"Okay, this solves the problem of food shortages in the northern provinces. Next, Da Situ, you can talk about the land abandonment. If my prediction is correct, land abandonment mostly occurs in the southeastern provinces, right?"

"There is no sage but the Emperor." Wang Shaozheng stood up: "Your Majesty, colleagues, the problem of land abandonment in the southern provinces has become more and more serious in recent years. In addition to causing the court a lot of trouble in collecting taxes, it has also caused many other problems. "

As a traditional agricultural country, before Zhu Youdong's strong change in the Ming Dynasty, almost all classes in society wanted to buy land and then rely on the output of the land to make profits as long as they had a little surplus.

Before Zhu Youdong vigorously promoted high-yielding crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn, as well as improved rice seeds, the average yield per mu of land in the northern provinces of the Ming Dynasty was 2 to 3 shi. When food prices were stable, the output value was 1 to 1.5 taels. Two. As for the land in southern provinces, such as Sichuan, Huguang, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the yield per mu is generally 4 to 6 shi, which is worth 2 to 3 taels of silver. On some excellent paddy fields in Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, southern Jiangxi, and Hunan, you can With two crops a year, this income can be doubled - of course, this is a very small number after all.

According to the rules of this era, after the landowners and tenant farmers received their output, they divided the output 50-50, and then the landowners paid taxes to the state.

Although there are many types of taxes in the Ming Dynasty, the total amount generally does not exceed one-tenth of the output per mu. And various temporary increases and things that the local government hands over are often not levied on the big landowners, but on the heads of the big landowners. To squeeze the farmers. Therefore, the income of Ming landowners can basically be calculated: a landlord with more than 100 acres of land in the north can earn about 45 to 65 taels of silver a year, while in the south, he may earn 90 to 135 taels of silver. Two or even higher.

And this is just a small landowner who does not have a juren at home. If there is a juren in the family, not only will their land be completely tax-free, but a large amount of land will be donated. Although it is certainly impossible for you to pay 50% of the rent for the donated land. , but it’s still an income, right? So, generally speaking, if a family has a family member, its annual income will not be less than 300 taels.

Based on the calculation that the purchasing power of one tael of silver in the Ming Dynasty is approximately equal to 250 yuan in modern society, 300 taels of silver is equivalent to 75,000 yuan.

It can be seen that in fact, the life of small landowners is not very good. However, the productivity of the Ming Dynasty was like this. After all, in the 21st century, there are still 600 million people in the Great China whose monthly income is less than 1,000 yuan. In the Ming Dynasty, Apart from being an official, a soldier, or working in agriculture, there is really no better employment channel. Being a small landowner with no worries about food and drink is already pretty good.

Of course, there are rich people in every dynasty. For example, the Xu family in Songjiang holds 200,000 acres of land in their hands - land in a sacred land like the plains of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Their annual income is at least 200,000 taels of silver. . Converted into RMB, it is 50 million yuan - it is an annual income of 50 million, but it does not mean that the assets are only 50 million.

But, that's it. The Xu family was already the top rich man of that era, and its income was still not enough compared to today's blessings - after all, productivity was limited.

This is probably the case for the landlord class, but what about the tenant farmers at the bottom of society?

Generally speaking, a sharecropping family, consisting of the male owner, the eldest son, and two strong laborers, with the help of cattle, can cultivate up to 60 acres of land. But in fact, the Ming Dynasty has a large population, and farmers in the northern provinces can rent a lot of land.

30 to 40 acres of land, farmers in the south would be pretty good if they could rent 10 acres of land.

With such a small amount of land, even if the hostess and daughter of the family do some sericulture or other needlework and thread work, all the income of the family, after deducting the poll tax and the corvee tax - it was only after Zhu Youdong came to power that the corvee tax was clarified

, before this, farmers had to perform corvee labor, and corvee labor has been mentioned many times, which is multiple harm!

All in all, after deducting taxes from income, this family of four can earn 10 taels of silver a year.

10 taels of silver, worth about 2,500 yuan, is the annual income of a low-income family of four in the Ming Dynasty - this amount of income can barely survive starvation. If something goes wrong, such as drought, flood, or someone in the family is sick

That's the end of the family being ruined. As for providing education for the children at home so that they can use it for class promotion opportunities, please let your family carefully accumulate four or five generations without any illness or disaster, and then we can talk about it!

After Zhu Youdong led the Ming Dynasty to start the industrial revolution, and turned the Southeast Asian countries into its own grain production base, and the entire Greater East Asia became the Ming Dynasty's commodity dumping ground. Factories throughout the Ming Dynasty, especially in the southeastern provinces, mushroomed like mushrooms after a rain.

It emerged so quickly and had a huge impact on the agricultural society in this place.

Now that the factory has been established, we need to recruit workers, right? What is the salary of factory workers in Songjiang Prefecture now? There are slight deviations depending on the type of factory. But basically, child labor is about 60 copper coins per month, and adult female workers are 80.

An adult male worker earns 1 silver dollar, and a skilled worker earns 1.5 silver dollars. If you are a craftsman, it is even higher, and you can get 3 to 5 silver dollars per month.

