New Shun 1730

Meng Songlu remembered that when his husband received this letter from Liu Yu, his face turned pale with anger.

I didn't eat anything for two days in a row and sighed.

This letter is short, but there are enough points of ridicule.

First of all, it ridiculed this group of so-called pragmatists who followed the path of empty talk with their eyes closed.

The real problem is how to feed one person with 100 acres of land per capita?

If this problem is really the main conflict, why should you still solve it? Just tie a dog to the yamen and that will solve the problem.

Whether Yan Yuan, your predecessor in the school of thought, redeemed his land after thirty years, or Wang Yuan’s increase in private land tax, which prompted private individuals to take the initiative to declare it as official land, at least they are still trying to think about how to resolve this main contradiction.

It would be better for you to close your eyes and ignore this main contradiction.

Run out into the clearing and play this ancient roleplay.

Why, are you capable of turning the whole country into a material base like Huainan, with less people and more land, convenient transportation, and smooth rain and no drought? If not, what do you mean by playing this kind of role here?

Do you want me to reduce your land tax? Do you want me to reduce the money and manpower you need to spend on building the canal? There are no doors.

Come on if you can.

If you don’t have the ability, don’t you have land?

Mortgage, loan.

If you can't afford it, just take over the land. It's so easy.

Or, you can learn from what He Xinyin did in Huang Zongxi's "The Case of Confucianism in the Ming Dynasty". During the party, he brings his thugs and horsemen gracefully, directly grabs the arm of Fang Zhan who comes to the party, and says: "Borrow" me a hundred gold coins. .

There are quite a few of you who are trying to set up this rural village cooperative. They are all donations from the gentry. Whoever has money can ask for it.

Isn’t your school capable of fighting? Wouldn't it be better to follow He Xinyin's example and just bring his younger brother with him, and just "borrow" money during the party?

This letter made Meng Songlu and a large number of people very upset, and the timing of the letter was very disgusting.

It happened to be a time when infrastructure construction, water conservancy, canals, and irrigation were to be built here, but money was scarce. Liu Yu deliberately used the gentry's preferential tax exemption and tax rebate money to make an issue. He knew it was impossible and deliberately disgusted people.

This incident itself is an irony: you continue to imagine that after thirty years of voluntary redemption, the landlord voluntarily hands over the land to the tenants. I have everything in my dream. I am a gentleman who wants tax rebates and free money. I want to build water conservancy projects but I can’t even come up with it. You can continue to dream.

Meng Songlu returned to Songjiang Mansion this time just to borrow money.

However, after searching around, all the friends were willing to borrow it and the gentry were willing to donate some, but it was only a drop in the bucket.

However, some people took the initiative to lend them money.

As long as they were willing to use land as collateral, many financial capital from Songjiang Prefecture came to the door and talked to Cheng Tingzuo: Money is not a problem.

This is obvious: the canal from Funing to Nantong has been built, which can be used for both navigation and irrigation; the tidal dam has also been basically completed. These lands are about to appreciate in value.

As long as they use the land as a mortgage now, if they can't pay back in the future, they will have to use the land to repay. This can be a huge profit. The canal from Funing to Nantong is connected, major infrastructure construction is basically completed, and the price of long-staple cotton is rising day by day. We are not afraid of borrowing money from these enclosures, but I am afraid that they will not be short of money.

During the salt policy reform, Cheng Tingzuo and others relied on their influence and connections with all parties to use the Taizhou School's rural treaty concept and the support of the later generations of disciples of the late Ming Dynasty thinkers to encircle 240,000 acres of land in Huainan.

It’s not a big one, several large reclamation companies have more than 300,000 acres.

It can be said that this is a hodgepodge of fantasies from the late Ming Dynasty to this time.

When the project was first planned, Liu Yu actually told them that this place was actually not good and that it would be impossible to complete the land transformation without huge capital investment.

Or, you can really go deep into the masses and mobilize the people to defeat nature.

Otherwise, with this money, you might as well take people out to sea.

Go to the vast land in the southern hemisphere and realize your "city of three generations".

The land there is fertile, and the climate conditions are honestly much better than those in the Caodang tidal flat area in northern Jiangsu at this time.

