In the next meeting, Zhao Jun chatted with everyone about other plans.

For example, the opening of new canals.

In addition to Wu'an, steel plants should be built in other places.

The second steel plant, Zhao Jun, intends to be set up in the Nanyang Basin.

Nanyang Basin is rich in metro mines and coal mines, connecting the Hanshui Yangtze River in the south and Henan in the north, with convenient land transportation.

The most important thing is that there is a river called Baihe here, although there is no canal directly to Bianliang, but if it is transported by water, it is Xiangyang to the south, and it connects Sichuan to the west through the Yangtze River, Zhejiang to the east, and Huguang to the south.

In this way, the south has steel production capacity, and in case, it is also in case of problems with the Wu'an steel production base located on the front line of Hebei and is attacked by the Liao, and the south also has enough steel production capacity to support.

And after Nanyang has a steel plant, and then continue to lay steel manufacturing in the south, and one day in the future Guangdong has a steel plant, the domestic steel industry has basically been completely rolled out, and all over the flower.

And at about that time, the steam engine had already been put into mass production, the national steel industry blossomed, and along with the steam engine for civilian use, then trains, steamships and even automobiles could be manufactured.

Therefore, the layout of the steel industry is also to wait for a few years for rubber to take root in Guangdong, Hainan and other places, and lay it as soon as possible.

Then there were some other trivial matters about various departments, and the meeting lasted from the end of the morning to the end of the morning, and we talked for more than an hour, and even many official duties had not yet been completed.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, at about twelve o'clock in the afternoon, everyone went to eat again.

Noon is the rest time, and I don't continue to work until three o'clock in the afternoon, that is, two o'clock, and I work until about five o'clock to go to Zhao Zhen's Chongzheng Hall for a meeting, which is basically a day's process.

Some of the prime ministers simply settled the matter in the Constitutional Yuan, asked the imperial dining room to deliver some food, and continued to work hard, or took a rest in the room at the back of the Constitutional Yuan.

Some want to go home for lunch, and some simply go to the restaurant outside, such as Zhao Jun, who likes to go to Fanlou to eat recently.

The reason is that since the ocean-going fleet brought back chili peppers in August of the previous year, chili peppers have been planted in large quantities by the Ministry of Agriculture in Huangzhuang outside the city as a cooking condiment, and then began to be supplied to some restaurants and restaurants in the city.

It's a pity that this thing doesn't suit the appetite of the northerners, and the people of Kaifeng don't like it very much.

But Zhao Jun is a native of Hunan, and he has long been unaccustomed to eating the diet of the Song Dynasty, and now that chili peppers have appeared, he naturally can't let it go.

It's just that he just came out of the political institute and was about to go to Fan Lou to have a beautiful meal, and Lao Fan sneakily followed him like a fart.

"What?"

It is the middle of January in the lunar calendar, and tomorrow is the Lantern Festival, and the weather is still very cold.

Although it was not snowing outside, the cold wind was blowing, and Lao Fan was wearing a big cotton jacket with his hands in his sleeves, looking quite obscene.

Zhao Jun looked at him vigilantly and said, "Sneakily follow me and want to do bad things, right?" ”

Lao Fan wiped the frozen snot, grinned, and showed a mouthful of big yellow teeth - there were toothbrushes in the Song Dynasty, but there was no toothpaste, so they could only be brushed with salt or a little soapy water, and the effect was not particularly good.

He smiled and said, "I'm going to have a meal with you." ”

"Something's wrong."

Fan Zhongyan's ancestral home is Guanzhong, his household registration is in Jiangsu, and he grew up in Shandong, and there is no place to do anything with spicy food, so Zhao Jun guessed his mind and said with a smile: "Want to come to me and ask about the next new deal?" ”

"Yes, anyway, it's me who implements the New Deal, I'm in the way of the front, I should always know a little bit of the inside story."

Fan Zhongyan didn't hide it either, and said calmly.

Every time they implemented a new policy before, they actually discussed it in private, hiding it from Zhao Zhen and Lu Yijian, and they would not announce it until the equation was determined.

This was done to prevent the New Deal from encountering resistance to the direction of reform before it began.

