Chapter 59, people move to live, trees move to death
After hearing Liu Jin's eloquent remarks, Emperor Hongzhi, Liu Jian, Xie Qian, and Li Dongyang quickly cheered up and prepared to hear what Liu Jin could say about population and land.
"My Ming Dynasty has always encouraged reclamation, but the land in this world has always been limited, and it cannot grow endlessly. Especially I estimate that the amount of taxable land in the Ming Dynasty's official statistics must be higher than that in the founding of the People's Republic of China.
It takes less time.”
"But the population is constantly growing, especially during the century of peace under heaven, the population has grown even more rapidly."
"Let's assume that there are 10 shares of land in the world. At the beginning, there were 10 people in the world. Each person cultivated one piece of land and paid one share of taxes, so he was able to receive 10 shares of tax revenue at that time."
"With the growth of population, these 10 people soon became 15 people, so 5 people did not have their own land. Among the 10 people who originally owned land, some of them passed the imperial examination and no longer had to pay grain for farming.
So there may be several people dedicating their land to this person's name."
"At this time, there are still 10 fields, but only 7 taxes can be received, and because the extra 5 people do not have their own fields, they can only become farm laborers and farm the land exclusively for those who have land."
"Fortunately, these 10 fields are enough to feed 15 people. Although sometimes, when the harvest is not good, a few people will go hungry, but generally speaking, we can barely survive."
This simple analogy Liu Jin mentioned, if you are from later generations, probably many people have seen it. This is a very good and vivid example used on the Internet to explain land annexation. It can very clearly explain the annexation of ancient land.
The change of dynasties is clearly explained.
Emperor Hongzhi, Liu Jian, Xie Qian, and Li Dongyang had naturally never heard of it. Now when they heard Liu Jin's words, they all felt very novel and thought carefully while listening.
"When the population increases to 20 people, the world's land will still be 10% of the land. At this time, the output of 10% of the land can no longer meet the needs of 20 people, and more people will starve."
"And at this time, there are more people who have achieved fame and have tax-free privileges. At this time, the land dedicated to tax-free people may reach 4, 5, or even more, and the tax revenue that can be collected may only be 5
portion, or even less.”
"Among the 20 people, half of them are hungry. Naturally, these hungry people will not really wait to starve to death in vain. They will definitely find a way to seize the land into their own hands and rob other people's food to satisfy their hunger.
own land.”
"So, these 20 people started fighting, fighting each other, and in the end only 10 people were left. The land was redistributed to the remaining 10 people, so that everyone could have enough to eat again and have their own land to cultivate.
And then the story goes on."
Liu Jin spoke concisely and comprehensively, and quickly explained the relationship between population and land.
Only Emperor Hongzhi, Liu Jian and others opened their mouths one by one. They were all smart people and could not tell. Although Liu Jin was telling a story, he was actually telling the story of the rise and fall of a dynasty.
Regarding the changes of dynasties and the reincarnation of history, they have read too many books and studied too many histories, but they have never explained each of them clearly from the perspective of population and land like today.
Reasons for dynasty changes.
In the past, they had always believed that the changes in dynasties must have been caused by corruption in the government, stupid kings, favoring villains and distant virtuous ministers, or barbarian invasions and many other reasons.
But I have never thought that it turns out that because the population is increasing, there is still so much land, and the land is slowly concentrated in the hands of a few people, leading to sharp conflicts between population and land, and ultimately leading to the change of dynasties.
.
From this perspective, it is very novel and eye-opening. It seems that one can suddenly see through the fundamentals of reincarnation and destiny in China's thousands of years of history.
“Are we in a period now where we have 15 people?”
Emperor Hongzhi looked at Liu Jin. He understood Liu Jin's words and compared them carefully. He found that the current Ming Dynasty was very similar to the period of 15 people mentioned by Liu Jin.
"Maybe it's the period when there are 16 or 17 people."
Liu Jin thought for a while and said, the Hongzhi Dynasty was already in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. In another hundred years, the population will be larger and the land annexation will be more serious. Even if there is no Little Ice Age, the Ming Dynasty will be like other dynasties in history.
, along with the peasant uprising, finally ushered in the change of dynasty.
The fact that Li Zicheng was able to break into Beijing and have Emperor Chongzhen hanged on a crooked neck tree is enough to illustrate all of this. Even if he did not hide the truth and enter the customs, in the end, the world will definitely no longer have the surname Zhu.
"Let's talk about the household service system established by Taizu."
"During the period of Taizu, because the world had been in turmoil for a long time, especially after the hundred-year catastrophe caused by Yuanhu, the world's population was sparse, and everything was in need of improvement. At that time, it was natural for the people to take root in the land and restore production, so Taizu would
Establish a household service system and strictly prohibit population movement."
"Because this policy was the most appropriate policy at the time. It could restore vitality as soon as possible and stabilize the world."
"But it is completely different now. As the population increases, there is still so much land, and there are more and more scholars with academic titles, more and more people are exempted from taxes, and the land is slowly concentrated in the hands of a few people."
"If this population never moves, and everyone is still confined to the same place, they won't have enough to eat, they won't have enough clothes to wear, and they won't be able to survive if there is a natural or man-made disaster."
"At this time, once people can no longer survive, the natural consequences will be refugees everywhere and wars everywhere."
Liu Jin looked at Emperor Hongzhi's face. It was obvious that Emperor Hongzhi's face was not very good-looking at this time, but Liu Jin did not stop and continued to speak.
"So in this era, if we want to break this situation, we must either reduce the population or increase the land."
"When dynasties change from dynasty to dynasty, it is actually a process of population reduction. War is the most effective way to reduce population."
"But now, it's obviously not possible, so we have to move the excess population in this world to other places. The world outside the Ming Dynasty is very vast."
"This Golden Continent is dozens of times larger than the Ming Dynasty. The land is extremely fertile and can support a population dozens of times that of the Ming Dynasty. In addition, the Nanyang region has fertile land and rice is harvested three times a year. It can also support a large population.
"
"This Australia, Africa, Tianzhu, etc., as well as the vast area north of our Ming Dynasty, the land outside the Ming Dynasty is so vast, it is enough for us to expand for countless years."
"As the saying goes, people live when they move, and trees die when they move. This is actually the truth. Our Chinese ancestors also followed this principle, so they slowly expanded from the Hanzhong area to the current vast territory, so they can feed thousands of people now.
population of 10,000.”
"If it had been limited to the Hanzhong area, it would have been impossible to have such a large population and such a vast land!"