In the fifth year of Chongzhen, the sixteenth day of the first lunar month.
Rugao County, Harbor City.
Xu Yuan, who had just finished everything in modern society in the past two days, returned to the world of the late Ming Dynasty. He had no intention of stopping and taking a good rest. Instead, he summoned all the stewards in important positions, the heads of all collective estates, and the generals of the Xu family army.
, a total of three to four hundred people gathered in the Harbor City Conference Auditorium, and then held a meeting for three consecutive days to deploy an important matter.
expansion.
Xujiazhuang Collective Estate is about to embark on its second round of major expansion.
Let the number of collective estates increase from 11 to 110.
The area of arable land occupied will be increased from the current less than 300,000 acres to more than two million acres.
The population resources under its control have increased from just over 500,000 people now to more than 1.5 million people.
And strive to complete this round of major expansion within a year or so.
Speaking of which, why is the expansion time so obviously advanced? Xu Yuan's previous plan was to expand every three years. They would use this time to accumulate enough materials, cultivate enough junior talents, and have enough military power to defend their own interests.
, and then start external expansion.
It has only been two short years since the last round of expansion, and Xu Yuan is already eager to expand. Why is he so eager?
Could it be that he sensed some kind of threat, or that he had lost the patience to move steadily and planned to take a bigger step?
None of these reasons.
The most fundamental reason is that the accommodation capacity of Xujiazhuang is approaching its limit, and it is no longer possible to expand even if it does not want to.
Think about it. A mere 300,000 acres of cultivated land has to support more than 500,000 people. When the per capita cultivated land area is less than 0.6 acres, the per capita ration must be no less than 500 kilograms and the per capita amount of meat must be eaten.
To reach more than 40 kilograms, a large amount of eggs and milk must be produced, which is simply impossible.
There are too many people.
The burden is too great.
The only way to turn this population of more than 500,000 into precious resources and into Xujiazhuang's powerful strength is to expand.
To occupy more farmland.
Radiate the collective manor to the entire Yangzhou Prefecture.
In addition, it is a little different from the last expansion, because in the process of intervening in the Shandong Rebellion, Xujiazhuang spent millions of taels of silver, so the amount of silver on hand is not particularly large, with only more than 30 million taels left.
It seems that we can no longer squander it wantonly.
Therefore, the price for buying out people's fields this time will be in line with the market situation, that is, 10 silver dollars per acre for good quality fields, 5 to 6 silver dollars per acre for medium-quality fields, and 3 silver dollars for low-quality fields. There will no longer be a high premium.
.
Secondly, Xujiazhuang's response to nail households in nail fields will no longer be as gentle as the first time. Even if it is the land of gentry landlords, as long as it hinders the construction of collective estates, it will be directly confiscated and dealt with. What?
Forget about compensation and adjustments, just occupy it directly. After all, many gentry landlords only have a hundred or ten people in their families, but they occupy thousands of acres of fertile land. They can't cultivate it by themselves. It's better than this.
Ceded to the Xu Family Manor.
overbearing.
Xujiazhuang is beginning to reveal his overbearing side. Could it be that the persona of a good man and bodhisattva that he had managed to maintain before was just smashed, given up, and started to openly be a bully?
That's right.
It can be said that this is indeed the case.
Immediately some stewards and village leaders expressed their concerns. If Xujiazhuang did this, would it cause a backlash from the government gentry, or cause an encirclement and suppression by the imperial army, leading to a showdown with the imperial court? Will it continue?
It’s better to keep a low profile. How about giving it a few more years of development and waiting until the third round of expansion to be more high-profile and overbearing?
for the voices of these people.
"You, until now, still have the mentality of a weak person and do not have the mentality of a strong person."
Xu Yuan shook his head and criticized these senior personnel: "Two years ago, our Xujiazhuang was relatively weak, not very strong. It is normal, necessary and correct to keep a low profile and modesty. At that time, we did not have the confidence to overturn the table."
"But now, not only do we have to change our past methods, we also have to adjust our mentality."