But even then, it was difficult.

In recent years, for the sake of the new policy, Zhao Jun first wooed middle and lower-level officials, and then gave profits to interest groups, and finally cleared out many opposition officials, generals, and even assassinated, which can be said to be constant resistance.

But fortunately, everyone also survived, although there were also confrontations between the positions of Lu Yijian, Wang Zeng and other political institutes, but in the end, everyone still solved many things satisfactorily and stood together again.

It's just that reform is something that still has to make a plan first, and you have to take care of the interests of many parties, so it's better to hide it from them first, but I didn't expect Lao Fan to sneak over.

"Okay."

Zhao Jun thought that there was no need to hide it from Lao Fan, he was a reformist general, and he had to carry the black pot for himself, so he said: "Let's talk while eating later." ”

The two of them went out of the palace together, and outside the palace there was a carriage to pick them up, and the coachman waited every day like a driver.

Out of the Donghua Gate, the bustling street is full of people, the signboards are swaying in the wind, and countless scholars, tourists, passers-by, and traders are shuttling wantonly among them, building a prosperous scene of Renzong.

In fact, in the past two years, hundreds of officials have praised that under Zhao Zhen's administration, there is a scene of Zhenguan and Kaiyuan prosperity in the Tang Dynasty.

The people lived and worked in peace and contentment, had enough food and clothing, and the order was stable, and the uprisings in various places were almost extinct. In addition to Kaifeng, which is a bit expensive, other food prices, prices and local housing prices are very low.

Ordinary migrant workers work in Bianliang for a few years, saving dozens of yuan, and returning to their hometown to buy some real estate and land is more than enough.

Even the number of beggars was much smaller, because the imperial court established welfare institutions such as the Salesian Bureau, orphanage for the elderly, Futian Yuan, and residential nursing home to accommodate these beggars and displaced people.

If it is the kind of beggar who has hands and feet, and is lazy and lazy, the court will find out his household registration to see if there is any crime.

If you don't commit a crime, throw it directly into the box.

If a person commits a crime and flees after committing the crime, he shall be punished according to the magnitude of the crime.

Imprisonment, exile and even beheading packages for the most culpable crimes. If the culpability is small, it is still thrown into the army for transformation.

And those beggars who have broken their hands and feet, and who are really unable to work, are placed in these welfare institutions. If you can do a little work, you will arrange some work to do, and the court that can't really do it will be raised.

Therefore, the beggars in the streets and alleys are almost extinct.

In addition, the local government has reduced taxes due to light forced labor, the survival pressure of the people at the bottom and the poor has been sharply reduced, and the whole social situation has become more active and no longer as lifeless as before.

Zhao Jun's carriage was quite recognizable, and under the protection of hundreds of guards, he crossed the street all the way and stepped into the Fan Tower.

The two powerful prime ministers came to eat, and Fan Lou naturally prepared the best private room.

Under the personal reception of the owner of Fan Lou, Zhao Jun and Fan Zhongyan entered the private room, which is like a big attic, not only has a living room, an inner room, but also a balcony, and can directly see the scenery of Bianliang on the third floor.

Lao Fan saw through the balcony that there were countless scholars coming and going on the street below, and he couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "It's another year of spring and it's coming soon, it's really nostalgic." ”

"Nostalgia for the time when I used to be a scholar?"

"No, I miss the time when I was called outside the Donghua Gate."

"Sure enough, people will only miss the best times of their own beauty, and will not miss the times of suffering."

Zhao Jun rolled his eyes and sat down at the round table.

Almost as soon as he went upstairs, the food was already served, because when he went out of the palace, someone would immediately come to Fan Lou to report the news.

Distinguished guests certainly can't wait for the food to be served, so it is often the time they sit down and the dishes are already served.

There are stir-fried pork with chili, spicy chicken, stir-fried beef, stir-fried meat with tofu, and so on.

Especially the fried meat with chili pepper and fried meat with tofu that he likes to eat, these dishes are learned from the dead every day, and the taste of his hometown is copied out.

The dishes were all withdrawn, and there were guards on the third floor and three floors outside the private room, but there were only two people in the room, Zhao Jun and Fan Zhongyan.

