"Moo......"

At dusk, as the sun gradually sets in the west, the villagers of Weiman Town also return to their homes, and the smoke of cooking rises over every house in the town.

"It's eaten, it's eaten!"

In the small stone courtyard, which covers an area of five points, when a healthy woman wearing a young people's costume walked to the courtyard with a pot of chicken and put the chicken on the table, what was presented in front of Zhu Ciran was a more luxurious dinner.

A pot of local chicken, a plate of wild vegetables that Zhu Ciran had never seen, a plate of bacon fried with garlic sprouts, and finally a pot of sauerkraut and potato soup.

Two meats, one dish and one soup, the people who ate were Tiantou's father-in-law and his daughter-in-law, as well as Zhu Ciran and Liu Shun, and the translator Zhang Xiu.

Five people and four dishes are not rich, at least in so many places that Zhu Ciran has visited, this meal is richer than the food in Nanxi Village.

A pot full of rice, Zhu Ciran hit a bowl and tried the taste, it was a little hard, not as delicious as the rice in Sichuan, but the aroma was more sufficient.

A mouthful of bacon in the stomach, I don't know that the bacon that has been smoked for several years is fragrant, and a smell of firewood wells up on the nose.

"Delicious!"

Zhu Ciran, Liu Shun, and Zhang Xiu looked at each other, and Uncle Bao, who heard the words, also smiled: "It's delicious, right?" I've been smoking these pork knuckles for five years. ”

"Eat more, eat more." Bao's wife also kept adding vegetables to Zhu Ciran.

Maybe it's because of the wind and food all the way, fourteen-year-old Zhu Ciran looks seventeen or eighteen years old, which makes them think of their son.

"Enough is enough, enough is enough......"

Looking at the bowl that was filled, Zhu Ciran hurriedly said that it was okay, and at the same time looked at the courtyard.

There are three stone houses in the stone courtyard, the houses are caulked with cement, and the roof is the cheapest white ash tile.

The backyard is similar to the villagers' houses in Nanxi Village, with cowsheds, thatched houses, and firewood houses.

On the whole, in Zhu Ciran's heart, the worst is still Shanxi, which has suffered the most drought and the migrant population has not been able to go up.

"Auntie, where are the juniors in your family?"

Zhang Xiu looks a little white, after all, he is an official from the Siyi Pavilion, as an envoy who may be sent in the future, his appearance is very in line with the aesthetics of the people of the Ming Dynasty, so his inquiry makes Bao Lao and Bao not easy to dislike.

Aunt Bao, who was smiling honestly, held the bowl with one hand and gave the meat to Zhang Xiu with the other:

"went out, the eldest and second went to serve as soldiers, and the third and fourth went to study in Kunming."

"Being a soldier? What year did you go? Zhang Xiu was eating and asked curiously.

"The soldiers of the fourteenth year of the Apocalypse have been gone for more than two years, and it seems that they have been sent to the old port, and they can be transferred back to Yunnan at the end of the year."

Uncle Bao said, and at the same time ate the meat.

"You can't eat a meal like this, can you?" Liu Shun, as a Jinyi guard, still knows the situation in Yunnan better, so he asked Zhang Xiu as a translator to ask Uncle Bao for himself.

"Then you definitely can't eat it every day, you usually eat fried potato cubes, and then kill a chicken, save some food, and a chicken can eat for two days."

"Kill a pig every year for the New Year, and then eat a meal of bacon for six or seven days."

Mr. Bao talked about his life, and Zhu Ciran also asked curiously: "How many poultry and pigs are raised at home, and what about other villagers' homes?" ”

"Twelve pigs, three pig houses, more than twenty poultry, two cows and a horse."

"There are a little more in our family, and there are basically seven or eight pigs in the normal family, and the poultry and cattle and horses are about the same."

"So much?!" Liu Shun was a little surprised, but Bao Lao said with a smile: "In the past few years, life has been better, so naturally there will be more." ”

"The royal store in the town has feed, and one stone only costs 200 wen, and almost 400 wen can raise a pig." Uncle Bao counted the accounts for them.

"If the grain in the field is sold, there can be almost five or six hundred wen, and almost ten acres of land can raise fourteen or fifteen pigs."

