Although Rong Hong, Huang Kuan, and Li Hezhang also participated in the autumn harvest activities, they were not the ones who took care of the crops after all, so like everyone else, they made a show, and after having a handful of fun, they quickly stopped because of fatigue and continued to wander around.

Take a dip in hot springs, taste delicious food, make new friends, and chat with Kandashan...... Rong Hong, like other people who came to the manor, regarded the three-day free activity as a vacation, and as for the actual harvesting of rice, it was natural for professional farmers to do it.

In this way, three days passed in a flash, and Rong Hong and the others came to the threshing floor at the designated place on time to gather, which was the place where the meeting was to be held.

The person presiding over this rally was indeed Li Yongji's brother Li Yongchang, and I saw that he was wearing a pony coat, with a small flat head, holding a megaphone, and reading aloud on a piece of paper on a wooden platform.

Although Li Yongchang himself has no oratorical talent, and what he says is very plain, the content is very moving, because he didn't say anything else when he came up, but only talked about the actual harvest of 1,000 mu of experimental fields.

According to Li Yongchang's words, after three days of intense harvesting and repeated calculations, the 1,000 mu experimental field of Li's Manor has harvested a total of 762,000 kilograms of rice, with an average yield of 762 kilograms per mu.

The yield per mu is 1,300 catties, what is the concept? Nowadays, one acre of the best watered land, even if the wind and rain are smooth, and the best year is encountered, the yield per mu is only about 300 to 400 catties, and the highest will not be 500 catties, normally speaking, the yield per mu is 250 catties.

Now it's good, next year's situation will be average, and the yield per mu will reach 1,300 catties, which is four or five times that of the ordinary harvest. It is equivalent to one acre of land as four acres of land, whether it is knowledgeable or not, they are shocked by this number.

In fact, they have personally seen the rice fields before, and they have also harvested them personally, and they basically know that this time it must be a high yield, but they estimated that the yield per mu is six or seven hundred catties, and they never thought that they could produce more than 1,000 catties per mu, which has broken their inherent concept of growing grain.

Sure enough, it didn't take long for everyone to question the number. The scene immediately became chaotic, but fortunately, Li Yongchang had expected this, and soon shouted loudly to everyone to be quiet, and at the same time, a group of guards with guns appeared around, and everyone was quiet again.

"I know you have doubts, but it's easy to dispel because facts speak louder than words." Xu Yongchang proudly continued on the stage, "Actually, you have actually participated in the rice harvesting activities before. I think I also have an intuitive understanding, but at that time, it was a large-scale harvest, and there was no detailed calculation. It just so happened that we still left three acres of land in our field at random. These three acres of land are not connected, but scattered in different places, and everyone can re-join them to be accepted on the edge again. ”

After speaking, Li Yongchang pointed to a lonely acre of rice field in the distance: "That's one." You can go down to the ground yourself, or you don't have to go down to the ground, but you only supervise from the side. From harvesting to weighing, you can supervise the whole process, and even verify it yourself. In addition, although the rice harvested before has been harvested, the straw in the field is still there, and you can count it yourself. ”

After a pause, Li Yongchang continued: "In fact, even if you don't go to re-harvest, it is very simple to verify this number, just count the number of straws in an acre of field, and then calculate the weight of the ears of a single rice, it is easy to get a more accurate yield per mu, don't you say?" ”

As soon as Xu Yongchang's voice fell, there was a lot of discussion at the bottom, and it seemed that he recognized this statement very much, but there were still many people who wanted to verify it in person again.

Next, Xu Yongchang waved his hand and let them move freely, and those who were willing to deliberately leave the three acres of land that had not been harvested to supervise continued to go, and those who already believed in it, or those who were not willing to go, stayed and continued to chat, which still seemed very casual.

The trio of Rong Hong, Huang Kuan, and Li Hezhang gathered again, and instead of re-supervising the harvest of the three acres of land, they checked the ears of rice that had not yet been threshed and detasseled.

