It is said that the New Year brings new weather, and Luoyang is not just like this for the Chinese New Year, but the sixth year of Tianqi is very special. First, the palace took back several small farms, so that there was less land allocated to each household for farming, but everyone
No one has any objections. Firstly, these farms do not occupy much land, and secondly, the prince has announced that starting from this year, tenants will begin to reduce their rent.
The rent reduction was so large that the common people could not believe their ears. For fields that had been cultivated for more than three years, they only received 10% of the rent! In previous years, when the harvest was 30%, everyone had so much food that there was no place to store it. Now it is not allowed to pile it up.
How about a mountain? Fortunately, according to the old rules, anything you can’t finish eating or put down can be sold to the prince’s palace! To say that our prince is a good man, he never gives me a white slip when collecting grain. As long as he meets the requirements, he can pass here.
You can get money by calling it there!
The biggest change this year comes from a year ago. Yiwang, who is closest to Luoyang, could not stand the temptation of soap, so he raised the white flag and surrendered. Now, as the general agent of Jiangnan area, he is staying at home secretly receiving people from all over the country.
In exchange, King Yi was very stingy and agreed to mortgage all the coal and iron produced in the fief to Zhu Youcong. Zhu Youqu, who was now named King Yingchong, finally successfully transformed from a dandy prince.
He became a real underground businessman.
A few people also noticed that the villages that were taken back were all in the most remote locations. Martial law was also enforced, and the palace sent several teams of sergeants with vicious dogs to patrol the surrounding areas! Not to mention that the sergeants were all members of their own family.
If you really want to gain some connections and sneak in, they will point to the newly erected sign not far away seriously, and then tell you with a smile that it says "Trespassers will be killed"!
Now that he has no worries about money, food, and resources, Zhu Youcong can finally start his military revolution after acquiring Sun Yuanhua and others. Today he brought many students to one of the
In the manor, those who are attentive will find that two loyal eunuchs are missing from his side. Xiao Changzi, who has just begun to look like a profiteer, is on his way back from Yunnan. No one knows what he is doing; Xiao Lezi, a loyal minister, is there.
Wandering around Nanjing and Zhejiang, I collected some fig resin and brought it back.
"Report to the general, after strict screening by my subordinates, a total of 516 people have been selected to stay voluntarily. They all come from generations of honest craftsmen. Among them, there are 219 blacksmiths you specially requested.
There are sixty-seven people who are good at making ingenious devices." Sun Yuanhua greeted Zhu Youcong and others after they entered the manor and reported carefully.
"Well, very good!" Zhu Youcong thought for a while and asked: "Where are the others?"
"They were all repatriated to their place of origin, or resettled locally as the young prince said." This time Sun Yuanhua brought a total of nearly two thousand craftsmen households, but after an almost harsh selection, most of them left and were eliminated.
Most of those who came down or were unwilling to continue working in this craftsman's business chose to stay after seeing the life of the people in Luoyang. Those with some skills entered the two workshops in the palace or the farm tool production points in each village; they really went back
There were at most dozens of households, and they were all given generous travel allowances.
Looking at the hundreds of elites in the audience, yes, they are elites! Their faces are haggard, their clothes are ragged, and their hands are rough. They have a low status, no dignity, and are illiterate. Scholars often say, "There are all kinds of prisoners, but only those who study can be high."
Daqi arbitrarily belittled them, describing them as untouchables who were even worse than prostitutes. But without them, farmers were still in the era of slash-and-burn cultivation, and everyone was still making huts from grass; military generals would not fight anymore.
It's okay to pick some dead branches, rotten grass and vines and find a place to fight; the scholars now can't even engrave slips into books. They can probably only drop blood into books, or drop them on the ground and let others trample on them!
Such a group of people who promote social development, improve the national economy and people's livelihood, and push forward the progress of history are not elites, so who is?….
"Masters! This general is here to apologize to everyone!" Zhu Youcong maintained his unique humility. He really couldn't bear to say the next words, "From now on, all those who stay will no longer have freedom.
You no longer even have your own name, and there will no longer be any sign of your existence in this world. Your family members will also be under the strictest supervision! Because what we are going to do is a series of big events that will change the destiny of Ming Dynasty.