If you are willing to go, if the Confucian scholars are willing to go, Liu Yu can personally sponsor a sum of money. Many people have been sent there intermittently before, and cattle, sheep, horses and dogs have also multiplied a lot. Once you go there, you can definitely try the Three Generations City of your moral country. As a retro-Confucian school, go ahead and pursue your promised land. Restore the moral rule of Yao and Shun.

However, no scholar was willing to go.

The people are definitely willing to go, but looking at the current situation, the cost is high and capital cannot afford to move without paying for it.

If you want capital to provide money, you have to use the big move that has gold mines over there.

But at least until the land reclamation in northern Jiangsu is completely resolved and the Liaohe River Basin is fully commercialized, this big move cannot be implemented for the time being, and they have to fish for capital to invest in the land in northern Jiangsu and northeastern China.

So they went back and forth, not listening to Liu Yu, and insisted on occupying 240,000 acres of grassland.

There is no follow-up capital investment, the organizational model is still that of the Taizhou School, and water conservancy facilities cannot be built. How do you still want to build a third-generation village in northern Jiangsu?

There are too many troubles here, and it is far less beautiful than originally imagined.

Now that Quan Zheshen said that he came here just to see the village community, Meng Songlu could only show bitterness on his face.

Moreover, after receiving the mocking letter from Liu Yu, even Cheng Tingzuo himself said that this was also out of helplessness.

If it is really useful, he should go to a representative place, such as Henan, Anhui and other places. If such a representative place is well done, it proves that it may be promoted nationwide. Otherwise, not to mention that it has not been well done in Huainan, even if it is well done, can the material conditions of Huainan really be transformed into the whole country?

And the reason why he can't go to those places is also very vulgar.

No money. Can't afford to enclose 240,000 acres of land.

Besides, people don't sell it at all, whoever sells the land is a prodigal son.

So in the end, it really goes back to the debate between Meng Songlu and Meng Tiezhu in Haizhou: You can't even take the first step of "well if you can, and level if you can't", what's the point of considering the follow-up?

After a bitter smile, Meng Songlu said bluntly: "Brother Zhao, to be honest, the place you are going to is organized by my teacher. But, to be honest, the effect is not very good."

"The reason is really hard to explain. If you say that the clerks are oppressing, there is really no; taxes and corvée are one tenth in ancient times... The rest, whether it is digging rivers, controlling water, repairing embankments, etc., should indeed spend this money and make this effort."

"When the land was enclosed, in order to prevent each family from arguing and three monks from having no water to drink, most of them were connected to the sea. Without water conservancy, there is no way to remove salt; without building seawalls, the tide will flow back. It's okay if it floods our own fields, but if it floods other people's cotton fields, we will have to pay for it."

Quan Zhe was shocked at first, and then sad.

Li Xinghu asked him to sneak into Dashun, and the first thing he had to learn was the Huainan retro attempt seen in those banned books.

Who would have thought that before arriving in Huainan, I would have met the real owner first. Those who have personally participated in it feel that the effect is not good, so I am afraid...

"Brother Meng, haven't you heard the ancients say: When the years are not late, the time is still not late. I am afraid that the cuckoo will sing first, making the grass not fragrant?"

"Brother Meng is in his prime, and you should take advantage of your youth to show your achievements. Why do you have to lament so much? If it doesn't work, just change it."

"In the Huainan reclamation, except for you, the rest are the domineering means of the Duke of Xingguo. Is his domineering means really better than the kingly way? Why not choose the good ones and follow them? The bad ones and beware of them?"

Meng Songlu smiled bitterly, not knowing how to answer this question.

The means used by Liu Yu are not something that can be learned here. It is not a technical problem, but a simple organizational problem.

For this problem, Meng Songlu used a very small point to explain to Quan Zheshen why he couldn't learn it.

"Brother Zhao felt sympathy for the dead bodies he saw before, and even thought that the people in Wu were heartless, but that's not the case."

"I said that if they could hold on for a few more days, their lives would be better. I also explained the principle of the handling cycle at the freight terminal. Let me tell you another thing."

"In northern Jiangsu, cotton is planted and harvested in mid-autumn on August 15."

"When harvesting cotton, the most feared thing is rain, so it is necessary to harvest quickly - when planting cotton, how much to plant does not depend on how much land there is, but on how much you need to consider. You can only plant as much as you can pick."

"In northern Jiangsu, August 15 is the harvest time. The fifth cotton harvest is when the docks are not busy. "

"The ships for Western trade have already unloaded their cargoes; the ships returning home have to wait for the monsoon to start in December."