Lao Fan also came from the balcony and sat down, Zhao Jun looked at the Hunan cuisine on the table, and said with a smile while holding chopsticks: "The peppers of our later generations have been cultivated and improved in various ways, and there are many types, and now the ones brought back are a little worse, mostly ordinary green peppers and red peppers, but they are okay." ”

Originally produced in the Americas, green peppers were brought to Mexico and North America by the Indians at an early age, and later evolved from red to green, and the spiciness became much lighter. Fortunately, there are red peppers in it, otherwise Zhao Jun is a little unhappy.

Fan Zhongyan watched Zhao Jun stuff the green pepper into his mouth and eat it directly, he could unconsciously feel a hot touch on his body, a drop of sweat fell on his forehead, and he raised his chopsticks hesitantly.

"Eat, why don't you eat?"

Zhao Jun pointed to the dishes with chopsticks while chewing: "This spicy chicken is very delicious, why don't you take two bites?" ”

"Okay."

Lao Fan regarded death as home, and put a piece in his mouth.

Dengshi almost didn't kill him.

Obviously, what you eat local specialties and think they are delicious can only appear in the story.

The reality is that people who can't eat spicy food take a whole bite, and the sour refreshment can make people want to cry.

Anyway, Lao Fan burst into tears, swallowed the piece of chicken full of spicy seeds with tears, then wiped the sweat from his forehead, and said, "Let's get down to business first." ”

"What's next for you?"

"What are you going to do?"

Zhao Jun put down his chopsticks, thought for a while, and said, "It's time to make a long-term plan." ”

Fan Zhongyan asked curiously, "Tell me more." ”

"Let's make a five-year plan."

Zhao Jun scooped a bowl of soup for himself and said: "The steam engine needs rubber, if it goes well next year, the rubber will come back, and it will begin to be widely planted in Guangzhou, Hainan and other places, and the cinchona tree is very important. ”

In ancient times, Lingnan was not suitable for habitation, so it became a place of exile for prisoners. The reason for this is the ravages of malaria, which was called miasma in ancient times.

Although Artemisia annua can be proposed as a treatment for malaria, the problem is that the extraction of artemisinin does not mean that the juice of Artemisia annua is mashed, and it requires rigorous chemical experiments and a complex extraction process.

First, Zhao Jun is not a chemistry major, so he doesn't have that ability.

Second, even if he has that ability, Da Song doesn't have the conditions for that laboratory.

On the other hand, cinchona cream is much simpler, that is, the bark of the cinchona tree is dried and mashed into powder, which has almost no technical content.

Therefore, with cinchona, in the future, Guangdong, Fujian and other Lingnan regions, and even Taiwan, where miasma is raging, there will no longer be any obstacles, and it will not be a problem for the Han people to travel all over Southeast Asia.

"Do you want to develop Lingnan?"

Fan Zhongyan asked.

"Not only that, this plan is still relatively large and grandiose, and I won't be able to explain it to you for a while."

Zhao Jun took a sip of the soup, then put down the bowl and said, "Let's talk about something simple first." After the rubber flows into China, the sealing problem of the steam engine will be completely solved, and the steam engine can be mass-produced, what do you think should be done? ”

"Train! Steamship! ”

Fan Zhongyan's spirits lifted, he had watched Westerns, and there were often trains and ships in Westerns, and those things not only made him yearn, but the entire Constitutional Yuan longed for them.

"Wrong."

Zhao Jun shook his head and said: "Mass production can be achieved, but it does not mean that mass production can be achieved immediately." Our corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes and peanuts brought back tens of thousands of catties of seeds, but to achieve the promotion of the whole country, the Ministry of Agriculture has to plant on a large scale outside the city, planted for two seasons, and produced millions of catties of seeds before they can be distributed. ”

"Uh."

Fan Zhongyan thought about it, rubber trees are trees, and the growth cycle of trees is much slower than that of crops, and I am afraid it will take several years.

"Even if they have a lot of saplings and even finished trees on the ship, and they are planted with soil on the ship, which reduces the growth cycle by a certain amount, there are still many problems and troubles to be solved when transplanted to the south."

