Chapter 1277 The purpose of the reform of the household registration system (Happy Qixi Festival)
(Yesterday when I pasted Chapter 176, I pasted some of the wrong content due to carelessness. I would like to apologize to the book friends and have corrected it first. To express my apology, I will give the book friends 600 words for this chapter. This part does not occupy the word count)
"Okay. Since none of you have any objections, I will order the Shushe people to draft this charter into an imperial edict and issue it to the whole country." Yunxi said with a somewhat unnatural smile.
He suddenly called so many officials, including some of the highest-ranking civil servants in the Ming Dynasty, into the palace. Of course, it wasn't just to discuss how to prevent someone from taking advantage of the newly established prefectures and counties. He could also think of any method that Li Ren could think of.
.In fact, his real purpose has nothing to do with the imperial examination, it is just to deceive others; his real purpose is to use this excuse to implement the new household registration system.
Since the Shang Yang Reform, China has implemented a strict household registration system. People other than officials who want to leave more than 20 miles away from their place of residence must issue a certificate from the local government office. In the Qin and Han Dynasties, it was called "Chuan", and in the Sui and Tang Dynasties it was called "Guo".
Therefore, it was called "Luyin" in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In the Qin and Han Dynasties, things were better, and there was still the system of rural pavilions. It was relatively easy to ask the director of the pavilion to issue a certificate. But later, the system of rural pavilions disappeared, and people who wanted to go out had to go to the county government office.
It is absolutely impossible for ordinary people to issue a certificate without money, and the scope of activities of ordinary people is limited to a radius of twenty miles.
But this is incompatible with the requirements of capitalism. Capitalism requires free people to serve as hired workers, not farmers who are tied to the land. Moreover, in the early days of its birth, capitalism must have appeared in a few economically developed cities.
It is impossible to bloom everywhere. Because there are few people in the Ming Dynasty at this time, small landowners will try their best to tie people to the countryside. The budding capitalists cannot defeat the landlords, and it is easy for small landowners to borrow the power of the government to make them unable to gain a foothold.
They could only survive by moving to large cities under the jurisdiction of officials appointed by Yunxi to protect industry and commerce.
With so many merchants gathered in a small number of cities, the number of workers increased greatly. However, the Ming Dynasty established Fuzhou and counties based on population rather than land area (except for border areas and areas where Han and Yi people live together). The population of these few cities has reached a certain level when industry and commerce develop to a certain extent.
After this stage, there will not be enough people, and people need to be absorbed from other places; therefore, Yunxi must loosen the current household registration system, so that people other than businessmen can also migrate, so that industry and commerce can have enough people to work as workers.
Allowing people to change their household registration if they have a legitimate job or marry a local person is only the first step. The next step will be to loosen the restrictions on the road introduction system for craftsmen, and the next step will be for farmers. Of course, we must be careful when dealing with the road introduction system for farmers.
Be cautious, because it is very easy to cause a backlash from landlords and even shake the Ming Dynasty regime. Yunxi believed that it must be done simultaneously with attracting landlords to invest in industry and commerce to minimize social unrest.
In addition, he will also carry out reforms in the military household system to free up a large amount of surplus labor. However, he will not take action in the short term. He will have to wait until the four local departments are established and operating normally.
Of course, as a beneficiary of the current order, he does not dare to carry out drastic reforms and only dares to take small steps. If China's capitalism develops too fast, there may be a situation where the number of free labor forces cannot keep up with the labor demand for industry and commerce. After all, he is allowed to use
At this time, the Ming Dynasty also carried out agricultural reforms due to the current situation of less people and more land.
With fewer people and more land, it is naturally relatively easy to carry out agricultural reforms that shift from pursuing the highest yield per unit of land to pursuing the highest yield per unit of individuals, because there is no need to divide the land and it will not affect the interests of too many landlords; but after the farmers' income increases,
The willingness to work in the city will also be greatly reduced.
But Yunxi is also happy to see this situation come to fruition. Many people may not know that when capitalism sprouted, around the time when new shipping routes were just opened, Western countries implemented the enfeoffment system and the nobility restrained the peasants.
It is much stronger than China. In order to recruit workers, capitalists can only give them several times more income than farming in the countryside, so that farmers are willing to risk being beaten or even beaten to death if they are caught and flee from the countryside.
Enter the city.
Therefore, the income of workers at that time was very high! Residents across the country were considered upper-middle class and belonged to the middle class, similar to workers in European and American countries in the 1960s and 1970s.
