New Shun 1730

Under the feudal system, before the Kyoho famine, the feudal domains of Japan were trying different reforms within the framework to reverse the fiscal deficit.

There were those who encouraged consumption to stimulate production, those who monopolized monopoly to make money, those who were frugal and took the lead in eating only rice balls, those who abolished gold and silver and forcibly issued paper money, and those who reduced the population to ensure that small farmers would not be fragmented, such as Abe Masafuku.

Overall, they all failed. In the Kyoho famine, except for the Sendai of the Date family, the rest were all beaten back to their original form. The Sendai domain had an obligation of 600,000 koku and enjoyed a profit of 2 million koku. It also had copper mines to cast its own coins, and abalone and sea cucumbers were also the main exports of Nagasaki. The insect plague and cold summer in the Kyoho years did not affect it. It really did not need any policy. If you don't commit suicide, there will generally be no financial problems.

Liu Yu looked down on these people's reform ideas. Many of them were not even as good as the level of a repairman, but at this time he swung his fist and praised Abe Masafuku.

Because Abe Masafuku became the new Osaka Castle Lord after Ota Sukeharu committed suicide, and it seems that he will temporarily take charge of all customs affairs. Obviously, he will be called the center of the center of the shogunate in the future.

This kind of person will have a great influence on Japan's future policies.

After Abe Masafuku finished speaking, Liu Yu first made a shocked expression, then restrained himself and praised: "Listening to your words is better than reading ten years of books. The ancients said: If you hear the truth in the morning, you can die in the evening! I have observed the policies of various feudal domains in Japan. Most of them treat headaches and feet. Only Abe's methods have a fundamental solution."

"The population is increasing day by day, but the land is not increasing. Food is produced from the land. The land is not increasing, but the population is increasing. People will be hungry if they don't eat. There are too many people and not enough food. Isn't this the root cause of the disaster?"

"Many sons share the land, and the land is fragmented, so it is difficult to have surplus food. But if there is a famine, they can't survive, so they have to mortgage the land to wealthy merchants The foundation of the military system is the land system. Wouldn't this destroy the foundation? "

"I have observed the politics of various countries, and there is no one who is not like this."

"The Zuo Zhuan says: Shun served Yao and had guests at the four gates. He exiled the four evil tribes of Hun Dun, Qiong Qi, Tao Wu, and Tao Tie. Looking at it now, I am afraid that these four evils are still there. "

"If the population increases day by day, Hun Dun, Qiong Qi, Tao Wu, and Tao Tie will turn into war, famine, plague, and turmoil, so as to control the population to a certain number. "

This was a conversation with the Japanese, and at this time when the ban on Catholicism was extremely strong, Liu Yu naturally couldn't use the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" as a metaphor, so he had to move the four evils of Shun Liu.

Anyway, there are four, not much difference.

On the one hand, he told the emperor in the court that the Academy of Sciences might be able to increase the yield per mu to 400-500 kg or even 700-800 kg or even 1,000 kg, and to promote immigration and reclamation; on the other hand, he promoted Malthus in Japan and localized the Malthusian Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Abe Masafuku had heard Tokugawa Yoshimune warn him not to believe everything Liu Yu said, especially the things he praised, and he must carefully think about the hidden evil intentions in them.

But at this time, the theory of the Four Evils made Abe Masafuku feel like a bosom friend like Boya and Ziqi.

Especially the judgment that "the foundation of the stability of the samurai system is land rather than population, and the population only needs to be able to cultivate the land", it was more like saying what he had always wanted to say.

And the theory of the Four Evils made Abe Masafuku feel that he seemed to have touched the truth and finally figured out the root of war, famine and unrest.

Since the chaos of the Warring States Period, Japan's population has indeed increased.

But today, it has stopped. It should be said that Japan's population was a wonder in the world in the 18th and 19th centuries. Independent countries around the world are experiencing a population boom, but Japan has always been a straight line, and has been completely stable since the Kyoho famine.

Unlike France, which is said to have been poisoned by Malthus, Japan's population is stable for special reasons.

