Chapter 913 My emperor's benevolence has not existed in ten thousand years
At this time, the Americas had been discovered by Europeans and colonies had been established. North America was better, but South America had basically become the domain of the Spanish and Portuguese. Even North America and the vast Mexican region were
It has become a Spanish colony.
But the Australian continent in the south has not been discovered yet. It is the last blank virgin land on the earth. And the key point is that there are not many local indigenous people, less than one million, and they are nomadic.
Ethnic groups do not have a fixed place of residence.
This is a very favorable factor for establishing colonies and then completely integrating this continent into the mainland.
Therefore, this continent has long been designated by Li Xuan as the territory of the Tang Dynasty.
In order to avoid competition from the Europeans, Li Xuan planned to proceed quietly, especially since the strength of the Tang Dynasty Navy was still a bit weak, and before large-scale colonization could be carried out, he needed to keep Australia a secret. Now he was just exploring safe and secret routes.
Then establish a colony and start immigration. After it has a certain strength, it will be announced.
Therefore, he sent a secret order for the Military Intelligence Department to go south to search for Australia, explore safe routes, and establish preliminary colonies. In the future, Datang will continue to send ships carrying large numbers of landless farmers and various criminals sentenced to exile south to Australia.
Carry out colonization and turn Australia into the real territory of the Tang Dynasty.
Li Xuan’s positioning of Australia is not as a colony, but as a mainland!
Australia will be the ultimate solution used by the Tang Dynasty to solve the land conflict caused by overpopulation and insufficient land. This ultimate solution covers not only Australia, but also Southeast Asia, North America, South America and other regions.
What to do when there are more people and less land? Naturally, we must find ways to grab more land!
Yes, Li Xuan has never put the hope of solving the land annexation on internal reforms, because no matter how he reforms, there will still be so much land, and the population will increase in peacetime. When the population reaches a certain level,
When it reaches a certain level, no matter how you reform, the land issue will be exposed and there will still be no solution.
Unless the population decreases significantly in a short period of time and returns to a situation of less people and more land!
This is also an endless cycle that has existed in China for thousands of years. In the early days of the dynasty, after the war, the population was small and the land was large, so there were fewer people and more land. Then as time passed, the population gradually increased, and the number of people and land reached
After reaching a more balanced point, people can have enough to eat and the economy is better. This is the so-called prosperous age.
After the prosperous age, the population continues to increase, but the land remains the same. Then various problems arise, and wars often break out. If the dynasty survives, the population will decrease smoothly, and then continue to recover, which is a kind of ZTE!
A few years after the ZTE, the population increased again, and the land issue broke out again, followed by war, and this was the end of the dynasty!
When the dynasty cannot hold on any longer, with a bang, the dynasty is destroyed, a new dynasty will be established, and then a new cycle will begin!
After thousands of years of Chinese history, there is basically no way to escape this endless cycle!
In essence, this endless cycle means that limited land cannot support too many people!
Therefore, the ultimate solution Li Xuan prepared for the Tang Dynasty to solve the land problem was just one word: grab!
If you don’t have enough land, grab it!
Not enough production resources, grab them 1
The market is not enough, grab it!
After seizing the land, they carried out large-scale immigration. After immigrating, they followed the example of the United States in later generations and implemented various eastward, westward, and land enclosure movements. The ultimate goal was to make the local Chinese population account for 90% of the total local population.
above!
If there are 10,000 Chinese people in the local area, then there will only be 1,000 local indigenous people left!
If there are only a thousand Chinese people in the local area, then there must not be more than a hundred local indigenous people!
Wang Shanxi of the Military Intelligence Department was responsible for going south to search for Australia, and after finding Australia, initially opening up a colonial stronghold. In order to keep it secret, the Military Intelligence Department did not even plan to involve Datang Western Company.
Just as the fleet of the Tang Dynasty Western Company was heading south and west, Jinling City and Li Xuan also started a new wave of reform!
And this time the wave of reform is not about commerce or industry, but about agriculture!
Although the land issue cannot be solved internally no matter how it is reformed, in the end it cannot be solved by nonsense, but what Li Xuan wants to do now is to temporarily alleviate the outbreak of the land issue.
You must know that during the rise of the Tang Dynasty, the population did not actually decrease on a large scale. Unlike when many dynasties were newly established, the population was small and the land was too much. During the rise of the Tang Dynasty, there was no large-scale reduction in population due to war.
Back and forth, the Tang Dynasty fought steadily, and defeated the Ming Dynasty through many consecutive decisive battles. After occupying a certain area, the Tang Dynasty's dominance was very strong, and it did not lead to various wars.
The subsequent turmoil.
Therefore, although innocent people were killed and injured in the war, overall the population did not decrease, and this caused the Tang Dynasty to face the same problem as the Ming Dynasty: too little, too much land!
In this regard, the Tang Dynasty's initial approach was to unify agricultural taxes to curb large-scale land annexation. At the same time, it distributed a large amount of confiscated clan land and gentry land from the Ming Dynasty to a large number of landless peasants on a rent-to-purchase basis.
