In the 200 years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, land annexation and population growth have become two major problems that seriously threaten national security, and the development of colonies and industry and commerce has been proven to be an effective way to alleviate domestic land pressure and population pressure. Even the nostalgia of the happy land will not affect the conservative people to work in the city, and the more ambitious will choose to "move to Luzon and start a new life."

However, in the beginning, the transfer was extremely difficult, and the Chinese people regarded Luzon Island, which was far away from the ocean, as hell, and no one wanted to sign up. In response to the pressure from silence, the provinces transported prisoners from prisons to Luzon to fill the numbers.

This certainly gave the prisoners a chance to mend their ways, and without a strong leader, Luzon could well turn into a vast devil's island. This person was Shen Jing, the governor of Luzon, although when he found out that he had been deceived by Shen Mu, there were no beautiful women in Luzon at all, only groups of prisoners from all provinces, and he must have been in a very bad mood.

However, the reason why Shen Mo asked him to be the governor was that he always came up with a way to solve seemingly unsolvable problems. After some observation, Shen Jing found that more than half of the prisoners were actually honest farmers who had been arrested for tax arrears.

In his view, Luzon is not only a place of imprisonment, but also a land of redemption. He believed that under his moderate rule, prisoners would also be transformed into law-abiding subjects.

As a result, Shen Jing announced that all those who had been released from prison could register as ordinary immigrants in the Governor's Mansion and enjoy land rights. The prospect of good performance, which can be exchanged for freedom, and even a better future, is the most effective way to get these prisoners to change their minds...... In the beginning, of course, the life of a prisoner was not much better than that of a slave. They were forced to work for the Doge's Palace, or were assigned to more and more Si landlords. But when they were released from prison, they were free to sell their labor to the highest bidder, or to become landlords themselves. In fact, those who survived to serve their sentences were given a chance to live again, and these people became ardent adherents of the Doge's Palace.

Of course, not every prisoner can be redeemed in the way of Shen Jing. For these stubborn re-offenders, Shen Jing's answer is to let him disappear from this world...... There are many ways to execute the death penalty in the Governor's Palace, and there is no need to go through the Criminal Department in Beijing, and people can be executed anytime and anywhere, so as long as anyone commits another crime, he will be killed in a different place within a few days.

As time passed, more and more propaganda and evidence made the native people understand Luzon and believe in the prospects of immigration. As of the end of the eighth year of Wanli, the number of immigrants registered in the Luzon Governor's Mansion has reached 987,437, and the number will increase by nearly 50,000 per year. Combined with the birth of the second generation, the most optimistic estimate is that in three years, the population of Luzon will increase by 100,000 per year, and it will increase year after year, eventually reaching 10 million within 20 years.

This virtually solved a problem that plagued all the colonies, that is, the shortage of laborers in the fertile land, without hard work, could not be exchanged for a harvest. In particular, crops such as sugarcane, tobacco and rice are labor-intensive, and without a large number of people, there will be no large-scale cultivation. In the colonies, European countries used black slaves and indigenous slave labor to solve the problem, which was obviously inefficient, and harmful to the peace of nature, and it was unacceptable and unpopularized for the Ming people who took benevolence as the spiritual core.

Fortunately, its large population was enough to provide the labor needed by the colony.

As the population of Luzon grew, the Chinese themselves had replaced the slaves and natives as the main force of construction and development - with the exception of dangerous industrial and mining industries.

As the wave of immigration to Luzon grew, so did the problem that everyone wanted to occupy as large and geographically advantaged wasteland as possible, but such wasteland was clearly a scarce resource, and so a struggle was inevitable. In particular, later immigrants often moved from one to two hundred people, and most of the early immigrants came from one family to another, or even alone. First-come, first-served, occupying the best and largest land, like Chen's family, with only eight people, owns more than 5,000 acres of arable land. This obviously caused the eyes of the latecomers, so there was a case of new immigrants expelling old immigrants and appropriating their estates for themselves, and it intensified, eventually triggering the great immigration rebellion in the first year of Wanli.

