After dinner, Zhu Yihai returned to the manor and proposed that in addition to converting Baita Temple into a primary school, it should also be used as a community warehouse.
Originally, there were charity warehouses in counties and townships, and the charity grain was donated on a per-acre basis, with two liters per taxed mu. The charity warehouse has actually become a compulsory charity tax. However, after the charity grain is put into the warehouse, it is under the supervision of the officials and the people.
Respected gentry elected by the local government formed a free warehouse council to manage and supervise the warehouse.
Yi Cang Liang is also dedicated to providing free relief to disaster victims.
Now Zhu Yihai advocates building Shecang in various places, or it can be called Baojiacang. Shecang is a self-help model for common people to form associations. The court borrows rice from Changpingcang as the base of the warehouse. It can also be lent by big households, or part of it can be pulled out from official fields.
The official land is used as warehouse capital, or the income from renting out the land is used as the basis.
There are two ways to operate the social warehouse, both of which are under the supervision of the government and the people. One is the lending method, where the grain in the social warehouse is loaned to the social residents who ask for rice, and when the grain harvest is good, the rice will be returned to the warehouse with interest. The loan is collected.
The interest rule is two buckets of interest per stone of rice. In years with bad harvests, the interest will be halved. In the event of a major disaster, the interest will be waived.
When the warehouse capital is sufficient, the interest can also be reduced.
The main purpose of lending and collecting interest is to increase the value of the warehouse and renew the rice in the warehouse. In addition to lending, the community also dedicates a part of the rice in the warehouse to make flat purchases. After the summer harvest, when the price of grain is low, grain is bought into the warehouse, etc.
When grain prices are high in winter and spring, releasing rice out of the warehouse can adjust supply and demand, stabilize grain prices, and even make profits and increase warehouse costs.
There is no compulsory donation for social warehouses. The rich can donate voluntarily, or borrow grain and make loans. By lending and buying flat, the interest rate can be increased and guaranteed in the long run.
This is a supplement to the free warehouse, usually a social warehouse is closed with one armor or one guarantee.
According to the current system, ten households have one license, ten licenses have one A, ten A have one guarantee, standard one A has one hundred households, and one guarantee has one thousand households.
Using Baojia as a unit to form associations and build warehouses can help people cope with famine and even personal poverty. Even if one stone and two buckets of interest is paid, it is much better than usury.
"The people are the foundation of a country, and the foundation is the foundation of a country's peace."
"Although the imperial court has Chang Ping Granary and local charity warehouses, Baojia villagers can form associations, in addition to helping themselves to prevent disasters, they can also form associations and cooperate. For example, they can use cattle together, farm and sow together, or combine harvesting, etc. to help each other and compete for farming time.
, or usually cooperate in building canals, filling water, and assisting each other in funerals, etc., which are all very helpful.
China has this tradition of establishing societies and helping each other before, and it should be carried forward."
Zhu Yihai proposed that it should be carried forward. It is best to divide a village into several communities, with ten households or several households as one community, so that the people in the community can better perform important agricultural work such as plowing, harvesting, threshing, and threshing.
Cooperate, help each other, and compete for farming time. You can also use the land together, farm cattle, build canals, roads, etc., and help each other during weddings and funerals.
The cooperative can be appropriately small, with ten or twenty or thirty cooperatives forming a single village. The cooperative can be larger, with several small cooperatives or even one Jia or one Bao setting up a cooperative.
However, this cooperative has nothing to do with the cooperatives and production teams in China later. Now this cooperative only helps each other sometimes, rather than forming a collective.
This kind of cooperative is essentially an exchange of workers and mutual assistance, which can improve efficiency and reduce costs and expenses. We can help each other when we need something, without having to pay for it.
This is a neighborhood watch, a rural interpersonal relationship based on geographical location, with farming and villages as the background. It can not only help people farm and improve efficiency, but can even use it to gather strength to fight against the oppression of clans and gentry in the countryside.
