Time passed, and in the blink of an eye, months passed.

The financial inadequacy made Daming's actions in the thirteenth year of Yongle much more convergent.

In addition to maintaining Jiangxi's new policy and Guangxi's land reform and river dredging, only railway exploration is more troublesome.

Of course, these are economic and political matters, if we talk about people's livelihood, then we must focus on the breeding of new crops in Taixue Agricultural College.

After two years, the new crops brought back by Dongzhou were cultivated and selected, and some good varieties were finally selected without problems.

The vast arable land east of Nanjing's Qilin Gate was assigned to the Agricultural College, and more than a dozen crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, tomatoes, peppers, and peanuts were sown.

In addition, tropical plants and crops such as rubber, cassava, sweet potatoes, and cinchona are widely cultivated in parts of Cochin, Luzon, Old Port, Guangdong, Fujian, and Ryukyu Province.

Most of these areas where tropical crops are cultivated are Han Chinese, but the Han people in Ryukyu Province are not very long.

Since Zhu Gaoxu set up the Ryukyu Mansion in the eighth year of Yongle and placed Keelung Port and Keelung County, the Ryukyu Mansion was actually controlled by the Han people for only five years.

In the first four years, due to the existence of malaria and miasma, the Ryukyu guards stationed in Keelung Port did not dare to go deeper, and basically opened up the land through the Changshan Barbarians, who transported Ryukyu every year.

However, since the introduction of cinchona bark into the Ming Dynasty, the development speed of the Ryukyu Guard has also begun to accelerate, and the policy of immigrating to the Ryukyus in Fujian and Zhejiang has also begun to be liberalized.

In order to expand the living space of the Han Chinese, Keelongwei marched to the south, and finally set up Ryukyu County (Taipei) in the northern part of the Ryukyus.

Ryukyu Prefecture had just been built for less than three months, but by this time the city wall with a circumference of four li, two feet high, and a thickness of one foot and six feet had already been built.

Outside the city, tens of thousands of Changshan barbarians are cutting down trees and cutting branches.

They threw the timber into the river through the raceway and set fire to the weeds, shrubs and pruned branches on the ground.

With the work of tens of thousands of people, the jungles around Ryukyu Prefecture are retreating at a rate of dozens of steps every day.

After burning for a few hours, the ashes were collected and transported to the horse boats on the river, through which they were transported to Songjiang and Suzhou.

The timber is also about the same, and it is basically shipped to Zhejiang and Jiangdong, where wood is needed.

If the hired workers did these things, they would definitely lose money, but Changshanman was a defeated and captured prisoner of the labor camp, and they needed ten years of labor reform to gain freedom.

During the period of re-education through labor, their daily wage was three cents, and their food consisted of marine fish, vegetables, and two catties of coarse grains.

According to the current progress, as long as they can live until the end of the labor camp, they will basically be able to save ten and settle down in the Ryukyu Prefecture.

Of course, the reclamation of the Ryukyu Prefecture was not peaceful, and even those who lived in the long mountains of Cochin would suffer from malaria and miasma without warning.

Therefore, in the past five years, less than 20,000 of the original 60,000 Changshanmen have survived, and less than 70,000 of the 120,000 Changshanmen who have been transported over later.

Ninety thousand Changshan barbarians, this is the capital that the current Ryukyu Prefecture can expand rapidly, and the appearance of cinchona bark has also made many Changshan barbarians' impetuous mood settle down.

On the way to open up the wasteland, they discussed some interesting things in the past in unskilled official dialect, but after careful discussion, they still felt that the current life was good.

Although they work every day, since the appearance of cinchona bark, they do not have to worry about it, and this well-fed day has gradually made them lazy.

Now, they just want to spend the next six years and settle down in Ryukyu Prefecture.

Compared with them, the Han people in Ryukyu County lived very comfortably.

Hundreds of Fujian immigrants walked into the city and were taken to their assigned quarters by officials.

Lu Guan was one of the immigrants this time, he came from Nanping Mansion in Fujian Province alone, and he had nothing on him except a suit of clothes and two yuan of money that he had obtained from the separation.

"This is your yard, just write a wooden sign and hang it at the door."

Pushing open the courtyard door, a clerk in his twenties said to Lu Guan and handed him a wooden sign at the same time.

The wooden sign is one foot long, one palm wide, and the eighth lane of Changhe Lane is written.

"Can you write?"

