Regarding the astronomical fever set off in and around Tokyo, the ministers are indeed worried.

They were not only worried that the Son of Heaven and the imperial court would lose their majesty, but also thought of the Song Huizong's obsession with all kinds of miscellaneous studies.

And now the emperor's performance has become "obsessed" with agriculture, mathematics and astronomy.

Why is it an obsession?

Because he not only played privately, but also tried to promote it among the people. No one bothered to take care of the former behavior, but the latter behavior is very likely to affect the community.

The most serious problem is the problem of Taoism!

Academic thought has been shocked into a mess, and now the heliocentric theory has been brought out, which will inevitably lead to the reconstruction of academic thought. The emperor also forcibly engaged in school stitching, which exacerbated this confusion.

Who will be Confucian orthodoxy in the future?

Academic differences, if controlled among the people, are okay, but once the temple is involved, it is very likely to trigger fierce party disputes.

The ministers of the Cabinet are all worried.

is also a person like Li Bangyan, no matter how much the flood will be in the future, all he thinks about is how to please the emperor.

It was another meeting of important ministers of the Cabinet.

As soon as Zhang Gen was about to speak, Zhu Guoxiang interrupted: "Today I only talk about political affairs, don't mention anything else." ”

"Yes!"

The ministers sat around the long table, and Zhang Gen honestly shut up.

In the old Song Dynasty, the emperor sat on the top, and the important ministers and bigwigs sat down.

Now it has been changed by Zhu Guoxiang again, and the carpenter has made a conference table nearly ten meters long.

The emperor was no longer separated from his ministers, but sat at the chair of the conference table. On either side are the prime minister and the deputy seated, followed by the rest of the ministers, the secretary, the imperial historian, and the squire...... The president of the General Administration Yuan was also present and was responsible for taking minutes of the meeting.

The printed document was distributed, and the ministers picked it up and began to read it.

Zhu Guoxiang opened his mouth and said: "Let's talk about the Jingxiang issue today. The land of Jingxiang was prosperous in the Tang Dynasty, with a large population, a rich economy, and an extremely prosperous literary style. Why did the Song Dynasty not recover? I asked people to look up the documents of the Tang Dynasty and sort out the decrees of the Song Dynasty, and now I have basically figured it out. ”

The important ministers did not dare to look at the meeting materials anymore, and sat up straight and listened.

Zhu Guoxiang said: "You can watch and listen at the same time." ”

"If there are floods on both sides of the Jingjiang River, and swamps everywhere cause the land to be vast and sparsely populated, why have Nanyang and Xiangyang declined to this day? There were not many swamps there, and the land was extremely fertile, and the Song Dynasty encouraged immigrants to reclaim the land many times, but the common people preferred to flee rather than farm. ”

"The root cause is the warp boundary problem!"

"There were three ways for the old Song Dynasty to absorb immigrants in Jingxiang: one was to reclaim the land; the second is to recruit tenants; The third is private farming. ”

"Let's talk about reclamation first. Recruit the displaced people as the Xiang Army, and then let the Xiang Army go to Tuntian, which will be managed by the Jingxiang Government. This method can only last for a few years, and those cantonment armies will flee one after another. Why flee? Because they are inferior to pigs and dogs, the food they grow is not their own, and they can't even support their families on military salaries and monthly rations! ”

"At the beginning, it was okay, because those who dared to engage in reclamation were all capable ministers. Once this capable official is transferred, the successor will inevitably be exploited. ”

"The reclamation around Xiangyang City lasted the longest, and it took more than 20 years to hold on. In the end, all the official fields reclaimed were divided between officials and Haoqiang! ”

The ministers nodded subconsciously, because what the emperor said was the truth.

Zhu Guoxiang continued: "Let's talk about recruiting tenants again. Jingxiang is vast and sparsely populated, and it is extremely difficult to recruit tenants locally, so it can only rely on farmers and tenants to reproduce naturally. This is also the main way for the Jingxiang household registration to increase in the Song Dynasty, but the population base of Jingxiang after five generations is too small...... Well, there are few people, and reproduction is slow. The peasants and tenants were exploited again, and the number of those who died and fled was unknown. Even though reproduction has increased several times, it still seems too little.