Fortunately, the population was not very large at that time, and with Zheng Ruozeng and Shen Jing in charge, they quickly mobilized their troops, quelled the rebellion, and used thunderous means to execute all the murderers and forcibly execute them, and exiled the participants to Mindanao, where they were well entertained by the indigenous people who hated the Chinese.

Reflecting on this turmoil, the two agreed that the current first-come, first-served land policy was no longer suitable for the rate of population growth, and after some discussion, and reported to Beijing for the silent consent, the two announced three regulations, which are also regarded as the key to the healthy development of Luzon in the future, and the key to Qiang's hope: first, the property of the Si is sacrosanct, and any land and residence that has been registered with the government will be protected by the Southeast Governor's Office, and anyone who dares to infringe on the property of others will be punished with heavy punishment.

Second, from the date of promulgation of the regulations, the original land regulations shall be abolished, and all unclaimed land shall be uniformly allocated by the Governor's Office, and no individual shall be allowed to reclaim the land by himself.

Thirdly, all immigrants who have not been allocated land must submit to the unified arrangement of the Governor's Office, otherwise they will be deemed to have renounced their land rights.

The promulgation of the three laws naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of the new immigrants, and many even threatened to return, in response to which the Governor's Palace declared that they were free to come and go. But the immigrants just can't survive in the country, so they have arrived here with great difficulty, how can they give up before their hopes are completely shattered? So in the end, very few actually went back.

Taking back the power to distribute land is only the first step, and the bigger test is how to divide the cake and put an end to the cancer of narrow clan concepts. Shen Jing adopted a two-pronged approach, first through a large number of surveys, as far as possible to divide the land to be reclaimed into large farms, for the geographical location is slightly worse, in the area to make more compensation, as far as possible to achieve the same difference in each farm. However, each farm was allocated a thousand dings, and each dingkou divided the land of the farm equally, so that about three or four hundred families were allocated to one farm.

The land on the farm is collectively owned by all families, and each family is given a certain percentage of the land according to the Dingkou. For the land under the name, the individual can cultivate it in perpetuity, but he does not have the right to buy and sell, and can only circulate within the farm on a rental basis. If you want to rent or sell, you need to get the consent of the farm collective.

At the same time, in the process of allocating land by family, the big clans who moved to the north and south were deliberately divided into the north and south, so that they could not join together to oppress others. He also paid great attention to the place of origin of the immigrants on each farm, mixing people from the provinces as much as possible and eliminating the sense of place.

At the same time as the original organization was dissolved, a new organization must be established, otherwise it would inevitably become a mess, and the farm would have no meaning of existence. According to Shen Mo's instructions, Shen Jing implemented the village chief election system in the farm. Any adult villager who aspires to become a village chief can participate in the election, and the winner of two rounds of universal suffrage will serve as village chief for the next three years.

The village chief has great power to deal with disputes between villagers, decide on the cultivation plan for the coming year, negotiate with Nanyang Company on behalf of the village, coordinate production and operation, distribute surplus profits, etc. However, more than 10 villagers can propose the removal of the village chief, and if more than half of the votes agree, the recall will be successful and the election will be reconvened.

A series of unheard of new policies such as 1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 He apparently used Luzon as a testing ground to test whether his theories could be applied to his countrymen. In addition to looking at the actual results of immigration, Shen Mo's field research this time is more important to accept the political practice that has been carried out here for ten years.

The result was unexpectedly good, and the biggest concern before Shen Mo was whether the quality of the people would become a shackle to democracy, but he was obviously over-concerned...... Indeed, in the first few years, there was a widespread phenomenon among the people who were greedy for profit and sold their votes cheaply, and the phenomenon of spending money to buy votes was very serious.