The clerk looked at Lu Guan's embarrassed appearance and asked deliberately, but Lu Guan said embarrassedly: "No, I haven't read a book......

"Well, I'll help you write, this is your name, if you want to read and write in the future, you can go to the primary school in the county to study, but at your age, it is estimated that you will have to pay five hundred literary fees a year."

The clerk helped Lu Guan write his name and hung up the wooden sign.

He took Lu Guan to the courtyard, and introduced as he walked: "In the Ryukyu Prefecture, the house is only counted according to the number of households, not the number of mouths, so you can be regarded as picking up a bargain." ”

"This courtyard of yours is the same as the other courtyards, with two entrances and exits, covering an area of five points, with one main house, two side rooms, two ear rooms, one firewood room and one latrine, four inverted rooms, a stable pigsty, and a well."

"From today onwards, this is your home, here's the key."

The clerk took Lu Guan to visit the courtyard, and finally handed the key to Lu Guan.

The "prosperity" in the courtyard made Lu Guan dumbfounded, and he couldn't help but point to himself: "Just me live alone?" ”

"Well, alone." After the official said, he continued to Lu Guan:

"Tomorrow I will take you to divide the fields, but the fields are divided according to the head, and you are the only one in your family, so you can only get five acres, but the five acres are paddy fields, and you don't have to worry about not having enough to eat."

"If you can't plant it, you can go to the yamen to recruit Changshanman, and pay five cents a day."

"I'm done talking, do you have any questions?"

The clerk asked Lu Guan in Nanping Hokkien, and Lu Guan nodded: "No problem, no problem." ”

"Okay!" The official nodded, and finally reminded: "The two main roads in Ryukyu County are Taoyuan Street and Ryukyu Street, and there are people selling things on the streets, and you can buy pots and pans and bedding that you are missing, but the price will be much more expensive than in Fujian." ”

After the words fell, the clerk turned around and left Lu Guan's house, and Lu Guan immediately closed the door after the clerk left, and turned to watch his second person enter and leave the courtyard, with an obsessive smile on his face.

"Hehe, they all say that Ryukyu will die, but it turns out that they are all lies...... Such a large yard is mine, and even the rich man in the town is not as good as the yard where I live. ”

sighed at the cleanliness of the yard, for Lu Guan, who had been living in an earthen house for the past eighteen years, where did he ever think that he could live in this kind of yard that seemed to be built with stones.

He walked here and felt there, and was very satisfied with the whole yard, eager to divide a few doppelgangers and fill the yard.

After grinding for more than an hour, Lu Guancai went out of the yard with the "heavy" two-run money in his pocket, and carefully memorized the information in the alley.

After walking a few dozen steps, he came to the main road.

Since he was illiterate, he didn't know which street he was in, but when he came to the street, he saw many grocery stores selling pots and pans, as well as vegetable sellers and butchers selling vegetables and meat.

The children of the poor are in charge of the family early, Lu Guan has always worked diligently, if it weren't for the eldest brother getting married, he had to vacate the yard to divide the family, and he might not be called away by his parents.

It's just that now he is glad that he was divided, if he hadn't been separated, he wouldn't have signed up to move, he wouldn't have lived in a big yard, and he wouldn't have gotten five acres of paddy fields outside the city.

After buying a set of bedding, more than a dozen pairs of chopsticks, two iron pots and some vegetables, the two yuan in Lu Guan's arms were only more than 400 yuan.

After the assets shrank instantly, Lu Guan couldn't help but have a toothache, but after thinking that he still had five acres of land, he happily went home and cooked a good meal for himself.

Two catties of rice and a plate of fried cabbage with oil and salt, this is the wedding banquet for Lu Guan to celebrate his housewarming.

He put "a lot" of oil and salt on this plate of cabbage, which tasted particularly sweet, and he was even more glad that he came to Ryukyu.

If he hadn't split up, he would only dare to brush the bottom of the pot with pigskin when cooking every day, and then he would have to stir-fry, and he wouldn't dare to put so much oil and salt.

"It's good to separate ......"

Lying on the bed after eating, touching his round belly, Lu Guan couldn't hide the smile on his face.

On this day, he was so excited that he did not fall asleep until midnight, and on the second day, he was also given five acres of paddy fields less than 200 paces away from the west gate of Ryukyu Prefecture.

