"Let's take a look, the Spring Festival, find a colorful ......"

"Alas......"

Over there, the country of Qi is carrying out the Chinese New Year's Eve lantern festival, and here Daming is celebrating the New Year.

It's just that compared to the bustling north, there are not many celebratory people on the streets of Cochin Cham.

In the north, there are lanterns in the north, coming and going to pay New Year's greetings, and drinking the first cup of rice wine of the new year, but inside and outside the Champa city, only a small number of people can put up lanterns, and most of the people still insist on working on the first day of the new year.

It's not that they want to work, it's that if they don't work, it's hard to get through tomorrow, even today.

All this is just because this is the Cham Palace, which is the five southern provinces of Jiaozhi.

Ningshun, Taihe, Pinghe, Champong, Binh Minh......

These five prefectures are the five provinces with the largest number of native people in Cochin, with a total of 1.34 million native people, accounting for nearly half of the local people in Cochin.

Due to the large number of native people, and the large number of plateaus in the south, and the plains are all along the coast, there are very few Han people who are willing to migrate here.

Under the migration policy of more than ten years, there are only about 200,000 Han people in Wufu, while there are only 60,000 in Cham Province.

In Daming, most of those who can afford to consume are Han people, and the number of Han people in Cham Mansion is only that, so the so-called New Year will naturally not be very lively.

Because of the mixed living of Han people, the Han people are not very willing to invite opera troupes to perform for free in the neighborhoods of the city, so the city of Cham is very deserted in the New Year.

As for the local people, although they also like the atmosphere of the New Year, due to income problems, most of them do not have extra money to spend.

At present, many factories in the Ming Dynasty are controlled by the imperial court, so the right to wage is also determined by the imperial court according to local conditions.

According to the "Da Ming Law and Gong Law" set in the twentieth year of the Apocalypse, the minimum wage in the capital provinces of the world is ten wen for five hours in a single day, which is the lowest wage.

In terms of the minimum wages, the wages of the two capitals and 28 provinces are increased according to the local conditions.

For example, in the rich provinces of Beijing, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other provinces, even if it is a county seat or a market town, the daily wage can reach 20 wen, and if it is a heavy city in this province, the single-day wage can reach the price ranging from 30 wen to 70 wen.

Slightly inferior to Beijing, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang are the other 11 provinces in the Central Plains, and the wage is basically about 15 to 30 Wen.

Again, it is the four provinces of Nanzhou, Northeast China and Hexi, which are basically about 15 to 20 Wen.

As for the provinces with the lowest wages, they are the four provinces of Luchuan, Jiaozhi, Jiugang, and Yingzhou.

It is normal for the four provinces to have low wages, because their land is filled with a large number of native people.

There are many local people, and there is little work, and more people and less work will naturally make the wage not rise.

Therefore, the wage rate of the four provinces is 10 to 15 wen that steps on the bottom line of the Ming Dynasty.

This is only the marked salary, and whether you actually get it or not is two words.

Because of the lack of work, many people only find a job and get paid for a third of the time in a year.

Hermes-Epitek said that each household has basically forty or fifty mu of land, and even if the price of grain is only two cents per catty, after retaining the rations, they can still collect more than 20 taels of silver every year, which is enough for a family of five or six people to live with meat and food.

On the other hand, on the Tumin side, a family of five only has 10 acres of arable land, and the food produced is only enough for them to eat and live, and if they want to eat meat and buy cloth to make clothes, they can only be satisfied by working to make money.

A family of five must have at least five taels of silver to ensure that there are vegetables to eat, each person has a set of clothes, and firewood, rice, sauce, vinegar and tea can basically sustain life.

Five taels of silver may not seem like much, but in terms of the work that is still in short supply for a day in the 12 Wen of the Cham Mansion, two people together have to do at least enough work for more than 400 days to get these five taels of silver.

Even if the more than 400 days were divided between two people, each would need to do at least 210 days of work.

