In the Xiwang Mansion of Suzhou, Xiao Yungui, Zuo Zongtang and Qianjiang discussed the political affairs of southern Jiangsu after talking about returning to Beijing. Now that the war in southern Jiangsu has basically subsided, the restoration of local agriculture, commerce and trade, and the establishment of local political power have been put on the agenda. Wuxi and other places were recovered earlier, and the Taiping army had already begun to build local political power there, and local guards and township officials had already been stationed there.

In the local villages, according to the Taiping military system, every 25 households are organized into one two horses, and four two horses are organized into one pawn, followed by brigades, divisions, and armies. The 25 households elected their own two Sima to manage the 25 households, and these two Sima are responsible for the household registration, the number of fields, the statistics of the number of people, and the handling of all miscellaneous affairs of the 25 households, which is equivalent to a village cadre. The commander is also elected, equivalent to the village head, and the subsequent commander of the land defense brigade is divided into two directors and deputies, one is sent by the West Temple, and the other is elected by the locals, and the same is true for the division commander and military commander after that.

In this way, basic data such as household registration, number of fields, number of people, and taxes can be quickly and clearly counted, and it is also convenient for local management. However, the difference between the West Hall and Tianjing is that in addition to the army, Xiao Yungui did not set up a holy treasury system in the local area, except for the level of the commander of the army guarding the land, there was a general holy treasury responsible for collecting the taxes, money and grain of the military households, the donations of the local people, and the collection of the family wealth of corrupt officials and local tyrants and inferior gentry. This treasury was also responsible for the payment of money, food, and taxes, as well as local expenditures. There were about 10,000 households in each army, which was the population of a town.

After the implementation in Wuxi, Jintan, Zhenjiang and other places, the Taiping Army in the West Temple exempted and exempted local money and grain taxes, and distributed the local borderless land that appeared because of the war and confiscated the land of corrupt officials and corrupt officials, local tyrants and inferior gentry to the landless peasants to cultivate, but the taxes still had to be paid, and the fields were divided into nine grades according to the quality of the land. The rest went to the peasants themselves, and they did not have to hand over all of them to the holy treasury. Although the population of Wuxi, Jintan, Zhenjiang and other places is not as dense as that of Suzhou and Hangzhou, the population has increased instead of declining.

Take Zhenjiang as an example, this place is located at the north end of the Jiangnan Canal, is the key point of the north and south, the Taiping army had a population of 280,000 before coming, after the Taiping army captured Zhenjiang, the people who fled reached tens of thousands, and some of these people fled to Suzhou and Hangzhou. There were also those who took refuge in the mountains, and most of them fled blindly following the rumors of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. After the Taiping Army of the West Temple entered Zhenjiang, the population was counted, and only about 230,000 remained. Then war broke out in Suzhou, Hangzhou and Shanghai, and the nearby displaced people flocked to Zhenjiang, Wuxi and other places, and the Taiping Army's propaganda and pacification work achieved remarkable results. The people who had taken refuge in the mountains returned, and the population swelled to 330,000. With the Manchu Qing in Jiangbei perverse. Widely distributed fundraising. Many of the people in Jiangbei fled to Zhenjiang, and the population is still increasing. Among them, 110,000 people live in extreme poverty who are landless.

At that time, Zhenjiang had about 2.4 million mu of cultivated land, and about 800,000 mu of land and terra nullius confiscated by the Taiping Army, and the rest of the land was still in the hands of middle peasants, rich peasants, and some landlords. The land in the hands of the middle peasants, rich peasants and landlords fed more than 100,000 people. The Taiping Army distributed 800,000 mu of land to the 110,000 landless people according to the mix of good and bad, and the per capita land area was about 7 mu. According to historical experience, the level of cultivation at this time. It takes at least four acres of land to feed a person, and less than that figure would make life difficult for the peasants, let alone pay the grain tax. It's just that when the disaster comes, the year is not good, and it becomes a problem to eat enough. The distribution of seven acres of land per capita is only slightly higher than the basic subsistence line of four acres, and not all the land near Zhenjiang is grain-producing land, and about 10% of the cultivated land is mulberry forest or other crop fields. Fortunately, Zhenjiang is prosperous in commerce and trade, and nearly 30,000 people are working or running businesses in Zhenjiang City, and are not engaged in agriculture, so the per capita land distribution has been greatly alleviated, and some places in Haode have been allocated 10 acres of land per capita. However, the displaced people from Jiangbei are still fleeing south, causing the local land to become less and less divided. Wuxi, Jintan and other places have more populations, Wuxi is a big city, only Wuxi City has a population of more than 400,000. Everyone says that Jiangnan is rich, but rich is rich and has a large population.

When Wang Minyun was governing Wuxi, he once wrote to Xiao Yungui, and after Xiao Yungui discussed with Zuo Zongtang and Wang Minyun, he launched several measures in Wuxi to do a pilot. The first is to encourage the people to reclaim wasteland, and the reclaimed wasteland can be distributed to the peasants for cultivation, and the Taiping army exempts taxes for one year, and provides agricultural tools, grain seeds, ploughing cattle, etc., and then pays one-tenth of the grain produced by the field. However, this measure did not solve all the problems, and at the end of the Qing Dynasty, after several dynasties of development, almost all the cultivated land that could be cultivated was reclaimed. Later historians and agriculturists found that the area of cultivated land in the Qing Dynasty was not much different from the area of modern cultivated land, and even the area of cultivated land in some places was more than that of later generations, because of the economic development of later generations, many places returned farmland to forest, cultivated land requisition, etc., so the cultivated land area was less than that of the Qing Dynasty. Anyway, in a word, there is not much land that can be cultivated.