All the ears of rice are heavy and full, randomly select a bundle and weigh it slightly, and then slightly calculate the number of straws in the field, and the yield per mu is basically the same.

In fact, if it is calculated purely according to the weight of the rice ears and the number of straws in the field, then the production capacity per mu is more than 1,500 catties.

After another busy day, in the evening, after repeated confirmation and calculation, everyone was really convinced that this place was really 1,300 catties per mu.

After confirming the yield per mu, everyone witnessed the process of de-earing and shelling, and finally everyone tasted the new rice that had just been beaten down and shelled by the machine.

Although Y Liangyou 900 is said to have an average taste, it refers to the comparison with those high-quality fragrant rice in modern society, in fact, the nutritional value and taste of this rice are also quite good, much better than many rice in the Qing Dynasty, plus it is a new rice, and there is no polishing operation, and the rice oil is not squeezed in advance, so everyone who has eaten it is amazed.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Li Yongchang threw out Li Yongji's plan to increase agricultural production by dividing agricultural areas, setting up agricultural companies, contracting the reemployment method, and forcibly planting high-yield rice.

According to Li Yongchang, the Li Group will set up a special Nongxing Group, which will be a large joint-stock agricultural company, of which Li Yongji himself will only hold 31 percent of the shares, Jingwujun will hold 20 percent of the shares, and the other 49 percent will be open to the public for public offering.

The initial issuance of Nongxing Group's public offering is 49 million shares, and the internal issue price is one or two silver per share, and the internal offering time is three months, that is, by the end of the year, if the 49 million shares are not completely sold, then the unsold part will automatically return to Li Yongji's private ownership.

Regardless of the situation of the IPO, in the spring of next year, Nongxing Group will carry out a new agricultural cooperation plan in Shanghai, which is formerly Songjiang Prefecture, and try to plant this high-yield rice.

The preliminary plan of Nongxing Group is to plant one million acres of experimental fields at one time, and all of them will be watered near the river and lake. The situation of those irrigated fields is not much different from that of this 1,000-mu experimental field, and there are even many places where the conditions are better than this 1,000-mu experimental field.

Any person who resists this agricultural cooperation plan and refuses to sell his land within the scope of this million-mu experimental zone, that is, does not lease his land or sells his land for stocks, will be regarded as opposing the new government, opposing the Jingwu Army, and opposing Li Yongji. Reactionaries against the common people of Jiangnan.

The nascent Jiangnan military government was not soft on such reactionaries, forcibly recovering land at the least, and exterminating their families at the worst. On the contrary, anyone who voluntarily joins the scheme, especially those who voluntarily surrender their land for shares in the company, will be given various incentives and benefits, such as tax exemptions and low-interest loans. Priority will be given to children to go to school for free, as well as places to participate in the elite army.

In fact, with the exemplary role of this 1,000-mu experimental field, the promotion of high-yield rice does not need to be so troublesome, that is. The so-called 1 million mu large-scale experimental area, planting high-yield rice is only one of the purposes, and the main purpose is to test the new agricultural system.

In the past, due to the tax system of apportionment and the government's suppression of large landlords. In terms of land system, the landlord system is still dominated by a small-scale peasant economy, of which small and medium-sized landlords are the majority, and the largest landlord has only a hundred thousand mu of land. Those super big landlords who have 500,000 mu, or even 1 million mu, are basically not seen, and even if they do, they are just the territories of some Manchu princes outside the Guan, and they are basically wasteland.

Moreover, in the past, these big landlords often simply contracted land to tenant farmers, whether it was the means of production or what was planted on the land, basically the tenant farmers themselves had the final say, and the landlords did not provide the means of production, nor did they plan how to farm the land, but mostly went to the tenant farmers to collect silver rent from the tenant farmers on a regular basis according to the contract, that is, in the past, the tenant farmers had to sell their grain for silver first, and then pay taxes to the landlords.