But for the natives of Cham Province, who are unemployed homeless for two-thirds of the year, these more than 400 days of working time are simply a fantasy.

In the native families of Cochin, if one member of the family can sign a long-term employment contract for more than three months, it is worth celebrating.

From this point of view, it can be seen what the living environment of the Cochin natives is.

"This ...... It's too bitter. ”

Now at the head of the city of Champa, there are emperors like Zhu Youxiao, and when they hear about the embarrassment of the local people in Jiaozhi, they can't help but be a little unbearable.

Just in the face of his words, Zhu Youzhen, who was standing next to him, said indifferently:

"The dynasty is still developing, as long as the dynasty can reclaim an additional 300 million acres of arable land, the local people will not be so miserable......"

As soon as Zhu Youzhen said this, the officials of the Cham Mansion who were in charge of accompanying him couldn't help but feel ashamed.

To tell the truth, because the Ming Dynasty entered the first industrial revolution, and even touched the edge of the second industrial revolution in agriculture, the speed of cultivated land reclamation far exceeded that of all countries in the world in the mid-nineteenth century, not to mention many countries in this era.

But the problem is that even if a dynasty of the size of the Ming Dynasty entered the industrial revolution, the amount of cultivated land reclaimed every year remained within 20 million mu.

This is the most optimistic estimate, but even so, it will take 15 years to reach 300 million mu of new cultivated land.

If you're not optimistic, it's probably going to take thirty years.

Thirty years......

The officials of the Cham province are well aware of the current customs of the local people of Cochin, and most of them pray for a daughter, because as long as they give birth to a daughter and marry the Han people, even if they marry only a peasant, they can make a qualitative leap in their lives.

If this trend continues, I am afraid that in 30 years, the number of natives in Cochin will plummet to an outrageous level.

However, the officials of the Cham province were quick to react that the fewer the natives, the easier it was to rule and manage, so such a culture may be a good thing.

With a correct stance and mentality, the official will no longer think too much.

Compared with him, Zhu Youxiao was worried:

"In the long run, I am afraid that they will be dissatisfied with my Han family, and then turmoil will break out."

"Is it possible to start a factory to improve their lives?"

Zhu Youxiao doesn't sympathize with the local people, he doesn't even sympathize with the people of the Han family, let alone the local people?

His problem was just that he was worried that the local people would rebel and threaten the rule of the Ming Dynasty in Jiaozhi.

However, in this regard, Zhu Youzhen responded lightly:

"The establishment of a factory is also for the Han immigrants."

"Besides, there are enough goods produced by the DPRK at the moment, and even so many that it is difficult to digest them through trade with the domestic people."

"Therefore, it is no longer possible to set up a factory, and the problem can only be solved by waiting for the population to slowly increase and the arable land continues to increase."

As he spoke, Zhu Youzhen glanced at the officials of the Cham Mansion, and they also sang loudly in understanding:

"Hooray, what Your Highness said is very true!"

"That'...... All right. Zhu Youxiao was still a little worried, but seeing that so many officials said that it was okay, he couldn't say anything more, so he just nodded and agreed with the officials' words.

He then began to tour the city of Cham in the company of the officials, and looked at the life of the people in the streets and alleys of the city.

Walking down this circle, in general, the people of the Han family are still relatively nourishing, and there are many places outside the city that can be reclaimed as arable land, so after Zhu Youxiao saw it, he specially asked Zhu Youzhen:

"This Cham province is on the coast, the place is flat, if there are enough tractors, I am afraid that a lot of land can be reclaimed, you see......"

Zhu Youxiao wanted to transfer a tractor to support the Champa Mansion, and Zhu Youzhen also echoed this: "It's all up to my brother." ”

"Good!" Hearing Zhu Youzhen say this, Zhu Youxiao smiled a little happily, turned his head and said to Lu Wenzhao:

"This year, 10,000 tractors will be transferred to support the Cham house."