"Every family in the village now has forty or fifty acres of land, and my family mainly has two sons who are soldiers, and they send silver to the family every year, so they can raise a little more."

Chatting at the dinner table can always make the dinner table last longer, Zhu Ciran wanted to know more, so he asked:

"According to the number of mouths, my husband, your family has sixty acres of land, right?"

"No, there is a shortage of land in the town, not enough to divide, and now everyone has a gap of one acre and two points of land, so we have to reclaim wasteland to avoid the government from moving people away, no one knows if it will be their own relocation, and we are the same."

Uncle Bao talked about the migration again, and every time he heard about it, Zhu Ciran was a little secret, but he knew that migration was a labor pain, and staying was a long pain.

"My family now has 52 acres of land, except for the winter and summer vacations, the third and fourth will go home, and the rest of the time is just the two of us, leaving enough food for the family to eat, which can be sold to the emperor for about 70 stone every year."

"After selling the grain, I received the silver from the eldest and second child, and then bought some feed for the family's livestock, and bought paper, pen and ink for the third and fourth children to read, and I could have almost thirty-six or seven taels of silver."

"We are good, if the children in the family are not selected for the army, they can only help farm at home, even if the number of acres is about the same as ours, we can only save less than 20 taels."

"If the children in the family are still studying, then they can only save fifteen or sixteen taels of silver."

Since Zhu Ciran said that he was an official, and they also promised that after Uncle Bao answered the questions, they would give 500 Wen as a thank you gift, so Uncle Bao also tried his best to answer their questions.

He is not afraid that Zhu Ciran and a few people are evildoers, not to mention that he has not been provoked in the past few years, after all, in a place like Yunnan, every household has dozens of acres of land, and there is no need to end up in a different place for dozens of taels of silver.

"Village men, why don't you go out and work? This year's income can buy a cow, right? ”

Liu Shun asked Uncle Bao, and Zhang Xiu also helped him convey it when he saw this, but Uncle Bao was like seeing a ghost:

"I'm scared of the pit, who dares to work? Except for the government workers, we dare not fight other jobs. ”

"Why?"

Zhang Xiu asked, and then conveyed the answer to Zhu Ciran and them, making Zhu Ciran and them curious.

"In the past, when we went out to work, often those employers in the city would lower our wages when they saw that we were not Han Chinese, and then pay the money once a month, but many employers were traders, and they were often still working one day, and the next day they were gone, and we helped to work for nothing."

"Not only us, but many Han people have also been deceived."

Uncle Bao and Aunt Bao explained one after another, which made Zhang Xiu a little dumbfounded, so he could only tell Zhu Ciran as such.

When Zhu Ciran heard this, he was also speechless by this shameless behavior, and Liu Shun asked, "Didn't you report to the official?" ”

"They all went to report to the officials, but these people all used fake identities and false road guides, and the government couldn't find them." Uncle Bao said helplessly, and Zhang Xiu also followed the translation.

However, after Zhang Xiu's translation, Liu Shun immediately explained to Zhu Ciran: "Your Highness, now that the national dynasty has begun to compile households and issue household registration books, I think this situation will become less in the future." ”

"Well......" Zhu Ciran nodded slightly in approval, but he felt in his heart that this kind of thing might not be completely eliminated for a long time.

While he was thinking this, everyone was also satisfied.

Zhu Ciran and the others were going to rest in Bao Laozhangjia for one night, while the others in Jinyiwei paid ten wen for accommodation and rested in the homes of nearby townspeople.

Taking a walk after dinner is Zhu Ciran's habit.

Loaded with a handful of peanuts, Zhu Ciran walked out of Bao's house under the arch guard of two brocade guards, and walked on the cement paved market town road.

He didn't pick the big road, but walked on the small road.

As he walked, he recalled the words of Uncle Bao at the dinner table just now, and couldn't help but turn his head and look at Weiman Town in the distance.

Here, he can vaguely hear the barking of dogs in the town, the sound of children playing, and the laughter of many adults in the town.

The sound drifters blend with the sunset in the sky, and the quiet and peaceful atmosphere obscures the entire town.

