On the Linhai River, the sails are continuous, and the tall ships are endlessly flowing on the river, coming and going, and there are also thin ferries and fishing boats, which are like stitches in the gap between the big boats.

With the curtain of the Ming and Song Dynasty wars falling, Taizhou Commercial Port seems to have regained its former prosperity.

On the bank of the river, the fields and ridges are dense, and it is also a prosperous atmosphere. It is now the harvest season, and in the golden rice fields, farmers are wielding sickles to cut down the heavy rice pieces one by one. Occasionally, dozens of families gather into a village, with blue bricks and gray tiles, thatched roofs, and the bustling scenery on the river, which is a poetic and picturesque scene.

It seems that a peaceful and prosperous era has come to the world with the establishment of the Ming Dynasty.

The Hundred Years War since the disgrace of Jingkang has ended in the Ming Empire. Although the western part of the Central Plains was still occupied by the Mongols and Tibetans, skirmishes continued. But what does this have to do with the rich land of the southeast coast? It's a big deal to appease it with a little year's gift.

Anyway, the treasury of the Ming Dynasty is full today, and there is no shortage of these small money. Shouldn't we spend a small amount of money to buy a big picture of resting with the people?

After all, the people of Middle-earth have been suffering from war for more than a hundred years! Even if there is going to be some kind of ruthless Han Wu Tang Xuan, shouldn't the people take a breath first?

It's a pity that things don't always go so well......

In a small village on the bank of the Linhai River, someone is reading the article in a high-spirited tone, but it is not the Four Books and the Five Classics, nor the Three Classics of Heaven, but all kinds of news articles in the tabloids.

If there is anything about the Ming Dynasty established by Chen Dexing and the Southern Song Dynasty of the previous dynasty that are in the same line, it is probably the loose control of public opinion. The Song Dynasty was a world of scholars and doctors. Naturally, I can't control the mouth of the doctor. Chen Ming is the foundation of aristocratic democracy, and naturally he can't control the people's politics.

Except for the Heavenly Daoist Sect and Chen Shengren, they must not be arrogant. Anything else can be discussed not only casually, but also published in the tabloids.

“…… The imperial court wanted to use troops against the Quartet. The household soldiers of the Jiangnan Army will be used as Tuntian soldiers in Liaozhong, Liaobei, Monan, Mongolia, and the Western Regions. The mobilization order has been issued, and all those who have received the military order must report to the place where the Navy Brigade Headquarters is located before the end of November. You can bring your family members and servants with you, and those who do not go in violation of the order will be severely punished by military law! ”

"The method of the imperial court to use troops in Liaodi is to fight for a long time in Tuntian, and it cannot be returned for decades. Each soldier can get 50 acres of barren land, a ploughing horse, and a number of farm tools and seeds in Liaodi. Fill the field with salary. In peacetime, the land is farmed, and in wartime, the army is recharged. All the people of the Ming Dynasty can voluntarily sign up to go, and distribute the land together, and the naturalized military households can get 150 acres of land per person, and give 300 yuan for the purchase of weapons, a ploughing horse, and a number of farm tools and seeds......"

In the middle of the village, in Pingba. A middle-aged man in a Confucian shirt was reading triumphantly, his face full of indescribable pleasure. He is a son of the Yimen Fang in the sea, and the residents of this village used to be customers of the Yimen Fang. Several generations have been blessed by the Fang family, so when the Fang family is in great trouble. They also protected a lot of Fang Jiazi who were in distress. This Confucian named Fang Kesi, known as Fang Si Xiucai, is one of them.

Now with the end of the war, the limelight of arresting the children of the righteous sect has passed. The rumors of the massacre of the children of the righteous sect have now been proven to be false. Chen Shengren gave the heaviest punishment to the children of Yimen. It's just a place of exile and overseas colonization.

Therefore, those righteous men who hid in Tibet have now also come out to move. It is impossible to return to the land and continue to be the lord of the land. Their land has a new owner, either the nobles from the north, or the local soldiers, these people are not something that the broken righteous men can provoke.

Therefore, the righteous disciples who slipped through the net had to find a way to be self-reliant. Some low-level officials who change their names and surnames to take the Daming exam, although their salaries are not high, and there seems to be little room for growth, they can always make ends meet. Some people opened a private school to accept apprentices to teach - although the Ming Dynasty abolished the imperial examination, but there was an official examination, although it was only a lower-level official, but it was better than being a peasant, and it was easier to get in, so the peasants seemed to be more motivated to let their children study than before the Song Dynasty. Private schools that have sprung up like mushrooms all over the country have always been able to recruit students.

Fang Sixiucai is now a private school teacher. In fact, he has some ability, not only has literary talent but also knows some martial arts, and he can go to the examination for a petty official. Chen Ming's local finances are relatively rich, and the finances of Linhai County, which has developed industry and commerce, are even richer, so the salaries paid to officials are also high, which is enough for Fang Sixiu, who is alone, to start a family and live a decent life.