This method is obviously not conducive to large-scale agricultural production, and what Li Yongji is doing now is to experiment with this new large-scale cultivation with high-yield rice. It's just that the handwriting is a bit big, and a million acres of experimental fields came all of a sudden, and at the same time, the means are also crude, talking about forcible promotion.

Of course, as far as the actual content is concerned, the attraction of the policy of the Nongxing Company to the vast number of small and medium-sized yeoman farmers and even tenant farmers is very strong, and the most that hinders the implementation of this policy are some big landlords, and these small number of people are conservative and stubborn, and the political tendency is more inclined to the Qing government, and if they oppose it, it is also beneficial to forcibly get rid of it, and everyone is basically happy to hear about it.

Originally, Li Yongji could do it himself, after all, he was not short of money, and the reason why he still set up a joint-stock system was actually the main purpose of attracting more people to come in and forming an alliance of interests. In this way, he can attract more vested interests, and if there is any resentment, more people will share it, and of course, it will be more economical to do so.

It is precisely in order to increase the attractiveness of Nongxing Company, and the cultivation of high-yield rice also has a certain technical content, which requires technicians to guide production, so Li Yongji decided to plant only for Nongxing Group for the time being, and plant one million mu of high-yield hybrid rice.

Later, when the large-scale planting system of this agricultural company matures and the technology of planting high-yield rice is more mature, he will promote high-yield hybrid rice and the agricultural company system on a larger scale.

In other words, this kind of large-scale agricultural corporation cultivation is not the only agricultural system in the future, it is just a system, and other cultivation such as the landlord system will continue to be retained, but a maximum rent will be stipulated, a low rent system will be implemented, and other landlords can also grow high-yield crops.

The purpose of this is naturally to ensure the practice of private ownership of land, and Li Yongji has no intention of practicing public ownership of land, but wants to continue to play with private ownership of land, especially to establish a land system in the future generations of the United States.

In Li Yongji's view, such a system of private land ownership can stimulate the subjective initiative of the common people, and there will be fewer obstacles to its implementation, and at the same time it will be more beneficial to himself, after all, Li Yongji will definitely have a vested interest in this kind of private land ownership in the future.

Although Nongxing Company is going to be a public offering, but the treatment of knowing first and knowing later, it is far from the same, and it is obvious that the people who participated in this autumn harvest celebration this time are the first people to know the news, and they are also given an opportunity to buy the shares of Nongxing Company first.

According to Li Yongchang, the 49 million shares issued to the public are currently internal stocks, and the company's annual dividends in the future will be based on this number of shares, and this kind of stock can also be freely exchanged, that is, if you are short of money. It can be sold directly, to others, or to CITIC Money.

For this kind of internal stocks, CITIC Money is open, but the purchase price is still one or two, and it also accepts the mortgage of this kind of stock, which means that the stock can not only pay dividends every year, but also can be used as money, which can be said to dispel your last concerns.

If we talk about high-yield rice and the issuance of shares by Nongxing Company, it can be regarded as a financial temptation for everyone attending the meeting. Then the next draft of the new government is a more real temptation of power.

After talking about high-yield rice and the Nongxing Company, while everyone was discussing, Li Yongchang threw out a draft of the new government, which means that everyone is ready to discuss a draft of the new government, and then he will hand over the draft to Li Yongji. In other words, the result of this discussion will most likely be the system of the new dynasty.

In order to let everyone have a tone for discussion and not talk nonsense, Li Yongchang first threw bricks and stones. It was clearly stated that Li Yongji did not want to be the emperor at present, so don't discuss the imperial system or anything yet, and talk about it later, let's discuss more realistic issues first. That is, to first determine the system of government.

Li Yongchang also threw out a framework for the government system, that is, within the scope of Jingwu military control, it is within the jurisdiction of the Jiangnan Military Government. The Jiangnan Military Government will set up three parallel institutions, namely the Government Affairs Yuan, the Court, and the Council of Representatives, to implement the separation of powers.

