(There is only one shift today, so let's make up for it on the weekend...... ）

Nothing is impossible!

Being in the Hubu School, Zhao Linchuan looked at the Han Du on the stage dumbfounded, his mind was buzzing, and he couldn't even hear what he was saying, he was like this, and the same was true for others, as students of the Hubu School, after they finished a year of training, they would go to the local area to serve as tax commissioners, compared to dozens of people per period of other ministries and schools, and hundreds of people per period of Hubu School, many of them have taken over the right to tax at the local level. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Unlike their seniors, in this school, they receive not only various financial knowledge training, but also modern tax knowledge, and in the future, they will become the main force in the implementation of the new tax system, which is why they will receive up to one year of tax expertise training compared to the previous half-year short training.

And today's lesson, not so much a lecture as a speech, was the second speech that Han Du gave them, and as the content of the speech was extended, it was all that made everyone look at Han Du with astonishment, at least before that, they had never thought of such subversive words.

"Not bad! You must wonder why all dynasties have opposed land annexation, and when it comes to the Governor, instead of opposing it, the Governor has to do the opposite! ”

Zhu Yifeng, who was on the rostrum of the auditorium, looked at the more than 200 students in the audience, their ages ranged, the young ones were only in their twenties, and the older ones were only in their thirties, these people were really the first batch of tax officials who accepted the modern tax concepts of the West, and when they entered the localities, the biggest constraints on the implementation of the new tax system were solved, but they still needed to adapt to and master the grassroots work before they could fully implement the new tax system, and the basis of the new tax system needed to measure the land across the country. A land-based tax policy was enacted, and the current task was to strengthen the salt tax, especially other commercial taxes.

Looking at these students in the audience, if it weren't for the mention of the collection of agricultural taxes and land taxes, Zhu Yifeng probably wouldn't have talked about land annexation.

"Actually, the reason for not opposing land annexation is very simple - because there is no need at all! In the past two years, land surveys have also been conducted in Fuchu, and in this case, the governor took a village as an example......

In the surprise of the students, Zhu Yifeng took out a cigarette from the cigarette case, perhaps this was the only hobby that allowed him to regain the feeling of another time and space. Looking at the students in front of him, he took a deep puff of his cigarette before continuing

“…… Wanghuangge Village has a total of 233 households, 996 people, and a total of acres of land, nearly 3 acres per capita; Among them, there are 3 landlords with 29 people occupying 275.7 mu of land (9.5 mu per capita), 22 rich households with 135 people occupying 657 mu of land (4.8 mu per capita), 99 middle households with 436 people occupying 3.3 mu of land per capita, 100 poor households with 366 people occupying 576.1 mu of land (1.6 mu per capita), and 9 households with 30 people living in extreme poverty, covering an area of 2.8 mu and 0.01 mu per capita. ”（1）

When mentioning this number, the corners of Zhu Yifeng's lips lifted slightly, at the beginning, he also thought that China's land problem was very serious, related to the national economy and people's livelihood, after all, many people in later generations always emphasized land and land, but careful investigation found that it was not the case at all.

Whether it is Hunan or Hubei, the cultivated land occupied by landlords does not exceed 20 percent of the total cultivated area, and the per capita cultivated land is often less than three times the per capita cultivated land area. The per capita ownership of cultivated land by poor peasants, who account for more than half of the population, is more than 70 percent on average in all localities, indicating that the majority of these peasant households are still self-cultivated farmers.

"In Wanghuangge Village, the closest to per capita land are those middle-aged households, and their families are generally around 3 acres per capita, so what kind of life do they live? The staple food of the common people is usually mainly cereals and vegetables, generally in normal years can only make a living, are fresh and hidden, many medium-sized farmers even have to rely on loans to survive, even so, they are almost unable to eat meat all year round, that is, occasionally eat, its quantity is also limited, and in order to avoid the famine, these medium-sized households are still rough all year round in normal years, bran vegetables for half a year, the situation in the famine year will undoubtedly worsen. Even if it is an average land, it only allows everyone in the institute to live this kind of poverty that is almost destitute, so a classmate asked me before, when he establishes the country, whether the new dynasty will curb land annexation and crack down on the powerful, and my answer is very simple - no! ”

When the last two words accentuated the tone, Zhu Yifeng deliberately cast his eyes on the student who asked the question before in the audience.

Seeing Han Du's gaze on him, Xi Nanlin immediately got up and retorted.

"If the government does not restrain land annexation, how can the people have a place to stand in the long run? If you don't crack down on Haoqiang, how can you push the executive order? ”

"Well, then ......"

Looking at this young man who seemed to be still insisting on what he had seen, Zhu Yifeng asked rhetorically.

"What is the purpose of curbing land annexation? Is it for the cultivator to have his land? Home Ownership? ”

After asking and answering himself, Zhu Yifeng frowned and said.