The second was to buy the land from the middle peasants, rich peasants, and landlords at the expense of the Holy Treasury, and then turn it into state land, and then distribute it to the peasants for cultivation at a low land endowment. At the same time, Wang informed the landlords and rich peasants that if they found that their farmland was barren, the Taiping army would confiscate the land without compensation. This policy was relatively peaceful, the landlords and rich peasants could accept it, and many tenant farmers went to cultivate the allocated land, and some tenant farmers went to the workshops run by the Taiping army to do things, resulting in a decrease in the number of tenant farmers working on the landlords and rich peasants, and they had to sell some of the land they did not care about cultivating to the Taiping army.

The third is to develop handicraft workshops in Wuxi and Zhenjiang in shipping, minerals, textiles, etc., to recruit landless peasants as workers, and also solve the livelihood problems of some people, and at the same time reduce the number of tenant farmers under the landlords and rich peasants, and force them to sell their land.

Fourth, it is to vigorously develop commerce, there were originally only two markets in Wuxi City, after the arrival of the Taiping Army, it was stipulated that all the places facing the street in the city can open shops, and only need to go to the Wuxi Taiping Department of Commerce to apply for a shop license to operate, and it is also a commercial tax charged according to the turnover. As a result, some landlords or rich peasants began to set up shops and businesses in the city. After the promotion of several measures, it can be regarded as alleviating some land contradictions.

At the same time, there was no mandatory establishment of any chapels at the level of the two Simas in each village as in Tianjing, but only the chapels of the Taiping Cult of God were set up at the military level. If you believe in the Taiping God Religion, you can go to the military-level chapel to worship, and the old temples, Taoist temples, ancestral halls, etc. in the rest of the villages are left to their own devices, and the Taiping Army in the West Temple does not force the people to change their faith. The two Sima at all levels need to send five men to form their own township soldiers, that is, the Taiping Army's own local regimental training. In peacetime, the villagers were still farmers who farmed, but they were given weapons and special uniforms and flags by the Taiping Army, and they were given military training three times a week. Protecting the village in peacetime, just like the village federation prevention and security team, once there is a war. These village soldiers can then be turned into reservists, that is, the nature of the militia. Each militia is paid a monthly allowance by the local army-level Sacred Treasury and does not support them.

In fact, under the rule of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the young people in each village and township also had their own organizations, and the major surnames of each clan organized the young and strong people in the clan according to a certain situation. Usually to protect the people in his village from being bullied by others, this is how the village Ding Xiangyong came. After the arrival of the Taiping army. Some systems have been changed. Organized these loose villagers into their own militia. In the past, it was an obligation to protect the villages, but now there are regular weapons, uniforms, and allowances to receive, and the young and strong people in these villages are naturally eager to do so.

The alleviation of land contradictions and the establishment of the system of township officials and township soldiers enabled the rapid establishment of local political power in the Taiping Army in Xidian. Now that Suzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai and other places have been captured, the situation has changed again. The change is that the population has increased, the land is still so much, and as long as there are more people in anything, the problem will become complicated.

After discussing with Zuo Zongtang and Qianjiang. Xiao Yungui still decided to promote it according to Wuxi's method first, establish local power first, and do basic data statistics, he wants to know how much land he needs to divide out to solve the land problem in Suzhou and Hangzhou and other places, how much land he needs to invest in the purchase of land, and how many people's livelihood problems can be solved by the existing industry and commerce in Suzhou and Hangzhou, if Zuihou really can't accommodate it, he will soon build a railway, what does it mean to build a railway, it means that a lot of labor will be needed, Xiao Yungui doesn't mind recruiting a large number of people as road construction workers.

After discussing politics, Hong Yuner and Li Xuanji returned to the house, but Clifford came back with him, and this kid bought a large number of works of art in the people. From the homemade embroidered handkerchiefs to the marble steles carved by masonry, this guy actually collected several carts of all kinds of things, brought them back, and moved them into the house in a chaotic manner.

Xiao Yungui was a little funny, he stepped forward to ask for an understanding, but before he could speak, Clifford came up and gave Xiao Yungui a hug, he said very happily: "His Royal Highness the King of the West, thank you very much for your gifts, these things are very exquisite works of art, none of them have condensed the hard work of Chinese artists, you look at this handkerchief, the embroidery patterns on both sides are different, God, what kind of ingenuity does this have to do." ”

Clifford's hugging action was very dangerous, he didn't know that he had already walked through the ghost gate, if it wasn't for Hong Yun'er to organize Tang Erniu and the others in time, he was afraid that more than ten big knives and muskets would attack him.

Xiao Yungui smiled and said: "As long as you like, this king can let people take you to see more exquisite artworks, and you can also go to Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province to watch the production of porcelain." ”

Clifford was very happy and didn't say yes, but Xiao Yungui changed his words and said: "It's a pity that Jingdezhen is still in the hands of the barbaric Manchus, this king needs to get permission from the British to export weapons, with British weapons, we can defeat the Manchus, so that you can reach Jingdezhen unimpeded." ”

Clifford nodded and said: "Princess Xi has already told me about this, His Royal Highness King Xi, I saw the kindness of your army in Suzhou, the people here have been taken care of very well, they have removed their braids and look less like slaves." I will definitely contribute to this when I return to England, we are all civilized and civilized people, and we will definitely replace the barbaric and vulgar people, I will help the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, I like to deal with you! ”

Xiao Yungui looked at Hong Yun'er, Hong Yun'er winked at him playfully, it seems that Hong Yun'er has already done this kid, is it difficult for a loving haode person to do it? It's not difficult, just do what you like, it seems that with Clifford's support, the comments of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom on the British side will also change greatly, after all, someone has spoken for him, and this person is not simple, there is a huge interest group behind him! (To be continued......)