"It is a year old, there are 67,275,200 mouths in the world, 4,719,725 acres of land, and more than 13 acres and 2 cents."

"It is the year that the world pays 35 million stones of grain, 67,200 horses of cloth, more than 325,000 catties of silk, and more than 40,720 catties of cotton."

"Twelve thousand four hundred taels of gold, nine hundred and eighty-five thousand two hundred and thirty taels of silver, and one hundred and seventy-seven thousand four hundred and twenty-five taels of copper."

"There are more than 2,373,000 folds of miscellaneous items, commercial taxes, mining taxes, salt quotations, and tea quotations, as well as more than 1,650,000 folding colors of iron, lead, silk, silk, satin, cloth, cotton, etc."

"It is an annual income of 35 million stones, and the annual income of other types of folded colors is more than 6,256,000 yuan."

On the fifth day of the lunar month, inside the Wuying Palace.

When Yuxin, the head of the household department, reported on the tax situation in the summer and autumn of the past year, Zhu Di also stroked his beard and looked at Zhu Gaoxu on the side.

He had forgotten most of what happened last year, but he remembered that last year he earned 32 million stones, more than 7.7 million yuan.

In the past year, although the tax and grain have increased, the amount of money and miscellaneous money has decreased by nearly 1.5 million.

In terms of conversion, the tax payment in the past year is at least a few hundred thousand yuan less.

"Second child, why is there one and a half million yuan missing from this account?"

Zhu Di opened his mouth to ask, and Zhu Gaoxu also replied expectedly: "I went to the East last year, and I brought back more money, so it hit a new high." ”

"This year, I made more than 1.7 million yuan in the Japanese market, and transferred 68,000 yuan to the Japanese lord, and I made nearly 1.2 million yuan less when I came and went."

"But this is a normal phenomenon, after all, last year's record of such a high volume of market trade is mainly due to the fact that the imperial court has broken off diplomatic relations with Japan for too many years, and Japan has accumulated too much money."

"Although there are only 1.7 million guan today, there is no need to be disappointed, there is news from 100 households in the western factory in Japan that all kinds of mines in Japan have begun to adopt the 'ash blowing method', and I think that in a few years, we will be able to stabilize the trade volume of 2 million guan with the imperial court."

"In addition, the goods of the Western Fleet are still in Qinzhou, and when the war in Annam ends, you can earn a lot of profits with that batch of goods."

Zhu Gaoxu had already prepared for the decline in trade with Japan, he wanted long-term trade, so he didn't have to care about the amount of time.

When large-scale ash-blowing mining begins across Japan, it will be the time when trade will continue to reach new heights.

As far as Japan's domestic silver and copper reserves are concerned, it is enough for the Ming Dynasty to eat it for 400 years, but the premise is that Japan cannot be unified.

Once Japan is unified, there will definitely be a closed country similar to the Tokugawa shogunate.

One of the reasons for Japan's seclusion was to prevent foreign countries from infiltrating the country, but it was to limit the outflow of domestic silver.

In the more than 200 years from the Ashikaga Shogunate to the Tokugawa Shogunate's edict on the closure of the country, Japan was undoubtedly the largest outflow of silver to the Ming Dynasty.

As long as the Ming maintained the rule of the Ashikaga shogunate and gave it certain benefits, there was no need for the Ashikaga shogunate to act against the Ming dynasty.

Of course, it was not possible for the Ming Dynasty to help the Ashikaga shogunate abolish the emperor system, but let the Ashikaga shogunate gradually abolish the emperor itself.

The current Ashikaga shogunate was at its peak, but it was only able to control the Kanto and Kansai regions of Gyeonggi and Kansai, and the local guardians were still strong.

However, it is precisely this situation that can keep tomorrow's trade sustained for a long time, and once the Ashikaga shogunate is too strong, then this trade will face the dilemma of disintegration or reduction of trade volume.

A Japan that is loose and has maintained internal peace for a long time is a good Japan.

It is in this situation that North Korea has gradually weakened its force, and Japan would do well as it did.

In Zhu Gaoxu's thoughts, Zhu Di also roughly understood the reason why this year's income was not as good as last year, so he bowed his head.

"It's the moon now, Annan's military intelligence has arrived, most of Annan has been taken by the imperial court, and many Chen clans have died."