Zhao Jun pointed out the crux of the problem: "Let's not talk about the survival rate, just say that even if we can survive and produce a lot of seeds, it will take at least a few years or even more than ten years to be planted to be widely planted, so during this time, we must do a good job of planning for the first industrial revolution." ”

"Well, that makes sense."

Lao Fan also understood, mainly because he didn't know about rubber trees, so he made a fuss.

Zhao Jun said: "Therefore, the real first industrial revolution can be completed, not only to build a few steel plants, but also to improve productivity and production efficiency." I expect it will be at least ten years before the steam engine becomes widespread, and what preparations do we need to do in the intervening ten years? ”

"Tell me, you're good at these things."

Fan Zhongyan didn't bother to guess by himself, anyway, with his ability, he couldn't think of it.

"First of all, the population, the arrival of the industrial age is bound to require a large number of people to work in the factory, now the productivity and grain of the Great Song Dynasty to feed one or two hundred million people is no problem, as long as sweet potatoes and other crops continue to expand the planting area, to three or four billion people are more than enough, so why is our population not growing explosively?"

Zhao Jun asked rhetorically.

"Is it an acre?"

Fan Zhongyan asked tentatively.

"This is just one of them, and it can indeed provoke people to have children, but there are also many hidden households."

Zhao Jun said: "In the last census, some hidden households were willing to come out, and that was because the imperial court gave them tax exemptions and distributed land. But most of the hermits are still willing to live a black life, which means that many hermits are actually hidden. ”

"Hmm"

Fan Zhongyan nodded with a deep groan.

"On top of that, there's the serious problem of land annexation."

Zhao Jun continued: "The land is concentrated in the hands of landlords, the people are poor, they can't raise more children, and the population will naturally not explode, so only from these two aspects, then there will be a wave of baby boom in the Great Song Dynasty in the next few years, and twenty years later, just in time for the Great Song Dynasty to develop and contribute to the construction of the country." ”

"It's finally time."

Fan Zhongyan's emotions were a little excited, and he patted the case: "Hanlong, tell me, what to do." ”

"There must be a lot of money to be spread into acres."

Zhao Jun showed a solemn look, "As for the issue of land annexation. I have three options. ”

"Tell me?"

"This"

Fan Zhongyan was shocked: "I'm afraid that the landowners of the whole country will rebel." ”

"yes, that's too aggressive."

"And the second?"

"The second is to prohibit the sale of land."

Zhao Jun continued: "Only the imperial court was allowed to buy back the land, and then the local government began to build roads, canals, canals, and mining minerals, and recruited the tenants in the hands of the landlords in each county, so that they had no one to cultivate. ”

Fan Zhongyan frowned and said: "I'm afraid there are a lot of problems in it, just what I can think of, there are financial expenditures that will definitely explode." And the tenants are controlled by the landlord with a contract and have no way to leave. ”

"This kind of large-scale infrastructure finance is definitely going to explode, but hasn't it just solved the problem of three redundancies? At present, our fiscal revenue has risen steadily, although it has not yet reached the level of more than 100 million yuan per year before the tax reduction, but the trade throughput has skyrocketed, and the domestic economic stimulus is also very large, and it is only a matter of time before the annual fiscal revenue exceeds 100 million yuan in the next few years. ”

Zhao Jun said with a smile: "After deducting the military expenditure of about 30 million guan a year, the official expenditure and the messy miscellaneous expenditure are close to 20 million guan, and the imperial court still has 30 or 40 million guan left, and there are already local tax revenues, tens of millions of guan every year, and crazy projects, which can not only stimulate the economy more, but also take away the young and strong labor force." ”

"As for the contract."

He touched his chin and said: "The imperial court should promulgate a law to stipulate how much interest belongs to usury, once you dare to engage in usury, you will be imprisoned, exiled, confiscated property, and killed your head in a one-stop service, and it is not allowed to restrict personal freedom, and severely crack down on any slavery." Give death orders to local governments. ”

"This is to put the landlords to death."

Fan Zhongyan was also quite shocked when he heard this combination of punches.

Although they did not take away their land on the surface, they took away the tenants and young men in their hands. Then the land will be uncultivated, and it will be useless for them to guard the land, and it will be barren, but will they have to be forced to sell it to the government in the end?

