Sun Xu traveled to Songjiang for more than a year and returned home, which can be said to have caused a huge sensation in the surrounding neighbors.

After all, Sun Xu was just a poor boy when he went out, but when he came back, he was riding in a two-horse carriage, carrying various gifts in large and small bags, and he also brought home a young and beautiful 'friend'.

This caused a lot of comments from the surrounding neighbors. Most of these comments were envious and jealous, but there were also some weird ones. However, many young people asked about Sun Xu's work and life in Songjiang. Judging from their appearance, they probably wanted to go to Songjiang.

Have a little adventure.

This situation does not only occur in Sun Xu's hometown, but actually occurs in many places in the Dachu Empire.

Many young people who return to their hometowns during the Chinese New Year holiday will themselves become the publicity cards of the city where they work.

Higher salaries and a more modern lifestyle are extremely attractive to young people in rural areas.

Compared with working hard in the fields, you can't make much money all year round, and you often need to do odd jobs to support your family.

And for the future, you can see the end at a glance.

Contemporary rural life in the Chu Empire, despite benefiting from a series of policies implemented over the past thirty years since the founding of the Chu Empire, has allowed almost all farmers to own their own land. The landlord class has been forced to give up due to high land taxes and other issues.

After selling the land, they invested the funds in the industrial and commercial industries and became the new generation of industrial and commercial bourgeoisie in the empire.

At the same time, the Chu Empire also had many supporting policies for rural areas, such as the construction of various water conservancy facilities and agricultural protection policies.

The most famous one is the Tea Protection Act. The Tea Protection Act directly prohibits the promotion of tea cultivation overseas, including many overseas territories such as the Americas, thereby ensuring the interests of local tea farmers.

This was followed by the mulberry tree and cocoon protection laws led by the Raw Silk Association, which also banned the export of silk-related mulberry tree planting and cocoon breeding technology to overseas areas.

At the same time, it actively develops the processing of economic crops such as grain processing and fruit processing, and then purchases a large number of various economic crops produced in rural areas to further increase the income level of farmers.

But even so, the economic development of the vast rural areas of the Chu Empire was still unsatisfactory.

It is true that during the Ming Dynasty, or even during any feudal dynasty, the rural areas of the Chu Empire were already living a prosperous life, and the majority of farmers could basically eat.

But having food and having enough food and eating well...are two different things.

The majority of farmers in the Da Chu Empire are actually only able to have enough to eat at the moment. In fact, they are still a little far away from having enough to eat.

In the thirty-fifth year of Chengshun, according to the statistical report of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of the Dachu Empire, the per capita grain consumption in the local area was about 375 kilograms, a slight increase compared with the previous two years... which sounds pretty good at first glance.

, but you have to know that if you want to really have enough to eat, the bottom line is actually 400 kilograms per capita... Only when this line is exceeded can people really have enough to eat.

Only under this premise can we talk about increasing the types of food such as meat, poultry and eggs so that people can eat well... This stage is often the reason why per capita food consumption does not increase and has hovered around 400 kilograms for a long time.

After all, the human belly is only that big. If you eat more meat, eggs, etc., you will naturally eat less staple foods such as rice and wheat.

However, there is still a long way to go before the Chu Empire can have enough food for all its people... Even if it is only short of the final 25 kilograms per capita, it is still very difficult.

Nowadays, it is very difficult for the empire to maintain a small increase in per capita food consumption... Mainly due to the large-scale development of Nanyang and North America.

In particular, grain production in North America is increasing year by year. In addition to meeting local demand, the remaining grain is basically shipped back to the mainland to supply the huge consumption of the local population of more than 400 million.

In addition, the development of Nanyang is also good. The Mekong Delta, Red River Delta and Bangkok Plain have been able to produce food on a large scale after years of construction of water conservancy facilities and large-scale immigration.

The remaining portion of the grain produced was also transported to the native areas.

The large-scale transportation of food from overseas territories to the mainland is what maintains the steady and small increase in per capita food consumption in the empire.