This is a feeling that cannot be experienced in the capital, and Zhu Ciran enjoys it very much.

Turning around, he continued his walk, once again blending into the tranquil rural mood.

The sunset, which was about to set completely, was frantically burying his last gold like a miser in the twilight of his life, and the light around him was even darker.

The woods in the distance seemed to be covered with a black veil, hazy and hazy.

But even so, when he came back from a circle, there were still a few carefree children sitting in the small river in the middle of Weiman Town.

They sat on rocks high above the water and played in the water, waiting for their mother, who washed dishes and clothes, to take them home.

In the distance, concrete roads and stone courtyards are set against the backdrop of some abandoned old-fashioned rammed-earth cottages, as if the present is in harmony with the past.

The sun gradually set, and Zhu Ciran, who had been sitting by the river for a long time, also stood up and returned to Bao's house with two brocade guards.

Back in the resting ear room, I don't know if it was Uncle Bao or Liu Shun, they lit some mosquito repellent herbs in the ear room, so that the room had a smell of herbs.

After a simple wash, lying in this ear room with only eight or nine square meters, Zhu Ciran couldn't sleep for a long time.

I don't know if the quilt in the countryside is too heavy, which makes him breathless, or Zhu Ciran himself recalls what Uncle Bao said today, which makes him breathless.

"If you want to govern the world, do you have to give up the small and chase the big?"

Thinking of Uncle Bao's concern that the government was going to relocate them, Zhu Ciran turned over, looked at the slightly lit window, and had a complicated mood.

He now understands why his uncle said that he fought the world, and then let his father sit in the world and stabilize the world by himself.

It seems that he is saying it to his father and son, but in fact he is saying it to himself.

What kind of attitude his father has towards the people, Zhu Ciran knows better than anyone else.

In fact, Zhu Ciran understood that if his uncle asked his father to organize the migration after the Battle of the Northeast Extermination, then his father would definitely follow the example of Hongwu and immigrate.

What are the consequences of such an immigration, his father will not care, only the result.

It looks like that's good, but in fact his father's reputation will plummet.

Because of this, his uncle did not delegate power, but used his own methods to move the people.

When the relocation of the people is done, it is time for him to leave......

"If you leave, what will the Ming Dynasty do......"

Zhu Ciran muttered, although he also knew that his uncle could solve most of the current problems by being a vassal, but the captain was gone, could the remaining helmsmen be in charge of the route?

"Hoo ......"

Exhaling a breath of turbidity, Zhu Ciran could only close his eyes and forcibly let himself fall asleep, but the brow that could not be dissolved between his eyebrows betrayed his heart.

】

Sleepless all night, Zhu Ciran almost forgot how he fell asleep.

By the time he awoke, it was already three hours (9:45).

Uncle Bao went to open up the wasteland, and Aunt Bao was cooking a big pot of rice noodles in the kitchen.

When Zhu Ciran washed up and sat on a chair in the courtyard with Liu Shun and Yang Xiu, a bowl of ordinary peasant rice noodles appeared in front of them.

Thin rice noodles are boiled in plain water, then removed and placed in a bowl on the side.

On the table are leeks, crushed tomatoes, chili oil, and a bowl of minced meat sauce, as well as fine salt, pepper, and soy sauce from the Imperial Restaurant.

At first glance, it seems that this meal is very ordinary, but the full spice is expensive.

The price of fine salt in Yunnan is 15 wen a catty, pepper is 40 wen, and soy sauce is slightly cheaper, but there are also 20 wen.

The four of them couldn't eat much, but this meal cost thirty or forty yuan.

If you do it at home, it's very expensive.

"Eat eggs."

Aunt Bao fried three eggs for Zhu Ciran and the three of them, and this bowl of rice was belly, and the three of them also ate with their mouths full of oil.

"It's a pity that my stomach can't fit it, otherwise I would have to eat two more bowls."

Touching his stomach, Zhu Ciran smiled and spoke, without the melancholy of last night.

"Not enough, there's more."

"Enough is enough."

Aunt Bao didn't understand and thought it wasn't enough, so she was going to add another bowl to the three of them, but Zhang Xiu hurriedly stopped her when she saw this.