The area of ​​France is about the same as that of Sichuan Province, slightly larger.

But its cultivated land area plus pasture area is close to 300 million mu, equivalent to 450 million mu, almost equivalent to the total land area counted during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty. And the population at this time is equivalent to Japan, 20 million people.

The self-cultivating farmers in France, the self-cultivating farmers in Dashun, and the self-cultivating farmers in Japan are not the same concept at this time. Just like after the Russian Revolution, when class classification was made, the concept of a poor peasant was that he "only" owned 46 mu of land equivalent to the city mu; while the self-employed farmers in France could indeed "have a chicken in every pot during festivals", so the French were too lazy to immigrate overseas, and would not run overseas like the British and Irish, who could not survive.

France also has the eldest son inheritance system. After the French Reform, the eldest son inheritance system was the "old system of feudal society". It was necessary to break the old ideas, old customs, old systems, and old habits, so the equal inheritance law was implemented.

The people of Dashun were naturally familiar with this. When the father died, the sons divided the family, but there was no case where the eldest son took all the land away. At most, he occupied the ancestral house. Even the big landlords divided the land from generation to generation.

The French people were used to the good life of self-employed farmers. They did not want their children to inherit equally and divide the land into small pieces, so that their descendants became poorer and poorer, so they spontaneously chose to have fewer children.

In Japan, even with the law of primogeniture, the land inherited may not catch up with the land given to each son under the French law of equal inheritance.

In this situation, the whole social atmosphere almost spontaneously changed towards fewer births, drowning infants, throwing them into temples, abortions, etc., and generally just having two children was enough.

Here in Dashun, we can "drive for seedlings and expand industry", "cultivate Mongolia and Liao", "walk to the west entrance", "run to the sea of ​​whales", "run to the Western Regions", "send to Nanyang" and "break into Taiwan". There is still room to explore. go.

Japan really has no place to go now, and it has no foresight to know that one day the yield per acre will increase dramatically with the support of chemical fertilizers, improved seeds, and water conservancy. At this time, the theory of "four evils" is only based on the background of this time. That couldn't be more true.

Besides, it's all meat from the mother's belly, raised by the parents. If the eldest son inherits the family business and the remaining sons work for the eldest son, it's really not a good feeling to be a parent.

The most important issue is taxation. Since taxation is based on land, and Shi Gao has confirmed it after inspecting the land, it seems useless to have such a large population.

The labor limit of homesteaders in the Iron Age of Oxen Plowing was 30 acres per person. Taking into account fallow land protection and livestock pasture, the per household limit was about 100 acres.

Japan is still far from this limit. In this case, in Abe Masafuku's view, what is the use of having such a large population?

If there are more people, there will be more food. If the tribute remains the same, there will be more food.

When the land is demolished and broken into pieces, farmers cannot bear the slightest famine and go bankrupt. They have no choice but to borrow money from businessmen and mortgage their land, leaving them with nothing.

Under the samurai system, the samurai certainly didn't like middlemen. They wanted to directly govern the people, rather than letting the land pass through the hands of wealthy merchants and farmers.

This is the "national foundation" and cannot be ignored.

Liu Yu was trying to deceive, and Abe Masafuku himself had the idea of ​​population control. After being praised by Liu Yu, he quickly recognized Liu Yu's statement.

Although there is a trace of vigilance in my heart, I mostly agree with the first half of Tokugawa Yoshimune's words: "Liu Yu's words cannot be disbelieved, nor can they be doubted." Naturally, the only thing left is "cannot be disbelieved."

"China deserves to be a great country. Liu Jun's words also made me enlightened as if the clouds were clearing and the sun appeared. This is the first time I have heard of these four evils."

Liu Yu said with a smile: "I was also inspired by Abe-kun to talk about this. The ancients said that if three people walk together, there must be my teacher. Abe-kun's various political affairs in Fukuyama inspired me to think like this."

"This is the situation in Japan. All wealth comes from the surplus land. If one acre of real estate is one stone and rice, five dou belong to the public and five dou belong to the people."