Especially at this time, after the war and famine, many places were short of cattle and horses, lacked farming tools, and water conservancy facilities were in disrepair. Even if the court sold some official land to them at a low price and they could repay the loan in installments, the people still lacked cattle and horses, farming tools, etc.
, the efficiency was inevitably low. At this time, people from ten or twenty households formed associations to help each other, and used cattle and horses together.
It's like a lonely man and a widowed woman living together. The man can do menial work, carry water and farm, and the woman can cook and wash. It's labor optimization.
During the off-season, we can build canals and houses together, and we can also help out at weddings and funerals, and we don’t need any wages.
Some clans with large surnames have their own clan fields, righteous villages, and even clan schools, clan warehouses, etc. that can help rescue their clansmen, but ordinary people do not have this kind of treatment, so it is necessary to organize everyone to form ancestors and help each other.
Although the imperial court established Baojia, it was only for management. Specific assistance in agricultural production, daily life, etc. still depended on the villagers themselves.
"Changpingcang and voluntary warehouses are mainly used to provide relief to people in cities and towns in prefectures and counties. There are still some shortages in rural areas, so we build communal warehouses, pull out the rice from Changpingcang, and the government allocates official fields as the warehouse capital, and uses this to loan rice and collect interest.
, accumulating warehouse capital can ensure long-term maintenance. It can not only store rice to prepare for shortages, but also help the people in normal times."
The charity warehouse is a compulsory donation of grain according to the land area, and then it is released to the victims of disasters free of charge, and usually helps orphans and widows.
Shecang is different. It is a paid loan. Although the loan is only rice, if it develops in the future, it may also become a credit union. Everyone pools funds to lend money, which can not only meet unexpected needs, but also make money by charging interest on loans.
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Of course, managing this thing is a problem.
At this stage, we are only storing rice and lending it to people in need, which is in line with the needs of the situation.
"Our Baita Village and Baita Panlonghuang Village can set up a social warehouse, and two hundred villagers can form ten or five cooperatives. For the warehouse capital of this social warehouse, Panlong Village can lend a sum of grain as the warehouse capital.
It will be managed by the Shecang Council and priority will be given to lending to the villagers of our commune."
When Cangben Zhu Yihai went out, half of the grain was lent to Shecang and the other half was donated.
The rice is released in spring and harvested in autumn. Rice is distributed to the poor who ask for rice in the spring when there is no harvest, and it is taken back after the autumn harvest.
Relief of poverty, suppression of annexation, and security and stability are the starting points for establishing social warehouses. In fact, for large households, the countryside is stable and their property and life safety are also guaranteed.
If there is a famine and starvation, the people will be hungry and have no choice. At this time, they will eat the big households, and everyone will flock to the houses of the big households to get food. This situation cannot be stopped at all, unless they are strong, have a compound or a fortress, and have guards with swords and guns.
Wait, this is the local Tuzhaiwu Fort.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! But after all, there are only a few large landowners with strongholds. More small and medium-sized landowners do not have this strength. Once the hungry people eat the big ones, they can only compromise honestly and let it go.
Loot.
Moreover, Shecang does not require forced donations from wealthy households. Shecang can borrow rice from official warehouses in Changping, or borrow grain from large households. Although the loan interest is not high, the spring loan is only two cents for the autumn harvest, but in Baoding
Stability is also of great benefit to them.
At the court level, if people can have such a channel to help them when they are in dire straits, they will not have to sell off their fields, or even pawn off their wives and children, and they will not be forced to take desperate risks. This will not only reduce turbulence, but also crack down on powerful landlords who take the opportunity to lend money at usury.
They even took the opportunity to annex fields.
At the beginning of this year, the imperial court opened a new bank called Changping Guanghui Bank. When you hear the name, it has some connection with the Changping Guanghui Warehouse run by Wang Anshi and others in the Northern Song Dynasty. This bank is first of all a bank, and secondly they have two special loans to benefit farmers.