In short, the Government Council is in charge of administration. For example, tax collection, public security, local construction, etc., are all the responsibility of the Government Council, and the local municipal governments and county governments are also directly under the jurisdiction of the Executive Yuan.

The Government Council is basically transformed from the original Jiangnan State Administration for Industry and Commerce, which is regarded as the government cabinet, the supreme head is called the prime minister, and the post of prime minister is completely appointed by Li Yongji, and then the prime minister forms a cabinet to prepare for the establishment of his own government team, and the current first prime minister is Li Yongchang.

As for mayors and county magistrates at all levels, they remain the same, but mayors and county magistrates have terms of office for five years, up to two consecutive terms, and they must be re-elected as soon as the term expires, and the new people elected must also be approved by the Government Council before they can officially take office.

In other words, below the city and county level, it is still a system that combines local elections and appointments by the Government Council, which can be regarded as a limited election system, but above mayors, provincial and ministerial-level officials are completely appointed and no longer elected.

The court system is an independent system, and the trial of cases is not subject to the constraints of the local government, and is directly responsible to Li Yongji.

The House of Representatives is the place where legislation is enacted, and it also supervises the implementation of the policies of the Executive Yuan and the adjudication of cases by the courts.

The House of Representatives is divided into the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and the members of the House of Lords are all personally appointed by Li Yongji, which is the real organ of power, and all legislation is decided by the House of Lords, and at the same time, it can also supervise the operation of the government and the courts.

The first speaker of the House of Lords was Li Zhengxiang, and the other members of the House of Lords are basically internal members of the Li family and the Wang family, such as Wang Tianzhong, Lin Guangyao and others, so this House of Lords can be said to be the family house of the Li family.

The lower house refers to the local councils at the city and county level, the members of the council are elected by the local government, and then approved by the upper house before they can take office, and the local councillors only have the right to supervise and make suggestions, and have no legislative power.

Although there is a separation of powers, in fact, there is a Li Yongji at the top, whether it is the Government Council, the court or the House of Representatives, they must be under Li Yongji, so in fact, it is still a Li Yongji-style dictatorship, the so-called separation of powers, but it looks beautiful, and the division of power can make it easier for government departments to hold together, and it is more convenient for Li Yongji's rule.

In fact, if you change Li Yongji to the emperor and the parliament to parliament, it is a proper dual monarchy.

That is to say, the government is responsible to the emperor, and the parliament exercises legislative power, but the emperor can veto it with one vote, and the court operates independently, but it is responsible to the emperor, and the emperor still has a vote for or veto, plus Li Yongji is still the supreme leader of the army, it can be said that the military and government are grasped, and the legislation and supervision have the final say, what is not dictatorship?

Still, to the majority of the participants, the system was quite enlightened, and even Rong Hong and Huang Kuan, two people who had been poisoned by Western ideas, cheered at the time, believing that this was a victory for democracy.

In fact, the reason why Li Yongji is like this is not that he is so open-minded, but that he is only familiar with this kind of system. In addition, this system is also more conducive to the governance of businessmen, which can save more trouble.

After all, up to now, the scholars and the old bureaucrats in the Jiangnan area have still been lukewarm to Li Yongji, and the scholars are okay, and some people have begun to cling to them, but most of the old bureaucrats are the ones whose interests are damaged, so they are temporarily dormant and practice a non-violent and non-cooperative posture. I can't play that way.

With the loss of so many experienced old bureaucrats, it is obviously not appropriate to play the old one, so it is better to play the new bureaucracy directly.

In other words, after such a preparatory discussion of the Jiangnan Military Government, it shows that Li Yongji officially intends to establish local political power and has the ambition to compete for the world, which is equivalent to reassuring those businessmen who saw the opportunity and used money to occupy various official positions in the local government, such as Yang Fang, who is currently the mayor of Shanghai. Now it's completely reassuring.

In the past, what county magistrate and mayor, because there was no positive response from Li Yongji, everyone called it awkward. I also feel that it is not safe, it is more for speculation, and the stability of the place depends on the elite army and the police force, but now it has been officially confirmed by Li Yongji. Then the effect is different.