"Yes!" Lu Wenzhao responded, and Zhu Youxiao also returned to the palace of the former Cham country with Zhu Youzhen while making a hasty inspection.

Although it is a royal palace, it is actually built relatively simply, and it is not as grand as the mansions of some dignitaries.

However, to be able to live in such a place in this Cham land, Zhu Youxiao is already relatively satisfied, after all, it is impossible for him to let people build palaces while parading.

Sitting in the stone palace full of exotic styles, Zhu Youxiao and Zhu Youzhen chatted about basic state affairs while passing on meals.

Zhu Youxiao held in his hand the summary book that Zhu Ciran had reviewed in the past month, and said it while reading it, asking Zhu Youzhen whether it was reasonable to do so.

"At present, 40 million taels of treasury bonds have been sold, but more than 16 million taels of them have been purchased by the feudal lords, and more than 8 million taels have been purchased by officials."

"From this, it can be seen that the people do not have any silver in their hands, or even if they have, they do not trust the national debt of the imperial court."

"In addition, the dynasty has issued 87 million taels of banknotes, more than 50 million of which are in circulation in various domains, and only more than 30 million in China, and more than 30 million banknotes are mainly circulated in Qi State."

When Zhu Youxiao said this, he glanced at his younger brother with some concern:

"Brother, if there are so many banknotes and treasury bonds, if one day this banknote ......"

"No, it won't." Zhu Youzhen shook his head firmly:

"The banknotes of the dynasty were issued according to the amount of gold in the vault, and as long as the amount of gold was not exceeded, there would not be much problem with the banknotes."

"At present, the total amount of gold in the treasury is as high as 12 million taels, and more than 120 million taels of paper money can be issued."

"In addition, every year, the provincial mining department also handed over nearly one million taels of gold, which also means that 10 million taels of banknotes are issued every year."

"But even so, my brother still has to grasp it and not issue too many banknotes in one go."

Zhu Youzhen was afraid that his brother would be comfortable printing money, and he would think about printing money if he had no money in the future, so he gave him a wake-up call.

In this regard, Zhu Youxiao nodded and talked about economic issues with Zhu Youzhen.

In fact, for a unified dynasty like the Ming Dynasty, it is completely possible to print money with the country's reputation, and there is no need to use the gold standard and the silver standard at all.

But such a system, once encountering a monarch who does not understand the economy, the result is the second treasure.

Even a person like Zhu Yuanzhang can't resist the pleasure of printing money, let alone future generations.

Therefore, the gold standard is a bottom line that Zhu Youzhen told the emperors of future dynasties, a bottom line that will not lead to the collapse of paper money.

The advantage of the gold standard is that the currency will not be over-issued, because a country's gold reserves are limited and difficult to increase rapidly, and the wealth of the currency situation brought about by extremely low inflation is permanently preserved.

This seemed perfect and binding on the imperial court, but the drawbacks of the gold standard were also obvious.

Obviously, the currency cannot be over-issued because the total amount of gold in the world is fixed, which brings a big problem, that is, almost all trade, from small enterprises to large countries, will be a zero-sum game.

Assuming that a country has a continuous deficit with other countries, then its own capital and wealth will continue to decrease, which will inevitably lead to various restrictions on imports and exports, and each country will introduce policies to encourage export dumping and restrict imports.

Trade between countries is inevitably distorted and unfair, because trade is a zero-sum game, so countries can only exert their absolute superiority and cannot achieve comparative advantage, and the allocation of resources can never be in a relatively optimal state.

In addition, the gold standard has not been very effective in reducing inflation, and inflation has been kept low in the long run, but it tends to fluctuate greatly in the short term.

Assuming that a country discovers new gold mines within its borders, this will lead to a very high level of inflation in recent years.

In this way, the growth of each country's wealth is not based on its technological superiority, but on luck to see who has more gold mines within its borders, which is also inconsistent with the original intention of better resource allocation to bring productivity.

