What Zhou Shixiang wants to solve is the problem of food shortage, and if Wang Shirong's method is adopted, he will naturally not allow silver to replace grain. However www.biquge.info if the method of opening up the Chinese is adopted in its entirety, another problem will arise -- although the cost of taking out part of the land in hand to grow grain is less than that of those merchants in the early Ming Dynasty who transported grain to the border gates, it is also an extremely laborious and manpower matter. This would have reduced the profits of the merchants, who had huge profits overseas, but the bulk of it was not in their hands, but in the hands of the Zheng family and other Western merchants in Jinxia. In order to reduce their losses, they have only two options, either to raise the price of goods or to reduce the cost of acquisition.

It is basically impossible to raise the price of goods only now, because the sea route is controlled by the Zheng family, and the Zheng family needs huge sea trade interests to support the army, and it is impossible to give up the pricing power to the merchants. In the words of Zhou Shixiang's previous life, the distribution channel is held in the hands of others, and it is not up to the producer to say what price to sell. If the merchants forcibly raise the price and the Zheng family no longer purchases, then no matter how many goods they have, they can only be smashed in the hands of the merchants themselves, after all, they have no possibility of selling the goods to two. Obviously, profit-seeking merchants will only drive down the cost of acquisition, and in that case, the losses will only end up on the workers in the workshops, the farmers who grow mulberry and silkworms.

The Ming Dynasty drove away the Qing Dynasty, how to toss the gentry and lords, ordinary people may not be able to care, but if they really want to damage their interests, so that they can't even solve the problem of food and clothing, then the problem will return to the old way.

After all, Jiang Guozhu had been a feudal official for so many years before he surrendered, and he saw things more clearly. In his reply, he clearly pointed out that the natural and man-made disasters since Wanli have caused the Central Plains, Huguang, and Northwest China to be ruined, and it can be said that there is no self-sufficiency at all, and the local people are almost living on the death line. In the 17 years since the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, on the one hand, because of the large-scale massacre of the Qing army, and on the other hand, because of the competition between the Ming and Qing dynasties in the south, grain production in the south has almost come to a standstill, and the population of the four provinces of Liangguang and Yunnan and Guizhou is probably not 5 million. As a result, there are many places where there is a large amount of empty land, but no one cultivates it, so the method adopted by the previous dynasties to recruit displaced people and restore production is not enough to solve the problem at present.

There must be displaced people, and there is no shortage of people who have fled to the mountains to live in seclusion in order to avoid military disasters, but the problem is that there are few people in this group after all, and it can be regarded as the top of the sky if they can collect 100,000 people. The key to solving the problem is still people, so under the premise of a large number of people dying, there is actually only one choice to completely solve the problem of food shortage, and that is to reproduce the population. With a sufficient population, production will naturally recover, and as long as the imperial court does nothing at this time, it will naturally be a prosperous era after twenty or thirty years. And this, obviously, will take time. Therefore, the recruitment of displaced people can only be used as a means of resuming food production, not as the main means.

Jiang Guozhu served as the governor of Jiangning for several years, and he knew more about the situation in Jiangnan than anyone else. Although Jiangnan has always been known as the wealth of the Qing court, in fact, grain can only achieve self-sufficiency. At that time, the Qing court's three-way army entered Yunnan and Guizhou, and the grain allocated from Jiangnan was extremely limited, mainly to provide the Qing army with a large amount of silver and some baggage. When Hong Chengchou was in Yunnan, he wrote to the Qing court to euphemistically point out that the Qing army indiscriminately slaughtered and slaughtered cities in Yunnan and Guizhou, plundering money and grain, and the main reason behind this was actually because the grain and grass in the south of the Yangtze River were insufficient to support the use of the Qing army, so that the Qing army had to burn and loot in the occupied areas. Through the plundering of the local area, it is also the basic policy set by the Qing army for more than ten years, even before entering the customs, in the words of the book, "eat the enemy". When all the enemies are killed and there are fewer people, then things will be simple, and a decree will be exempted from taxes for a few years, and the place will slowly recover.

The reason for the lack of grain in Jiangnan is that the pay and harvest are not equal.

