policy of the Tang Dynasty, implemented the coexistence system of government and private enterprises, and implemented the tax rate of "28 points" for civil railways under the supervision of the government.

After the Mongols entered the Central Plains, they established a larger and more complex government industrial system than the Tang and Song dynasties, and a large number of craftsmen were detained to work in the official bureau, making the craftsmen who served in the early Yuan Dynasty like slaves.

This regression of production relations will inevitably lead to serious damage and contraction of the productive forces, and the huge investment in government industry in the Yuan Dynasty is in sharp contrast to the astonishing inefficiency.

The Ming Dynasty established by Zhu Yuanzhang who overthrew the rule of Meng Yuan naturally did not study the Yuan Dynasty in its entirety.

In the eighteenth year of Hongwu (1385) and the twenty-eighth year, the Ming government twice stopped the government-run iron smelting in various places due to the excessive storage of iron in the warehouse, and the latter simply "dismissed the iron smelting everywhere, so that the people could mine and smelt by themselves, and the annual loss course, take two out of every thirty points"!

Since then, the government-run iron smelting has gradually decreased, and the private iron smelting has increased day by day. According to the record of "Ming Shilu", the private iron class rose from more than 79,800 catties in the first year of Yongle (1403) to 555,000 catties in the ninth year of Xuande (1434). According to the calculation of the iron tax rate, the output of Yongle in the first year was 1197090 catties, and the output in Xuande in the ninth year was 8329005 catties, and the output increased by more than seven times in more than 30 years.

In other words, the Ming Dynasty allows qualified people to mine iron ore and so on privately, as long as you pay taxes.

As long as you pay taxes, but in the late Ming Dynasty, you can't even collect all taxes, which is true.

The rich iron ore in the deep mountains of Dezhou is a little inconvenient to mine, but Zhu Zilong, as the lord of a land, has the right to be cheap. In addition, if you want money and money, you need people, as long as you send people and have enough money and food, you can still smelt a lot of steel.

Zhu Zilong, who is in a good mood, estimates that in addition to the land occupied by big landlords and princes, he is in the territory. There should still be 170,000 or 80,000 acres of cultivated wasteland, and this is a land that is completely under its own control.

Looking at the beautiful scenery on the mountain, his heart swelled with pride.

He decided to develop the iron mines in the mountains of Dezhou, and dispersed the people in the military households, even if some of them were iron miners. It's better to be less than to mess around!

However, when Zhu Zilong turned around Zhujiazhuang, he heard bad news.

"Almanac" and "Seventy-two Candidate Explanations of the Lunar Order" say: "On the September Festival, the dew is cold and will condense. ”

At this time, it is the late rice heading and filling period, and it is necessary to continue to strengthen field management, so that shallow water is irrigated frequently, dry and wet, mainly wet, and avoid premature water cut-off in the later stage.

However, at the junction of Shandong and X West Province, many counties experienced drought protrusions, which lasted for a long time.

The agriculture of the Ming Dynasty really depended on the sky for food. If God makes things difficult, the people of the world will starve. In normal years, you usually have to eat bran vegetables to survive, and in a disaster year, you will have to starve to death.

For a time, there were countless refugees and began to run around.

Some capable and practical officials of the Ming Dynasty adopted the method: "According to the past practice, when the local gentry and wealthy households are invited, money and grain are raised, wells are drilled everywhere, the drought is alleviated, and if there are displaced people, they are relieved with porridge." Moreover, it should be reported to the court urgently and begged for disaster relief money. ”

This trick can still withstand the short-term drought.

However, once a natural disaster lasts a long time. Then it may become a man-made disaster, and under the double blow, the people simply have no way to live.

Because, those Ming landlords, the favorite thing to do is.

Hoarding food to make a fortune and taking advantage of the opportunity to annex land on a large scale, natural disasters are a good time for them to make a fortune. As for responding to the government's call to provide some money and food to help the victims, it all depends on the mood.

Under normal circumstances, it will never be donated.

For the rich and unkind, it is the landlords in the late Ming Dynasty.

The kind of gentry who scold the court and the Ming government for being incompetent all day long, really let them contribute money and effort, as if they were bloodletting with a knife. Iron One!

However, this kind of natural disaster is near Zhujiazhuang and Yantai, and even a little farther away, as long as people are not far from Zhujiazhuang, they will not be affected by this natural disaster.

The same is true of several fiefdoms, including Zhu Zilong.

Because Zhu Zilong built many waterwheels early, and then built many reservoirs with cement.

There is even a simple seawater filter that can be used to divert water into a waterless river. Therefore, other places are worried about the water source for watering the land at this time, and they are fighting several times for this matter.

But the people in Zhujiazhuang are still the same, and they don't look in a hurry.

What's more, after Zhu Zilong learned about the drought situation, he was worried that it would last too long, and he was not afraid of 10,000, but he was afraid of what happened.

Jingran designed a route pipeline that uses moso bamboo as an open-air cottage water pipe overnight to connect water to save water and transport water, so that everyone can take it to their fields and homes.

"Look, this is a bamboo, remove the front section, and dredge the middle section from the tail. Then one by one, they came in and tied up tightly. Stuffed into the cement and the river, yes, that's all! ”

"See, this is the switch, twist it in this direction, and the water in the pool will come out. This is the water pipe, the water in the pool from here to the bamboo, the water from the top of the bamboo, to achieve the purpose of watering the ground. The advantage of this is that it can save a lot of water, and it is convenient! ”

At the field scene, Zhu Zilong took the lead in demonstrating, and everyone learned it after a while.

When after a few days, more and more of this cottage pipe is connected.

"Out of the water, out of the water."

Everyone was pleasantly surprised to find that with this kind of cottage water pipe, they poured it all over the place, and continued to change it, so repeatedly, and easily poured the ground.

A little farther away, I heard that as long as you receive the pipe on the Marquis Zhu's house, there is that, what is called the engine iron bull and flowing horse. I can transport water over, too!

That's it, Zhu Zilong is still not at ease.

The modern three-wheeled water transport vehicle of later generations was imitated with wood. Let people farther afield, use this thing to transport filtered fresh water home from the river and sea!

This trolley is actually a high-end version of the wheelbarrow, but it is made of wood.

"Longhou, when the green and yellow are not connected, several counties on the edge of Shandong, there is drought and no rain. The official wanted to relieve the plight of the people, but the treasury was empty, and he could only count on the generosity of the Dengzhou gentry. The official thought that such a great act of kindness must be the responsibility of the Marquis of Long. A few days later, Sun Yuanhua came again, this time not polite at all, and directly proposed to let Zhu Zilong donate money and food for the natural disaster.

"Benhou will not be left behind!" For natural disasters, Zhu Zilong is still very good at talking.

However, it only gave a vague answer, what does it mean not to be left behind? That is, I will donate as much as others donate. If you think it's less, it's okay, as long as you Sun Yuanhua and I stand on the same line, and you're not afraid of offending people, then make a big deal out of it.

Of course, this kind of subtext can be understood by heart-

(To be continued.) )