The first thousand two hundred and fifty-four chapters are all to eat
At the beginning of the founding of the Tang Empire, that is, during the reign of Emperor Taizu Wu of Li Erbi, there was no national policy to develop industry and commerce. Even after the death of Emperor Taizu Wu and the first few years when the Holy Emperor Li Xuan succeeded to the throne, there was no national policy to develop industry and commerce.
There is no development of industry and commerce, at most it is just industry, and industry is limited to weapons manufacturing.
The Tang Empire really started to develop its industry after Zhaoqing was established as the capital. At that time, in order to meet the needs of the national defense industry, the Tang Empire began to engage in ultra-high-tech industries.
Then, after conquering Guangzhou, in order to obtain more taxes and profits to support the war, they began to enter overseas trade and established the Guangzhou Trade Zone.
The huge military pressure caused by the war was the direct reason why the Tang Empire vigorously developed industry and commerce in its early years.
After Jinling was established as the capital, the national policy of the Tang Empire had basically been established, a trinity domestic development strategy with agriculture as the bone, industry as the meat, and commerce as the blood.
Among them, agriculture is undoubtedly the most important. In an era when food production is not high, if a big country does not develop agriculture but engages in industry and commerce, it will undoubtedly be seeking death.
Filling the stomachs of the vast number of people in the empire is the current core national policy of the Tang Empire, and most of the other policies revolve around this one.
To fill your stomach, you need food. When you have money and it is impossible to import large quantities of food from the outside world, you can only rely on growing food yourself.
Therefore, between agriculture and industry and commerce, agriculture is the basic one.
Industry and commerce are actually just auxiliary!
This point was fully reflected even in the Tang Empire. Although the industry and commerce in the Tang Empire were prosperous, in the empire's annual financial expenditures, whether it was central or local, the resource support that industry and commerce could get,
It is far inferior to the resource support obtained from agriculture.
What is the purpose of the large-scale water conservancy construction called for by the empire? Isn't it just to resist natural disasters and increase food production? As for the development of inland shipping brought about by this, that is just incidental.
The empire instituted a unified agricultural tax and suppressed land rent. This was to ensure that the majority of farmers could survive. As a result, landlords sold a large amount of land and then invested the funds in industry and commerce, which was just incidental.
Even foreign expansion, the establishment of colonies, and any global strategy proposed are all to obtain more land and alleviate the food pressure caused by the increase in population.
Even industry and commerce itself actually serves the purpose of feeding the people of the empire.
The development of industry and commerce, especially the development of technology, can bring about a more convenient production environment, reduce the cost of products, improve transportation levels, and at the same time allow a large number of imperial subjects to obtain employment opportunities other than farming.
Food is the most important thing for the people!
Li Xuan saw this very clearly, so even though he knew that the hope was not great, he still supported the Royal Institute of Technology in launching hybrid rice research in the Qiongzhou Prefecture area.
Most of the many other policies also serve the purpose of feeding the people of the empire.
If there is any difference between the Tang Empire and the previous Ming Dynasty and other feudal dynasties that suppressed the development of industry and commerce, it is that the Tang Empire believed that industry and commerce could effectively assist and even promote agricultural development, thereby improving people's livelihood.
The former Ming and other dynasties did not think so.
This does not mean that the feudal dynasties such as the Ming Dynasty and others who suppressed the development of industry and commerce were wrong. In fact, they were right.
In an era of low science and technology and even lower productivity, industry and commerce, especially the commercial part of it, which is the ordinary transportation of goods from place A to place B, does not generate much value at all. On the contrary, it will attract
More people are engaged in business instead of farming, which will lead to a decrease in the agricultural population.
If there are fewer people farming, food production will be low, and a large amount of food cannot be obtained from the outside. However, the total population is so large. What will happen in this case?
People are starving to death!
But it was different in the Tang Empire!
The industry and commerce of the Tang Empire were based on the advancement of science and technology and the initial start of the Industrial Revolution!
The advancement of science and technology brought about a substantial increase in productivity, and the expansion of overseas trade allowed the Tang Empire to import a large amount of materials from outside.
The development of industry and commerce gave the empire strong financial power, which in turn assisted the development of agriculture!
Otherwise, where do you think the huge amount of money the empire spends on building water conservancy facilities every year comes from? It is not obtained from industry and commerce.
With the development of industry and commerce, the economy will be better, the finances will be richer, and various infrastructures such as water conservancy will be better, it will be possible to turn low-grade fields into medium-grade fields, and medium-grade fields into high-grade fields, and the ability to withstand floods and droughts will be higher.
, the grain yield will naturally be higher.