"If one person grows it, the five bushels of rice will be enough to eat; if two people grow it, the five bushels of rice will need to be mixed with radishes and sweet potatoes; if three people grow it, they will have to beg the feudal lord to reduce taxes."

"But the taxes levied by the feudal lord and the shogunate are based on land area, not population. Does it make any difference whether it is one person, two people, or three people?"

"Furthermore, if the shogunate and the various vassals provided relief, the people who should have died of starvation survived. They survived and gave birth to more children. They were poorer, more miserable, and had less land per capita. This is against the law of heaven."

"Heaven and earth are unkind and regard all things as stupid dogs. The way of heaven is to make up for the excess of damage and make up for the deficiency. The more we help the people, the more miserable and poor they will be."

"On the other hand, if we don't provide relief to the people, the extra people who should starve to death will starve to death, and those who shouldn't starve to death will not starve to death. In this way, we can ensure that these 'four evils' will be harmful every year, but not harmful every year. Big. A few people die in Hiroshima today and a few people die in Fukuyama tomorrow. It is just a matter of one clan and will not shake the whole country."

"If we continue to provide relief, one day, the harm caused by the 'four evils' that has been accumulated for decades breaks out. How will we deal with it?"

These extremely reactionary words were said in front of Abe Masafuku, and Abe Masafuku was not too surprised.

It's obvious that everyone is a "noble". These nobles may talk about benevolence and righteousness, but when they actually govern, they actually treat the people as cattle and horses.

Good emperors and good nobles know that cows and horses also have to eat grass; while bad emperors and bad nobles just want the people to be like wooden cows and stray horses.

Liu Yu's words were quite in line with Masafuku Abe's thoughts, and he quite agreed with them.

Otherwise, he would not have been able to implement the policy of "marrying late and having fewer children to ensure that farmers who could still be self-sufficient would not break up their land into pieces, and acquiescing to the mergers and acquisitions of wealthy farmers and merchants so that the 'excess' population could not even marry wives and leave no offspring" in the domain.

Liu Yu added: "It is rumored that Lord Ieyasu once said that the secret of politics is to make the people half-dead and without any remaining wealth."

"Shang Jun also said: The way to govern a country requires a people, a weak people, a tired people, a humiliating people, and a poor people. This is the way of the same line."

"If the people are too miserable, they will resist. Before Lord Ieyasu, the people were poor, and they would pray all day long. After that, the people of Shimabara would be Catholic. If it was too bitter, the people would be addicted to religion, and religion is the most suitable thing to organize the people. Celestial Dynasty There are also Five Pecks of Rice, Huang Jin Dao, White Lotus Sect, Manichaeism, etc., which emerge in endlessly; Japan's Ichixiang Sect and Kirijidan Sect are also important to note. "

"If people are too rich, they will overstep their bounds and cannot keep their duties. Farmers are farmers, scholars are scholars, workers are workers, merchants are merchants, and untouchables are untouchables. This is their duty. If the people are rich and have extra money, Wouldn’t it be better to suppress the superior and disrupt the laws and etiquette?”

"Why are the people in Japan suffering? Firstly, there are too many public gifts, and secondly, the land is getting smaller and smaller and the population is getting larger and larger. The people are no longer just having enough food and clothing without having enough money, but they are not even having enough food and clothing."

"Abe-kun, do you think Japan can reduce public taxes? If it cannot reduce public taxes, then we can only start from the second point."

Masafuku Abe nodded with great conviction, thinking that this person was indeed a person whose words could not be disbelieved.

Naturally, the tribute cannot be reduced. If it is reduced, the warriors will be dissatisfied. When the people are angry, the warriors can still suppress them; if the warriors are dissatisfied, who can suppress them?

Since the interests of the samurai cannot be affected, all reforms can only be considered from the perspective of the common people.

The purpose of reform is nothing more than two points.

Money.

Stability.

Money can already be obtained through tariffs and port trade monopolies.

Stability, it seems that reducing the population is indeed a good way. Abe Masafuku thought that although Liu Yu was an enemy, he was a very skilled person, and his ideas coincided with his. He could really be complacent.