Those who spent a huge amount of money to become the village chief will naturally get back the money and profits during their tenure, but in those years, chaos has been rampant, and it is not uncommon for the village chief to use his power to seek power and wantonly embezzle collective interests, and the people are scolded. Even Shen Jing lamented in a letter to Shen Mo that there was no hope for the bullshit election system, and that it would be much better if he had let himself appoint the village head.

I confessed to being a wise ruler, and according to that system, Luzon must have developed faster than it is now. But can he guarantee that he will work in Luzon for the rest of his life? What if the successor is a fool? It is better to give the election some patience, as long as it can be on the right track, no matter who will be the governor in the future, it will not be able to toss Luzon back.

Shen Jing naturally had to grit his teeth and endure it, the situation really improved after four years of Wanli, with the lessons of the previous election, the villagers made a more rational choice, and no longer voted indiscriminately for the immediate profits, they had to choose the village chief who they thought was the most suitable. And the village chiefs finally felt the power of the tight spell of the election, and if they did not do a good job during the three-year term, they would be abandoned by the villagers. Next year is another election year, and all the village chiefs are working hard and desperately to get a few more votes.

After dinner, it was dark outside, and the village chief took the village warrior to patrol the sugarcane fields, not only to prevent the natives from destroying them, but also to prevent wild boars from spoiling the crops.

Shen Mo was in the four-story guest room cleaned up by the village chief, looking at the distant fire dragon through the window, and a satisfied smile hung on the corner of his mouth. It wasn't until it was pitch black that he sat back down at his desk and began to write his investigative notes on the oil lamp: "The experiment in universal suffrage in Luzon was unexpectedly successful, and people only need some time to familiarize themselves with their powers, and they will seriously exercise their right to vote." However, it is in Luzon after all, the people are immigrants, there are no traditional fetters, and there is a strong authority to implement it, so it is so malleable. If it is changed to the mainland, even if there is a tradition that the imperial power does not go to the countryside, the people cannot disobey the clan in spirit, and they must depend on the big families in their lives, which will make any democracy a formality. This kind of bottom-up democracy does not seem to be suitable for the local people, and for the local people, it seems that they can only adopt a top-down approach, which is destructive, has low difficulty, and has the disadvantage of being incomplete and easy to repeat. Along the way, it was a joyful new atmosphere, but Shen wrote such depressing words. Fortunately, he turned his pen and said: "In a new territory like Luzon, universal suffrage should be unswervingly continued, and three levels of elections should be held immediately, and a three-level council should be established -- each village should elect a director representing its own village and join the county council: each county council should elect a prefectural council, and a prefectural council should be established, and a prefectural council should be elected. Each level of the council has the right to question, propose, demand financial disclosure, negotiate taxation and other rights to the government agencies at the same level, and is responsible for opposing tyranny and protecting the people. If this system is successful, it may be transmitted back to the country, leading to an awakening of people's awareness of rights.

But I hope it won't be too big, just like before, the conditions in all aspects are too bad" After writing a long report, I don't know when it started to rain outside, and I was a little worried about those who went out on patrol, but I was a little envious of them, at least they knew where their homes were, and even if they couldn't see their fingers, they wouldn't lose their way. But where is the path you are looking for? Whether it will be lost in the night or not, it is unknown.

But he can't go wrong because there are still so many people waiting for him to show the way, looking forward to a bright future

……，

The next morning, after the rain had cleared, Shen Mo saw the village chief again, and learned that they had returned peacefully the previous night, and before breakfast, he was invited to visit the sugar cane grove of the farm and the newly built sugar factory. The village chief is very proud of this workshop, which can not only save 90% of the transportation cost, but also make a lot more money than simply selling sugarcane. The village chief kept the details of how much, but it was clear from his excited face that at least there was no need to worry about next year's election.

After a hearty breakfast, or an early lunch, and leaving two gold bars, the procession left the enclosure and did not go further east, but to the north, where they joined Zheng Ruozeng and Shen Jing, who were waiting in the city of Zhujiang