Especially in the southern provinces, due to the cultivation of rice, the reliance on water conservancy facilities is even more serious. Good water conservancy facilities are a prerequisite for increasing grain production.
At the same time, advances in science and technology can also greatly improve the efficiency of agricultural production!
Reclaiming wasteland requires tools. In the past, steel was so expensive that many people could not afford even hoes and sickles. But now, steel production has increased significantly, and the price of steel has also dropped significantly. The value of these agricultural tools
The price has correspondingly dropped significantly, and now even poor farmers can afford a hoe.
What's more, the development of modern science and technology has also gradually made the development of agricultural tools more scientific. New designs or improvements have produced a large number of agricultural tools that can effectively improve agricultural production efficiency, such as rice threshing machines, developed and produced by Zhaoqing Machinery Company.
A kind of instrument, of course, the great Holy Emperor also gave certain guidance from it.
This kind of threshing machine is actually the rice threshing machine still used in many southern rural areas in the 1990s and even in the new century. On a wooden box, there is a wooden roller filled with iron nails, connected through gears and pedals.
By repeatedly stepping on the pedal, the rollers can be driven to rotate at high speed, and then the rice is put in. The grains will be blown away directly, blocked by the wooden boards above and in front, and then fall into the wooden box below.
Although this kind of rice threshing machine still uses human power, its threshing efficiency is much faster than the previous method of directly manually holding the rice and beating it hard.
Later, Zhaoqing Machinery Company developed a threshing machine specially used to thresh wheat grains.
The development of science and technology has brought about the improvement of agricultural productivity, liberating more manpower to cultivate and plant more land, and further increasing food production.
Therefore, in the Tang Empire, agriculture, industry and commerce were complementary to each other, and there was no distance conflict like other feudal dynasties.
This also further stimulated the development of industry and commerce in the empire!
The development of industry and commerce has attracted countless landowners and gentry to invest their funds in the field of industry and commerce. Industry and commerce has developed rapidly. As the most important force in transportation, shipping has also experienced explosive growth!
And this growth rate has already started since the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and it still has not ended yet!
There were countless shipyards in the Tang Empire, and the shipbuilding industry was the only heavy industry in the country that had a large amount of private capital.
There are more people entering and more capital, which makes the market bigger but more competitive. Especially after years of brutal growth, many shipowners have regained their rationality, although they will still wave their hands at Datang Royal Bank.
Checks for ordering ships everywhere.
However, the quality requirements for ships are getting higher and higher. Gone are the days when boats built by just a few carpenters were snatched up by countless people.
This situation is caused by the fact that more than 20 large domestic shipyards are fighting fiercely for market share. These large shipyards have strong funds and strong technology. The ships they build are of good quality. Although the price is a little higher, but in
There is huge competitiveness in the market.
In this case, a large number of shipowners tend to order ships from large shipyards, while a large number of small and medium-sized shipyards actually rely on price advantages to compete.
But how long will this situation last?
Even a discerning person like Chen Lifu knows that although the shipbuilding industry seems to be still in its golden development period, this golden development period does not belong to small and medium-sized shipyards, but to large shipyards.
Once the market demand is not so great, we don't know how many small and medium-sized shipyards will close down.
Under such a general environment, the risk of entering the shipbuilding industry rashly is not small.
What's more, Feng Company is still a shipping company and has nothing to do with the shipbuilding industry.
Even though both of them are related to shipping, in fact they are quite different!
Shipping companies sound high-end, but in fact they just spend money to buy a ship, and then hire a captain and sailors to transport goods and make money. There is basically no technical content.
As for the shipyard, it is a serious manufacturing industry with a very high technical content. Without some skills, you cannot build a ship.
Nowadays, after so many years of barbaric development, the shipbuilding industry of the Tang Empire has already seen countless shipyards. There are more than two dozen large shipyards, and there are more than a dozen large shipyards on both sides of the Yangtze River alone.
, within a few dozen kilometers on the north bank of the Huangpu River, there are four large shipyards, and the famous Jiangnan Shipyard is here.
As for small and medium-sized shipyards, there are even more.
The influx of capital means that competition will be very exciting. Nowadays, many small and medium-sized shipyards with little technology rely on the current market popularity and low prices to survive.
Large shipyards, without exception, are researching more advanced shipbuilding technologies to improve ship performance and reduce costs in order to gain a larger market share and earn more profits.
Once the market goes bad and those large shipyards engage in price wars, a large number of small and medium-sized shipyards will go bankrupt immediately!
Under such circumstances, Feng's company's involvement in the shipbuilding industry across industries is quite risky.