"Well, in order to achieve these two goals, the government can issue a decree to confiscate the land of the landlords and rich peasants and carry out land reform throughout the country! But what is the result? According to the statistics of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the cultivated land in the country is about 800 million mu, considering the hidden land, it should be around 1 billion to 1.1 billion mu, the national population is 430 million people, and the per capita cultivated land is less than three mu! And then what? The cultivator has his field, the little field, the homeless has his house, and the house is broken! This is the reality, so we can't just look at the one acre and three points of land in front of us, but also look at the long-term! ”

Han Du's words made Zhao Linchuan a little puzzled, "not limited to the present", "more long-term"? What does that mean? He looked at the stubborn Xi Nanlin again, and it was Xi Nanlin's words that made everything tasteless.

"What's the biggest problem in the countryside right now? It is not the concentration of land, but the lack of land, the lack of people, this is the most fundamental problem, for thousands of years, the change of dynasties is often because of this reason, the problem is not that the annexation of land leads to peasant uprisings, continuous wars, but because of the large number of people and less land, the livelihood of the people is difficult to make up for social turmoil, just like what is the biggest problem in the countryside now? ”

Staring at the students in the audience, Zhu Yifeng said what he was most worried about!

"Singles!"

When these two words came into Zhao Linchuan's ears, he was stunned for a moment, and immediately thought of those bachelors who were hanging out in the villages, and there were as few as a dozen or as many as dozens of people in almost every village.

"Why are there singles? It is because there are more people and less land, the output of land is limited, and the people often drown female babies in order to feed their families, because boys can be passed on to the family and receive them, and raising daughters is a matter of loss, so that there are more and more men in the countryside, and many young and strong men cannot find a daughter-in-law at all, so that they are mixed with singles and wander around, they are the biggest problem in the countryside, and there are more than 2 million such singles in the three provinces, and there are no less than 10 million young and strong singles in the whole countryTherefore, this is the most urgent problem that needs to be solved in rural areas! ”

Pressing the cigarette butt into the ashtray, Zhu Yifeng's voice was extremely solemn.

"Many people read history books and only see the annexation of land, but do not see what is the root cause of the turmoil, the root of the problem is that there are more people and less land, more people and less land, and it is difficult to maintain livelihoods, so there are displaced people, drowning female infants have led to a lot of young and strong among the displaced people, and these fierce and ruthless vagrants have naturally become the source of turmoil, so if you want to fundamentally solve the problem, there is only one way, that is, to transfer the surplus labor force in the countryside!"

Transferring surplus labor is the only option to avoid war, and the only way to break the so-called "three-hundred-year cycle".

"Transferring labor?"

Zhao Linchuan hurriedly listened with his ears pricked up, and Li Peigen beside him also looked extremely serious, to be precise, everyone was listening carefully to the solution pointed out by Han Du.

"Everyone must be curious about how to transfer, in fact, now the Governor has been doing this, the reason why encouraging the private to set up factories, is to absorb agricultural surplus labor through industry, to give the simplest example, like the current construction of railways, in the three provinces employed a total of more than 150,000 workers, these workers are paid three yuan per month, and the output value of an acre of land a year is only about five yuan, a worker a year is equivalent to planting 7 acres of land, the railway construction site includes food and housing, the wage is naturally relatively low, but they are used to working for high income, how can they be willing to farm again? If there are millions of workers in the three provinces, then it is equivalent to absorbing millions of surplus labor from the countryside whose livelihood is difficult to maintain, and these people need someone to sell vegetables and cloth after they enter the factory, and all livelihoods depend on commerce, and taverns and shops also need to hire labor to meet the services, and these service industries can also absorb hundreds of thousands or millions of laborers, and then consider the family members who go to the city with them, which is equivalent to absorbing five million people from the countryside. And after the remaining 5 million people move to the cities, how much land will be idle in the countryside? ”

When he asked rhetorically, Zhu Yifeng's expression became serious.

"What if factories can provide two million, or even three million, five million jobs? How many people will come into town? Tens of millions, if not tens of millions, will enter the city! ”

In fact, in the next almost a century and a half, the peasants have never relied on the land to become rich, and eventually they became rich by going to the city to work, and in this era when there is no chemical fertilizer and improved seeds, relying on so many acres of land with very low output, they have no way to solve the problem of even the minimum food and clothing.

More importantly, as far as the demand for labour in industry is concerned, in the future, not only should land annexation not be discouraged, but even encouraged, because only in this way can the people be forced to leave the countryside and abandon the days of facing the loess and turn to the cities to work. After all, for thousands of years, China has had a tradition of "not traveling far".

"Then dare to ask Han Du, how can everyone be willing to leave their hometown and enter the factory? If the people of the world are not compelled to do so, how can anyone who is willing to leave their homeland? ”

That's when one of the students asked his question.

"That's right!"

Faced with this question, Zhu Yifeng almost praised it, and this question was raised at the right time.

"Indeed, isn't there a proverb among the people, "Sick and dead do not leave home, old and old do not leave their hometown", "It is good at home, but it is difficult to go out for a day" People are unwilling to go out, what should I do? As long as the one-acre three-point land can barely keep the family from starving to death, he is willing to guard the one-acre three-point land, even if he only eats one meal a day, even if he can't eat a full meal once a year. What is this?"

