Li Xiao has been to the restaurant of the Jinzhou Weapons Research Institute many times.

It was already past dinner time, and there was no one else in the restaurant except the chef.

Having been here many times, the Xu brothers had already figured out Li Xiao's route.

According to Li Xiao's status, he can't eat anything he wants to eat.

The dishes are as standard, four dishes and one soup.

The cook is already familiar with Li Xiao's taste, and he has to use soybean paste to make stir-fry dishes.

The only people accompanying Li Xiao to dinner were the Xu brothers and Wang Tingzhang, who was specially brought with him.

This is what Li Xiao was thinking about and asked about Jinzhou.

"I've heard that you, Jinzhou, are extremely rich now.

I only have two cars in the Marshal's Mansion, but there are more than a dozen in your Jinzhou Yamen.

Did you follow his path, or did you buy it with money?"

Li Xiao took the meal from the guard and asked Wang Tingzhang while eating.

Dining with Li Xiao was not just for eating.

Wang Tingzhang was counting the grains of rice one bite at a time, not daring to pick up vegetables at all.

Hearing Li Xiao's question, he quickly stood up and prepared to answer.

"sit down!

Just have a casual chat, no need to be formal.

When I was in the Liao Army, I was not stirring the pot, and I didn't see you showing so much courtesy at that time."

Wang Tingzhang could only sit down, but he only touched his buttocks slightly to the edge of the stool and practiced the horse riding crotch position.

"Commander, you don't know. Wang Tingzhang has become prosperous, and Jinzhou City is developing a new area.

The buildings are being built one after another, and housing prices are rising rapidly!

Jinzhou Yamen is now selling land to a soft price.

As a Futai master, he is even fatter than the piece of paper used to wrap a cake."

Xu Erjue seemed to have a good relationship with Wang Tingzhang, and he opened his mouth to help Wang Tingzhang explain.

"Oh, have you started selling land?" Li Xiao was very interested.

In the Ming Dynasty, land was privately owned, but taxes had to be paid every year.

Even if you die, you still have to pay taxes to the government on the property you inherit.

Theoretically, the higher the land price, the higher the house price, and the higher the house price, the higher the taxes.

"There are many factories in Jinzhou City, and the workers now have wages for their work. After saving for a long time, they want to buy a house and land.

Moreover, they all like to buy houses in the city.

Even if some people cannot afford it, they will borrow money from the bank to buy a house.

Bank interest rates are not high, so people are rushing to buy houses."

"Aren't you afraid that when ordinary people buy houses like this, they won't be able to repay their loans in the future? Or, in other words, they won't be able to pay the taxes on the houses?"

Li Xiao doesn't know much about economics, but the government is selling land to make money, which sounds quite familiar.

"Commander, you are worrying too much, these workers have jobs.

In fact, most of their factories are government-run. They are only responsible for their own profits and losses!

Taxes and loans are deducted directly when they pay wages.

There will never be a situation where you can’t afford to replace the loan, or you can’t afford to eat after buying a house.”

Li Xiao clicked his tongue, it seemed that the people of Jinzhou were really rich.

But this is reasonable!

There were many military factories of the Ming army in Jinzhou.

Most of those workers are workers in arsenals. Now that the war in Europe is going on, wages in arsenals must be indispensable.

It seems that if a country wants to become rich, it must take the road of industrialization.

"The government sells land to build buildings for profit. This is not a place like ours in Jinzhou.

The ones sold in Shenyang, Liaoyang, and Anshan are even worse than what we sell here.

The main reason is that the factory has performed well in recent years and all the workers have money.

Then there are the young adults who immigrated from the customs.

After breeding here, a family has several children.

Now that the children are adults, they naturally want to get married and start a family.

Today's young people don't like to live together with the elderly.

Besides, the building is not as big as the previous courtyard, so it would be troublesome to squeeze them together.

Therefore, the entire housing market in Liaodong is particularly prosperous."

"So many people have jobs?" Li Xiao asked doubtfully.

"My commander, as long as there are long-handed people in Jinzhou City, I want to arrange jobs for them.

I even set up a welfare factory for disabled people who are mentally disabled or missing arms or legs.

The problem now is not a surplus of labor, but a shortage of labor.

There are even many girls in the family who, after finishing elementary school, went into factories at the age of fourteen or fifteen."

"Why is such a little girl going into a factory?" Li Xiao frowned.

The Ming Dynasty still believes that as long as a girl comes to Tiangui, she is an adult.

In many families, a girl who is fourteen or fifteen years old is already a big girl.

This is now. If it were more than ten years ago, I would have been in confinement at my husband's house.

Although the Ming Dynasty had regulations prohibiting the use of child labor, the standard was that those under the age of fourteen were considered child labor.

Li Xiao knows that working only after the age of 18 is impossible now.

The six-year compulsory education in the Ming Dynasty has not yet been successfully implemented, let alone the higher-level nine-year compulsory education.

Allowing women to work is already a big step forward.

"There are many factories that want women, including quilt factories, canneries, textile factories, weaving factories, clothing factories, leather shoe factories...!

These factories all require a large number of female workers.

Now I don’t think there are too many workers, but that there are not enough workers.

The spinning mill expansion report has been in the works for two years, and now the factory buildings have been built, but workers have not been recruited.

The imperial court's policy did not allow people from within the customs to immigrate to Liaodong at will.

Now..." Wang Tingzhang stopped talking.

People within the Ming Dynasty were not allowed to immigrate to Liaodong at will. This was a strategy formulated by Li Xiao himself.

The prefect of Shanhaiguan has been imprisoned by the Supervisory Yuan. The reason is that he violated the rules established by the commander-in-chief.

I am also confused, how dare I talk nonsense about this matter.

Wang Tingzhang wished he could slap himself in the mouth!

"It is not allowed to immigrate casually from within the customs to outside the customs. This is because Liaodong is too important to us.

Places like the research institute are basically located in Liaodong.

It has happened before. When our technology spread, it caused great trouble to Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, I closed the Shanhaiguan Pass. People within the Pass are not allowed to immigrate to other places at will.

But this is not absolute!

People within the customs, especially those who have served in the military.

They should be allowed to leave the customs as appropriate. After all, these people are relatively reliable and are also the backbone of our Ming Dynasty.

They have shed blood and fought battles for the Ming Dynasty, and our court will not treat them badly.

In the future, the imperial court will resettle some immigrants as appropriate to increase the labor force in Liaodong.

But you people should also be more vigilant.

Don't think that doing small things for others when entrusted by them is nothing.

If something happens to you, it will be a big deal.

I guess you have also heard that before coming to Jinzhou, I just ordered people to arrest the prefect of Shanhaiguan.

Moreover, Shanhaiguan may arrest more people.
To be continued...