"The three of Hu Jichen's father and son fled to the Xinghua Mountains, although there are 40,000 soldiers, but there are only more than 200,000 people, and they can't feed so many soldiers and horses."

"Chen Jikuo, who was supported by Jian Ding and others in the east, also got news from Jinyiwei, but it was just a pretending clan."

"I heard that they are also ready to ask the court for a seal, but I am not ready to hand over this place to them."

Zhu Di said his thoughts, for him, whether it is Hu Jichen or Chen Jikuo, they are just local chickens and tiles.

If it weren't for the fact that his second brother had talked about Annan's rebellion, he might have set up a third division to manage the local area.

"Second brother, tell me what you think, you know better than me about things in the south."

He set his eyes on Zhu Gaoxu, and Zhu Gaochu said without thinking when he heard this: "First of all, we must first stabilize Chen Jikuo, a group of Annan heroes, so don't kill Hu Jichen's father and son for the time being." ”

"Taking advantage of the stalemate in the situation, it is just enough to move people into the north and south of Anbei, so that Langshan, Haiyang, Taiyuan, Xuanguang and other places in the north can resume production."

"Erchen has seen the situation in these places, and he has also sent officials from Qinzhou to the local area."

"The north of the Red River is basically in the hands of the imperial court, and there are three million acres of cultivated land in these places, as long as it takes half a year to organize households with the people, measure the land, and then immigrate to the local area to resume production, then the imperial court will have the confidence to gain a firm foothold in Annam."

Zhu Gaoxu mentions Qi Min's household because even he doesn't know how many people still exist north of the Red River.

According to the official documents of the Chen Dynasty, there were more than 800,000 people north of the Red River, but no one knows how many there are today.

"What the imperial court wants to do is to first clear the fields north of the Red River, and then distribute it to immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong, and at the same time set up official schools in the local area to sinicize the local people of Annam."

"If more than 300,000 people can be migrated north of the Red River, then even if the imperial court cannot rule in Annam in the future, it will be able to eat the land north of the Red River and not gain nothing."

"As long as the three million mu of cultivated land north of the Red River resumes production and can pay the field grain tax, it will at least be able to maintain the rations of tens of thousands of soldiers and horses in Annan."

"As for military salaries, it is completely possible to use the copper ingots mined in Yunnan to smelt for new money, so as to save costs."

Zhu Gaoxu mentioned the new money, and Zhu Di was also interested when he heard it, and he set his eyes on Yu Xin: "Yu Xin, how is the new money?" ”

"Back to Your Majesty, I have opened a coinage division not far from Yuhuatai, minting nearly 20,000 yuan a day, and now I have stored more than 600,000 yuan of new money."

Yu Xin answered Zhu Di's question, and Zhu Di was also very satisfied after hearing it: "I have seen this new money, it looks good, it is difficult to imitate, but the amount of money minted is too large, will it not be good to invest it all at once?" ”

Zhu Di's interest these days, in addition to arranging things in the north, is to read the textbooks written by Zhu Gaoxu.

Recently, Zhu Gaoxu is writing textbooks about economics, which are prepared for the expansion of Taixue in the future, and Zhu Di has also read a lot.

Among them, there are examples of inflation caused by economic deflation, so Zhu Di asked Zhu Gaoxu.

However, Zhu Gaoxu didn't need to answer this question, Yu Xin, who had also read the book, replied: "No." ”

"In the past, the issuance of treasure banknotes led to soaring prices, one is that the issuance of treasure banknotes is too large, the second is that the issuance is too concentrated, and the third is that the people do not trust treasure money."

"Now that the imperial court has recovered the treasure banknotes, although this cannot completely solve the third point, from the perspective of the stability of the banknote price, the people have at least developed trust in the treasure banknotes."

"The people's trust in the treasure banknote is essentially the trust in the imperial court, and the quality and style of the new money issued by the imperial court are excellent, and the people will not resist."

"As long as new money is not issued in large quantities in a single area, it will naturally not lead to a skyrocketing price in the local area."

"Judging from the fact that the imperial court set up 22 guards in Annan, even if there are more than 120,000 soldiers and garrison soldiers, it will only be maintained by 1.5 million stone per year, and it will only be 500,000 guan after folding."

"For a place like Annan, where there are many products, the investment of 500,000 guan is not large, and it only needs to be maintained for a few years before the original policy of distributing military rations can be resumed.