The thing is, from the moment this door closes, no one will be able to step out of here without my order. The reason why you stay is to contribute all the knowledge you have and learn unprecedented techniques here! Perhaps
Even if you die, no one will know what you have done, but this general will remember it, and one day the whole world will know the sacrifices you have made!"
The audience was still silent, not because everyone had no complaints, but because they had long been used to it and had become numb. Names were like symbols to them, no different from cats or dogs, and they had never had freedom.
, now they are just moving from one prison to another; the difference is that the head of this prison still has the leisure to give them some instructions.
They stayed only because they were reluctant to part with the skills passed down from their ancestors, and because they had no other place to go. They had already given up their unrealistic hopes. After these few days of observation, at least they could still have enough to eat in Luoyang, and they could still
They can have a house to shelter themselves and their families from the wind and rain. Tomorrow is so far away for them! Survival is their only reason!
"I respect the general's order!" After a long time, under the leadership of Sun Yuanhua, he responded stiffly and formulaically.
"Now, I will announce your future treatment first!" Zhu Youcong was very distressed, but he had no choice. He didn't know how much time the tricks he had prepared could buy him. What he knew was that in the face of absolute strength,
Any conspiracy can only be a ridiculous joke! Now he has no time and no ability to change the minds of the people in the world. All he can do is to treat these simple people as kindly as possible within the scope of his control, so that they will suffer less.
Sin suffers less.
What? After listening to the regulations announced by Zhu Youcong, the craftsmen all wondered whether the young general was crazy, or was too bored to take advantage of them. One hundred taels a month? It was still the lowest wage.
?What kind of bonus is there for overfulfilling the task?
Most of the people present were craftsmen in the military. Except for the gunpowder craftsmen who made some scattered fireworks for the officials' homes during the holidays and could get some reward money, who could earn money for their work these days? A young craftsman looks like this
I have never seen what money looks like since I was a child. If I can get half of the monthly salary, I will meet the great master Qingtian!
"Okay, let's start paying everyone this month's salary in advance!" Zhu Youcong knew that people's subjective enthusiasm plays a big role. Since they can't change their status, they must first change their living conditions. They must be allowed to
Really see hope and give their labor sincerely, and this is what they deserve. "Your family will get the right to rent land like other people in Luoyang City, and they only need to pay 10% of the land."
Rent; your children, as long as they are of appropriate age, will enter the county school! They can also come here to visit you on the tenth day of every month..."
Holding the white silver in their hands, the craftsmen were so excited that they didn’t know what to do. It was a hundred taels, which was real gold and silver. My ancestors had probably never seen so much silver in their generations! With these one hundred taels,
The family no longer has to starve and freeze, and they no longer have to eat porridge mixed with wild vegetables. What's more, like ordinary households, they have land, pay the lowest land rent, and their children can actually go to school! Supervision is enough.
Supervision, we really don’t want to run away, where can we find such good treatment elsewhere?….
After doing it, don't we craftsmen know a craft and have a lot of strength? Now that we have enough to eat and wear, and can let our families live a good life, we are willing to die from exhaustion! As for that meeting?
The overlord clause that the sergeant must be present when the family is together was automatically ignored by them. Isn't it just someone watching? What do we have to worry about if we don't get intimate with our wives?
"In the end, they..." Zhu Youcong pointed to the students around him. These people were all orphans taken in by the Shaanxi earthquake in the second year of Tianqi. There is no problem with their loyalty. After so many years of study, they have the best grades in the academy.
Yes. "They will always be by your side and learn your skills!"
Isn't it just about learning a craft? Now that our children and grandchildren have entered the school, they can no longer follow us in this despicable business. It is a waste to just bring the ancestral craftsmanship to the coffin. Look at these young people, what a waste
They are all gentle Confucian scholars, and it would really be a compliment to let them learn a craft from us. There are also those who are lively, wondering whether they will teach their apprentices to starve themselves to death as a master; but then I think about how good it is to learn a craft.
It's not a matter of one or two years. During this period, I might have saved a lot of money, so I let my mind go.
ps: I did a little spoiler in the book review section today.