Turning the attention back to a country, because a country's gold reserves are also relatively constant, it is difficult for the economy to develop rapidly.

The emergence of new industries and thus economic growth require a large amount of money as initial capital, but the value of money is increasing due to the economic prosperity and development of the currency aggregate unchanged.

In this situation, people are more inclined to hold currency, which leads to the problem of reluctance to borrow and difficulty in borrowing.

In addition, the gold standard was politically implicated, making it impossible for the imperial court to interfere with the economy and effectively supervise it.

In such a situation, once there was a bottleneck in the economic development market, the imperial court could not save the market, and there were only fiscal policies and could not use the disadvantages of monetary policy, so credit money came into being.

The biggest advantage of credit money is that it can be over-issued, and in a sense, it is infinitely over-issued.

This phenomenon makes international trade no longer a zero-sum game, and a "win-win" situation is possible, and both sides of the trade can profit from the trade.

The imperial court has a monetary policy that can be used to better control the economy, because the existence of credit can inject blood into new industries.

Because holding currencies depreciates, people are more inclined to invest, which helps to increase productivity, drive economic growth, and optimize the allocation of resources.

As for the shortcomings of credit currency, it is also obvious from the current point of view, and its biggest disadvantage is that the currency can be over-issued.

This leads to huge inflation if the imperial court does not act properly, intentionally or unintentionally, for some reason.

It also leads to deflation, which will be devastating to the economy, and there is the problem of bubbles.

In a sense, the bubble problem is also due to the widespread existence of inflation.

Because the currency itself depreciates, people tend to hold assets, and this created demand creates a large number of bubbles, which deviate the price of the underlying asset itself from its intrinsic value.

There is also the fact that credit itself is intangible, cannot be inherited and cannot be guaranteed, unlike gold, which is a genuine collateral.

After all, the existence of credit itself is determined by the individual, organization and even the state with past transaction records and their willingness to repay, and does not depend entirely on how many assets can be pledged or have been pledged.

As a result, in the event of moral hazard or natural or man-made disasters, no one can escape from it.

The treasure banknotes of the early Ming Dynasty are a living example, so for the Tianqi Dynasty, which has not yet cultivated the trust of the people in the imperial court, the gold standard is an economic field that must be stepped into.

In addition, the growth rate of gold in the Apocalypse Dynasty is very rapid, and the countries under the clan system and the Ming Dynasty also belong to an alliance.

During the economic upswing, there will be no problems in the countries under the suzerainty system, but once it encounters a downturn, it may decompose internally, after all, too many feudal states do not have gold mines in their territory.

However, as long as the Ming Dynasty remains strong and all countries use the Apocalypse Tongbao uniformly, some small economic downturn problems can still be solved.

As for the big economic problems, they were even big enough to dismantle the feudal system......

Before they appeared, it was difficult for Zhu Youzhen to come up with a solution, after all, only when problems arise and can they be solved by sorting them out, which is the same as politics.

The problems of the middle and late Ming Dynasty seemed easy to solve in the eyes of people like Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, but they could not live to see the problems, so these problems could not be solved by future generations.

Zhu Youzhen's only advantage is that he is aware of world trends, so the documents he left behind almost cover the problems that the Ming Dynasty may encounter in the next four hundred years and how to solve them.

Its function is to reduce many detours, so that Daming can always walk in a straight line.

But the problem is that no matter how well he writes, the emperor must be able to understand it.

For example, right now, Zhu Youxiao watched Zhu Youzhen write out the "General Outline", but he still did not understand the problems of the gold standard and the credit standard.

It was only as an emperor that his intuition told him that economic problems were issues that he had to learn, so he discussed them with Zhu Youzhen every day to solve his doubts.

This time, Zhu Youzhen also solved Zhu Youxiao's doubts as before, and after listening, Zhu Youxiao also touched his chin and said:

"According to my younger brother, as long as the economy has been on the rise, it will be difficult for the feudal system to collapse, and the Ming Dynasty is still the co-ruler of the world."