After Yu Xin's explanation, Zhu Di also stroked his beard and his head, and he was completely relieved of Annan's affairs.

"The affairs of Annan will be handled by the second child himself, and after I go to the north next year, you will sit in Nanjing as the crown prince and preside over the imperial examination."

"The retainers are in charge." Zhu Gaoxu returned the salute, and Zhu Di also waved his hand when he saw this:

"If you have nothing to do, let's disperse, I still have a lot of government affairs here, so I won't leave you to eat."

"The ministers retired ......" Zhu Gaoxu and Yu Xin made a fight, and then withdrew from the Wuying Palace.

Because there were too many things, the two did not stop chatting, Yu Xin went to the Wenhua Palace, and Zhu Gaoxu went to Donghua Gate in a golden chariot.

When he arrived at Donghua Gate, a carriage and more than 100 horse infantry had been prepared here, and it was obvious that Zhu Gaoxu was preparing to go to the outer city.

Changing to a carriage, Zhu Gaoxu took a look at the situation in the outer city when he walked out of the inner city.

After two and a half years of peace, Nanjing's population is increasing.

Zhu Gaoxu still remembers that when Hongwu was twenty-seven, he walked through Chaoyang Gate, and there was only one small market town outside Chaoyang Gate.

When Nanjing was taken and entered the inner city from here, the small market town did not develop at all.

Now, two and a half years later, the small market town has begun to expand, and many fields have disappeared to make way for houses.

The official road of Chaoyangmen in the outer city was originally rammed earth, but now it is also paved with concrete.

There are brand new two-story doors built around the ten-zhang wide official road, and there are many pedestrians coming and going, except for the middle three zhang that cannot walk, the rest are basically crowded with people.

Looking along the street, the streets and alleys are criss-crossed, the buildings on both sides are lined up one after another, shops, restaurants, tea houses, pawnshops, money houses, photo studios, painting apartments, theaters, bathhouses, private houses, etc. are scattered in between.

The street is bustling with people, busy with traffic, and all kinds of sky-high signboards are eye-catching, presenting a lively scene.

Looking ahead, you can also see the archway erected by the government, with the book "Chaoyang Street" written on it.

"How many people are there in Nanjing now?"

Zhu Gaoxu looked at the lively scene outside the window, and couldn't help but feel a sense of pride in his heart.

Hearing this, Yishaha, who was serving him on the side, also reported with a smile: "There are more than 426,000 people, an increase of nearly 60,000 people in two and a half years. ”

"It's a good thing, but it's also a burden." Zhu Gaoxu bowed his head, but felt that it was also a burden.

"Burden?" Puzzled, Zhu Gaoxu explained:

"When there are more people living in the cities, there will be fewer people living in the countryside."

"It is true that the people go to the city to work is a symbol of the peace of the world, but behind it is necessary to have enough rural food as support."

"I have read the books of the capital, and even though there is a large amount of arable land in the outer city of the capital, it still needs to be transported from all sides every year to meet the needs of more than 2 million grains, thousands of pigs, cattle and sheep, and tens of thousands of chickens, ducks and poultry from all sides."

"I heard that there are many people in Yingtianfu who raise livestock and birds at the foot of the mountain, so as to provide food for the people of the capital."

"Among them, it is inevitable that there will be some places that can be reclaimed as fields."

"The population of the capital will continue to grow in the future, and if it reaches one million, then I am afraid that the people in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River from Wuchang to Nanchang will have to transport money, grain and livestock to the capital."

Zhu Gaoxu's remarks are judged on the basis of the current situation, and this also involves an economic problem of the agricultural population and the handicraft population.

The migration of peasants to the cities has progressed rapidly after industrialization, but there are two basic problems: the first is the increase in productivity, and the second is that the small-scale peasant economy is no longer able to cope with the rest of life.

In the Tang Dynasty, Chang'an City had 500,000 permanent residents and 300,000 or even 500,000 migrants.

Such a scale is already the maximum limit that Qinchuan can supply in 800 miles in Guanzhong, and even from time to time the emperor needs to lead a hundred officials to Luoyang to ensure the food rations of the people.

Compared with the Tang Dynasty, the productivity of the Ming Dynasty was improved, so that in the middle and later periods, the two million-level cities of Liangjing, as well as the population of hundreds of thousands of cities such as Suzhou and Hangzhou, could be fed nationwide.