The climate of the Ryukyus allowed cultivation all year round, so when he got the paddy fields, he immediately marked his fields and went to the Yamen to recruit Nagayamaman, and at the same time purchased rice seeds.

There are only more than 200 households and more than 1,000 people in Ryukyu Prefecture, so the number of Changshan barbarians is enough for them to recruit, but it takes a lot of time to queue up.

When he arrived at Lu Guan, he recruited ten Changshanmans with a wave of his hand, but because he didn't understand the official language, Changshanman's official language was not good, so after the officials of the yamen asked him what he thought, he explained to the ten Changshanman.

Along the way, the ten Changshan barbarians didn't have any conversation with him, but they just used the farm tools that Lu Guan bought yesterday to start loosening the soil and releasing water for the paddy fields.

The efficiency of the ten people was very fast, but he could take care of the five acres of paddy fields in a few days, and Lu Guan also dismissed them, spent a month raising seedlings, and finally recruited a few Changshan barbarians to help him sow the seedlings on the other four acres of land.

After all this, Lu Guan only had less money left.

There are still four months before the rice matures, and he can only cut back on food and clothing in these four months, and get through this time first.

When the rice is ripe for harvest, he can keep the grain he wants to eat, and sell all the rest of the grain.

These days, hundreds of people come to settle in Ryukyu Prefecture every half month, but compared to this migration speed, the speed of Changshanman's land reclamation is faster, so the Ryukyu Prefecture government has a lot of land in the hands of the Ryukyu Prefecture after the reclamation.

The price of these cooked land is cheap, and it only needs to be consistent per mu, and Lu Guan's current idea is to save money to buy land after the grain is harvested and sold, so that his life will be better and better.

If he could, he wanted to return to his hometown in a few years to marry a daughter-in-law and bring them to Ryukyu to live a good life.

It doesn't matter if you can't read, your future son will definitely be literate, and their old Lu family will have to thrive in the Ryukyus and grow stronger day by day.

Thinking of this, Lu Guan, who was standing on his ridge, showed a beautiful smile on his face that he imagined the future.

People like him are not a few people in the whole Ming Dynasty, from Ryukyu, Cochin, Luzon, Old Port to Ceylon, these places that have received policy support are undoubtedly the best opportunity for the poor to get rid of the class at the moment.

It's just that only a few people can seize such an opportunity, and most people lose the opportunity in the wait-and-see.

As for the direction of the policy, it is based on the decision of Zhu Gaoxu in the Chunhe Palace, but now Zhu Gaochu is not in the Chunhe Palace, but stands on the tower of the Jiangdong Gate.

"Slow down, slow down!"

"Ship ahead of you!"

On the Jiangdongmen wharf, it is overcrowded at the moment, full of a large number of people who drag their families to the north.

Since the Lantern Festival, a large number of officials in Nanjing have continued to move north with the continuous improvement of Beijing.

Before the Lantern Festival, Nanjing had more than 3,800 civil officials, more than 4,300 military attachés, more than 34,000 officials, and a population of more than 765,000.

As of May now, the number of civil officials in Nanjing has plummeted to more than 2,600, the number of military attaches to more than 2,900, the number of officials to less than 26,000, and the population to more than 623,000.

A move to the capital brought more than 130,000 people to Beijing, and Nanjing's prosperity declined a lot.

"After these officials move, Beijing's prosperity will be on a higher level, but with it will be accompanied by various situations of rising prices."

Standing on the city gate tower, Zhu Gaoxu looked down at the migration team on the dock, and explained behind him without looking back.

Standing behind him were Guo Zi, the secretary of the Ministry of Households, Xia Yuanji, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, and Huang Fu, the secretary of the Ministry of Works.

"What is the current population of Beizhili, and how much arable land is there?"

Zhu Gaoxu asked Guo Zi, and after a little thought, Guo Zi reported: "The population is about 3.6 million, and the cultivated land is more than 32 million mu. ”

"It's not bad, at least for a few decades." Zhu Gaoxu shook his head, but then commented:

"However, at present, the grain and grass required by the northern border army are not shallow, and the grain alone is definitely insufficient, can the three places in the northeast be maintained?"

The three places in the northeast, namely Liaodong, Bohai, and Daning, are the basic plates of Zhu Gaoxu, and there is no need to talk about local development.

"At present, there are more than 4.26 million mouths in the three places, more than 27.65 million mu, that is, the yield per mu is not as good as that of Guannei, and the annual tax grain is about 2.2 million stones, and the grain that the imperial court can buy from the market cannot exceed 2 million stones."