In other words, from now on, it will be in charge of the administration of the Gangnam region. It is no longer the strange place of the Jiangnan State Administration for Industry and Commerce, but it is officially handed over to the Jiangnan Military Government to be responsible, and the bureaucratic system of the local government is officially established.

According to what a certain county magistrate said privately at the meeting, in the past, spending money to be a county magistrate was called spending money to buy a name and hand over a name, and there was no return on pure investment, but now I can finally see the cash.

When Li Yongchang said these words, he actually gave everyone a reassurance, and he didn't expect everyone to really discuss anything, and the real legislative discussion had already been discussed internally.

For example, now, after Li Yongchang finished saying that he had formally established the Jiangnan Military Government, he immediately promulgated the first new regulation in his capacity as the prime minister of the Jiangnan Military Government, that is, to officially start collecting land taxes, and from next month, the number of acres of land in all the areas under the control of the Jiangnan Military Government will be re-measured.

The new land tax basically continued the Qing Dynasty's land and silver policy, which was only collected according to the amount of land and the quality of the land, and did not collect a poll tax, but the amount collected was slightly less than that of the Qing Dynasty.

The first batch of land taxes was set for mid-October, and the land tax was levied on the basis of the records of the original county government yamen, and after the new government had re-measured the number jù, the land tax was levied according to the new number.

Due to the shortage of manpower, the first batch of areas that began to measure the land was the million-mu agricultural experimental area run by the Nongxing Company, in order to give priority to ensuring the cultivation of high-yield rice, and then measure other places after the area was re-measured.

You must know that the experimental area of the Nongxing Company is actually a place drawn by Li Yongji according to the map, and one million mu was also determined by himself, and it is not clear how many landlords are actually involved in that piece of land, so it is necessary to give priority to starting to measure the land there.

That is to say, according to estimates, if the entire Jiangsu region wants to re-measure the land, it will take at least three or five years, but this is all calculated, and there must be a first and a second during the period. During this period, the land tax is still levied according to the old way if the land tax is not re-measured, and once all the measurements of an area are completed, the land tax will be levied in the new number from the next month.

Measuring land is undoubtedly one of the things that landlords are most afraid of, after all, the matter of privately clearing land and concealing land has long been not news, but an open secret, especially those big landlords, and the concealed land is sometimes one or two times more than the open land.

There is no doubt that once the land is publicly measured, those big landlords will strongly resist, but fortunately, most of the people who come here are mainly merchants, or they have already joined the elite army, so the reaction to this is average.

According to Li Yongchang, once you find new land that is not included in the original statistics during the measurement process, even if it is clear that you have opened it up yourself and used it for many years, if you do not report it in advance, it will be considered terra nullius and will be owned by the government.

On the contrary, if you can cooperate and declare in advance the land that you have concealed in the past, as long as there is enough evidence to prove that the land has been used by you for many years, then the land that you have concealed and not reported can be re-recorded, and you can at most pay a little more land tax in the future, and no other fees will be paid, which is equivalent to taking this opportunity to bleach the land that was previously blackened.

Li Yongchang also said that there is no doubt about the matter of measuring land, and it must be carried out compulsorily, for the sake of the implementation of this measurement policy. Troops at all levels of the Jingwu Army are waiting for each other, and any resistance and obstruction is a mantis arm as a car, and they are beyond their strength.

That is to say, in the process of measurement, if you cooperate in advance, it is easy to say anything, but just re-record the land that you concealed and did not report, and collect more land tax on you in the future, but if you continue to conceal and do not report, you will even resist the law by force. Then they will be branded as reactionaries, and the military government will never relent.

At the same time as the land tax was issued, a tax reduction policy was also announced, that is, if you raise pigs and chickens or plant mulberry and silkworms, then you can get a certain amount of land tax reduction, and the reduction and exemption will be determined according to the scale of your breeding.

