Location determines ideas.

To put it in layman's terms, the butt decides the head. The position of a person often determines the angle and scope of his thinking.

When Liu Jun was only a captain of the township soldiers, he considered how to get the support of the local squires in Macheng to expand and strengthen his nine-headed bird township regiment. When Liu Jun became the general of Dangkou, he considered how to defeat the bandits, and use this as his promotion rank to stand in a higher position.

When Liu Jun sent troops to Taiwan, he thought about how to seize the entrepot trade rights of the Dutch and Spaniards in Taiwan, and he did not hesitate to wage war with the Dutch, Spanish, British and Portuguese. After Liu Jun established the East India Company, when he controlled Taiwan and Macao, and controlled the southeast coast, he no longer considered continuing to fight with these Western Yi, but concluding a peace treaty and opening ports for mutual trade.

And now, Liu Jun has entered the center and controls the government, at this time, although the Manchu Qing and bandits are also the targets he wants to sweep away, but the gentry class that he once won over his support has actually been slowly put on his opposite side.

Liu Jun wants to control the control of the Ming Dynasty, and those gentry landlords, these privileged classes who have always enjoyed privileges and sucked the blood of the Ming Dynasty, have become the next target for Liu Jun to deal with.

The gentry landlords of the Ming Dynasty enjoyed all kinds of privileges, especially the annexation of land, they controlled the vast majority of the land, and most of the common people became their tenants.

The landlords charged high rents, which made the life of the tenants extremely difficult, and when there was a famine, they had to borrow money, and then the profits rolled over, and the money rolled over, and finally they had to sell their sons and daughters, and even their wives and houses. Some even had to resell their tenants, and in the end they had nothing.

And the ancestor has long said that those who have constant production have perseverance, this is the words of Mencius, and the food and clothing of the pipe are enough to know the etiquette, in fact, it is a truth.

Only when the people live and work in peace and contentment can the society be stable.

Liu Jun needs stability very much, the people can't eat their stomachs, they can't cover their bodies, how can they talk about stability.

Moreover. The land was concentrated in the hands of the landlords, who exploited the tenant farmers on a large scale, set high tenant rents, and the common people became their tenants, with no food and no surplus wealth, and how to pay taxes to the imperial court. However, these landlords, by virtue of their privileges, occupy a large amount of land on the one hand. He has a lot of food and money, but on the other hand, he desperately evades taxes, making it difficult to collect taxes from the imperial court.

In some ways, the gentry and landlords will always enjoy some privileges. It is far more difficult to collect taxes from these people than from ordinary people.

However, Liu Jun can't be like a bandit, making a simple big eater, fighting local tyrants and dividing the land. Such a barbaric method. It doesn't work, it's just a source of unrest.

"Is this rent reduction and interest reduction really the meaning of the county king?" Cai Yuan, who had just arrived, asked.

"Well, the plan that the county king has carried out himself. In addition to reducing rents and interest rates, there are also efforts to clean up military cantonments and reduce all kinds of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes. The purpose of these policies was to alleviate the instability and grievances of many military households and civilians. This is a plan to draw wages from the bottom of the kettle, and the suppression of bandits is only a symptom, and those are the root causes. Otherwise, what is the point of exterminating our side and the people of that side rising up because they can't survive? ”

"The king of the county mentioned the troubled times at the end of the Sui Dynasty in his letter to me, and said that at that time, the Central Plains were all over the place, and there was a fierce general Zhang Xutuo in the Sui Dynasty at that time, who was very brave and fierce, and suppressed bandits again and again, and even once broke 20,000 bandits with five horses, and hundreds of thousands of thieves, but in the end, the bandits were more and more. He led Qin Shubao, Cheng Yanjin, Luo Shixin and other fierce generals and elite soldiers to suppress and suppress, but in the end it was they who were destroyed. Why? Just because the people at that time were forced by Emperor Yang of Sui to have no way to live, except for rebellion, they could only wait for death. ”

"It turns out that Qin Shubao and Cheng Yanjin are actually Zhang Xutuo's generals, this Zhang Xutuo must be a fierce general, it's a pity." Cai Yuan knew the two generals of Qin Cheng, but he didn't know Zhang Xutuo, this was the first time he had heard it.

"However, these plans of the county king have also encountered great resistance in the court, and the county king hopes that we will take advantage of the opportunity to suppress bandits this time and take the lead in implementing the decree of rent reduction and interest reduction in Henan."

Cai Yuan nodded, "How many of those landlords are willing to reduce rent and interest, up to thirty and a half percent of the land rent, one and a half points of interest, this touches their interests." ”

"That's why the king of the county let us implement it in Henan first. We can take advantage of this crackdown on banditry to carry out this plan. ”

"But this is a matter under the jurisdiction of civil officials, not our military generals." Cai Yuan was a little hesitant, although he was the governor of the Central Plains and a second-class high-ranking official, the rights of military generals were still not as good as those of civilian officials, especially this kind of rent and interest reduction, which at first glance belonged to civil affairs.

Zhang Shan smiled, took out the silver cigarette case, took out two cigarettes from it, threw one to Cai Yuan, and then picked one up himself, Cai Yuan hurriedly took out a lighter from his body.