The urbanization rate in the south of the Yangtze River was already considered a high level in the feudal era in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, but such a level could only be maintained under the premise that the handicraft industry in Jiangnan was developed and Sichuan and Huguang were used as grain bases.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, Jiangnan became an opponent with the northern Zhili for grain, and when the grain from Sichuan, Huguang and other places arrived in Jiangnan through the Yangtze River, it was first purchased and transported into the cities of various prefectures by a large number of merchants, and then it was bought and sold at a high price and transported to the north through the canal.

The overpopulation of cities and towns is a hidden danger that can explode at any time in an era of insufficient productivity.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were many disasters in the north, and the reason why the imperial court could not adjust the grain was that most of the grain in the south was supplied to Jiangnan, so it can be seen in many literati codexes that when the rich peasants and small landlords in the north were struggling to make a living, many people in Jiangnan could even afford to wear silk and have meat to eat every day.

In order to live this life, many people migrated to Jiangnan to work.

In his hometown, he worked desperately to cultivate more than a dozen acres of land, and after handing it over to the landlord and the yamen, he had at most seven or eight stones of grain left in his hands.

When you come to Jiangnan, even if you can't enter cities like Nanjing and Suyang, you can find a county seat as a lifu, and you can earn eight or nine times a year.

As long as there are no problems in the two grain bases of Sichuan and Huguang, and there are no floods in Jianghuai, then this salary is enough to buy 178 stone of grain, which can easily feed a family of three.

If the woman in the family still knows how to do needlework, she can earn five or six times a year.

With the income of two people, you can support a family of five or six people.

It was precisely because of the ease of part-time work and high income that the urban population gradually increased to the point where it was difficult to support in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

The only way to solve this hidden danger is to increase productivity, and this is why Zhu Gaoxu is going to the outer city.

It took half an hour, when his carriage entered Taixue and headed towards the northwest corner of Taixue, a piece of cultivated land appeared in front of him, and a glass greenhouse of different colors was built in the center of the cultivated land.

Zhu Gaoxu stepped out of the carriage and walked into the glass shed along the concrete road less than three feet wide with Yishiha.

The area of the greenhouse is not large, the east and west are only two zhang wide, and the north and south are only three zhang long.

Although it is not large, it cost tens of thousands of dollars to build it.

Walking into the greenhouse, there were already many people holding magnifying glasses to observe the growth of plants in the greenhouse, and handwriting the situation.

Seeing Zhu Gaoxu's arrival, a Confucian scholar in his forties immediately walked up briskly and said, "Your Highness is a thousand years old." ”

"How are the grafting and fertilizer issues going?" Zhu Gaoxu asked Confucian Sheng, and at the same time squatted down to look at the cabbage that was still growing in winter.

There are four fireplaces in the glass greenhouse, which can provide enough heat for the greenhouse, and the glass provides a certain amount of sunlight so that the cabbage can grow during the season.

"The grafting effect is good, and we have experimented with a lot of raw materials for fertilizer, and the best effect at present is guano droppings, followed by plant ash."

Confucian opened his mouth to explain, and the reason why he knew so much was that most of it was told to him by Zhu Gaoxu, and the remaining small part was what he had learned from his perennial research and study in the Zhou Palace.

In addition to him, there were seven or eight other people in this greenhouse, all of whom were agronomists that Zhu Gaoxu had dug from his fifth uncle.

Of course, by the standards of later generations, it would be too much to call them agronomists, at most Confucian scholars who liked to study plants and animals.

"We have used guano to make fertilizer, as Your Highness said, and it has indeed increased the grain production of many vegetables and rice fields by one to two percent."

"However, during the experiment, some of the diseases you mentioned did occur, and we are still trying to figure out how to solve them."

Bi Fu and Zhu Gaoxu talked about the problems they encountered, and Zhu Gaoxu also got up and motioned for him to lead the way to see the place where the fertilizer was made.

They walked to a corner of the greenhouse, where they saw a lot of dried bird droppings that had been ground into powder.

Zhu Gaoxu put on a mask and checked some bird droppings that had not been polished into powder, and then frowned and said to Bi Fu:

"It's to blame that I forgot to tell you that there are a few things to be aware of when using bird poop as fertilizer."