The sweatshops of early capitalism that everyone is familiar with appeared after the development of industry and commerce, many former aristocratic landowners across the country turned into capitalists, drove farmers away from the land, and more and more free people could be hired.
After Yunxi implements agricultural reforms, farmers' income will increase and their willingness to work in cities will decrease, which will force capitalists to give workers higher incomes, thereby promoting the wealth earned from industry and commerce to be distributed in a more equitable way, thereby reducing social transformation
The period of turmoil has reduced the impact on the regime.
Not only that, Yunxi will continue to strongly support the people of the Central Plains to move overseas or to the Western Regions, and always maintain the number of people in the Central Plains not too large, ensuring that there is not too much free labor available for employment, and reducing the possible impact on the regime.
'At that time, except for the Russians who could evacuate the population to Siberia, the only place in Europe that could evacuate the population was the Americas. However, at that time, more than 0% of the ships from Europe to the Americas would sink, leaving many farmers in a situation where they were about to starve to death.
Daring to cross the Atlantic Ocean, social conflicts in Europe have always been fierce; now there are so many places in the Ming Dynasty where people can be evacuated. Among them, in the South China Sea area, there is almost no risk of immigration by boat in seasons other than summer. The number of people who can be evacuated must be larger than that in Europe
If there are more, social conflicts should be alleviated, he thought.
Moreover, Yunxi also had another purpose, which was to prompt capitalists to improve industrial machinery. If the labor supply in the Ming Dynasty continued to exceed demand, workers' wages would be very low, and capitalists would have no incentive to improve machinery and improve production efficiency, so that they could truly improve
Productivity contributed to the industrial revolution, not just in the early stages of capitalism.
Yunxi thought about the future situation in his mind, and suddenly heard Lu Yi say: "The official, I will exchange a cup of tea for the official." Then he came back to his senses, coughed twice and said: "Lu Yi, Xuan
Hu Yan is here, I have an errand to give him."
"Dear ladies, the matter I want to discuss with you has been completed. Please step aside, dear."
"Yes, Your Majesty." All the officials present stood up, saluted, and then withdrew.
After Yunxi waited for them to retreat, he stood up, stretched, and moved around. He also walked to the sunny window to bask in the sun for a while, drank a bowl of sour plum soup to relieve heat and cool down, and asked Lu Yidao: "
Lu Yi, have the Yu family and his son arrived?"
"The officials, Yu Xu, Yu Qian and his son have all arrived at the Jinshen Hall, waiting for the officials to receive them." Lu Yi said. As the eunuch who personally served Yun Xi, he knew that Yun Xi valued this boy named Yu Qian very much, although he didn't understand
Why, but I still pointed it out when I spoke.
"Tell them to meet in person!" Yunxi said with a slightly excited tone.
However, Lu Yi did not immediately obey Yun Xi's order, but said: "The officials, Lian Zining, Zhejiang's Zuobu political envoy, are already waiting at Jinshen Hall."
Yunxi was stunned and said, "Lian Qing has already entered the capital today?"
Lu Yi didn't answer, just bowed and stood beside Yunxi, motionless; Yunxi didn't pay attention, and ordered: "Since Lianqing has returned to Beijing, Xuan Lianqing should come to see me first."
He said to Lu Yi again: "You have done a good job. If you encounter such a thing, you should remind me." He loudly called another young eunuch in and told him: "Go and tell Wang Xi, I will reward you."
Lu Yi’s salary for one month.”
"Officials, this is just a slave's duty, and it is not a reward from your majesty." Lu Yi said immediately.
"Hey, those of you who serve me around me don't dare to say anything if you don't agree with me. If you dare to say a word, you deserve a reward. You must remember to remind me of things like this in the future." Yunxi said.
.
'However, if it's not just a reminder, don't say more.' Lu Yi completed Yun Xi's words in his mind, agreed, and retreated to Jinshen Palace to deliver the oral instructions.
On the way, he was still thinking: 'My dear father-in-law, it is indeed good to wait for him. The government is still willing to be reminded of such things by slaves. But accompanying the emperor is like accompanying a tiger. It is not that he has served his majesty for more than ten years and figured out his temperament thoroughly.
How can a person who has died dare to talk too much? Are you afraid of being dragged down and beaten to death? Although His Majesty is generous today, it is not that he has not dealt with eunuchs who talk too much.'
"Eunuch Xi is willing to tell us this experience. He is really a generous man. If you need help in the future, I will definitely take care of you." (To be continued)