Immediately afterwards, they helped Aunt Bao clean up the table before saying goodbye to Aunt Bao.

Aunt Bao carried a food box containing rice noodles and two bags of water to the field, while Zhu Ciran and the others watched her walk away, and then got in the car and continued to pedal the bicycle.

As they stepped on, Weiman Town became farther and farther away from them, and when they were about to disappear, Zhu Ciran couldn't help but glance back.

He didn't know if he would be able to come to Weiman Town for the second time in his life, let alone what Weiman Town would be like next time.

Despite being the crown prince, he is not as free as outsiders think.

He also has his own hobbies, but as he grows up and understands, he gradually understands what his uncle expects of him.

It was a big burden, but he had to carry it.

Compared with his uncle, who led troops to the battlefield at the age of twelve, and consul general of state affairs at the age of fourteen, he is also very lucky to be able to play at the age of fourteen.

At least my uncle can stay in Daming for a few more years, and I still have time to study and rest, if my uncle is gone......

Zhu Ciran was a little silent, he couldn't think of if his uncle left, then who else could he rely on.

He gradually understood his father's entanglement, because such entanglement also appeared in his heart many times.

It is a full 230 miles from Weiman Town to Bo Pass on the edge of Yungui, and with the speed of the four-wheeled bicycle developed by Zhu Ciran, it is not difficult to walk 50 miles every hour.

It's just that if you ride like this, it will consume a bit of Jinyiwei......

However, in order to rush to Bo Pass, Zhu Ciran couldn't care so much.

Under his order, the brocade guards began to rotate, and although he and Liu Shun had been riding on the car, they were not fast, so they were not tired of stepping on them.

The scenery of the road along the way is not bad, especially after crossing the sixty-mile long slope behind Weiman Town, it is a long downhill that greets Zhu Ciran.

The breeze blew on his face, blowing away the heat, but at the same time, it also made Zhu Ciran discover the population problem in Yunnan.

"From yesterday to now, we haven't met a single person on this road......

There are few rural roads in Yunnan, because many villages are in the mountains, and the villages in the mountains have been forcibly relocated by Hong Chengchou.

Therefore, there are only three provincial roads from Yunnan to Guangxi, and two of them go to Guizhou and Jiaozhi, and only the southeast of Yunnan goes directly to Guangxi.

After riding for more than 200 miles, he didn't even touch a person on the road, which undoubtedly made Zhu Ciran very unhappy.

This kind of unhappiness is like the kind of unhappiness that the child knows that the parents are doing for his own good, but he is still a little uncomfortable.

He knew that Hong Chengchou was carrying out his uncle's edict, and he knew that Hong Chengchou was doing nothing wrong, but when he faced Yunnan, which had become vast and sparsely populated because of policies, he still couldn't help but feel uncomfortable.

"With so many people relocated, if the Chinese dynasty sends tractors to the people of Yunnan, I am afraid that tens of millions of acres of arable land can be reclaimed."

"Even if the people of Yunnan reproduce for several generations, I am afraid it will be difficult to digest."

Liu Shun is very optimistic, after all, he is a Jinyiwei, and he knows that labor pain is better than long pain.

At present, it is true that Yunnan is vast and sparsely populated, but as long as the imperial court policy is tilted, the fields in Yunnan may not be divided for hundreds of years.

Of course, the premise is that the imperial court's policy towards the fields remains unchanged.

With regard to the policy of land, whether it is newly reclaimed land or the more than 400 million mu of land that was previously confiscated by the imperial court, these lands are state-owned land and cannot be bought or sold, and the peasants only enjoy the right to cultivate and the right to inherit without limits.

In other words, these lands belong to farmers all their lives, but farmers are not allowed to sell them, even to their relatives.

If the whole family is gone, the land will be collected by the court and distributed to the new people.

Of course, it is very rare for a whole family to be wiped out, and in this era when there are no cars, trains, and so much gas, except for plague, military disasters, and famine, it is rare for a whole family to be wiped out.

"These fertilizers in Yunnan have not yet been popularized, and when there are chemical fertilizers, it is estimated that two acres of land can feed one person."

"According to the situation in Bao's family, 52 acres of land is enough to feed 26 people."