Zhu Gaoxu said without thinking when he heard this: "In other words, the three places in the northeast can supply the border army with about four million stones?" ”

"That's pretty much the ......case," Guo Zi nodded, and Zhu Gaoxu continued:

"At present, to maintain border armies such as Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Beiping, and Daning, how much does it cost to consume daily rations?"

Guo Zi was still thinking, but Xia Yuanji next to him said without thinking:

"The border army in the north has a total of thirty guards, and the soldiers and horses in the hinterland of the northern capitals include Bohai and Liaodong, and there are twenty-four guards, a total of fifty-four guards, and three hundred and twenty-two thousand four hundred soldiers and horses."

"The twenty-four guards in the hinterland can basically buy food in the station, and it will cost up to 800,000 stones."

"The biggest problem is that although the thirty border guards stationed in the border fortress have only 168,000 people, counting the wear and tear on the road, each person needs to consume an average of 12 stone per year, and basically need to transport 2 million stone per year to meet their rations."

"However, in addition to needing to protect them, their relatives also need to be protected, their relatives are about 500,000 people, and the annual consumption is slightly lower, but they also need ten stones, counting the consumption of the border army, a total of seven million stones."

Xia Yuanji finished saying everything, and Zhu Gaoxu bowed his head, very satisfied with the current situation.

At present, the Ming army has formed a crushing force for the Mongols, compared with the nine sides of the history of six or seven hundred thousand troops, even if the Ming Dynasty counts all the soldiers and horses along the northern border, it is only more than 32,400 soldiers and horses.

The nine sides of the six or seven hundred thousand troops are three or four million family members behind them, and they consume tens of millions of food every year, while the current 160,000 border troops and their families only need 7 million stones.

The change of weapons and combat power allowed the Ming army to garrison the northern border with a small number of troops, and the food consumed also decreased geometrically.

Seven million border army food can meet four million stone in the northeast alone, not to mention Beiping, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu.

Zhu Gaoxu calculated that the military expenditure on the nine sides after the orthodox period basically accounted for fifty percent of the Ming Dynasty's finances, and less than two percent at present.

Once the train can run, this proportion will go down, because the loss of supplies will be greatly reduced.

"With the current situation of the imperial court, only one hundred recruits and guards and 560,000 people are needed, which is enough to maintain the territory."

"Therefore, the minister suggests that His Highness may disarm and reduce military expenditures as appropriate......"

got closer to Zhu Gaoxu, and Xia Yuanji's vocabulary began to favor Zhu Gaoxu.

For his suggestion, Zhu Gaoxu is also considering.

"The Tuntian Guards of the original two capitals and thirteen divisions need to be abolished, except for the frontier divisions, the rest of the guards only need to maintain three guards, and the nine divisions except the two capitals only need twenty-seven guards."

"The two capitals are the way of the 26 guards above the straight, the north and south are each placed with eight guards, and the capital is each placed with five guards."

"Bohai, Liaodong, and Sichuan can have four guards, Daning, Gansu, Shaanxi, and Shanxi have five guards, Jiaozhi has eight guards, Yunnan has ten guards, Wusizang has two guards, and the four overseas Xuanwei Divisions each have two guards."

"In addition, plus the Navy's 17 Guards and 4 Guards, a total of 130 Guards and 4 Guards, about 730,000 soldiers and horses."

Zhu Gaoxu said his thoughts, but Xia Yuanji frowned and said: "If this is the case, then the annual military salary will be as high as 14.6 million guan, counting the soldiers and horses to eat and drink, it will be no less than 20 million guan, accounting for 60% ......of the imperial court's finances."

Xia Yuanji wanted to control military spending to less than 50% of the total finance, so Zhu Gaoxu's proposal obviously exceeded his budget.

"After the establishment of the Toyo trade, the value of gold and silver that can be obtained from the Toyo will not be less than five million kan per year, and you can add to that."

"Five million?" Xia Yuanji frowned, but shook his head again and said:

"Even if there is an inflow of 5 million yuan of gold and silver, after 20 or 30 years like this, the domestic money shortage will end, and the influx of gold and silver will only become a burden."

"You forgot about population growth." Zhu Gaoxu interrupted Xia Yuanji and continued:

"The influx of gold and silver will indeed cause inflation, and with the current situation of money shortage in the imperial court, it will be able to fall into stability in just twenty years."