Listening to the students and officials in the audience, Zhu Yifeng said coldly.

"This is inertia, this is the inertia of the common people, for thousands of years, they are accustomed to being trapped in the land, throughout the history books, in addition to being less people or studying or doing business will leave their hometowns, other people in addition to fleeing famine, how many people are willing to take the initiative to leave their hometowns? There are only a handful, even if it is the so-called "Huguang filling Sichuan", it is because the land at home is not enough, and they are about to starve to death, so they want to go out. I can't help it......"

In fact, this is not only the case of the Chinese, this is a common disease of people all over the world, when Europeans conquered the New World, the initial foundation was either soldiers or exiles, and it was not until the famine that millions of Europeans emigrated to the Americas.

"Hope!"

Spit out these two words, Zhu Yifeng took a sip of tea and moistened his throat.

"But if the people can see the hope, they will not move out of the country, why? Because not to starve to death. How do you break that? We want to let them see hope, these hundreds of thousands of road construction workers are distributed to the counties of the three provinces according to the quota, and they can now earn three yuan a month, and their families, their fellow villagers will see this, and they will see new hope outside the land. ”

After a pause, the students and officials in the audience realized why the number of road builders was allocated according to the population, and even to the villages, which also had such an intention.

"What is the responsibility of the government? Is it to inhibit land annexation? A county only has 600,000 mu of land, even if it is suppressed, he will not have an extra 100,000 mu and 200,000 mu because of your inhibition, the land will not grow, but the people will continue to grow. There are more and more people, and the land is getting less and less, and it will be a matter of 600,000 people planting 600,000 acres of land. What to do? Can an acre of land feed a person? ”

One acre of land can't feed one person!

Most of these students in the Hubu School are from the countryside, perhaps many of them are small and medium-sized landlords and rich peasants, and they are no strangers to farming, and one acre of land can never support a person.

"Not to mention that one acre of land can't feed people, even if it's three acres of land, it can only make a common person barely make a living. How many acres of land are there in the country? What is the population? On average, it's just over three acres of land. Now it is more than three acres, and if it is managed for a few more decades, the population will increase by tens of millions or hundreds of millions! And how much then? Two acres? Or less? ”

In another time and space, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the "Hui Rebellion" in the northwest and southwest reduced China's population by 100 million, that is, this reduction of 100 million people, coupled with the migration from the southeastern provinces to the South Seas and the northeast provinces from the north provinces in the mid-19th century, coupled with the "Ding Wuqi Famine" and the subsequent famine that starved tens of millions of people, to a certain extent, alleviated China's population pressure.

Population and land!

In China, this is an unavoidable problem, on the one hand, the impossibility of land growth, and on the other hand, the rapid growth of population. There was less and less land to be cultivated, but the population was increasing, the people were living in poverty and the reality of underdeveloped industry made it impossible for China to provide jobs, so as to realize the transfer of the agricultural population to industry and commerce, and eventually, the peasants revolted...... No, it became a revolution at that time.

But the revolution still did not solve the problem. The problem of more people and less land has not been fundamentally solved. Relying only on those few acres of barren land, the life of the common people is still very difficult, no, because the land is distributed to individuals and becomes richer, but they are getting poorer and poorer. It's not about policy, it's not about politics, it's just that the population, the population, is growing, and the land is not only not increasing, it's decreasing.

What to do?

Eventually, it provided the opportunity to become an industry - the status of the "world's processing factory" established by virtue of human superiority, which attracted hundreds of millions of peasants to work, but regrettably, those who were limited by the so-called "households" never integrated into the city and became new citizens.

But in any case, the problem of land and population was solved - the income from the work allowed the peasants to finally get out of poverty for the first time and to live in relative affluence, which could not be given by a third of an acre.

This is the way!

The same is the solution!

"What should I do?"

This question was raised again, and in everyone's thoughts, Zhu Yifeng continued.

"So what is the responsibility of the government at this time, that is, to do everything possible to promote industrial development, to provide enough jobs through the development of industry, to absorb the surplus labor force of agriculture through the development of industry and commerce, and to turn those peasants into citizens."

The consumption of citizens is much higher than that of self-sufficient farmers, who are self-sufficient and self-sufficient, but citizens are completely dependent on the purchase of their living needs, including even the most basic water! Their living consumption will not only drive light industry, but also stimulate the development of the tertiary industry, which in turn will provide more jobs. It's a virtuous cycle.

"And with the continuous migration of people into the cities, it will naturally bring about a new phenomenon, saying that the outflow of people from the countryside will inevitably lead to an increasing number of land concessions, and the time will ......."

Before Zhu Yifeng finished speaking, a piercing mockery sounded in the audience.

"When the time comes, it will naturally be the rich and the poor will have no place to stand! Han Du really deserves to be born as a businessman, and he has a good calculation, hearing that Han Du is so generous, can the gentry of the world serve wholeheartedly......"

(1) Because there is no geographical information on Hubei and Hunan at hand, here we quote a land occupation survey and statistics of Wanghuangge Village, Jiegou Town, Yucheng County, in Shangqiu District Chronicles. (To be continued.) )