After receiving Chongzhen in Xia Town, Du Yinxi and his entourage walked south along the canal. 瑼

I actually saw a lot of wasteland along the way, which made Chongzhen's brows frown.

"Plug Qing, what's going on?" Chongzhen stretched out his hand and pointed to the barren land by the canal and asked, "Why is there no one cultivating these water-watered fields next to the canal?"

"Holy Lord, I really can't recruit homeless people to cultivate."

"Can't recruit homeless people? Then you will be exempted from the rent for one year."

"The minister has been exempted from land rent for three years, but he still can't recruit displaced people."

"What? Waiver of land rent for three years or can't recruit displaced people? Doesn't it end there?"

Chongzhen also felt a little surprised, although the perennial war has led to a large loss of population in Henan and Shandong, but there are still many people who fled to Jiangnan, so as long as Henan and Shandong give enough favorable conditions, such as rent exemption or rent reduction, they can still attract fleeing refugees to return to their hometowns to farm. 瑼

"I can't really recruit it." Du Yinxi smiled bitterly.

"Because even if the land rent is waived for three years, it is not cost-effective for the displaced people to return to their hometowns."

Hearing this, Chongzhen reacted: "It's better to stay in Nanzhi and work more profitable, isn't it?"

"Yes." Du Yinxi nodded and said, "A Chengding returns to his hometown to plead for famine, at most ten acres, if you plant sweet potatoes, you will receive an average of about four stones per mu, and each stone of sweet potatoes is worth 1 yuan, even if you don't have to pay a penny of tax, it will only be 40 yuan a year when you are busy to death, but at present, in Nanjing, Suzhou, Yangzhou and other places, small workers can earn 5 yuan per month!"

"$5?" Chongzhen was taken aback, has Nanzhi's salary risen so high?

In his impression, the wages of small workers in various factories and workshops are 1 to 2 yuan, and 3 yuan is already a technical work, and only the master can get a high salary of more than 5 yuan.

"That's why the homeless people don't want to come back to farm." 瑼

"That's not going to work." Chongzhen frowned and said, "People go to the city to work, won't there be no one in the countryside to farm?" Farmers don't farm anymore, where will the food come from? Then there must be no food shortage?"

Chongzhen immediately realized the seriousness of the problem.

This is also the sequelae of the rapid development of industry: there is not enough labor.

According to the figures of the sixth year of Wanli, the total number of mouths in Nanzhi is about 20 million, considering that there are many textile mills, knitting factories, printing and dyeing workshops and other workshops that employ female soldiers, so the available labor force in the entire Nanzhi is at least 15 million, of which at least one-third has been concentrated in various large cities, that is, 5 million!

Chongzhen couldn't imagine that such a huge labor resource was not enough.

You must know that the total population of the British Empire during this period was only 6 million.

Unconsciously, has Nanzhi's industrial population swelled to this scale? 瑼

The shortage of labor in the cities will inevitably lead to a rise in wages, and the rise in urban wages will inevitably have a siphon effect on the labor force in the rural areas, and the direct consequence is that no one is willing to stay in the rural areas to work hard.

Although it was only a small sign now, Chongzhen was already aware of the danger.

No one farmed the land for the Ming Dynasty, because the Ming Dynasty's agricultural production had not advanced to the point where it could feed a large population with only a small amount of labor.

This issue must be taken seriously.

There seem to be only three solutions.

One is to turn back the clock on history, restore the Lijia household registration system in the Taizu period, confine the peasants in the countryside, and do not allow the free flow of labor, so that the fields in the countryside do not have to worry about no one cultivating them.

The second method is to use administrative means to forcibly raise the purchase price of grain. 瑼

As long as the price of grain rises, it will be profitable for the peasants to farm and raise grain, and they will not think of going to the city, after all, they will have to leave their hometown and be separated from their wives and children to work in the cities.

But both of these approaches are palliative, not curative.

Because the shortage of labor in the cities cannot be solved, the capitalists can only attract rural labor by raising wages, and then a large number of black workers will be produced, and even human trafficking will be born.

Moreover, it will form a serious obstacle to industrial development.

So it's better to go the third way, to provide sufficient labor.

At present, the reason why wages have risen so high is because of the scarcity of things and the lack of labor, but if a large number of cheap labor can be put into the Jiangnan market in a short period of time, then the high wages will be immediately knocked down, then the scissors gap between urban and rural areas will no longer exist, and there will be no siphon effect on rural labor.

Du Yinxi also said with a bitter face: "Holy Lord, the minister is also worried about farming." 瑼

After a pause, he continued to ask, "Didn't you capture a lot of prisoners of war by destroying the Manchus this time?"

"It's a lot of prisoners of war." Chongzhen said with a smile, "There are more than 200,000 Manchu women and children, more than 200,000 clothed slaves, more than 100,000 in the Eight Banners Han Army, 20,000 in the Eight Banners Mongolia, and nearly 400,000 Lian Yong, adding up to more than 900,000 prisoners of war. Are you eyeing these prisoners of war?"

Du Yinxi salivated and said, "Shengshang, forget about the Manchus and Mongols, but those Baoyi, Lian Yong, and the Eight Banners Han Army are also Han people, otherwise a small punishment will be forgotten, and then sent to Henan to farm official fields?" As a punishment, the rent of the land for these criminals can be set higher, for example, at one bucket per acre?"

Chongzhen flatly refused: "No, this is too cheap for these minions."

