New Shun 1730

With the development of exploration and navigation over the years, the idea of ​​trying to establish a parallel internal vassal system among counties tens of thousands of miles away does not seem so shocking.

Thirty years ago, when I heard such things, I would probably have thought them to be nonsense.

Fifteen years ago, when I heard something like this, I might have thought it was very difficult, but it wasn’t impossible.

But now, when I hear such things, I feel that it is not very difficult, and the difficulty may even be far less than the many things Ban Dingyuan did back then.

The advancement of technology has made the world bigger.

But at the same time, technological advancement has also made the world smaller.

Although there were many ideological conflicts between Liu Yu and their school, what Liu Yu was most worried about in his early years was their feudal social utopians with retro tendencies. The so-called people who know you best are often your enemies.

The Dashun "Zhou Rites" school, to a certain extent, corresponds to the Puritans of the Protestant Church, the Old Rite School of the Orthodox Church, and the Paraguayan Diocese of the Catholic Jesuits.

They are retro conservatives who have some remnants of the simple primitive village community social mutual aid idea, but are integrated with the specific conditions of their country.

Historically, Confucian scholars felt that the Western Han Empire was hindering their efforts to build a harmonious world, so they kicked out the First Han Empire. They were considered a group that once had certain political ideas.

No matter what, they really believe that there can be a practical system, culture, system, and morality to realize the beautiful world in their hearts.

From a religious and cultural perspective alone, Protestants, especially the Puritans, the Old Ritualists, and even the Wahhabis are all extremely conservative.

Dashun's "Zhou Li" and "Shang Shu" schools are actually similar.

Of course, the histories of different countries are different, and the final manifestations of conservative retrogradation will be different.

At the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Shun Dynasty, there were many factions demanding cultural purity. For example, Huang Zongxi proposed to burn miscellaneous books and novels. However, it is clearly stated that monks and nuns under the age of 60 should not return to secular life, and that all religious people in the northwest should not renounce religion, and that the military status should be promoted to the second rank among the four civilians. This is the only faction with no semicolon.

When Liu Yu approached them, he sincerely felt that they were really capable of doing something practical compared to those bullshit.

So although you have to give money, you still have to talk to them about some "righteousness" in the end, so that they can work hard.

So Liu Yu talked to Meng Songlu about another huge significance of his visit.

He did not say it directly, but first brought up the problem of flooding in the Yellow River and the sharp sword above his head that could not be circumvented after the abandonment of the Dashun Canal.

It's not that Liu Yu is looking forward to the Yellow River bursting, but there are some things that are not subject to human will. Dashun simply cannot build dams, water diversion projects, etc. It will only be a matter of time before the river breaks to the north.

"I remember that your school has no differences with me on the issue of water control. Li Gangzhu, Wang Kunsheng, etc. all said that sea transportation should be promoted and canals abandoned."

"Li Gang said: Maritime transportation must be restored, not only to transport rice and grain, but also to train troops at sea and guard against pirates. If maritime transportation is restored, the south of Huitong River can be deposed. The south of Huitong River can be deposed, and the Huaihe River can be controlled. The Huaihe River can be cured, but only the Yellow River can be cured.”

"On this point alone, the imperial court's ideas on regulating Huai, Huang, and Hai Cao in recent years are consistent with yours. Right?"

There are indeed many policies of the imperial court in recent years that make their school feel very unhappy. But there are indeed many policies that are consistent with their school of thought.

Canals, shipping, Caomi, Huaihe and Yellow Rivers, this is a systematic project.

Overall, it is divided into two factions.

The faction that regulates shipping, rivers and Huaihe Rivers is not large in number, but their school is undoubtedly the school that has clearly supported this idea before.

Speaking of this, Meng Songlu didn't pay much attention to Liu Yu's previous ridicule to them, and instead said: "It's exactly what the Duke said. The imperial government's promotion of maritime transportation and governance of the Huaihe River are indeed benevolent policies. It's just...just, this What does it have to do with students going to Honolulu?”

Liu Yu sighed and said: "It's a big deal. When Yu was trying to control the water, it was better to block it than to open it up. However, at that time, the population was sparse and there was room for sparse treatment everywhere. Now, although Dayu's idea is definitely right, it is absolutely impossible to do it in reality. It’s better to block it than to block it.”

After quietly mocking their school's idea of ​​digging tributaries everywhere downstream to divert water, he continued: "If the Yellow River is in trouble in the future, in your opinion, how should we provide relief?"