They are called Qingmiao Loan and Huinong Loan.
If people want to cultivate fields, build canals, buy cattle or seeds, etc., they can go to this bank to apply for loans, and the interest rates are very low. It is a good policy to benefit farmers. When there is a shortage, you can also directly borrow grain from Changpingcang.
, pay it back after the harvest, and the interest will be low.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, Qingmiao loans had a monthly interest of two cents, and it was said that officials were also required to pay favors, so the monthly interest could reach about three cents, reaching the red line of loan sharking. In fact, during the Northern Song Dynasty, Qingmiao loans were also controversial, and they were even accused of harming the people.
According to regulations, credit levels are divided into credit grades, with a minimum loan of more than 1 Guan being required, a fifth-class household being able to borrow a maximum of 5 Guan, and a first-class household being able to borrow a maximum of 15 Guan.
But in fact, there is a situation of under-matching, that is, they force you to lend money regardless of whether you need it or not. The actual purpose is to collect high interest rates.
Although during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the interest on public money lent by the government was as high as five cents or even eight cents per month, and there was also a practice of forcibly apportioning it to the rich for lending, this was indeed harmful to the people.
Taking a loan for nothing and paying interest is a rip-off.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, more than 10 million guan of capital was loaned, with an interest of more than 2 million guan a year. By the sixth year of the Xi year, 60% of the farmers in the country had been granted green crop loans, with a total amount of more than 22 million guan, and an interest of more than 400 guan.
Wan, forced to borrow money to earn interest, so Sima Guang focused on this and fiercely criticized Wang Anshi.
Later, there were even cases where local households colluded with officials to falsely receive young people's money and then lend it to the people at high interest rates.
It was originally a good policy, but the people had been suffering from usurious loans for a long time. When the economy was in recession, they were exploited by big tyrants and loan sharks at high interest rates, which made them really miserable.
This loan from the imperial court has an interest rate that is only half that of the powerful loans, which is beneficial to the people.
But in the end, the imperial court distributed the money to people who didn't need it, which obviously increased the burden on the people.
When I was in lean years, I could barely survive by tightening my belt, but suddenly I took out a loan and paid 2 cents of interest, and I couldn't survive anymore.
Zhu Yihai's Changping Guanghui Bank, the Qingmiao Loan and Guanghui Loan, are low-interest loans for Huinong, with an annual interest rate of 10% and a monthly interest of less than one cent, only 8.3%. The most important thing is,
There is no such thing as forced apportionment.
The interest rate is not high.
The imperial government stipulates that the monthly interest rate for usury loans is no more than three cents, so many pawnshops and banks lend directly to three cents, with an annual interest rate of 36%. Many pawnshops even lend short-term loans, and the actual burden is even heavier.
Many private loan sharks secretly make loan sharks. It is common for monthly interest to be 5 cents or 80 cents, which is equivalent to annual interest rates of 60% and 96%. They even do things like nine out and thirteen out, and some
Take a short-term loan and transfer it over a few months, with compound interest.
For general lending, the monthly interest is generally 30% in Beijing and 20% in local areas.
That’s why the imperial court launched a young crop loan. Guanghui Loan, a loan to assist farmers, only had a monthly interest of one cent. That’s how much you lost. The imperial court was very strict about lending, and it was necessary to prevent non-farmers from taking advantage of the country’s low-interest loans to assist farmers, or even
Take it out and then turn it into a loan to make a profit.
How can there be forced apportionment?
Even this loan has both status restrictions and amount restrictions. You can't borrow too much, which is just for emergency purposes.
night.
Zhu Yihai slept on the same bed as the two princes.
"Why is my father so concerned about these trivial matters? The Tatars are about to gather troops from Guanzhong and Hubei to fight us in Nanyang. Shouldn't my father be more concerned about these things?"
Zhu Yihai smiled and said, "Do you know what rural areas and rural areas are? Farmers in rural areas are doing agriculture for rural areas. Do you know what war is?"