"Let's talk about private reclamation."

"Landlords are not enough tenants, so they are reluctant to reclaim land. As a result, the development of the Jingxiang area is centered on the town and gradually radiates outward. And what about absorbing people from other places to reclaim the famine, and reconciling displaced people to reclaim the famine? There's always something wrong with the warp! ”

"There are capable ministers and officials, promising homeless people and outsiders that as long as they are willing to open up the wasteland, they will be issued a land deed after the cultivation is completed. But this capable official was transferred, and those newly reclaimed wastelands were immediately robbed by heroes. In the long run, how can there be poor people willing to reclaim the famine? ”

"When the prince was in Jingxiang, he had already discovered it. There is a large wasteland there that actually has a Lord. The landlord encircled the land to obtain the land deed, and because he could not recruit tenants, he kept it there and waited for someone to take it back when it was ripe. ”

As soon as the prince left with the army, the Jingxiang landlords began to repeat their old tricks again. In the prefectures and counties of Nanyang and Xiangyang, I sent people to inquire about it, and last year alone, I received more than 1,000 complaints, all of which were used to fight land lawsuits with land deeds. The governor and the county order were troubled by these field lawsuits. ”

"A lot of that land was given to the soldiers. Haoqiang even dares to fight for the land of soldiers! ”

The ministers' faces changed when they heard this, and they had a premonition that the emperor might come hard.

If the emperor doesn't do anything, when the prince returns to the capital, I am afraid that the means will be more intense, because all the robberies are soldiers rewarding the fields.

"Li Hanzhang!" Zhu Guoxiang shouted.

"The minister is here!"

Li Hanzhang hurriedly stood up, he was not used to this conference table.

Zhu Guoxiang raised his hand and said, "Sit down and talk." ”

"Yes." Li Hanzhang hurriedly sat down again.

Zhu Guoxiang said: "You are the secretary of the ministry, and you have selected three officials who are tough on governing the people to serve as the prefects of Nanyang, Xiangyang, and Jingzhou. Whether it is a wasteland that involves soldiers or displaced people, it is all subject to the fish scale book after the prince took charge of Xiangyang. If there are officials who collude with Haoqiang to encroach on people's land, regardless of how much they have occupied, the officials and Haoqiang will all be exiled to the northwest. ”

Xu Fuyan, the secretary of the Criminal Department, said: "Your Majesty, if you negate a rule, how many acres or more will be exiled, and how many acres will be fined or imprisoned. Otherwise, there will be chaos in the localities, and officials may take advantage of the opportunity to frame and extort landlords. ”

"In troubled times, we will be exiled this year, and we will be a little more lenient next year." Zhu Guoxiang said.

"Yes!"

Xu Fuyan and Li Hanzhang responded together.

Zhu Guoxiang also said: "Issuing decrees to officials in various localities concerning disputes over land and property between displaced people and soldiers, the judgment should be biased in favor of them, and the landlords should not be allowed to seize the opportunity to seize the land. Chen Dong! ”

"The minister is here." Chen Dong responded.

Zhu Guoxiang said: "There will be another 60 people in the imperial history, and the upright ones will be selected from among the new science and technology scholars. Many imperial historians were sent to inspect the prefectures and counties across the country, mainly to inspect land disputes. Once it is discovered that some officials are colluding with Haoqiang to seize land, they will be dismissed from office at least, and exiled to the northwest! ”

"Yes!"

Chen Dong was eager to try.

From last year to this year, the provinces have been massively resettling displaced people and distributing unclaimed land to them.

Since the second half of last year, the number of cases of land disputes has skyrocketed.

Many landlords did not want to encroach on their land, but they fled during the war, and when the situation stabilized, they returned to their hometowns and found that their land had been allocated to the displaced people. Even the ancestral homes of some landlords were occupied by displaced people.

In this case, they naturally have to go to court.

However, it is difficult to distinguish between a normal lawsuit over land and a lawsuit for encroachment on property. Or they colluded with officials and deliberately made it difficult for local officials to distinguish.

