"In that case, there is something very special about it." Tuhuan gradually understood what she meant: "These situations also have an impact on management and conscription. ”

"That's right." Lady Elena nodded: "The village community can be said to have affected the character of the common people as a whole. ”

"Villagers tend to be extremely conservative. This conservatism is not just a moralistic and moral demand, but an opposition to all change. Their greatest wish is that nothing unexpected happens, and nothing changes. Just like his parents and grandparents, he spent his life boring but peacefully. ”

"I'm afraid of change because change isn't good, right?" Guo Kang asked.

"Yes." Lady Elena said: "Generally speaking, there are only two kinds of external variations. ”

"There are more of them, which are the bad ideas that the lord has come up with, which will only make the situation worse and destroy the original production;"

"The other is a good idea that the lord has come up with. It increases productivity and management, so lords can collect taxes more efficiently. ”

Therefore, the villagers are habitually opposed to these new changes. In fact, I don't blame them for being conservative, mainly because they have suffered too many losses in the past. Where the nobles are a little more reliable, their attitude will actually soften a lot. ”

"Uh......" Guo Kang was speechless for a moment.

"Probably for these reasons, the village community as a whole is also very xenophobic. Their estates are self-sufficient—or rather, not self-sufficient. Lady Elena continued: "Because in most areas, villages and cities are already loose. The traffic is very backward and very unsafe, so I can only live like this. ”

"That's a big difference." Tuhuan also nodded.

Guo Kang also agreed.

The Serisian villages of this period, and even the Serisian villages from the Qin and Han dynasties, were never self-sufficient.

Private trade has never stopped, and the production of agriculture and handicrafts is not confined to the household. In order to improve productivity, spontaneous unions in many families have been common. A large number of tools, instruments, and materials cannot be produced by the family themselves, and need to be purchased from professional workshops on a continuous basis.

And in this era, considering the next year, the cotton promoted by Huang Daopo should have spread in the south of the Yangtze River.

Historically, since the late Ming Dynasty, the agriculture and cotton textile industries in the south of the Yangtze River will promote and upgrade each other. And now, without the interference of Jingjing, the agriculture and handicraft industry of the Ming Dynasty is expected to enter an era that can be called crazy in the eyes of Europeans sooner.

Rather than rejecting new technologies, Seris farmers are tirelessly investing their financial resources and energy to procure more efficient tools and use more efficient ways of working. Instead of "involution" and stagnation, production in the countryside has become more and more specialized, the division of labor has become more and more strict, and the technical level and efficiency have been improving.

During this period, the Jiangnan area grew from four to five people to feed a population that was out of farming, to one or two people to feed one. And these extra spare people, who are engaged in handicrafts in large numbers, have the terrifying export capacity of this era.

It is also because of the increase in efficiency that peasant women in the countryside can no longer participate in the cultivation of food rations, but basically leave the field work and engage in the textile industry, which is more efficient for them: according to the calculations of later scholars, the average income of a woman engaged in cotton weaving per working day can reach 80% of the daily income of farmers; If you are engaged in agriculture, it can only reach 30%~60%.

Therefore, contrary to the general impression, "male ploughing and female ploughing" is the norm in the backward period of Seris's production, while "male ploughing and female weaving" is a more efficient choice after the development of technology.

The output of products is far more than "self-sufficient", the proportion of entering the market has not been low, and with the development of production, there is a trend of increasing day by day.

In fact, this trend continued until the mid-to-late Qing Dynasty. In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there were at least 300~5.7 million women engaged in textiles in various prefectures and counties in the south of the Yangtze River, and 100 million pieces of cotton cloth were produced every year, of which 40 million horses were exported locally, entered long-distance trade, and even exported abroad.

The data may not be easy to remember, but some dramatic conclusions are enough to show a lot.

For example, the British waged war at the end of the Qing Dynasty with the goal of getting the Qing government to open its ports and dump goods in order to save the huge trade deficit. But after the opening of the port, the deficit has become even greater.

In the Jiangnan and Lingnan regions, there are limited places where cotton can be grown, and the output of raw materials has been insufficient. After the war, it became easier to import British goods, so it was possible to import large quantities of Indian cotton and purchase Western machinery.

This allowed the efficiency of the handicraft industry to continue to increase. In the decade beginning in 1845, imports of British cotton cloth by the Qing Dynasty fell by 30 percent. To make matters worse, the influx of Qing cotton cloth into the more recent British Indian colonies exacerbated the cotton textile industry around Mumbai, eventually leading to an almost complete collapse.

In 1856, the British Parliament counted economic data and found that the deficit with the Qing Dynasty had doubled from 1850 onwards – a battle that had not only been fought in vain, but had made the situation worse.

The wisdom of the councillors does not seem to understand this situation, and they are puzzled by this. In the end, it could only be forcibly attributed to the fact that "the treaty ports were not opened enough, and they had to be reopened", and a second war was started for this.

Therefore, the post-world definitions of "male farmer and female weaver", "self-sufficiency", and "small peasant economy" are not so much a description of the Seris countryside as it is a rigid application of the situation in the European countryside, in which these concepts are like "sacred", "roman", and "imperial", which are words that cannot exist with each other.

When you think about it, a lot of things make sense.

"By the way, I've heard that there is a tradition of reverence for suffering in the Ross Village Community, is that true?" Guo Kang just remembered a question that he had always been curious about.

"That's what I said." Lady Elena nodded: "The Ross region worships the 'Holy Fool', and one of the most important acts of the Holy Fool is 'suffering'. ”

"The way of doing things is often very pious and very simple. But in the eyes of the world, he is stupid, even almost insane. They renounce carnal pleasures and comfortable lives and exile themselves for the sake of their faith. ”

"In many of the deeds of the Holy Fool, there are episodes of beatings and humiliation. But these 'miserable' things are part of the deeds of the Holy Fool and the source of their sacredness. It can be said that the more suffering one endures, the more holy and great the Holy Fool becomes. ”

"Hey, that's hard to understand." Tuohuan sighed.

"This is also forced by the environment." Mrs. Elena shook her head and said, "The life of the village community is too hard. There is no other way to reassure everyone by not acknowledging the greatness of suffering. ”

"These characteristics are quite obvious." Guo Kang thought about it.

The pursuit of absolute equality, the willingness to be poor together, the pursuit of collectivism but the isolation of backward villages, and the custom of singing the praises of suffering...... If you think about it carefully, this has nothing to do with the tradition of Seris, but is typical of the Ross village community style. Knowing their early history, these seem to be easy to understand.

"So, do you want to refer to our village management method and reform the village community in your hometown?" He asked Lady Elena.

Lady Elena looked at him in surprise.

"That's what you said." Theodora laughed: "If not, do you want to let the Seris-style countryside go to learn from the Ross village community?" ”

"yes." Madame Elena also said with a strange expression: "Can we still teach the Romans to farm?" ”

"Oh, it's nothing, I'll just say it out of the blue." Guo Kang hurriedly confused the topic.

(End of chapter)