This question is simply retarded, because everyone knows that food is for eating. But the question is, what if there is no more food to eat?
Oh, then you can store part of it to prepare for shortages. However, food is not gold. It has a shelf life, so there must be a limit to preparing for shortages. What if after storing food for shortages, you still can’t eat it all?
That's the situation in Huguang now - it has to be sold, otherwise it will just rot.
There are also considerations when selling. For example, grain from Huguang is mainly sold to Jiangnan.
It must be explained here that in the early Ming Dynasty, the Jiangnan area was a major grain producing area, and was known as "Suhu is ripe and the world is sufficient". But in the middle and even late periods, no one mentioned this, and it became
"Huguang is well versed in the world," because the economic structure of the Jiangnan region has undergone great changes.
In short, the Jiangnan region has changed from an agricultural-led economic structure to a business-led economic structure. A large number of fertile fields in the past have been mainly used to grow cotton, mulberry and other cash crops instead of growing grains, thus forming a
Several large-scale cotton spinning and silk centers were established with Suzhou as the core. At the same time, commercial activities were greatly strengthened, forming a commercial core.
Youdao means that there is no stability without agriculture, no strength without industry, and no wealth without business. There are both industry and business in the Jiangnan region, but there is actually a lack of agriculture.
Fortunately, this does not matter, because Huguang and Jiangxi have been greatly developed, and agricultural production has increased rapidly, and can now replace Jiangnan as the main grain production area. And because of the Yangtze River waterway, grain is transported from Huguang and Jiangxi to Jiangnan for sale.
The cost is not too high.
Jiangnan has industry and commerce, so there is no shortage of money. Therefore, since Huguang has a surplus of food, the best way to deal with it is to sell it to Jiangnan.
But what Gao pragmatically needs now is not that Huguang's grain goes south of the Yangtze River, but that it needs it to go north to support the Central Plains and Hebei regions. This is more troublesome.
The northern provinces are far behind the Jiangnan region in terms of industry and commerce, and in terms of transportation, they do not have the huge advantage of convenient transportation by the Yangtze River waterway. As long as the Huguang businessmen are not out of their minds, how could they not
The grain is sold to Jiangnan, but to Henan, Shaanxi or even Beizhili and Shanxi?
In terms of economic structure, Huguang's "local tycoons" actually don't need many foreign goods, because in the era of small-scale peasant economy, Huguang was completely self-sufficient and it lacked almost everything.
Even silk and cotton, the flagship products of the Jiangnan region, can be produced in Huguang itself. Cotton needs no special introduction, and as for silk, Hunan embroidery is one of the four famous embroideries along with Su embroidery. Do you think Hunan’s external demand for silk can be
How big is it? Although its silk output is not as good as that of Jiangnan, it is definitely more than enough to satisfy itself.
As for porcelain, Liling in Huguang is also one of the eight major porcelain centers, especially underglaze colored porcelain. Even in later generations, it was a hard-core product that was world-renowned. It can be seen that Huguang is not short of porcelain. In general, Huguang is very open to foreign goods.
The dependence is very low.
So what does it lack? It may only lack money...
This is because some economically developed prefectures and counties in Huguang have also carried out the reform of the whip method. For example, Hanyang Prefecture, Wuchang Prefecture, Yuezhou Prefecture, Changsha Prefecture and other places have changed the physical tax in the past to a cash payment.
Tax, so what Huguang is short of now is not supplies, but money.
However, in terms of money, Henan and other provinces are definitely not as good as Jiangnan, so this road is not feasible.
So in this case, there is no other way to operate according to the normal thinking. The only way to be pragmatic is to follow the thinking of future generations, that is... there is no demand, I will create demand for you!
Huguang lacks few things, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have troubles. Huguang currently has two main troubles.
First, there are floods in the Yangtze River Basin. Floods have always existed in the Yangtze River Basin. However, the areas of Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake have not been greatly reduced. They can play a role in storing floods to some extent. However, this does not mean that there are no floods in the Yangtze River Basin.
Floods, large and small, still occur from time to time.
As I said before, the Ming Dynasty basically had no money for disaster relief or major water conservancy repairs, so it relied on local officials to make small fuss. Since it was just a small fuss, of course it would be difficult to achieve anything, and there would be nothing.
There is no overall planning at all, so there will still be floods when there are supposed to be floods, and it won't have much effect.
Another trouble is the problem of public security. The inland border area at the junction of Hubei, Henan, Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces has many mountains and dense forests and a small population. In the early Ming Dynasty, the measure of "emptying the land and prohibiting refugees from entering" was adopted. However,
By the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Jingxiang refugee rebellion still broke out here. After quelling the rebellion, the central government of the Ming Dynasty decided to establish Yunyang Prefecture, Huguang Xingdu Division and other institutions here to strengthen management, and set up Yunyang Fuzhi (governor) to govern.
From then on, the "border area" evolved into the "administrative area".
However, that does not mean that this area will be stable for a long time. In fact, until the early Qing Dynasty, this area was a frequent area of turmoil, and it has never been peaceful. Frequent civil unrest is one aspect, and bandits and bandits are another aspect.
.
However, this aspect is not easy to exploit. Should Gao Pragmatic tell the local government in Huguang: I will send servants to help you suppress bandits, and you will give me food?
Therefore, the second one cannot be used for the time being, and we can only think of a solution from the first one: if Huguang vigorously renovates water conservancy, it will definitely be beneficial. It can not only reduce the losses caused by disasters, but also further increase food production. Both of these two
This article is beneficial to the "rich" people who control a large number of local fields.
The benefits that Gao pragmatism can bring to the north are obviously free rides on selling cement. Because the emergence of cement has made the reinforcement of dams simpler, more efficient and stronger than before, so now even the Hezong Yamen has been doing a lot of
Procurement. In other words, if Huguang also overhauls water conservancy, it will definitely consider purchasing cement. This is for sure.
The question now is, does the local government in Huguang have the ability and motivation to do this?
In the past, that would definitely not happen. The local yamen in Huguang are the same as the local yamen in other parts of the Ming Dynasty. Firstly, their funds are extremely limited. Secondly, it is better to do less than to do more. Why are their consciousness so high?
It doesn’t make sense to think of ways to do projects all day long!
But things are different now. The current Huguang magistrates - no, all the magistrates in the Ming Dynasty now, as long as they still have hope for their official career, or even if they don't think about leaving with their titles, almost all of them want to do so.
Do things, especially things that can actually improve political performance!
This seems strange. Why did the local officials of Ming Dynasty suddenly become diligent?
In fact, this can be attributed to Gao Gong's teaching method that incorporated the highly pragmatic "performance quantification" idea.