"The beans in Liaodong were just harvested on August 15; the rice from Nanyang has already been shipped."

"At this time, there is less work at the docks, and not so many people are needed. So those companies that enclosed land to grow cotton hired people here to pick cotton there."

"It used to be more troublesome, but this year the canal from Funing to Nantong was completed, making travel more convenient."

"Those who pick cotton are used when they are needed; those who are not needed Time, death or cold, has nothing to do with the reclamation companies that enclose land to grow cotton. "

"For those companies, they can plant as much cotton as they want on as much land as they have."

"This is just cotton picking, not to mention the rest such as planting, fertilizing, nurturing, fallowing, and grazing."

"In the past, the Duke of Xingguo said that if small farmers were given land, each household would have 100 acres of land, and they might be able to have enough food and clothing. However, if cotton is planted, the land will become barren within five years."

"At that time, everyone thought it was a lie, but how could it take five years? We used to grow grain, but later we tried to grow cotton. Every household had weak capital, and the most In the end, each family can only plant three to five mu of cotton, pick more than ten kilograms of cotton, spin it into cloth, and use it as tuition for the children of each household to go to school. "

"Cotton consumes the land, and the land will be exhausted in three years. Although there are bean cakes to buy, how can every family afford it? At the beginning, 240,000 mu of land was enclosed, which cost thousands of gold, but some cattle and horses were also provided for several families to share. After a few years, the fertile land has lost its fertility; the more the land is exhausted, the less likely it is to leave it fallow, and even less likely to plant grass to shade the sun and prevent salt from returning..."

These things are really not technical differences. Is there any technical difficulty in planting grass and laying grass to shade the sun to prevent salt from returning? It's something you can learn in one go.

Quan Zheshen keenly caught one of the good things and hurriedly said: "Since it is the ancient school system, it is always good for children to study, right?"

When he said this, Meng Songlu's face became even uglier.

Their school wants to carry out separate education, but what is the root? What is the end? This still needs to be distinguished.

The scriptures are the root, and practical learning is the end.

The problem is that the imperial examinations don't test these things. The imperial examinations really don't give you an advantage. Studying is useless. Why don't you go to work in the fields early? Besides, their school of thought also thinks that the things tested in the imperial examinations are not good, and they don't teach professional scholar essays at all.

The practical school does have a miscellaneous knowledge test, but the practical school is the main thing and the classics are the secondary. If you want to study hard and be a clerk, the competition is fierce. How can a group of people who have spent most of their time reading classics compete with those who have been crammed with arithmetic and natural knowledge in the formal practical school system to compete for the few places in agricultural schools, surveying and mapping, navigation, accounting, and technicians?

The imperial examination does not have an advantage.

The practical school class has risen to become the petty middle class, but it still does not have an advantage.

Neither ahead nor behind, neither awkward nor awkward, naturally thinks that studying is useless.

Meng Songlu sighed, "If it's not for the purpose of becoming an official in the imperial examination, or learning a skill and being a city citizen... Everyone is utilitarian, how many people really study to understand the Dao of heaven and earth, the nature of the universe, and the virtues of a gentleman?"

He couldn't help but think of the practical student named Meng Tiezhu who had argued with him in Haizhou. After working in Funing for two years, he jumped directly. With his ability to manage grassroots villages for two years and his practical foundation, he is now a professional manager of a large plantation in Java, managing seven or eight hundred people and a large garden.

These are all typical examples of the "usefulness of reading" promoted by newspapers in recent years, and he naturally knows it.

And it is indeed useful and thriving. Although you can't become an official, overseas colonies, northeastern bean gardens, trade, etc. are developing rapidly and can accommodate these second- and third-rate people in practical studies.

Specializing in studying classics is useful, and you may rush from a scholar to a juren to a jinshi.

Studying practical knowledge is also useful. If you cannot become an official, you can still be a clerk, a technician or an employee.

The only thing is that their education system is definitely useful from the perspective of educating people, but useless from the perspective of employment.

If you have 1,800 acres of land at home, you can study for self-cultivation; if you don’t have a mine at home and you still eat sweet potatoes, how can you be busy with self-cultivation? Who is willing to learn something that has no benefits?

This is even more embarrassing. Even the desire to study cannot compare with the utilitarianism of the other side. How can you compete?