In other words, it doesn't matter if you are a landlord, as long as you raise more livestock and silkworms. Then you can get a tax deduction, if you have less land and a lot of livestock, you can count it both ways. It is even possible to get a complete tax exemption. Obviously, this is to encourage everyone to raise livestock, plant mulberry trees and silkworms, and make full use of their land resources.

Let's be honest. The reason why Li Yongji collected the land tax was not entirely because of the huge profits of the land tax, but more importantly, because it was to reassure the people.

After all, if you have land, you don't collect taxes. On the contrary, if you collect taxes, even if you collect a little, everyone will feel at ease.

There is no way, this is the thinking of the common people in the Qing Dynasty, who paid thousands of years of imperial grain and land taxes, and you suddenly sued them for not collecting taxes, and the first thing they thought about was not happiness, but fear.

Because the government does not collect taxes, it means that the land is not recognized, and your title deed is not secured, but if the tax is collected, it means that the original title deed is still useful, and your land is still your own.

In other words, collecting taxes is not only a kind of request, but also a kind of recognition, even if you collect taxes and then reduce them, everyone can feel more at ease.

In addition to the land tax, which is the main tax, other taxes such as luxury tax and stamp duty have also been formalized.

The luxury tax here is different from the luxury tax in later generations, and mainly refers to the general term of the four types of taxes: concubinage tax, foot binding tax, opium smoking tax, and large household tax.

Not to mention opium smoking, there is no harm in all kinds, but at present, Li Yongji's trade volume with foreigners is getting bigger and bigger, and he does not want to stimulate foreigners too early, so he did not impose a ban on smoking all at once, but first adopted the principle of heavy taxation, and used economic means to increase the cost of smoking large cigarettes and reduce the number of people who smoke large cigarettes.

Women's foot binding is a bad habit, not to mention destroying women, but also strictly reducing the labor force, but this habit has also been passed down for hundreds of years, and the reaction to the ban at once is too great, so it is simply taxed heavily, at least let most people give up foot binding because of economic problems.

The issue of concubines is the same, although there are pros and cons for men to take concubines, but all in all, there are many negative impacts on society, so since you can take a concubine, it can be regarded as luxury, and it is normal to pay some luxury tax.

The same is true for the large household tax, which was originally intended to divide large households into small households, but according to the previous operation, the resistance situation was relatively strict, so simply change the name and say that it is a luxury tax. That is to say, since you can support so many people in one family, you are rich, that is luxury, and if you are extravagant, you should pay some luxury tax.

If you don't say that the Chinese are a shameful culture and a good face, sometimes it is clearly the same thing, you change the trick and change the statement, and the resistance is immediately different.

Let's just say that those who pay concubine tax, foot tax, and large household tax, and directly say that the concubine tax, foot tax and large household tax, they will fiercely refute it, but as long as it is said to be a luxury tax, a tax for the rich, often the other party is speechless, and can no longer say anything, because no matter how you look at it, whether it is a concubine or a foot wrap, or a large family, it is definitely synonymous with luxury.

In any case, in this autumn harvest celebration, the participants did feel that the trip was worthwhile, because whether it was the astonishing yield of high-yielding rice, the news of the imminent issuance of shares by Nongxing Company, or the imminent establishment of the Jiangnan Military Government, each of them was shocking and contained incomparable benefits.

There is no doubt that they can get in touch with these news in this place as soon as possible, which shows that the Li family regards them as cronies, and wants to promote them, which is an obvious favor to win people's hearts, and at this time, as long as they are not fools, they know what to do next.

In layman's terms, that is, to show loyalty, and to be more specific, it is to buy shares of Nongxing Company, or take the initiative to run for officials at all levels, and join this circle of interests with their own practical actions, and everyone is really tied together.

On the other hand, if you are really stupid and don't know, or pretend not to know, refuse to pay for stocks, and refuse to run for various official positions, then after hearing these news, it is not certain that you will be able to get out of this manor safely. (To be continued......)