New Shun 1730

Once the way is shown, the rest is a matter of playing it by ear.

Each family went back to make preparations and discussed it in private so as not to cause any trouble.

For example, you really paid the money stipulated by the court for collecting the soil basket, but I didn't give you the money at all and took it for nothing and then went to the court to collect the money. This is not good.

As the saying goes, you don't worry about the shortage but the inequality. If you want to deduct it, you can deduct it all, but you can't do it if you don't do it.

Soon, the autumn rain in the Huaihe River was over, and the mighty corvee work began in Dashun.

Good luck this year.

Maybe God saw that the people in Lianghuai had been miserable for almost 600 years, and he couldn't bear it for a moment.

In autumn, there are no autumn floods, no typhoons, and no waves.

It really means that all times come and go, heaven and earth are united.

From Gaojiayan in Hongze Lake to the seaside, a vast land of three hundred miles, taking advantage of the end of the autumn rain and the approaching dry season, the limit of the mobilization power of the old Dashun system, which was almost the whole country, is displayed here. come out.

Liu Yu would naturally not miss such a good opportunity.

He invited some Westerners to take a hot air balloon ride and overlook the spectacular scene from high altitude.

Although he knows that for those who are truly knowledgeable and know the limits of the Dashun court, this will be counterproductive. This will clearly reveal the limits of Dashun's mobilization power.

But now no one really knows.

There are no Westerners who truly understand all the policies, systems and operational logic of the Dashun court at this time.

So in the eyes of these people, this was like a great show of force and intimidation.

Liu Yu said that this is just one province in Dashun, and there are more than ten or twenty such provinces in Dashun. This means that Dashun's extreme mobilization power is more than ten or twenty times that of the current spectacular scene.

For a moment, the allies were shocked.

He was inexplicably surprised and called Dashun invincible.

In particular, some Dutch people who represent Dutch financial capital quickly raised their concerns about the Dashun government's ability to repay its national debt after reading it.

The credibility of Dashun National Debt was also rated the highest.

If the interest rate is 5%, and if both China and Britain need loans, they will choose to lend money to Dashun instead of Britain.

What you see while floating in the sky is always different from what you see down to earth.

On the section of the river contracted by Wang Jiansheng and other gentry, the people who are really working hard on the ground only know two things so far.

The first thing was that the imperial court wanted to build a canal and asked the people to weave earthen baskets. Each family had to weave one basket per head and handed it over to the master, who would then transport it to the section of the river to be built. If you do not hand in the basket, you will have to pay 30 cents in basket money.

The second thing is that there is really food here. There are sorghum rice and sweet potato nests every day. The most important thing is that there are enough pickles every day, half a large pickled radish per person.

These people who rent land often envy those kitchen households who cook salt.

Although the surveying and mapping students sent out by the imperial court gave reports with "tears in their eyes" [Zhao households were poor, and the dish they ate the most was shrimp paste with maggots. I will never eat shrimp paste again in my life. I was writhing on it in vain, but they didn't care, saying that as long as it doesn't have a long tail, I can eat it, and I can pick out the one with a long tail]

[They don’t wear pants or clothes at all in the summer, and have no awareness of going to the toilet. They even urinate everywhere in the place where they get brine. All of their feet and legs are the color of copper, as dry as tree bark].

But, at least, for the people who rent the land, the salty maggot-infested shrimp paste is enough and not bland in their mouths.

Now that I have achieved salt freedom, how can I not be happy?

Overall, they are basically satisfied with their current jobs.

The source of satisfaction stems from Liu Yu's deliberate leakage policy.

This deliberately leaky policy meant that for every extra day of work, the squire would earn an extra day of food stamps. Just finish the work within the stipulated time.

Of course, if you don't finish the job, you will be severely punished, and you may even lose your fortune or even be thrown to guard the border in the Western Regions.

But if they work too quickly, there will be no benefit to them. If they finish the work one day early, they will lose one day's worth of the difference in the price of the food sold.

The common people organized by the squire dug forward little by little according to the amount that could be completed every day, taking advantage of the dry season.