"At that time, the influx of gold and silver will inevitably become a burden on the imperial court."

"But if the imperial court grows by more than two million people every year, then these gold and silver are not burdens, but the currency needed to maintain the economic market."

Historically, Spain and other countries did have inflation due to the influx of large amounts of gold and silver, but this was because the Spanish aristocracy did not invest gold and silver in productivity, but used it to satisfy their own selfish desires.

The influx of money, coupled with the death and wounds of the Thirty Years' War, the population is getting smaller and smaller, the gold and silver are increasing, the productivity is not improved, and no new markets are emerging, and Spain is not inflationary.

Compared to Spain, there was a shortage of silver at the end of the Ming Dynasty, but the problem was not only a silver shortage, because there was a more severe depreciation of silver at that time, as in the rest of the world.

The Thirty Years' War and the Shogunate's seclusion led to a decline in the amount of silver flowing into the Ming Dynasty, and the gentry hoarded large quantities of silver, making it difficult for the vast amount of silver to enter the market and circulate.

At that time, many celebrities believed that silver should be abolished, taking Huang Zongxi as an example, the main reason why he advocated the abolition of silver was that silver was excessively concentrated in the hands of the gentry and powerful at that time, and the silver in society was insufficient, and it had lost its circulation role.

He advocated the abolition of silver, in fact, he wanted to eliminate the wealth distribution function of silver.

In Huang Zongxi's view, this extremely valuable precious metal has increased the gap between the rich and the poor in society.

Of course, there are also people who have the opposite attitude to Huang Zongxi, such as Song Yingxing, who believes that the reason for the lack of poverty in the country is not the lack of silver, but the lack of social materials, and the lack of gold and silver.

Therefore, banning silver did not solve the problem fundamentally, and it was indeed in line with the general environment of plague and disaster at that time.

In Zhu Gaoxu's view, there is some truth in what they said, but the most important thing is that too much silver is gathered in the hands of the powerful gentry.

Silver could not be circulated, and the imperial court could not continue Zhang Juzheng's whipping method, because the people did not have enough silver in their hands.

In Zhu Gaoxu's view, this method can be used to distribute money to the people in the form of cash-for-work.

The situation in the late Ming Dynasty was that overseas gold and silver were all in the hands of the powerful gentry, and the imperial court could not tax them, so they could not get enough gold and silver.

But if the overseas silver is directly controlled by the imperial court, then the imperial court has the power to distribute them.

This is similar to the big water release, using infrastructure to improve the environment and productivity, and then releasing silver to the people at the same time as infrastructure, and the people will use the silver when they get it, and the silver can be circulated.

Now that the imperial court has mastered the entire trade of the Nanyang and the Great Ming Ocean, the real money and silver in these places will flow into the hands of the imperial court.

The gentry and the powerful wanted to obtain gold and silver, but they could only obtain it in the Western Ocean, and even if they hoarded their three melons and two dates, they could not disrupt the market.

The influx of six or seven million silver every year, as long as it is well distributed, will still have more advantages than disadvantages for the economic market of the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, since the construction of the hospital began, the neonatal mortality rate in various places has also begun to decline, and last year alone, more than 2.24 million newborns in Daming survived.

In comparison, seven million taels of silver is indeed not enough.

Historically, the money shortage in the Ming Dynasty was from the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty, except for local disasters, food and material production and local inflation, the Ming Dynasty as a whole did not have inflation, so Zhu Gaoxu was not worried about inflation.

As for local inflation, as long as trains and railways can cover the two capitals and 14 provinces, this inflation can also be solved through the central material allocation.

Looking at Xia Yuanji, Zhu Gaoxu reminded: "As long as the gold and silver are used properly, there is no need to care about inflation." ”

"The only thing to worry about is banknotes like treasure money, which can also be produced with gold and silver as anchors."

When the words fell, Zhu Gaoxu also smiled: "Of course, I may be wrong, but I still have to take one step at a time." ”

"We don't mine overseas gold and silver, so we leave it to others to mine, and it is better for us to mine it ourselves than for others."

"It's really not good, you keep an eye on the market, and once there is an adverse reaction, we will deal with it immediately."

Zhu Gaoxu patted Xia Yuanji on the back, and then walked down the city tower.

Xia Yuanji, Huang Fu, and Guo Zi looked at each other and shook their heads helplessly......

(End of chapter)