Xu Yuan actually has no real sense of it, although countless people will live a worse life as a result, or even starve to death and become refugees and bandits.
But it didn't have much negative impact on Xujiazhuang's interests.
On the contrary, it will bring many benefits.
Because there were more bankrupt farmers, the population that Xujiazhuang could absorb increased, making it easier to control more human resources.
With more land abandoned, there is room for the establishment of collective estates. Even landlords have to sell their land to collective estates, because land that is not cultivated by anyone has no value, and even annexing millions of acres is useless.
Shaanxi and Shanxi will become a deserted land for thousands of miles in the future. Wolves and tigers have appeared in many counties. This proves that the natural ecological environment has begun to recover. Development will be banned for several decades. When the temperature warms up, it may become a paradise.
Such places can become 5a-level ecological reserves, which can vigorously develop tourism - this is the benefit of population reduction to the ecological environment.
The world is dynamically balanced, where there are dangers and opportunities, and there are many good things hidden behind bad things.
Therefore, the more stupid Zhu Youjian of Chongzhen behaves, the more opportunities Xujiazhuang has to gain benefits from it, and the greater the loopholes he can exploit.
From the perspective of his own interests, Xu Yuan could not find any reason to strongly oppose the imperial court's increase in land tax. The benefits were so great that his sympathy for the farmers was greatly weakened.
Of course, Xu Yuan is not a cold-blooded animal. Xujiazhuang has been increasing its efforts to recruit refugees. On average, it recruits more than 5,000 people every month, and there will be more after the spring of next year.
in addition.
Compared with the court's tax increase, what Xu Yuan is most concerned about and attaches great importance to these days is his top ten monopoly plans.
Not only are these plans very important, but once they are fully realized, the benefits they will bring will be unimaginable.
Which ten monopoly plans are they specifically?
They are arranged in order of difficulty of implementation, from easy to difficult.
The first is the grain monopoly plan.
Whoever controls food controls everyone!
Xu Yuan planned to control almost all the food in this world in the late Ming Dynasty, so that no matter what force it was, as long as there was no food provided by Xujiazhuang, it would starve, starve to death, or collapse without a fight.
Places outside the Ming Dynasty cannot be controlled. For the time being, we must find ways to control the grain within the Ming Dynasty. Analyze it from the consumer side. Assume that the Ming Dynasty has a population of 200 million. On average, each person consumes a minimum of three stones of grain (375 kilograms) per year. The annual demand
The amount is 600 million stone.
Xujiazhuang currently owns about 150,000 acres of land, with an annual grain output of 2 million shi (including coarse and fine grains). In addition to the more than 1 million shi of grain collected from surrounding villages and towns, the total is about 3 million shi.
The completion of the grain monopoly plan is less than 0.5%, not even 1%. It can be said that the road ahead is long and there is still a very long way to go.
Unless the land under direct control increases to 30 million acres and the annual grain output reaches 400 million shi, and then through the manor economic circle, 200 million shi of grain are absorbed from surrounding villages and towns, the goal of monopolizing grain will be basically achieved.
Therefore, judging from the land area alone, the Xu family manor must be expanded at least two hundred times.
The second item is the wine monopoly plan.
Because once there is enough food, it is impossible for the villagers to consume it alone, and it may not even be possible to sell it all.
Therefore, large-scale industrial wineries can be established to consume part of the old grains and brew wines that some people like to drink, such as liquor, rice wine, shochu, etc. They can also build famous brands and operate in the high-end market, thereby bringing about a relatively low wine-making cost.
Come to very huge benefits.
It’s not even less than what you earn from selling hundreds of millions of stones of grain.
In the brewing market, the profit margins are really huge, and it is very necessary to have a monopoly. Even if you cannot achieve a 100% monopoly, with the advantages of industrialization, it is no problem to monopolize more than 80%.
The third item is the salt monopoly plan.
Yangzhou Prefecture is a salt-producing area. Rugao County, east of Xinghua County, has a long coastline. There are a large number of salt fields scattered on the flat beaches. Millions of stones of salt are produced every year, bringing in benefits of at least tens of millions of taels of silver.
, making Yangzhou City the richest city in the world, the wealth of Yangzhou salt merchants even brought about abnormal groups such as Yangzhou Shouma, which were born specifically to respond to the perverted preferences of salt merchants.
If Xujiazhuang went to Rugao County to build a modern salt-making factory, with the production capacity of a small salt factory in modern society, it would be no problem to produce 1 million tons of salt per year, which would be able to meet the salt needs of an ancient population of 200 million, and the Yangzhou salt merchants could be replaced
All their jobs were smashed.
The huge profits of tens of millions of taels every year all belong to Xujiazhuang.
However, the risk of this approach is too high. Not only will it offend the salt merchants, but also the hundreds of thousands of salt workers and salt households who rely on drying and boiling salt to survive will probably fight against Xujiazhuang.