Without these grains from overseas... According to the rate of population growth in the empire, coupled with the fact that there are no chemical fertilizers in contemporary agricultural planting technology, and no decisive breakthroughs in grain varieties, etc., relying solely on the local grain production, currently

It is simply impossible to maintain per capita food consumption growth at this stage...

Moreover, the huge population is actually a headache for the empire's senior officials. After all, if they want to feed the Chu Empire's more than 400 million people... this is not an easy task. The most important thing is that the population is still rising.

In the early years, probably around the 20th year of Chengshun, the population in the Da Chu Empire was growing very fast. The huge population growth rate once worried the senior officials of the empire... At this rate, it would take less than 20 years to give birth.

, the total population of the empire must exceed one billion!

This is also why in the 1920s, the Great Chu Empire was so frantic in carrying out large-scale expansion overseas and promoting overseas immigration... There are too many people and local food production is limited!

And this is the fundamental difference between the overseas expansion of the Chu Empire and the overseas expansion of European countries.

The essence of European countries' overseas expansion is profit, and they regard colonization as a business.

But the Da Chu Empire expanded overseas purely to relieve population pressure...

What gives the empire's top officials some peace of mind is that after the birth rate peaked in the 1920s and early 1920s, in the late 1920s and now in the 1930s, the birth rate in the Great Chu Empire has finally reached less than 100%.

It was so crazy when it was above 40, but gradually returned to rationality, and has now dropped to more than 20%.

However, due to the improvement of medical standards and average life expectancy, the population death rate has been decreasing year by year, which has also resulted in the total population still growing rapidly.

In the Chengshun decade, many couples would raise three, four or even five or six children... Mainly because after entering the decade, the empire almost ended all civil wars, and all kinds of chieftains and landlord armed forces in the country were also wiped out.

The country entered a period of high stability and peace. At the same time, with the development of agricultural and water conservancy construction, the continued development of industry and commerce, and the improvement of people's living standards, the fertility rate in the empire was very high in the 10s.

Of course, at that time, many couples did not expect that all the children they gave birth to would survive to adulthood... The child mortality rate was very high during the agricultural period. Even if there were seven or eight children, only about half of them would survive in the end.

Live to adulthood.

However, people underestimated the determination of the Chu Empire to develop health and medical services.

Then the majority of young parents discovered that the expected high mortality rate did not come, and most of the children they gave birth to grew up smoothly... and then they sadly discovered that it was too difficult to raise them.

In addition, the Chu Empire gradually promoted education. Although it didn't cost much to go to primary school, it still cost money. With so many children, just attending an inclusive primary school would cost a lot of money.

At the same time, after people's environment is stable, they always hope that their children can live a better life, hope that their children can go to a better school, a junior high school, etc... And this costs more money.

Many children born in the 10s basically have several brothers and sisters. Most of them have too many brothers and sisters, so they have less opportunities to receive education. They even don’t have enough to eat. During the holidays, chicken drumsticks are enough.

Eat, a group of brothers and sisters all stared at the pair of chicken legs eagerly!

This kind of memory still stays deeply in their minds even after they become adults!

Therefore, when many people grow up and reach the age of marriage and childbearing, in order to prevent their children from suffering as they did back then, they often do not insist on having five or six children or even more like their parents, but choose to have fewer children and then concentrate on

Resources to better educate children...

It is still very expensive to study in the Chu Empire... Even if ordinary families do not expect their children to go to college, they at least want to send their children to junior high school. Only after they have a middle school degree can they find a more respectable job.

If you only go to an inclusive primary school, you can only join a factory assembly line and become an ordinary worker.

These changes in concepts caused the new generation of young people in the Chu Empire to be more restrained in having children after the late 1920s, which directly led to a decrease in the birth rate.

Of course, this does not mean that the total population has declined. In fact, the total population is still growing every year, and the growth rate is still not small.

It's just that the growth rate now is not as exaggerated as before...

The huge population, especially the relatively large population growth rate, once made the senior officials of the Dachu Empire very worried, which eventually led to large-scale overseas expansion and immigration supported by the entire empire.

The idea of ​​​​the empire's top officials is very simple: since there is not enough cultivated land in the country to support such a large population, then they will grab foreign land and immigrate the people overseas.