People from the court rarely come. In addition to counting heads, they also draw lines in advance, or come to check the depth and width, and check the progress every once in a while.

The working people go to and from work on time every day.

When you get up in the morning, breakfast is already prepared in the kitchen.

It's corn batter with cooked sweet potato chunks in it. Holding the cooked corn mush, he went to the side to get three nests, stacked them together through the hollows of the nests, and added a piece of pickled radish to the pit of the last nest.

When a poor person eats, he doesn't need a table.

One hand is holding a huge sea bowl, and it can hold a nest in its palm. He lowered his head to take a sip of the hot cornmeal batter, took a bite of the nest, and carefully bit out a piece of pickled radish from the nest, feeling indescribably comfortable.

After eating, they would take various tools and start digging in a group of more than a dozen people.

It's all dry loess, so it's easy to dig. Women and children also come here to work in order to earn a few nests. They usually carry earth baskets.

At noon, there is either sorghum rice or croquettes. There will be a snack in the evening, and each person will be given a piece of soybean meal left over from pressing oil. Sometimes, when no one is paying attention, some people will secretly grab a handful of soybean meal that is fed to cows, horses and donkeys, hide it in their clothes, and secretly make snacks at night.

Most of the people who come here are very satisfied, because they have to work even during slack times, often for the owner's family, and they often don't have any money.

In imagination, the tenant and the owner should have a contractual employment and leasing relationship.

But the problem is that it is nonsense to not talk about equal employment and leasing relationships in terms of ownership of the means of production.

Theoretically, if your master asks you to go do the welding and ramming earth walls during the off-season, who says you have to go? But if you don’t go, you won’t be able to rent land next year.

It's like a temple renting land to see its wife. In theory, everyone has an equal rental relationship. You agree with me, and no one is forcing anyone. You don't have to rent for the sake of your wife. But don’t rent and drink the wind?

Now there is no land to rent here, and you can go to Southeast Asia.

But unless the family can no longer survive and no land of their own is left, who would be willing to leave their hometown?

Although they have also applied for youth loans, in fact, for these land renters, there are only two options.

Or, take out a Qingmiao loan, pay back all the rent owed to the owner, get the paperwork to pay off the debt, and go directly to Nanyang to work to repay the Qingmiao loan.

Or, continue to borrow money from the host family at high interest rates, rent land next year, and continue to maintain a basic life.

Someone had long advised Liu Yu, saying that if you do this, you will lose money because you have no land in your hands. Liu Yu was "stubborn", and the squire's counterattack went straight to the point: If you borrow the Qingmiao loan, you can't even rent land.

Or, continue to be a tenant.

Or, go to Nanyang.

And borrow money from young crops, work hard, and strive to become a self-cultivated farmer or a small landowner?

This third way does not exist at all.

This is especially true with the news that the imperial court is going to build the Huaihe River. Whoever sells land is stupid. It seems that if the repairs are completed, the ninth-grade field will become a second-grade field. Do you want to sell the land at this juncture?

Therefore, those who have land but have to rent it at the same time hope that if they endure it for a while, things will be better in the future, they can make do with renting land for now.

Those who have no land either have their hearts set on going to Nanyang; or they really don’t dare to take out the Qingmiao Loan and continue to be tenant farmers.

If you choose to continue to be a tenant, you have to perform some feudal obligations for the master from time to time, such as cutting welds and ramming walls.

Tenants are inferior to long-term workers.

There are many ways for long-term workers to harm the owner's family, such as working as a foreigner, or causing some trouble during planting, so the landlord will try to win over the long-term workers.

As for the tenants...how can they harm the master's family?

Under such circumstances, those who work here are quite satisfied with the fact that they can eat dry food in the morning and have freedom from salt.

It is said that the imperial court also gave me money.

As for their understanding of the significance of repairing the Huaihe River, it can be said that they have no understanding at all.

The Huaihe River was built to save Anhui based on the general trend of the country.

Hongze Lake is getting higher and higher, and the upper reaches of the suffocated Huaihe River will cause disasters as soon as it rains; and the reason why Hongze Lake is getting higher and higher is because water must be collected to wash away the sand. If it is lower than the Yellow River, it is called backflow siltation, not called backflow siltation. Use water to rinse the sand.