"As for why we are so arrogant this time, the reason is very simple. When those officials and gentry deliberately led the refugees from the three provinces of Shan, Shaanxi and Henan to our Xujiazhuang, they also released their criminals and let the criminals run to Xujiazhuang.
When they increased our internal instability, when they restricted the entry of raw materials from other places into Xujiazhuang and raised prices significantly, did those at the top consider our interests and our feelings? When they did these things,
To us, aren’t they bad guys and bullies, and aren’t they overbearing?”
"Now, it's our turn to bully them. Don't think it's cruel. It's inhumane. The rules of this world are like this. When we are good people, those officials and gentry will not treat us badly just because we are good people.
It is impossible for us to be tolerant and generous and repay kindness with kindness. They will only think that we have different intentions and have ulterior motives, and they just want to get rid of us! They just want us to disappear and want us to die. No matter how good we are, it is useless!
"
"This is not a conflict between good and bad, nor a contest between justice and evil, but an irreconcilable class conflict. We want their land, and they want our lives. In each other's eyes, we are not good people and cannot occupy it.
The moral superiority, the only thing that can distinguish right from wrong, determine victory and defeat, is strength and power, and only this can decide everything."
"So don't have worries, don't be afraid that the sky will fall. With the powerful Xu family army here, any obstacles ahead can be smashed. Of course, you must be gentle and kind to ordinary people, win their hearts and minds, dispel their concerns, and even make some
Concession, after winning the support of the majority of people, for the gentry and landlords, as long as they are at an absolute disadvantage in terms of numbers, then let them experience the coldness of nine winters and deeply understand the law of the jungle, without fear of offending them.
.”
Xu Yuan said in a cold and cruel tone.
The set of expansion rules he set are, in essence, quite similar to the westward expansion movement in the history of the beautiful country.
It means naked robbery, blatant seizure, and killing by relying on the strong to bully the weak. They take land that should not belong to them as their own, and use any means to expand their living space.
Of course, the difference is that the expansion of the Xu Family Manor in the Ming Dynasty will not involve mass killings or genocide. Instead, it will find ways to win the support and support of the majority of poor people. Those whose interests will be harmed will be
Those few landlords occupy 50% to 60% of land resources.
Moreover, Xujiazhuang also has moral reasons. It was officials and gentry who first targeted Xujiazhuang, and now Xujiazhuang has retaliated. This is natural, right? As long as you stand on a fair footing, you should not be able to find any fault.
The most fundamental reason is, of course, that today's Xujiazhuang has enough strength to expand externally. The 11,500 elite Xujiajun soldiers are all equipped with electric fuse breech guns and sugar grenades. There are currently no artillery, but the Weapons Research Institute is studying 75mm
caliber ship rapid-fire cannon and 80mm-caliber army mortar. Among them, the mortar is close to success and can be finalized and mass-produced within two or three months. The rapid-fire cannon will take a little longer (but it can be completed within two years).
).
Since you have strong enough strength, no matter what the strong person does, it has a certain degree of innate rationality. The guns and cannons in the hands of the strong person are much more persuasive than any moral article, and their words are closer to the truth.
to truth.
And after Xu Yuan's words.
In the auditorium.
Except for a very few people who don't quite agree and understand.
Most people nodded and agreed:
"It's not that we are overbearing, it's the government and gentry that have forced us into this. We should fight back."
"In fact, not only were the criminals with bad habits hard to change, but the government of a certain place actually sent over the deaf-mute, the blind, the elderly, and the children who had been harvested and mutilated by human traffickers. These people had no ability to work at all, and the purpose was
In order to increase our burden, the intention is extremely vicious!"
"Haha, if we don't show any cruelty, we will really be regarded as good people who do good deeds for free."
"Support the owner of the village, we have endured enough, we should have launched a counterattack long ago!"
"We must let those people have a taste of our power this time!"
"..."
Regarding the second round of expansion plan, Xujiazhuang’s senior management has basically reached an agreement.