Let’s take the tenant farmer family of four just now as an example. If the whole family joins the factory, their family’s monthly income will be 3 silver dollars, which is 36 dollars a year. After deducting the head tax and the corvee tax, what will happen?

They all have more than 25 silver dollars left. Their family income has more than doubled! And what if there are skilled workers or craftsmen among them?

Chinese people are all born with the ability to calculate accounts. Even if this family of four is illiterate, they can still calculate such a simple account. What do you think they will do when they have the opportunity to work in a factory?

In addition, although the Ming Dynasty did not have many colonies, there were many sects and vassals. Therefore, the industrial products of the Ming Dynasty have no worries about sales at present, so in the next ten years, it can be expected that the wages of workers in the Ming Dynasty will become higher and higher.

Correspondingly, although the Ministry of Household Affairs in the Ming Dynasty was quite restrained in its overseas grain purchases at the national level, it was afraid that purchasing too much grain would destroy domestic grain prices and lead to low grain prices and harm to farmers. However, the grain merchants of the Ming Dynasty could not control it.

So much: Not only do Nanyang countries have high yields per mu, they also produce three crops a year. The price of grain is much lower than that of our Ming Dynasty. We buy grain directly from Nanyang and sell it at home or in North Korea and Japan. The profit is quite large.

!

That is to say, in recent years, because the Ming Dynasty, Fuguo, Guiguo, and Japan used their national power to purchase grain in Nanyang, the price of grain increased, which indirectly inhibited private grain transactions. Otherwise, private grain merchants could destroy the domestic grain prices in the Ming Dynasty.

!

But that's it. Although the country's vigorous purchase of grain has made the price of grain in the Ming Dynasty basically stable at the price of one silver dollar and two stones of grain. But you have to know that the Ming Dynasty has always been an outstanding country, with a steady stream of silver.

With the inflow of silver dollars, the purchasing power of silver dollars was actually declining. Therefore, the apparent stability of food prices actually meant that food prices fell and the income of farmers and landlords decreased.

"Your Majesty, colleagues. This has been the situation in the country in the past five or six years. The wages of workers have been rising, and the income of farmers has actually been declining. Therefore, once a new factory is opened, it is often the whole village of farmers and their families.

Move into factories and work. In some villages, the whole village simply raises funds, or uses the whole village's land as collateral to get a bank loan to open a factory.

Now that these people have joined factories, there will naturally be fewer people farming. Now, land rent in Jiangnan provinces has dropped to 40% to 35%. Even so, it is still not easy to recruit tenant farmers for farming. But land rent cannot be reduced anymore.

, and if it falls again, the landowners will have very little income left after paying the land tax... As a result, a large amount of land will naturally be abandoned.

After the vassal kings entrusted overseas territories, they went to various places to recruit their own people to settle overseas with various preferential policies. The people on the southeast coast of China were the most favored by each vassal king because the local people were flexible and adaptable. But this

For the southeastern provinces that are already under-cultivated, it is even worse!

...Your Majesty, as you just said, natural disasters may continue to occur in the northern provinces in the next twenty or thirty years. If the problem of land abandonment in the southern provinces is not curbed, the food output in the south will continue to decline.

Well, although we can continue to buy grain from Nanyang, I feel that food, which is fundamental to the stability of the world, should still ensure self-sufficiency."

"Your Majesty." Cao Sanxi, the president of the bank, stood up: "Everything that Grand Situ said is true. The abandonment of land is also reflected in this minister. The most typical case is that five years ago, the Xu family of Huating bought 200,000 acres of land

As a mortgage, we borrowed 2 million yuan from the bank to open a new factory. At that time, the land in Songjiang was about 20 to 30 yuan per mu. The bank only loaned 2 million yuan for these 200,000 acres of land. At that time, the whole bank was

They thought they had made a lot of money. Who knew, five years later, the Xu family would have to repay the loan. But they said that in addition to the interest, they would only repay 1 million, just to ensure that 100,000 acres of land were in hand. The remaining 100,000 acres of land were

, they don’t want it anymore!”

At this point, Cao Sanxi spread his hands: "Why do you want these 100,000 acres of land? The bank brought it, but there are simply not enough tenant farmers to cultivate it. Even if there are so many tenant farmers, I can only do it at most.

If the land rent is 30%, no matter how much it is, all the tenant farmers will run away! But at 30% of the land rent, after paying the taxes, the profit I will make is far from the interest on the 1 million loan!"

"Your Majesty, colleagues, this case of the Xu family is just a typical example. In fact, similar bad debts have appeared in our branches of Daming Royal Bank across the country. The lender made money but refused to repay the loan. You urge him

Well, he just said to hand over the mortgaged land to you. Why does my bank need so much land? There are many such things, and the bank has no choice but to try its best to lower the valuation of the mortgaged land before lending. Even in Jiangsu and Zhejiang

In this area, some branches have refused to accept land as collateral for lending! As a result, the private lending business has flourished again. In the long run, our bank will not be able to make a profit!"
Chapter completed!