Therefore, in the past twenty years, thanks to the emergence of large-tonnage motors and sailing ships, shipping costs have dropped significantly. Starting twenty years after Chengshun, the Chu Empire immigrated a large number of people overseas every year, and now

The number of immigrants is still increasing year by year, and the number is very large.

In the thirty-five years since Chengshun, at least more than four million people have gone overseas to make a living through official immigration, loan immigration, self-funded immigration and other channels, mainly in North America and Southeast Asia. In addition, India and Africa have also become new options for immigration.

This is four million a year, and this is official statistics. There are also some irregular immigrants who are not included in the statistics.

The number of overseas immigrants in the Da Chu Empire was very large.

In North America alone, the population now exceeds ten million, and it is still increasing rapidly every year.

Even in the newly developed African region of South Africa, the current population has exceeded one million... Mainly because after the discovery of gold mines in South Africa, a large number of people poured in in a short period of time... These people who went for gold discovered that Africa

The land is quite good, and in order to attract immigrants to settle down, the local government allocates land for free as the most basic policy. There are also various other measures such as subsidizing ship tickets, subsidizing the production of agricultural tools, exempting early agricultural taxes, etc.

In these days, an ordinary young man with no skills or culture in the Chu Empire is basically at the bottom of society and can only struggle to survive.

But as long as you bite the bullet and go overseas, take South Africa as an example, as long as you dare to go to a slightly inland place, the local colonial government will not allocate land to you... they will give you a horse, and you can do it within the specified time.

It's all yours, no matter how much land you enclose...it doesn't cost you a single copper, and it will also provide you with a loan to purchase basic production tools such as plow horses and grain seeds necessary for developing your farm.

In other words, even if you are nothing at home, as long as you dare to go to places in Africa, you can own dozens or even hundreds of acres of land in minutes. If you are a family of immigrants, the land will be divided according to the head of the population.

You can own hundreds or even thousands of acres of land.

Of course, in such a poor place, you can't ask anyone to farm the land for you. You can only farm it yourself and your family. However, if you use horses to farm the land, the per capita cultivated area is also very considerable.

Don't talk about using local indigenous people, free of charge, etc. This is impossible and not allowed by law.

The overseas territories where the Da Chu Empire formally established administrative agencies adopted the same legal standards as the empire's mainland provinces. Strictly speaking, these overseas territories were no different from the mainland. Slavery was prohibited in the mainland, and it was also prohibited in these overseas territories of the empire.

In addition, when it comes to the population policy for overseas territories, the empire's top officials have always been old-fashioned and stubborn. They insist that these overseas territories are the living space of the Dachu people!

The land of the Great Chu Empire and the food of the Great Chu Empire are used to feed the Chu people, not the indigenous people... neither can slaves.

Even if the local overseas territories have insufficient population for the time being and cannot be developed for the time being, they will not introduce local indigenous people for some economic benefits... If there are not enough people, just continue to introduce immigrants from the mainland. What a big deal!

Anyway, the mainland is overcrowded, and the empire's top officials are having a headache because of this, and a large number of people immigrate overseas every year.

However, immigrating overseas is, after all, the first choice of the lower class people, especially those who cannot find a way to survive in the country. As long as they have the opportunity to find a good job in the country, no one is willing to go to the wild lands overseas.

If you can find a good job in Songjiang, live a decent life, let your family enjoy a better life, medical care, and let your children receive a better education, the people of Chu will immigrate overseas only if there is something wrong with them.

Immigrating overseas these days is quite risky... For example, South Africa has a population of one million immigrants, but how many doctors are there? In addition to the aid doctors sent by the government, there are dozens of doctors with legal medical licenses...

…

In the Chu Empire these days, doctors with legal medical licenses are all highly educated, and they are respected middle- and upper-class people in the country. People live a good life in the country, so it would be unthinkable to go overseas to the wilderness.

Land?

Therefore, the number of legal doctors in overseas territories is pitifully small, and a considerable part of these few doctors are concentrated in major cities in overseas territories.
To be continued...