From the perspective of the overall situation of the country, Zhu Guoxiang can only apply a one-size-fits-all approach.

Those landlords who have lost their land should consider themselves unlucky, because they also have floating wealth anyway. And with local connections, you can more or less get some back, or you can go to reclaim wasteland.

Zhu Guoxiang continued: "Jingxiang's problems are not limited to these. Why can't the gentry and merchants there get rich? Can only stare at the peasants? ”

"I had people collect information about the Tang Dynasty. The specialties of the Jingxiang region include tea, lacquerware, sericulture, and citrus. As for mining and metallurgy, bamboo weaving, and papermaking, the volume is too small to be ignored. ”

"Tea cannot enrich the people of Jingxiang, which is caused by the old Song Dynasty tea law, especially Cai Jing's tea law. Jingxiang merchant Jia is not rich, and Jingxiang is not much in and out of the jinshi. They can't get tea at all, so they can only endure the price reduction of foreign tea merchants, and if they want to make money from tea, they can only smuggle. Smuggling can make a small amount of money, but once the scale is large, it will inevitably be reported by foreign tea merchants who have tea citations, which will attract severe crackdowns from the old Song court. ”

"Let's talk about lacquerware. Xiangyang lacquerware in the Tang Dynasty is unique in the world, relying on style, and there is a special name called 'Xiangxiang'. After the Five Dynasties, the cultural context of Xiangyang was sluggish, and the style of lacquerware was mediocre, and it was difficult to sell to other places in the Song Dynasty. ”

"Let's talk about citrus. Maybe it's because the temperature became lower after the Tang Dynasty, or maybe it's because the varieties are degrading. Xiangyang citrus, which was famous all over the world in the Tang Dynasty, was no longer delicious in the Song Dynasty, and it was not even qualified for medicine. ”

"Let's talk about sericulture. The mulberry varieties of Xiangyang have tall branches and are suitable for agricultural intercropping, which is not conducive to dense planting and harvesting. Since the end of the Tang Dynasty, dwarf mulberry dense planting has been popular, and regional sericulture textiles can be developed on a large scale. Over there in Xiangyang, I can't keep up with the pace. ”

The important ministers of the cabinet and the court were stunned by these words.

When they were magistrates, they may have been able to understand the local situation and adapt measures to local conditions through contact with the gentry and common people.

But it is definitely not as comprehensive as Zhu Guoxiang's exposition, and it is so strategic.

Zhu Guoxiang said: "Tea is easy to solve, and the new tea law has been implemented, which can give tea households and tea merchants a chance to breathe." It can also be changed to roasted tea and transported outside the border to be sold. Citrus is also easy to solve, let the agricultural department to cultivate or transplant new varieties. ”

"Sericulture, according to the local mulberry species and topography, can be developed in the way of high field plus pond weir and high platform plus pond. It can not only be as good as possible for the terrain, but also maintain the income of agriculture, and also take the opportunity to build weirs and ponds for water conservancy, and at the same time develop fish farming ......"

Zhu Guoxiang glanced at the ministers: "In this way, it is called giving to the people, and it is necessary to adapt measures to local conditions and understand the local situation." Instead of blindly shouting what to persuade agriculture and water conservancy! ”

Even Zhang Gen experienced the emperor's ability to govern the people for the first time.

Because when he was in Hanzhong, Zhu Guoxiang's main energy was devoted to providing military rations to Zhu Ming. The rest of the decrees are nothing more than measuring land and building water conservancy.

One counts as one, and the ministers present all respect the emperor.

The person in front of him, even if he is not the emperor, but the magistrate of the old Song Dynasty, will definitely be able to benefit the people.

Zhu Guoxiang said: "Print out what I just said and send it to officials in various localities. Let them adapt to local conditions, what they just said is only suitable for Jingxiang, don't copy the past when they govern the people, and understand the ways and means! ”

"Your Majesty Shengming!"

The ministers shouted in unison.

Why does Zhu Guoxiang pay attention to Jingxiang?

Because Zhong Xiang has been making small moves, he even entered Guangxi last winter!

(End of chapter)