"That's a solution......," Zhu Jishi muttered, "but each farmer can only get one chance and only one son, and this decree is only valid for 10 years." It also has to be given a nice name, which is called "The Law of Granting Fields". ”

The meaning of the word is to respect the elder brother, and the meaning of let is to give up the right to inherit the family property, and together it is to grant the land to the younger brother who has given up the right to inherit the family property because of respect for the brother. This law sounds very much in line with Confucian ethics, which lists filial piety and piety as the fundamental conditions for the practice of "benevolence." However, in the name of "悌", it seems that Renjun did not deceive a vote of "good brother" from his parents to the northeast, right?

After listening to the three methods proposed by the great god Engels, Emperor Zhu struck while the iron was hot and recruited the two prime ministers, Zuo Zongtang and Zheng Hong, from Yingtianfu to Chuansha Palace.

"Zuo Xiang, Zheng Xiang, do you think that the three laws, namely the "Equal Grant Law", the "Immigration Relief Law" and the "Law on the Granting of Land", can be promulgated and implemented?"

Zuo Zongtang and Zheng Hong glanced at each other, Zheng Hong of course said what the emperor said, and hurriedly said: "The minister thinks that the three laws are completely feasible, and the "Equal Endowment Law" unifies the collection standard of land taxes between the middle and lower levels, and reduces the tax for most farmers. The "Migrant Relief Law" is also good, and it is better to lure them to the Northeast than to let them move around in disaster years. As for the "Law of Granting Fields", it is a good law that has never been seen in the ages, and it will definitely be praised by all the people. ”

Zhu Jishi nodded, and said in his heart that he was praised by all the people for such a wise emperor's reason, and Zheng Hong was telling the truth.

Zuo Zongtang frowned and thought for a long time before he said, "Your Majesty." The minister thought that after the implementation of the "Equal Allocation Law". It may leave a few fields in the land ......"

Originally, the land was divided into nine levels, from top to bottom. It's very complicated. After Zhu Jishi came to power, he was simplified into three levels, which was convenient for tax collection. Now that the standard for collecting all land taxes is set at the middle and lower levels, it will indeed cause some of the lower fields, lower middle fields, and lower lower fields to be abandoned.

Zhu Jishi also frowned, and before he could speak, Zheng Hong spoke first: "Zuo Xiang, what you said is not true. In fact, the top and bottom of the field are not fixed, if you can accumulate fertilizer and build water conservancy. It is also possible to transform Shimoda into Ueda. According to the original tax collection method, if the land is transformed into a farmland, it is necessary to pay more taxes, and the peasants will not work in vain? In that case, who will pay for the management of the land? In addition, many of the lower fields and lower fields are terraced fields, saline-alkali land, and stone fields that are difficult to plant, and it does not hurt to abandon them. ”

Zuo Zongtang was right when he thought about it, nodded and said: "It seems that the "Equal Grant Law" is still feasible, that is, to make some gentry suffer a small loss. However, the "Immigration Relief Law" and the "Law on the Granting of Land" are somewhat ...... Your Majesty, do we have so many fields? ”

"Yes." Zhu Jishi smiled, "The Northeast is empty, and it is estimated that 800 million mu of land can be reclaimed." Lanfang also has a lot of land, with a total area equivalent to two Guangdongs. If you cultivate it well, there will always be 100 million acres. In addition, there are always two or three hundred million acres of land in Honghe Province, right? ”

In later generations, China's three eastern provinces plus Inner Mongolia in the northeast had a total of nearly 500 million mu of land, and the outer northeast that was ceded out of the northeast was not much developed, and the cultivated land area was about 50 or 60 million mu, and if it was fully developed, 300 million mu of land should be there. Even if calculated on a per capita basis (per peasant, including women and children) of 15 mu, more than 50 million peasants can be resettled, and with the urban population of Northeast China, 75 million people should move to Northeast China to live in the next 30 years, with an average of at least 2 million immigrants per year.

Migration to the South Seas and the Americas would ideally reach this figure. In addition, after the pacification of the northwest and the development of Central Asia in the future, the resettlement project to Xinjiang and Central Asia will also be followed up in a timely manner, and tens of millions of Han Chinese people may move to the northwest and Central Asia in the next 30 years. Considering the natural compound growth of the population, the population of Han China in the next 30 years should be tens of millions less than the current level, maintaining around 350 million people, and with the development of the economy, the urbanization rate will also have a large increase, and it is estimated that 100 million people will leave the countryside and live in the cities. In this way, the rural population will drop to about 250 million, and the per capita cultivated land area of farmers will reach more than 5 mu. Although it is not rich, life should not be as difficult as it is now.