And compared with the Yellow River's rising speed? That's really a comparison of treasures with the Dragon King, and a comparison of fortunes with the longevity star.

However, this meaning does not exist for the people in northern Jiangsu.

A disaster in Anhui has nothing to do with us?

The local significance is to turn flood disasters into water conservancy, turning originally inferior land into irrigated land.

However, the land is not mine, so why should I work so hard?

It was nothing more than a corvee imposed by the imperial court, but this time he actually managed to eat a lot of food and pay back the money. You have to go anyway. If you go, you can still have food and money. This is the only motivation.

In their opinion, the advantage they can get when building rivers is that the tools issued by the imperial court are good.

Although the tools have to be handed in, it may not be easy to steal these few taels of good iron back home.

However, the tools issued by the imperial court, the sticks with shovel handles and hoe handles, are really good.

I don’t know what method was used to make it so round.

When it's almost done, you can break it on purpose, tuck the long half into your trouser legs, and use it as a rolling pin.

It's a pity that this little illusion of taking advantage was quickly shattered. Some pioneers did something similar, but were told by the squire that they had to repay the original price and deduct it from the recruitment money.

Now it is clear that one tael of copper coin is given per month, which is equivalent to 800 wen. Taking into account the loss of silver to offset the money, it is 720 wen, which is 24 wen per day.

When the time comes, it will be directly deducted from the donation money.

The common people who worked also knew that the imperial court said that one tael of silver was converted into a month, but they did not know that the official price quoted by the imperial court was one thousand taels of silver per month. In fact, the wages were calculated in copper coins.

After giving up the last thought of taking advantage, all that is left is to work every day.

Fortunately, we were working in autumn and winter, and the epidemic was not prevalent.

In theory, when the contract was first contracted, all workers were required to drink boiled water.

The imperial court really spent a lot of money this time.

Some nearby forests and grasslands specially reserved for the salt field were also allocated here.

The forests and grasslands in each river section are demarcated according to the number of workers, which can theoretically ensure heating, cooking and boiling water.

But... firewood can also be sold for money.

That is to say, we have not yet mastered the technique of making fried mixed vegetables and noodles, otherwise we would definitely choose the more trouble-free and firewood-friendly fried mixed noodles and noodles with cold water.

Despite this and that, after strict calculations and surplus labor, the Huaihe River channel into the sea is still taking shape day by day.

There was no major epidemic in autumn and winter, and few people died.

Although they were all coarse grains and mixed noodles, there was no rat poison in them, and they would not kill people. Although each person had two and a half pounds of mixed noodles, one or two bean cakes, and half a pickled radish every day, such heavy physical labor would still make people hungry at night, but it was not the kind of hunger that was scratching the heart and liver, and it would pass if they endured it.

In some places with high platforms and earth slopes, the court would also send professionals to use some new explosives from the Academy of Sciences to blow up these high platforms and earth slopes. The areas contracted by the gentry were all relatively simple places, which did not involve river crossing gates that required technology, nor did they involve estuaries that needed to consider siltation problems.

Overall, the tradition of grassroots gentry revelry continued. However, the serious work that could only be done in winter was also done step by step, and nothing went wrong.

Liu Yu, who was not on the front line, was looking at the statistical report sent over there. In just one large river section, the average amount of food coupons exchanged for coarse grains, inferior grains, and stale and moldy rice on the black market was about 320,000 kilograms every day.

And it is still growing.

These days, life expectancy is low. Stale and moldy rice is carcinogenic, but as long as the life span does not survive until the cancer occurs, then cancer will not catch up. Although northern Jiangsu is better than southern Jiangsu and is not a high-incidence area for schistosomiasis, ordinary people are definitely not eligible for cancer.

Looking at the statistical data reported from various places, Liu Yu didn't know whether to cry or laugh. It was really "remarkable results."

According to this ratio, it may not be enough to shoot them all in line as he planned.

But shooting one every other person must have exceeded the task.