Listening to Liu Shun's words, Zhu Ciran briefly expounded on the agricultural development of the Ming Dynasty, and then retorted:

"If the four children of the Bao family all return home, marry wives and have children, then in less than ten years, I am afraid that the Bao family will be able to change from six people to twenty or thirty people."

"At the beginning of the founding of the previous dynasties, there were many people and few places, and the rice in the Zhenguan period was only three or four Wen, according to my Ming Dynasty, each stone of rice was only thirty or forty Wen, and the result?"

"From the first year of Zhenguan to the second year of Qianfeng, it was only forty years, and the land was already uneven in the former Tang Dynasty."

"By the tenth year of Kaiyuan, it will not even take a hundred years, and the government military system will be difficult to sustain."

"If the government soldiers are still like this, what should the people do?"

"Resettlement is a must, and so is reclamation."

"My uncle said that if all the cultivated land of the dynasty is developed, more than 40 billion mu of land can be obtained, and there will be 10 billion mu of grassland."

"This land may seem like a lot, but what about the population?"

No matter how emotionally Zhu Ciran is biased towards the people, he actually knows what to do and what not to do.

Especially along the way, many of his ideas have been overthrown, and he knows better how to relieve the pressure of the people.

Relieving the pressure of the people, that is, extending the national glory of the Ming Dynasty, this is not a conflict.

With the current arable land of the Ming Dynasty, at most, it can only maintain a population of about 300 million.

If oil, salt and meat can be guaranteed, then 500 catties of rice per capita is a threshold, once it is insufficient, then any famine may turn into an uprising.

If oil, salt and meat cannot be guaranteed, then the per capita cannot be less than 800 catties of rice.

Xiaoice rivers, droughts, floods......

These various natural disasters can reduce food production, and once the food is reduced, there will be uprisings.

Another phenomenon is that the taxes are too high, so that the peasants who originally earned 2,000 catties of rice a year can only eat less than 1,000 catties of rice after paying the taxes.

At this time, the people can still live, but if it is reduced to less than 800 catties, it will be a rebellion.

According to the current population growth of Daming, Zhu Ciran himself doesn't know how many people Daming will have in ten years.

"Two hundred million? Or 300 million? ”

If it's 200 million, it's fine, if it's 300 million, then Daming will face land annexation again.

Land annexation was not scary, because the common people could at least become tenant farmers.

The most terrible thing is that as the population continues to grow, many people cannot become tenant farmers, but can only become homeless.

This is only 300 million people, if it reaches 400 million, then the Ming must find a way to reclaim 300 million acres of arable land and distribute it to hundreds of millions of people, if not, then either suppress the people, starve to death 100 million people, or the army will destroy the country, and a new dynasty will rise again in the Central Plains.

In this context, Zhu Youzhen left a way for the Ming Dynasty to live, that is, when there were too many internal refugees, the vassal state would become an existence that accepted them.

Qi State, South Kunlun, Xiaoxiyang......

Given more than ten or twenty years of time for these feudal states, they can feed tens of millions of people, especially the Qi state.

As for the natives? The lives of the people are more important than the lives of the people.

Zhu Ciran can understand this bloody truth, which is why Zhu Youzhen would want to let him be imprisoned in the future.

To put it bluntly, it is to let Daming transfuse blood at the same time, and let blood release and decompress.

A body can only bear so much blood, and once there is too much blood, the result of not bleeding is to explode and die.

At the same time of bloodletting, constantly strengthen the body and widen the blood vessels, then the person can live for a longer period of time.

People are like this, and so is the Ming Dynasty.

When there is really not enough land, the only way to do this is to release tens of millions of displaced people, so that the country can stabilize for a few years or even more than ten years, and use this time to continue to reclaim land.

However, the land of the vassal state is also limited, how long can the Ming Dynasty rely on the vassal state to last, this question Zhu Youzhen can't answer, only Zhu Ciran has the possibility of answering.

If Zhu Ciran didn't have it, then he could only hope for the descendants of his lineage.

After combing the rough, Zhu Ciran also raised his head.

As the sun was about to set, they finally saw the Bo Pass that stood between the river valleys......