"Zuo Xiang, Zheng Xiang, there is one more thing I want to tell you, the country should have a plan to build a national railway network. The construction plans for the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway, the Beijing-Hanzhou Railway, the Ying-Shanghai Railway, the Tianjin-Pudong Railway, the Beijing-Tianjin Railway, the Beiliao Railway, and the Xuluo Railway should all be finalized as soon as possible. Strive to build a railway network covering major cities in the east and northeast within 15 years, so that the total operating mileage of the Daming Railway will exceed 20,000 miles! ”

The construction of the railway in the Ming Dynasty started very early, as early as after Zhu Jishi seized Guangzhou, which experienced some twists and turns, but now it is generally on the right track, but the pace is not too fast. Because the development of Daming's steel industry has never been able to keep up with the pace of industrialization. Not long ago, Lan Fangxing's Taipan Bei Semai wrote to Zhu Jishi to report the good news - he had found a low-cost way to make steel.

In his letter, Besemer wrote: "My invention is this: if air or oxygen is blown into a sufficient amount of molten iron, then it causes an intense combustion of the liquid metal, and maintains and raises the temperature, so that the metal remains liquid without fuel, and removes (partially) carbon...... To this end, we selected iron ore from India, Qiongzhou, Shaozhou, Liaoyang and other places for testing, and found that some iron ore from India and Liaoyang can obtain high-quality steel after smelting using the oxygen blowing method. And the iron ore in other places can only be made of low-quality steel, and we are looking for the reason. In addition, we counted a converter more than 1 meter high, lined with refractory bricks, and attached a powerful blower, I called it Besemai converter, and carried out a test test, the effect is very good. Therefore, we are planning to build a large-scale steel plant in Liaoyang and use local high-quality iron ore for smelting, which is likely to be the largest and lowest cost plant in the world......"

Emperor Zhu's knowledge of chemistry told him that it was feasible to remove carbon atoms from iron ore by blowing oxygen, but not phosphorus and sulfur, so Besemai's test with iron ore with a high phosphorus and sulfur content would fail. Some of the ore from India and Liaoyang (Nanfen open-pit iron ore) should be high-quality ore with zero phosphorus and sulfur. However, the method of dephosphorization of molten iron is not difficult, and calcium carbonate can be used to dephosphorize molten iron. Emperor Zhu was going to tell Besemai about this principle and let him find a specific solution. It is believed that Daming's steel production will develop by leaps and bounds in the next ten years, and the supply of high-quality rails will also increase significantly. So it's time to start building the railroad on a big scale.

"In addition to railways, the construction of official roads should also be accelerated, and hard roads should be used in places where conditions permit, and strive to form a transportation network with railways as the backbone and official roads and waterways as branch lines, covering all provinces in the northeast and east."

Emperor Zhu had certainly heard of the principle of building roads before making a fortune, and the large migration in the plan also needed to be coordinated by the transportation network.

In this era, Chinese mainland transportation mainly relied on water transportation, so in areas with dense water networks or along rivers and seas, industry and commerce were often more developed, and now the provinces with more immigrants are also coastal and riverside provinces. For example, Shandong and Beizhi in the north, five provinces along the Yangtze River in the south and Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces.

As for the official roads, although they are also densely spread throughout the country, the volume of transportation is not large, and they are mainly used for military mobilization. Now Zhu Jishi plans to spend decades building a network of railways and roads linked to the waterway network, connecting the eastern and northeastern regions of China. This will not only facilitate the movement of people, but also promote the circulation of goods, which should also be extremely beneficial to the formation of a unified market.

However, when he thought of the time it would take to achieve this goal, Emperor Zhu couldn't help but sigh: I really don't know if I can see the day when the Ming Empire will build a beautiful home for imperialism! It's no wonder that Taizu of a certain dynasty wants to make a big leap, and probably can't wait to slowly farm the land, right? Think about a bunch of feudal bureaucrats who always drop their chains, this ruling the world is really more difficult than fighting the world! (To be continued......)