"At least I gave them the power to sell to the government."

Zhao Jun spread his hands and said: "In fact, there is a routine here, that is, the land with land deeds is recognized as owned by landlords and private individuals, and private cultivation of cultivated land is prohibited in the future, and the government organizes people to build canals, reclaim the land by themselves, and then lease these lands to tenants as official land, and it is still the same set of anti-slavery system and contract contracts." ”

"Good guy, I'm afraid that the landlord's land won't even have the right to sell it to the government."

Fan Zhongyan was even more shocked.

Zhao Junhei.

The hands are really black.

If this set continues, the landlords of the whole country will have to shed their skin even if they do not die.

"That can't be helped, we have to come up with an idea to find a way to take back the land in the hands of these landlords. What's more, I didn't let them suffer, and the local government bought it with real money and finance. ”

Zhao Jun shook his head.

In order to prevent the landlords from rebelling, it would be good if he did not rob them openly, and he would spend money to collect most of the idle land in the hands of the landlords, so that in the future these tenants would become official tenants, and the problem of land annexation would be greatly alleviated.

The main reason for using this method is that the Great Song Dynasty is really rich in his hands, especially in recent years, foreign trade has been booming, and millions of taels of silver have flowed into Japan every year.

The Liao State is even more exaggerated.

In order to engage in firearms, millions of catties of sulfur are bought every year, and this alone can bring tens of thousands of financial taxes to the Great Song Dynasty.

In addition, the Maritime Silk Road, the Land Silk Road, the Ancient Tea Horse Road and many other trade routes were popular, and the people gradually began to use silver when carrying out medium-sized trade, instead of often carrying several pieces and thousands of copper coins out of the house as before.

Therefore, Zhao Jun also gave the landlords of the Great Song Dynasty the last trace of decency, that is, he forced them to sell the land in their hands to the local government at a reasonable price, liberate the tenants in their hands, and at least exchange them for some coins.

Otherwise.

If they don't want to be decent, I'm afraid the court will have to directly help them be decent.

"And what about the last one?"

Fan Zhongyan asked again.

"The last rule is to go with the flow."

Zhao Jun shrugged and said: "After the industry is officially opened, a large number of young people will go to the city to work, leaving the landlords with no one to cultivate, and forcing them to either sell their land, or transform into factory owners and merchants, and the land will naturally be slowly recovered." ”

Fan Zhongyan thought for a while and said, "This seems to be the method you said at the beginning. ”

"yes."

Zhao Jun said: "This is also a common method for first-mover countries in the early stage of the industrial revolution in later generations, after all, they certainly can't see the future direction and can't make correct judgments." And there are certainly diehards in this approach, but it is mild and does not cause mass opposition. The only drawback is that it takes too long, and it may not allow the demographic dividend to catch up with the era of great development. ”

After the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, there was a shortage of wool raw materials, and the aristocratic landlords saw that it was profitable, so they immediately changed the land to pasture sheep and sheep, and the result was the enclosure movement, a large number of peasants lost their land and were forced to work in the city, which promoted industrial growth.

Now the Great Song Dynasty is like this, once the industrial revolution comes, although with the size of the Great Song Dynasty, there will not be a large amount of land converted into pasture. If the income from working in the city is higher than that of farming, it will inevitably take the initiative to attract people to the city, and there will be no one to cultivate the countryside.

As a result, the landlords of the Great Song Dynasty either took the initiative or were forced to sell their fields, introduce them into machines, and become capitalists or merchants, which can be regarded as alleviating the problem of land annexation to a certain extent.

However, this will take too long and will not eradicate the evils.

Zhao Jun's real purpose is to recover a large amount of private land, so as not to build a high-speed railway, as India did in later generations, and the landlords along the way have opposed it, and it cannot be repaired for more than ten years, which seriously hinders the development of the country.

Taking advantage of the fact that the volume of the Great Song Dynasty is not particularly large, the territory is less than 3 million kilometers, and the population is not as complicated as more than a billion, then whether it is to build trains or roads, it will be unimpeded.

(End of chapter)