The corn field was lush and green, and the corn stalks had grown to the height of a person, with two ears on each stalk.
Zhu Yihai was walking in his private plot and couldn't help but feel very happy when he saw that the summer corn he planted himself was growing well. People who looked at this green gauze tent were really happy, their eyes were full of green.
The fifth princess Zhu Ningwei was even more happy to hide and seek with Zhu Yihai in the green gauze tent, and she was not afraid of being cut by the leaves.
"The corn is growing well this summer, and now is the grain-filling period. These rains have come at a good time." The ministers who followed the emperor were also very happy.
This year, under the strong suggestion of the emperor, Denglai Qingxin planted a large amount of corn in order to increase production and provide more food to survive the famine. This scene of green gauze tents everywhere was really rare to see in the past.
Although corn has been introduced for many years, it is still rare to cultivate it on such a large scale.
But this year, the planting of coarse grains such as corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes and even sorghum and soybeans has been promoted in large quantities and even forced to be planted, just to collect more disaster relief grains.
Walking in the fields, everywhere you look is green, which is the color of hope.
Although there are now constant ships coming and going from Denglai, Qingdao, Yantai and other ports, there are always grain ships transporting grain from the south. Dengzhou, Changshan and other places also have a lot of grain reserves, but the cost of this grain is very high.
Some grain was even shipped from Luzon and Annan. In the trade agreement between the emperor and the Spanish, there were clauses such as exchanging raw silk for ships and silk for grain. Every Spanish, Portuguese and other merchant ship that came to the Ming port had to transport a certain amount of food.
Just the right amount of food.
This is like the Kaizhong method in the early Ming Dynasty. If merchants want to buy salt from the imperial court, you must first transport grain to Jiubian to supply the army. The grain will be transported to the border, and the grain will be collected by you.
The list, after you take this list, you can go to the government to get the salt, and then you can go to the salt warehouse to get the salt to sell.
If you want to earn high profits from selling salt, you must first transport grain to the border for the imperial court.
Now Zhu Yihai also has this additional clause with these North Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Annan and other merchants. You can all come to Ming Dynasty to trade directly, and you can stop at ports such as Guangzhou, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Nanjing, etc., but the condition is that it must be according to the size of the corresponding ship.
You have to bring a certain amount of food with you.
Otherwise, you won’t be able to buy the goods even if you pay real money.
If you want raw silk, silk, porcelain, tea, etc., no problem, the payment must not only be silver and copper, but also must include grain. The Ming Dynasty did not care whether you bought it from Annan, Luzon or even Batavia, you have to
Just bring some food from outside.
Even though the cost of these grains was high, Ming Dynasty was willing to pay.
The grain shipped by overseas merchants, plus the grain produced in the south, were transported to coastal ports and then shipped northward. Although the grain was transported by sea, the cost was much lower than that of land and canal transportation, but it was still quite expensive.
However, this method did greatly alleviate the famine, especially the situation in Jiangbei.
A boatload of food comes, and a boatload of refugees leaves.
The grain ships went north, and the refugees went south.
The luck has been going on for several months. There are still many refugees fleeing to Denglai, but fewer and fewer people have died.
"It will be almost ready to harvest corn in more than a month. According to the current climate, the corn yield this year should be good. We can even harvest it later to increase the yield. After the corn harvest in autumn, we can rush to plant wheat again."
Academician Xu Shiqi told the emperor that in the fourth Qingxin Prefecture of Denglai now occupied by the Ming Army in Shandong, there was basically no wasteland left, and even wasteland had been reclaimed in large quantities.
Regardless of whether it is owned land or unowned land, whether it is official land or private land, it must be planted first.
In addition, there are also many military camps now.
"Field property rights must still be respected. Now is a special situation. Some landowners have left their hometowns and moved south, some have fled their homes due to famine, and some are still in their hometowns but cannot farm. So now we are arranging for people to transfer the land to the south.
Landowners are not allowed to stop them from planting. Even if the landowners are not at home and their land is planted, the rent that should be paid must be recorded in the account first and will be paid to them later.