And vigorously support and encourage land reclamation!
Through these methods, some land problems can be alleviated to a certain extent, but this is still not enough!
The situation of more people and less land, and the difficult life of most farmers has not been fundamentally changed. Li Xuan plans to continue to deepen the reform!
As for this reform, he planned to carry out large-scale immigration. Of course, it was not to immigrate overseas. At present, the Tang Dynasty did not have this strength. The destination of immigrants was other areas in the country that had not yet been fully developed.
Even now, the Tang Dynasty has adopted the rent-to-purchase model, turning a large number of landless farmers into self-cultivators. However, there are still many landless farmers, and to be honest, the land that should be confiscated at present is basically confiscated.
Well, it is impossible for Li Xuan to say that he directly confiscated many big landowners. You must know that the landowners who had previously attacked the Tang Dynasty have basically been confiscated, and the remaining ones either support the Tang Dynasty or do not
Opposition, people who are honest and independent.
Although in the Tang Dynasty where imperial power was highly concentrated, Li Xuan could just say to kill all the big landowners in the world, and a group of officials below would rush to do it, but this is not necessary. In this case, it will definitely cause turmoil in the world.
of.
How did the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom come to an end in later generations? It was because he was too ruthless in killing the landowners and gentry. He did not use the strategy of suppressing some and winning over others, but he killed them all regardless of who wanted to welcome them.
The gentry and landlords who belonged to Master Wang did not dare to welcome Master Wang.
If you don’t want to die, then you will naturally resist with all your strength!
Therefore, the gentry and landlord class at that time almost spent money and effort to resist to the death, and fought and lost again and again. In the end, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was consumed to death, and the Manchu Tatars got a big advantage!
If the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had softened its policy towards landlords a little, even if it only killed 90% and left 10%, then the outcome might have been changed. At least, the Manchu dynasty would have been very likely to be completely wiped out.
Therefore, since the Huang Zhushan era, Li Xuan has basically determined his policy towards the gentry and landlord class, which is to 'differentiate', killing some and winning over others.
At present, this policy is quite successful. In the early days, almost all the gentry and landlords were shouting and killing the Tang Dynasty, one for the pseudo-Tang Dynasty and one for the Li thieves. But now, after the differentiation policy of the Tang Dynasty,
, many of the gentry and landlords in the ruling area have already mentioned us as the Tang Dynasty, the Kingdom of China, the Imperial Court, the Holy King, and the Holy Emperor.
The most obvious feature is that more and more scholars came to participate in the imperial examinations of the Tang Dynasty.
The Ministry of Rites predicts that the number of scholars taking part in this year's autumn examinations in each province is likely to double. Especially in the four areas of Zhili, the number of scholars participating in the imperial examinations is very likely to exceed the total number of other provinces.
And when it comes to next year’s examination, the number of scholars participating will also double!
With so many realistic situations, it is impossible for Li Xuan to kill all the landowners and confiscate their land. Even if he owns 10,000 acres of land, as long as he pays taxes honestly and does not resist the rule of the Tang Dynasty, Li Xuan will not
Be prepared to move them.
But what to do in some areas with more people and less land? Before the era of large-scale overseas colonization, all Li Xuan could do was internal immigration.
Nowadays, the population of many provinces is actually very small. For example, the Guangdong and Guangxi regions add up to about 10 million people. The population of the Huguang region is also not large. The above-mentioned regions all have a large number of areas for development, such as several in Guangxi.
This small plain was a granary-level area even in later generations, and the Pearl River Delta region in Guangdong was also an important agricultural area.
Not to mention Huguang. In later generations, Huguang has a good reputation and is well-known in the world. But now, the population of Huguang area is still not large, and there is still a lot of wasteland that can be reclaimed and turned into fertile farmland!
And when the Liaodong region is captured in the future, it will be an undeveloped area that can accommodate at least tens of millions of people!
What Li Xuan has to do now is to organize a large number of landless farmers from areas with few people and little land to cultivate land with few people and more land!
Just after the Mid-Autumn Festival in August, Li Xuan, who had not long returned to Jinling City, convened a cabinet meeting to formally discuss organizing landless farmers from Shandong, Henan, Jiangbei, Wanbei and other regions to go to Hunan, Guangxi, and Guangdong for reclamation.
After the meeting began, without waiting for the cabinet ministers to hold a formal discussion, Li Xuan set a tone: In the next three years, the empire will invest at least five million taels of silver in domestic immigration matters, and within five years, the cumulative investment will be
The funds will reach 10 million taels of silver!
What these cabinet ministers want to discuss is how to use this fund to organize as many immigrants as possible and develop more wasteland!
Although everyone knows that organizing immigration requires a lot of money, no one thought that their eternal sage could cost ten million taels of silver with just one mouthful!
After Li Xuan finished speaking, the scene was silent for a while. After more than ten seconds, Wang Wenhua came out of the queue and knelt down with a plop. Then he put his hands forward and knelt down to salute. While kneeling down and saluting, he shouted: "My emperor's benevolence, from now on."