Therefore, the plan to monopolize salt must be implemented with caution. It cannot destroy too many jobs. The salt merchants must not be forced to join forces with the gentry, nobles and military attache classes, spend millions of taels of silver, and gather together as a force to kill Xujiazhuang - vested interests.
The power of the class's backlash is no less powerful than the rebellion at the bottom.
We must use smart enough tactics and methods to get rid of the salt merchants and ensure that the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people are not destroyed, and then achieve a monopoly on salt.
The fourth item is the tea monopoly plan.
The importance of tea in ancient society can be said to be at the level of nuclear deterrence.
On the one hand, in this world of the late Ming Dynasty, there were only teas produced in the southern part of the Ming Dynasty and Yunnan and Guizhou, and there was no specialty product like tea in other places.
The reason why it is called nuclear deterrence is because the nomadic people in the north and the Tibetan Plateau in the west are indispensable for tea because their usual eating habits of meat and milk lead to a lack of cereals and vegetables.
, it is easy to have problems such as flatulence and constipation, which can only be solved by drinking tea and supplementing some vitamins.
If there is a lack of tea in life, people who make a living by farming will just lack a drink to entertain guests; but herdsmen who make a living by nomadic life will really be killed.
With the help of tea as a nuclear deterrent, Tibet and Tibet in the west have never launched an invasion since the end of the Tang Dynasty. Mongolia in the north has invaded Jiubian many times, mostly to reopen mutual trade and obtain tea, rhubarb and other products.
In addition, the upper class in Europe have long been aware of the benefits of drinking tea. Every year, they buy hundreds of thousands of kilograms of tea at a high price of 16 taels of silver per pound, even if it consumes a lot of real money, because it is really
You can't live without this drink.
In the Zhejiang mountainous area south of Zhili, there are a large number of high-quality tea gardens. If we contract hundreds of thousands of acres, introduce improved varieties from modern society, introduce industrialized production methods, and destroy the East India Company's efforts to plant tea trees in India,
Let tea be produced only within the territory of the Ming Dynasty, thereby monopolizing most of the tea market, and the annual profits will not be less than those brought by Dai Ying who sold opium to the Qing Dynasty.
The fifth item is the bank monopoly plan.
As mentioned before, this plan is in progress. There will soon be 11 banks that can connect banks. After completing the training of employees, they will be officially opened in a few days.
There are several subsequent plans that are not ready for implementation yet. They will be implemented when the time is right. They are:
Monopoly sugar plan.
Monopoly Steel Plan.
Monopoly Tobacco Plan.
Monopoly energy and transportation plans.
Plan to monopolize global gold, silver and oil mines.
all in all.
In this world of the late Ming Dynasty, as long as Xujiazhuang from far away can monopolize these ten major industries, it is equivalent to controlling all resources and wealth. Others can only drink some soup and gnaw some bones, and it is impossible to compete with Xujiazhuang in terms of financial and material resources.
Of course, there are many other profitable industries, but Xu Yuan only focuses on these ten. He will not be involved in all industries, such as the textile industry, sand mining, coal mining, logging, etc. Xu Yuan will not pay too much attention to these.
You have to leave room for others, right? If he makes all the money by himself, then the whole world will rebel against him.
These top ten monopoly plans were formulated.
For Xu Yuan, he will not feel at a loss as to how to develop next, but will have a general direction, and then he can work hard in this direction.
…
January 20, 2025.
Modern society, Taizhou.
Xu Yuan came back again, bringing with him a large box of jewelry, jade, jade and other treasures, all of which were worth immeasurable value. They might be worth 100 yuan, or they might be worth a million.
Xu Yuan also plans to hand over this batch of jewelry and jade to Song Jiayun for disposal through any channel. He only hopes that their value will not be lower than the same weight of gold.
Of course, freeing up these belongings is one thing. In modern society, the Lunar New Year is coming soon. Xu Yuan has to call his relatives in his hometown, send a few big red envelopes, and then tell them that they will not go home for the New Year and wish them a happy New Year.
Why doesn't Xu Yuan go home? He has a father and a mother. He is not an orphan protagonist. In order to keep his personal secret, he doesn't even go back to his hometown?
It is true that Xu Yuan has parents, but they divorced more than ten years ago and started new families respectively. Xu Yuan's position in their hearts is very embarrassing. Instead of going back to disturb their family, it is better to call and say hello.
, just send another red envelope.
So he is a more reasonable divorced-parents type protagonist.
His family could not disturb him, but his partner Song Jiayun sent him a message asking for help:
"Brother Xu, are you here? Recently, my parents have been crazy urging me to go on a blind date and get married. Can you pretend to be my man? We have been working together for so many years, please do me a favor!"