He answered himself, "War is the continuation of politics."
Facing the puzzled looks in his two young sons' eyes, he slowly said, "War is actually the most extreme manifestation of political conflict, or the result.
We need to clarify the priorities, because there is political conflict first, and when other ways cannot resolve this conflict, war finally breaks out, so war is just a continuation of politics.
It is an appearance, not an essence.
What is the essence? The essence is that the country is strong and the people are the foundation of the country. For the court and the world, farmers are the weakest link and the most fundamental link. If the issues of rural areas and farmers cannot be properly handled,
, if we cannot let the peasants work happily, then even if we have achieved military victory, defeated the Tatars, and restored the two capitals and thirteen provinces, it is not stable at all, and problems will still arise sooner or later.
Maybe next time there will be another Zhang Zicheng, Li Xianzhong, or the Heshuote Khanate of Oirat in the Western Regions, or the Junggars will take the opportunity to invade the Central Plains.
So for my father, although the Tatars still occupy Beijing today, they are actually no longer a thorn in our side. Maybe in three years, maybe in five years, we will be able to drive them out sooner or later, or even chase them out.
Plow the courtyard and sweep holes.
My father was not worried about the Battle of Nanyang.
For my father, we have now straightened out the army, restored their morale, provided them with generous military pay, sophisticated equipment, and even restored their confidence. We no longer have to worry too much on the battlefield.
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On the contrary, it is outside the battlefield that we really have to face the difficulties now.
This time you are traveling with me all the way east from Dengzhou, passing through Dengzhou to Qingji Taiyan, and passing through so many prefectures and counties, you should have seen a lot of local realities.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Although it is much better than when I first went on the Northern Expedition a few years ago, the people are still living in hardship. Look at the villager today, who sprinkled some salt in a bowl of gruel.
, add some steamed potatoes and corn, and they will be very satisfied.
But they had no savings, and they even owed money to buy land. They didn't even have an ox, so they plowed the land with people's backs. The house they lived in was also very simple, and it might leak everywhere if it rained heavily.
If there is a flood, drought or locust plague, they may have to flee without any ability to resist.
As we came along, we saw that the people seemed to be doing well, but they were too fragile.
Moreover, even if the imperial court is trying its best to sell land to the people at a high price, and even relocates many landless people to other places to allocate and grant land, we still have to see that most of the land is still concentrated in a small number of villages.
In the hands of landlords, tenant farmers and unemployed people still occupy too much.
In fact, whether a dynasty is prosperous or powerful does not depend on how much taxes it pays in a year, nor how many thousands of soldiers it wears, nor how big its territory is.
The most important thing is to look at the burden of the people, especially the people at the bottom, to see if they have enough food and clothing. If these people at the bottom, who make up the vast majority of the people in the world, are in danger and they start to flee, then this
The dynasty, no matter how powerful it looks from the outside, is actually already on the verge of collapse.
Any accident, such as a severe drought, a famine caused by a locust plague, or an invasion by foreign tribes, could cause him to collapse and perish quickly."
King Zhu Hongjia of Qin seemed to understand, "Then what should we do to avoid this?"
"It's very difficult," Zhu Yihai sighed, "but it has to be done. What we can do is to reduce agricultural taxes such as land and silver, find ways to enhance people's ability to prevent and avoid disasters, and try to allow people to have some land to become homesteaders or farmers.
Semi-owner farmers also provide more opportunities for people to make money, increase their income, allow them to keep more surplus grain in their warehouses, and even encourage people to immigrate to border areas with vast land and few people, and grant them points.
Lots of land of their own,
Peasants are the ballast of the great ship of the dynasty.
When Wei Zheng admonished Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, he quoted the words of Xunzi Aikki: The common people are in charge, and then the gentleman is in power. The king is like a boat; the common people are like water;
Water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it.
I heard that you are studying very hard now, but you must remember that you must read the book and understand it with your heart, otherwise no matter how much you read, it will be useless."