Of course, now is a special situation, and the land rent must be reduced as much as possible. After all, many of them are refugees, which is not easy."
Xu Shiqi came up with the method discussed by the cabinet, "The cabinet discussed a plan to reduce rent and interest in accordance with His Majesty's decree. In principle, this method will be tried in the area north of the Yangtze River. Specifically, the summer grain harvest will belong to the farming tenants.
From the autumn grain harvest, 25% of the harvest will be given to the tenants first, and the remaining 75% will be divided equally between the landlord and the tenant farmer, so the landlord will get 375% of the total autumn grain output, and the tenant farmer will actually get 625%."
It is actually a tradition not to pay rent for summer grain.
In the past, most land could only grow staple crops for one season, so landlords and tenants had to divide this staple product. Even now, in Wudi, Jiangnan, it has always been customary to harvest wheat in the summer and rice in the autumn. The income from the wheat harvest in the summer is fully
Tenants, but the rice harvested in the autumn must be divided into rents.
Therefore, the tenants in Wudi prefer to plant wheat in the early season and do not like to plant early rice. Wheat is only a by-product, just like radish and rapeseed, not the main product. Therefore, even in Jiangnan, they like to plant one season of wheat and another season of rice.
Two-crop rice is rarely grown.
Firstly, there is plenty of time as wheat and rice alternate. Secondly, if early rice is planted, it is considered the main product, so rent must be extracted.
So now the cabinet has issued an order to reduce rent. It does not care about planting wheat or rice in the summer. It directly stipulates that the landlord will not pay rent for summer grain, but only autumn grain.
The method of paying rent is also based on sharing, rather than flat rent.
In the late Ming Dynasty, iron plate rent was a common practice in the Jiangnan area, which was a fixed rent. For good rice fields, the rent was often one stone and two buckets, but in reality it was generally around one stone.
In case of floods, droughts, insect pests, etc., there will always be poor harvests and reduced production, so the rent will be reduced appropriately. One stone per acre is the bottom line.
And now the cabinet believes that Jiangbei is in a special situation, so the starting point is to take care of the people, so it implements share rent, but the output varies, so 25% of the harvest must be set aside for farmers first, and then divided.
The peasants and landlords were divided into 375 and 375 respectively. In the end, the landlords got 375 and the peasants 625.
"Although it is a special period, we still have to be as fair as possible. It turns out that the division between landlords and tenants is often 50-50, or even 64-40. Although summer grain is generally not divided, and even the income from the mountains, soil and lakes attached to the fields is not counted, but
When we formulate these rules, we should try our best to give full consideration.
The rent reduction was proposed by Zhu Yihai. The purpose was that it was too difficult for the people to survive in such a turbulent situation.
"I think we can modify it. The summer grain will still not be divided, but for the autumn grain, 20% of the proceeds will be given to the tenants first, and then the landlords and tenants will share it in half. In this way, the landlords will get four and the farmers will get six.
In addition, landlords must be prevented from exploiting tenants in other ways, such as asking tenants to work for them for free, etc.
Our starting point in formulating these policies is to ensure that everyone can survive in this difficult situation."
"North of the Yangtze River, the three-year land tax and land tax will be exempted, and all the previous ones will be exempted. If everyone can produce well and be self-sufficient, it is good enough, and it can also reduce a lot of burden on the court.
If they have a surplus of food, they can sell it to the court for purchase after saving enough food, and we will pay for it."
Zhu Yihai emphasized that Jiangbei has been exempted from taxes for three years, and will no longer collect past arrears, and will not force people to buy food now.
However, in the Jiangbei area, private purchase of grain is prohibited and public purchase is promoted. People do not need to sell, but if they want to sell grain, they can only sell it to the government, and the grain department will purchase it at grain stations in various places, and the price will be based on the market price.
The purpose is also to strengthen the allocation of food, try to supply the people as much as possible, and avoid people hoarding and driving up food prices. If the court does not control it, the price of food will be sky-high. Even if there is food, the more food is lacking, the more they will hoard and drive up the price.