The income from growing grain cannot catch up with the income from growing cash crops, and the people will naturally choose the latter. The fall in the price of textiles will make them unable to buy food, but they will certainly not blame the merchants who have lowered the purchase price, but will blame the Taiping army. There is never a shortage of rumors in this world, and there is no shortage of instigators behind it, the government has always asked the people to abandon cash crops and plant grain, the people are unwilling, and suddenly the price of textiles plummets, it is not the fault of the government but also the fault of the government, not to mention, this is the fault of the government.

The method proposed by Jiang Guozhu is to subsidize grain, and through high subsidies, the people's income from growing grain is not lower than that, or it is not worse than planting cotton and mulberry, so as to encourage the people to grow grain voluntarily. However, this practice can only be done in the short term, not for a long time, and can only be limited to one or several prefectures, and cannot be implemented throughout the country. The reason is very simple, even if a large amount of wealth has been amassed through cases such as debt settlement and Tonghai, Zhou Shixiang's bank treasury cannot withstand such subsidies that cost money like water.

Jiang Guozhu believed that this part of the money for grain subsidies should be passed on to the merchants, and that the government should come forward to set up a General Textile Administration similar to the General Administration of Salt Affairs, stipulating that all workshops must accept the unified management of the General Textile Administration, and then control the circulation of textiles, and set up card franchises in Jinshanwei and other ports.

This method, combined with Wang Shirong's method, amounted to two layers of skin on the heads of the merchants and workshop owners engaged in the textile industry, neither of whom considered that the merchants would pass on the losses to the peasants. In essence, the solution proposed by the two is to emphasize agriculture and suppress business.

Zhou Shixiang now wants to have both fish and bear's paws, so after thinking about it, there is only one way to make the people willing to grow grain, and to enable the businessmen to bear the losses of the "opening of the Chinese law", which is to raise the price of goods. In this way, there is only one solution, and that is to control the sea route in your hands.

Zhou Shixiang can now subsidize farmers for one or two years, or even three or four years, as long as the grain output in Jiangnan is stable, the effort in the past few years is worth it. However, how many people and provinces are there in the whole of North China, and how much grain and grass will be needed to recover from the customs in the future. Wherever the banner of the Taiping Army goes, like the Qing Army, slaughter the hungry people first.

Like the Zheng family's sailors, controlling the sea route became a reason for Zhou Shixiang to rush to solve Jinxia.

The method proposed by Zhang Changgeng was to build water conservancy, introduce improved seeds, reduce rents and interest for tenants, and distribute the fields of landlords who fled north to landless peasants. The construction of water conservancy is a matter of curing the root cause and benefiting the future generations, but it cannot be done overnight. Zhou Shixiang has also been working on the introduction of improved varieties and high-yield crops, but there has been no news about sweet potato seeds from Guangdong.

In fact, Zhou Shi is not enthusiastic about the introduction of sweet potatoes, in his opinion, what he wants to do is to let the surviving Han compatriots eat rice and noodles, rather than what sweet potatoes fill their stomachs, so that people come and go are all "dishes". Corn is also a high-yielding crop, and it is suitable for large-scale cultivation in the north, so Zhou Shixiang specially instructed Guangdong to look for it from overseas.

In the end, Zhou Shixiang decided to set up the General Textile Bureau, which would have unified jurisdiction over the weavers and operators in Songjiang and other areas, and implement a parallel "license system" to force merchants and ordinary people engaged in the textile industry to pay grain to the government; At the same time, subsidies for farming will be implemented to encourage farmers to grow grain, and those who are outstanding will be rewarded, exempted from taxes or rewarded. At the same time, trade routes were investigated, and customs were set up at ports to collect taxes. In addition, the local debt settlement divisions were transformed into formal yamen, which took over the affairs of the former prefecture and county officials, promoted the establishment of villages and townships, integrated the rural areas, and improved production efficiency. In addition, the "grain stamp" system was implemented in Jiangnan to reduce the flow of gold and silver, so that "grain stamps" became the only legal tender in circulation.

It is imminent to start the Zheng family in Fujian, and Zhou Shixiang is waiting for the good news from Fuzhou. As soon as Fuzhou was played, the Taiping army of the four towns immediately rushed to Jinxia, forcing Zheng Sen to come to the court, and Zheng Jing surrendered.