This flint lighter is also a novelty, made by the Jiangnan manufacturing factory, with a shell shell and a small oil canister inside, stuffed with cotton and attached to a linatostamen. Pour vegetable oil into the oil cotton in advance, and then rub the flint wheel when you use it, rub it to make a fire, and light the fire stamen.

This is a by-product of the flintlock pistol, a very novel thing, but it is only a rich man's thing, and ordinary people will not spend a lot of money to buy this just to light a spark.

Cai Yuan hit a few times, and the sparks flashed, but they didn't nod.

Zhang Shan saw it and picked up a box of matches from the table, "Although this lighter is beautiful, sometimes it is not as reliable as this match." "Matches are also produced at the Jiangnan Manufactory, and they are by-products of the gunpowder factory.

The match was wiped and a flame burst out.

Cai Yuan put down the lighter and leaned closer to light a cigarette.

"I heard that these cigarettes, matches, and lighters are all selling very well, and it is said that these items have become the best-selling products of the Jiangnan manufacturing factory, and the match factory makes no less money than the ammunition factory."

"One is the military industry, the other is the people's livelihood, and it is always different."

Zhang Shan took a puff of cigarette with a satisfied face.

Cigarettes have been introduced to China as early as Wanli, and now, there is a trend of smoking among the whole people in the Ming Dynasty. Regardless of men, women and children, there seems to be a kind of misunderstanding, taking this cigarette as a universal medicine, as if smoke is a kind of herb, any headache and brain fever can be cured.

After the establishment of the Jiangnan manufacturing plant, it also aimed at this industry, and soon developed and produced several brands of cigarettes. The cigarettes produced by the Jiangnan manufacturing factory have both cigarettes and cigarette ratios, especially after they have improved some processes, they have made multiple brands of cigarettes at different prices for different customer groups, and even specially developed women's cigarettes for women to smoke.

Coupled with the influence of Jiangnan Manufacturing Factory, the various brands of cigarettes produced by Jiangnan Manufacturing Factory have occupied a large share of the Daming tobacco market.

Even in the Chu army, cigarettes became a kind of military material, and became a distribution product like tea and sugar.

Senior generals like Zhang Shan and Cai Yuan, they smoked special cigarettes from the Jiangnan Cigarette Factory, and added a lot of precious medicinal materials to them.

"That's why the king of the county asked us to do this. Don't forget, it's wartime, and this is a war zone, so everything is mainly military, and of course we have the right to deal with these things. Zhang Shan smiled, "It is inevitable that the gentry will oppose it, but it is easier to deal with them, the county king is still very polite to them, and the rent and interest reduction are actually not much reduced, and the blow is those cruel and unkind gentry, thirty and a half of the rent, one and a half points of interest, which is not much for the vast majority of landlords." ”

Normal ground rent, generally half. But in most cases, it is half of a season, if you plant another season of beans, wheat and the like, in fact, the average landlord will not collect rent, after all, this season's yield will not be very high, which is equivalent to a disguised reduction of some land rent, equivalent to about forty percent of the actual annual land output of farmers.

Now it's reduced to three and a half, which is not much.

As for the interest of one and a half cents, it is 18 percent of the annual interest rate, and more than this interest is actually considered usury.

At present, the annual interest rate of short-term loans in Four Seas Bank is 7 percent, and the annual interest rate of medium and long-term loans is 10 percent for more than five years. The interest rate is 1.5 per cent per annum for demand deposits and 6 per cent for five-year term deposits.

Compared with the 10 percent annual interest rate for short-term loans under one year, 15 percent for long-term loans for five years, and 3 percent annual interest rates for demand deposits and 10 percent for fixed deposits for five years at the beginning of the Bank, the deposit and loan interest rates of Sihai Bank have dropped a lot in recent years.

However, even when the loan interest of Sihai Bank was the highest, it was only a long-term cap of 15% for more than five years.

At present, the interest rate of short-term loans of Sihai Bank is only 7 percent, and the long-term interest rate is only 10 percent. The imperial court allowed private loans with an annual interest rate of 18 percent, which was already relatively high.

Of course, this is the boundary on the surface, and in practice, it will definitely be adjusted up to this line, but the highest red line is thirty, and the interest can roll over twice the principal.

"We don't have to worry about these gentlemen being dissatisfied, in fact, even if we don't cut the rent and interest, they will still be dissatisfied. It's still the old way, whoever dares to go against us, who dares to oppose this rent reduction and interest reduction, then we will make him a bandit, I want to see if they have a hard neck, or my knife is fast. ”

"When are we going to send troops to Luoyang?" Cai Yuan asked.

"I was about to tell you about this, and my plans changed." Zhang Shan lowered his voice a little, "The county king's secret order, give up the original plan of marching in a quick battle, and we will continue to advance steadily and step by step." ”

"In that case, I'm afraid that the thieves will run away." Cai Yuan exclaimed.

"Run? Just as we were about him to run, we would chase him all the way, and by the way, we would reduce rent and interest and clean up the tuntian. ”

"Oh!" Cai Yuan nodded with a long tail note, and he suddenly realized. (To be continued.) )

PS: Thank you Shan Qingying, ☆ Stupid Little Fish ☆, A Swimming Fish 5, I will be heartbroken when I am tired, Mu Yuchen, and everyone who listened to that song for their support, it's the end of the month again, and the brothers of the monthly pass support it!