But Fang Sixiu is ambitious, he has studied Confucius and Mencius for half his life, how can he be willing to go to the Taoist official of the day? Although he has to teach the Three Classics of Heaven in his private school (if you don't learn this, you won't be able to get into the official), but he himself said that he would not be a great Ming official.

At this time, the peasants began to talk one after another, and their expressions were the same as Fang Sixiucai's, and they were all a little gloating.

"Sure enough, the wicked have no good reward, so those military households will be proud again! Now it's okay, I'm going to stay in the bitter cold of the north for the rest of my life. ”

"Yes, I know that there is no good thing in the sky that pies are lost in vain, a hundred acres of watered land, thousands of family property, how can it be white? Would Emperor Chen be so kind? ”

"Hmph, they're all lazy scoundrels, and now they're miserable!"

"It's better to die in the north and never come back, so that our life will be better......"

"What about dying in the north? The saint will not pull all the soldiers to the north, and besides, there are still the knights, with them, we still can't go back to the past. ”

The peasants were clearly nostalgic for the Yimen Fang, a noble family that had been developed for hundreds of years, although they also had to exploit the tenants to feed themselves. But a hundred-year-old noble clan must have some tricks and rules, they know how to carefully disguise, they know that they must restrain their children, they must not let them behave indiscriminately, and they also know how to squeeze the most wealth out of the peasants on the premise of leaving a way for them to live.

In a word, the exploitation of tenants by Yimen is based on the long-term, and what they want is a long stream, and they are not likely to kill chickens and take eggs.

However, most of the military landlords and landlords of Chen Dexing's seal were poor and fierce, and now that they have become landlords and rich peasants, they naturally want to loot them viciously so that they and their families can live a decent life as soon as possible.

There are also some military households with many families, and they are also tenants who rent land for farming. Now that you have land, of course, you have to cultivate it yourself. One hundred acres of watered land, two strong laborers, and the women and children of the family will take the handle, and when the farm is busy, they will hire temporary workers, and raise two buffaloes at most, which is enough to cope. And Chen Ming can't help but slaughter the cattle, and the cattle can be sold to the butcher when they are old.

This kind of "kulak management" is much more cost-effective than renting land to peasants. The mode of production in which land is leased to smallholder farmers by Yimen often means that there is not enough investment in land. The wealthy Yimen would not invest in agriculture, and the tenants could not afford to invest. The new "military households and rich peasants" had both land and borrowed capital, and they also had a certain degree of political protection, so they would not be oppressed and plundered by anyone -- although the military households were not nobles, they were also reserve nobles, and they could become nobles at any time, so the local officials did not dare to bully them.

Therefore, many military households chose the most hated quit after getting the land! However, Chen Ming's court and government were different from those of the former Song Dynasty, and did not take any measures to prevent the withdrawal of tenants, and even vaguely encouraged the retreat. The branches opened by Tiandaozhuang in various counties in the south of the Yangtze River are using low-interest loans to military families with land to help them buy cattle and farm tools and operate their own land.

And the tenants who lost their land had no livelihood security. The way out is nothing more than to go to the city to work, go to the sea to make a living, and go north to work as a farmer -- the north is vast and sparsely populated, and it is not easy to recruit tenants, and many nobles who have been given land are now recruiting tenants in the south of the Yangtze River, and the conditions offered are relatively superior, or they simply go to the army and become a military household!

But no matter what you choose, you have to leave your hometown and go to an unknown place, maybe you will die outside, and you will not be as comfortable as before.

Therefore, the tenants who have been in Jiangnan for generations, and who live hard by renting land, have their first choice after being quit is to rent other people's land. No matter how harsh the conditions are, as long as you can rent land, there is always a way to live......

Therefore, these days, the rents in various parts of Jiangnan have not decreased, but have become higher.

In addition to the high rent, it is much more difficult to borrow money now than in the past. It's not a matter of how much interest is high, it's a matter of how hard it is to borrow!

Although money lending to tenants has always been the main source of income for Yimen, this money lending is naturally usury! But for the tenants in Jiangnan, borrowing usury is also a way to survive. In the event of a disaster, you have to borrow, you have to borrow it in the event of a wedding or funeral, and you have to grit your teeth to borrow when someone in the family is sick and takes medicine. Only when you can borrow usury can you multiply at interest. Although the price is likely to be an interest that will not be paid off by the children and grandchildren.

But now that the Yimen in Jiangnan have been hit hard, they have no ability or financial resources to continue to lend usury, and the military households and landlords who have replaced them do not have much money to lend money. This is not a good thing for people who want to borrow usury.

Of course, the usury market in the rural areas of Jiangnan will still attract some capital. It's just that most of the capital that comes in comes from business. The merchants had no foundation in the countryside and could not control the peasants' lives, which meant that they were more risky in lending usury than in the righteous gate, and therefore charged higher interest. Moreover, now that there is a rule that "Han people are not slaves", it is also very risky to force the poor to sell their sons and daughters to pay off their debts...... (To be continued......)