"It's just how do you keep the economy on the upswing?"

Zhu Youxiao asked Zhu Youzhen, to which Zhu Youzhen turned the "General Outline" to a certain page and pointed to it:

"If you want the economy to maintain an upward period, you need to continue to carry out scientific and technological innovation, so that emerging industries continue to appear, continue to create jobs, and meet the employment problems of the people."

Zhu Youzhen used the most easy-to-understand words, and even gave an example:

"If there were no steam engines, what would the workers of the steam engine factories do? They had to work in the fields or in the cities. ”

"But brother, you also know what they do when natural disasters break out and a large number of people flood into towns and there are no jobs."

"Economic problems are the biggest problem of the imperial court, and if the people live and work in peace and contentment, have jobs, have enough food, and have enough food and clothing, they will naturally not seek rebellion."

"Steam engine factory, cement plant, fertilizer plant, feed factory, bicycle factory, rubber factory......"

Zhu Youzhen read the names of the factories one by one, and finally said:

"The dynasty now has one hundred and twenty-two industrial zones and five thousand seven hundred and thirty-six factories."

"The things produced by these factories are the most popular products that the Ming Dynasty has never owned, and this is the emerging industry."

"The emergence of these factories has solved about three million jobs and fed three million families."

"At best, feed three million people, and at most, that's one or two million people."

"The more workers, the fewer farmers, and the fewer farmers, the more land individuals hold, the easier it is to accumulate wealth, and the stronger the resistance to natural and man-made disasters."

"A worker, based on the minimum daily salary of ten cents in the factory of the country, plus the holiday subsidy, can basically maintain an income of four taels a year."

"This is still on paper, in fact, the wages of the factories of the Kingdom Dynasty are basically 20 to 60 wen, plus festivals and subsidies, the income of workers is basically 8 taels to 25 taels."

"Eight taels of silver, which can buy at least sixteen stone rice, and the output of sixteen stone rice requires at least fifteen acres of land, which can feed at least four people."

"That is to say, for every additional worker, four people can be fed, and if there are two workers in each household, then they can basically eat meat every three or five times."

"I said this, just to tell my brother that in addition to cultivating farmland, the dynasty has many means to allow the people to live and work in peace and contentment, among which the emerging industries caused by scientific and technological innovation are the greatest existence that can allow the people to live and work in peace and contentment."

"Therefore, my brother must not abandon the research of the Armaments Institute, not only can he not deduct funds, but he must also increase investment year by year while economic growth slows down."

Zhu Youzhen said so much, just because he wants his brother to always pay attention to scientific and technological innovation.

"Brother, don't worry, I will always be in the Italian Armaments Institute, and once there is a good innovation, I will also vigorously support it."

"As for Brother Ran'er's side, I will also explain it well and tell Brother Ran as it is with my brother's words."

Zhu Youxiao understood Zhu Youzhen's words, although he didn't know how to support emerging industries, he would learn.

His younger brother's approach was to build a factory and sell things through the Imperial Store, and then create demand to continue to expand the factory.

If his brother does this, then he will follow it.

What's more, if his younger brother goes to Qi in the future, I am afraid that he will also establish a similar armament institute.

As long as Qi Guo vigorously invests in the construction of some kind of factory, then the Ming Dynasty will follow the study, and with the size of the Ming Dynasty, once it begins to imitate, the jobs created may make Qi Guo sigh.

That's how he did it, which was somewhat immoral to his younger brother......

Thinking of this, Zhu Youxiao glanced at Zhu Youzhen with a weak heart, and Zhu Youzhen was still unaware of the benefits of scientific and technological innovation, for fear that Zhu Youxiao would lose interest in scientific and technological innovation one day.

As everyone knows, his good brother has begun to think about him now, and he is ready to cross the river with his younger brother in the future......

(End of chapter)