Now in Shandong and other places, all grain shops have been taken over by the government, supply is limited, and wine making has even been banned to save grain.
Grain prices are tiered and priced in different brackets. Prices are guaranteed within the ration standard. If the price exceeds the ration standard, it is an unplanned supply of grain. The more you buy, the higher the price, so as to prevent some people from going hungry while others are still wasting it.
Providing a mix of coarse and fine grains, and even advocating economy, this will definitely be the main theme for a long time to come. Zhu Yihai leads by example. His current meals will not exceed four dishes and one soup.
Thanks to Zhu Yihai's various methods, the current food prices in the four prefectures of Shandong are pretty good. The planned ration is one tael of silver per stone and rice. Of course, this is not the normal market price, but the result of strict intervention.
The common people are provided with limited rations, or a miscellaneous mix, but the unplanned food is very expensive, and the increase is very fast, according to the ladder, it is two, three, two, one stone, or even higher.
Nowadays, there are still many people in Shandong who cannot afford rice at all. They are simply hungry people who are still receiving work-for-relief from the government, and are even queuing up to receive porridge, waiting for resettlement relief.
Food is now an absolutely controlled commodity in Huainan, Shandong and other places. Except for rations, anyone who dares to hoard food will be seeking death or will be convicted.
People who have the ability do not dare to resell grain easily now. This area is all controlled by the royal family and the court. Even grain merchants from Jiangnan can only sell grain directly to the government and cannot directly operate and sell it.
Generally speaking, after the initial chaos, the hunger situation in the control areas has basically been stabilized. Of course, in Jinan, Xuzhou, Yanzhou, Dongchang, Tai'an and other places, the situation is completely different.
It was truly a hell-like scene. Even the Qing troops trapped in the city were in dire straits. They had no ability to help the hungry people at all.
"The gold mines and other mines in the two provinces of Denglai are now arranging mining for the victims to provide work relief. This year, it is expected that more than 20,000 taels of gold alone will be mined, and there are also many other minerals. The Spaniards in Luzon and Macau
The Portuguese all want to exchange silver for gold with us."
Zhu Yihai knew that the price ratio of gold and silver was high in the West, and one tael of gold could even be exchanged for fifteen taels of silver. However, in the Ming Dynasty, the price ratio of gold and silver had never been high before. One gold was even exchanged for four silvers, so those Western merchants came with loads of silver.
Cash out gold.
This process started even before the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and it has been used to make huge profits until now.
There is a lot of gold in Denglai, Shandong, especially in the Zhaoyuan area. It has abundant reserves and is easy to mine. The Linglong Gold Mine in the Song Dynasty was a government-run gold mine with a high output. In the Song Dynasty, the gold mine in Denglai area could produce nearly 10,000 taels a year.
There are so many mines here. Due to war and famine, many of them have stopped mining or even closed down. Zhu Yihai now accepts a large number of hungry people here. In addition to organizing land reclamation and farming, there is still a surplus, and he also uses it for shipbuilding, fishing and even mining.
"Tell these foreign merchants that the outflow of gold is originally prohibited, but the current situation is special. If they are willing to exchange grain for gold, that is okay. They can trade grain at the ratio of one tael of gold to thirteen taels of silver. Except
In addition, other transactions in gold are prohibited.”
Twenty thousand taels of gold can be exchanged for 260,000 taels of silver. Even if it is calculated as one tael of silver per one stone, it is still worth 260,000 stone meters. Zhu Yihai feels that if these foreign devils are willing to transport grain in exchange for gold, he will still keep his promise.
No matter how good the gold is in exchange, it cannot be used as food.
In times of great famine, it would be worthwhile to use gold to lure foreigners to ship grain overseas.
Even if two taels are exchanged for one stone, it is worth the exchange when there is a shortage of food.
But if it were to be exchanged for silver, tobacco, cotton, etc., Zhu Yihai would not agree. Gold is an extremely rare precious metal and is much more valuable than silver.
"Your Majesty, Hong Chengchou wants to see Your Majesty."
"Has he figured it out? No more hunger strikes?" Zhu Yihai was a little disdainful.