These slaves who have forgotten their ancestors are only worthy of building railways for a lifetime, and never want to be human again.

Daming is now short of population, but no matter what, there are hundreds of millions of people, and there is no shortage of these 900,000.

Du Yinxi sighed and said, "Holy Lord, in this case, there will be fewer strong laborers in Henan next year, and the fields that have been recultivated with great difficulty are afraid that they will be abandoned again." 瑼

"No, I'll find a way to fix it."

After a pause, Chongzhen continued, "It will definitely be solved before the end of the year."

While Junchen and his entourage were talking, they had already come to the outside of Xuzhou City, only to see that the weather in Xuzhou City was different from two years ago, and even outside the city was full of houses, and there were a large number of vendors on the streets.

With the subsidence of the war and the recovery of the economy, especially after the return of the Ming Dynasty to Beijing, Xuzhou was rapidly regaining its commercial status as the north-south thoroughfare, and commerce soon became prosperous again.

……

Chongzhen did not stay in Xuzhou too much.

Even the officials in Xuzhou didn't see it, so Chongzhen went directly south through Xuzhou. 瑼

Five days later, Chongzhen rushed to Pukou with the Praetorian Guard Brigade, and Chen Liangbi, the imperial history of iron smelting, had been waiting here for five days, and he hurried to Pukou to meet the saint after receiving an urgent delivery from the cabinet.

Chen Liangbi came to Chongzhen for one thing - iron!

"Chen Liangbi, I don't have time to listen to your nonsense, please give me a proper reason, other workshops only sell wrought iron for 5 yuan and 100 catties, why does the Hanyang Iron Smelting Workshop sell for 15 yuan and 100 catties?"

"Because there is so much iron for the railroad construction workshop."

Chen Liangbi said calmly: "If it is tens of thousands of catties or hundreds of thousands of catties, the Hanyang Iron Smelting Workshop can also sell it to the Daming Railway Construction Workshop at a price of 5 yuan and 100 catties, but the Daming Construction Workshop wants 300,000 tons of iron, and such a huge amount can no longer be sold at a low price of 5 yuan."

"It's simple."

"With the current productivity of the Hanyang Iron Smelting Workshop, it can't be provided at all." 瑼

"Therefore, in order to take over the big business of the Daming Railway Construction Workshop, the Daming Iron Workshop needs to invest a lot of capital to dig more mines in the mine, build more smelting furnaces and other facilities, and also need to take back the workers sent to Jiangnan to work, but we have signed contracts with various workshops in Jiangnan, and once the employment contract is terminated, we will pay three times the loss, and all the above costs will eventually be apportioned into the price of iron."

After a pause, he continued, "15 yuan and 100 catties really can't be lower."

"You sold the craftsmen of the Hanyang Iron Smelting Workshop to Gangnam to work?"

Chongzhen felt that his brain was buzzing, and this special person was also a talent.

"Yes, since the end of last year, the wages of Jiangnan workers have begun to skyrocket, and the ministers feel that the craftsmen of the Hanyang Iron Smelting Workshop are idle and eat rice, so they sell them to Jiangnan to work, every month

That's $5!"

"There are 100,000 craftsmen in the Hanyang Iron Smelting Workshop, how many people have you sold?"

"The minister sold 80,000 craftsmen, but there were not as many craftsmen as 100,000 in the Hanyang Iron Smelting Workshop, and there were less than 90,000 people left when the minister took over." 瑼

It is estimated that the more than 10,000 craftsmen in short supply are either exhausted to death or buried alive in the mine collapse.

Chongzhen didn't bother with the number of craftsmen, and continued: "In other words, with only one salary, the Hanyang Iron Smelting Workshop can earn 400,000 yuan a month? Chen Liangbi, you are really a capable official."

There is no irony in this remark, this Chen Liangbi is indeed quite good at calculating economic accounts.

From this point of view, Lu Zhenfei really didn't use the wrong person, Chen Liangbi is really good at making money.

But there is no doubt that Chen Liangbi ruined Chongzhen's big thing, because Chongzhen's original intention of letting Wu Jinxi establish the Hanyang Iron Smelting Workshop was to hoard a large amount of iron materials for future use in building ironclad ships.

Now not only do the sailors need a lot of iron to build ironclad ships, but they also need a large amount of iron to build the railway, but the Hanyang Iron Smelting Workshop, which Chongzhen had high hopes for, was almost completely shut down by Chen Liangbi.

Chongzhen's heart instantly had 10,000 grass and mud horses galloping past. 瑼

At that moment, Chongzhen said patiently, "The urgent delivery from the cabinet has been received?"

"I've received it, but I beg forgiveness that I can't do it." Chen Liangbi said without being arrogant or humble, "The minister just said that if the contract has been signed with various workshops or factories in Jiangnan, the compensation must be paid if the contract is broken, and unless the household department can pay this compensation, the minister really cannot redeem these 80,000 craftsmen back to the Hanyang Iron Smelting Workshop."

Chongzhen's sentence almost blurted out by Nima.

But when the words came to his mouth and swallowed back, the emperor should pay attention to his image.

"I'll settle the matter of the compensation." Chongzhen said with a dark face.

"You are only responsible for bringing these 80,000 craftsmen back to Hanyang, as soon as possible!"

Chen Liangbi immediately waved his hand and said, "In this case, the minister respectfully receives the holy message." 瑼

After Chen Liangbi finished speaking, he happily turned around and left, but Chongzhen was almost angry.