Zhu Gaoxu put on his gloves, grabbed a piece of dry bird droppings and said:

"These bird droppings may contain some germs and parasites, so they need to be sterilized and disinfected before they can be made into fertilizer."

"Our technology doesn't work, so we have to treat it with heating, drying and fermentation to turn it into a beneficial fertilizer."

"In addition, attention should be paid to the amount used, excessive use may have a negative impact on crop growth, leading to root disease and wilting."

Zhu Gaoxu said some of the knowledge he remembered, and after hearing this, Bi Fu hurriedly took out a brush and dipped it in water and recorded it in the book he carried.

Worried that he was misremembering, Zhu Gaoxu also looked through the content after he finished memorizing, and only after confirming that it was correct did he walk out of the glass greenhouse with him and carefully explain some other details in the cold field.

"What I said may not be all right, you experiment with these methods one by one, and then divide them into different experimental fields for experiments, and finally only need to pick out the most stable method."

"Ministers." Bi Fu returned the salute, and Zhu Gaoxu also bowed his head and led the topic to the north, because he not only built a glass greenhouse in Nanjing, but also in the north.

"Has there been any progress in the experimental greenhouses in Jilin, and can fertilizer also increase the yield locally?"

"Yes!" Seeing Zhu Gaoxu mention Jilin's experimental greenhouse, Bi Fu also nodded hurriedly and said: "They tested Japanese crops and found that they are indeed more cold-tolerant than our existing ones, and the cycle is a few days shorter, but the yield is lower. ”

"After using fertilizer, these crops have increased from nine buckets per mu in northern Japan to one and a half buckets per stone, but the diseases encountered are the same as those we encountered, it should be the same as what Your Highness said, there are a lot of bacteria and diseases in bird droppings."

After Bi Fu explained, Zhu Gaoxu expressed his satisfaction and said: "It's good to be able to improve one and a half buckets, but now you just need to solve the problem of the disease." ”

"You remember the three elements of agricultural production, the first is seeds, the second is water conservancy, and the third is fertilizer."

"In the future, your research will also be based on these three elements."

After talking about this, Zhu Gaoxu asked about the use of fertilizers in Jiangnan: "How much can the rice fields that use fertilizers produce?" ”

"About two stones and three buckets of real grain." Bi Fu replied, but Zhu Gaoxu frowned and said: "I investigated last year, the average yield per mu of Tianfu is two stones and two buckets, why do you only improve one bucket here?" ”

"Your Highness doesn't know." Bi Fu replied with a bitter face: "The land south of the Yangtze River, especially the soil fertilizer in Yingtian, has been very popular, if there is no soil fertilizer, then even the output of the Taihu Lake area is only a stone of eight or nine real grains." ”

"The fertilizer we are studying now is actually benefiting the underdeveloped places with soil and fertilizer, rather than icing on the cake for Jiangnan."

"I don't know." Zhu Gaoxu was not stubborn, but admitted that he did not understand the high yield of rice in Jiangnan.

But then a new problem was born.

"How much does this fertilizer cost?"

"About 30 wen per acre." Bi Fu said, and at the same time said:

"If there is no disease problem with fertilizer, then the new problem is the problem of mining, where should the imperial court get so much guano to make fertilizer, and how to transport it to the mainland."

"The south is fine, you can take the Yangtze River to Sichuan and Yunnan, but the Yellow River in the north can only reach Luoyang and cannot go west."

"The minister has calculated an account, if it is changed to land transportation, then for every hundred miles transported, the cost of fertilizer per mu will increase by five wen."

"Once it exceeds 500 li and the price exceeds 55 wen, there will be no need to buy fertilizer in some areas where the yield per mu is not high, because the money from increasing production and selling cannot even afford to buy fertilizer used to increase production."

Bi Fu mentioned a reality, but Zhu Gaoxu had already considered this reality.

"There is no way to take care of the northwest, and with the current water transportation, it is already a great blessing to be able to bless the Guanzhong Plain."

Zhu Gaoxu sighed, the road of obtaining bird droppings from the sea to make fertilizer is destined to be carried out only in places where water transportation is developed.

It is already good that the coastal provinces and the provinces on both sides of the Yangtze River can eat this blessing, how dare he dare to look to the northwest.

He glanced at the fields around him, and could only sigh: "Take your time......

(End of chapter)