Without waiting for Meng Songlu's answer, Liu Yu added: "In other words, if there is a flood in the Yellow River in the future, and 30 million taels are used for disaster relief, is it better to buy 30 million taels of grain and resettle the people? Or should we spend 10 million to buy grain and rice? And using 20 million people to move people to Nanyang, Guandong, and Fusang is the best strategy?"

Just a casual sentence made Meng Songlu's whole body tremble, as if someone poured a big ladle of ice water on his head, and it suddenly penetrated to the bottom of his heart.

"The Duke is saying...that the imperial court has a desire to immigrate to Fusang?"

"If it can be done, relief alone will only treat the symptoms but not the root cause. But if we can immigrate to distant places, it will be of great benefit."

"If there is a natural disaster in the future, it would be best if we can immigrate after the relief work."

The problem of more people and less land has always been the biggest problem lingering over their school of thought. This is the root of some of the "weird" ideas put forward by Li Kuang, Wang Yuan and others.

On the one hand, they did not believe that industry and commerce could accommodate the remaining population. This was very realistic for both Li Kuan and Wang Yuan. Therefore, they had to propose many bizarre land granting policies under this reality that they believed to be unsolvable.

On the other hand, they also have a realistic understanding of what the yield per mu is.

If it is supported by improved seeds, water conservancy, and chemical fertilizers in future generations. The yield per mu is one thousand kilograms, and if a family of five just wants to fill their stomachs and not go hungry, twenty acres of land is enough, and two or three acres of land per capita is definitely enough.

Now, the yield per mu is just there. The yield of soybeans per mu in future generations will be higher than the yield of corn and wheat at this time. In such a situation, a family of five or six people only needs fifty acres of land to survive on Baba's land.

There must be something wrong with Dashun’s current official land statistics.

But this is an issue that Dashun doesn't want to pursue in detail.

The reason is simple. The official number of acres of land is subject to tax.

There is also a large amount of land where people do not pay taxes and quietly grow sweet potatoes and pumpkins to make a living.

In some places, it's almost a blur.

It can be said that Dashun has now taken over the three grain producing areas of Ezo, Kanto and Nanyang. With less people and more land, it can provide enough commercial grain. The per capita grain possession is definitely much higher than that of more than 20 years ago.

But the per capita thing... is quite magical.

No matter how much rice per capita there is in Nanyang, with the current traffic conditions, the average per capita cannot reach Shaanxi.

At this time, calculating the national average is actually meaningless.

Because Dashun is so big, provinces that are not close to the sea or canal water network areas seriously lack means of transporting grain. The per capita in the county is much more significant than the per capita in the country.

Meng Songlu is keen on immigration to solve the conflict between man and land. After all, when he argued with Meng Tiezhu last time in Haizhou, Meng Tiezhu ridiculed their idea of ​​"restoring the legal system and having the legitimate son inherit the tax and pay the second son to go overseas." He After throwing away the taunt, I felt like it was really useful.

Of course, if the imperial court intervenes, it would definitely be a good idea if the "immigration payment" is not added.

Liu Yu added: "Since you agree with this idea, I will just say it."

"Immigration to distant places, including imperial farming, will require support from the mainland for at least three to five years. Do you understand this? It does not mean that after spring comes, you will be self-sufficient and have enough food in the autumn."

In this regard, Meng Songlu is not the kind of person who studies hard, nor does he understand the reality at all.

Even if he had been naive before, after Liu Yu did not listen to his advice when he advised them, "Capital is insufficient, don't enclose such a large land, reduce it by half." The problems that arose in the township community were enough to make him understand that immigration and reclamation are really important. It is not something that can be accomplished by just writing a few articles in a book.

"What Duke Xingguo said is absolutely true. Indeed, immigrants need a certain amount of support. Didn't Duke Xingguo tell us about the British Virginia Company? After the immigrants, most of them died in a few years, and they were hungry and cannibalized in the winter."

Liu Yu nodded and said: "That's exactly what I said. Honolulu is in a superior location. From a military perspective, it is the gateway to the ocean."

"In terms of reclamation, it will be an important transit point for the Chinese immigrants to Fusang in the future, and it will also be an important food base in the early stage. If the imperial court can directly spend money to buy food in Honolulu and transport it to the immigration area on the west coast of Fusang, then immigration will be realistic and feasible. "

"If we can't do it, it's not just a fantasy, but a long preparation that takes thirty to fifty years."

"It wouldn't be a big deal if there was only the Celestial Dynasty in this world. But in fact, there are already many Europeans in Fusang land."

“The French are in the north, the Anglos in the middle, and the Spaniards in the south.”

"What will happen thirty to fifty years from now is unknown."

"Honolulu has hundreds of thousands of people and fertile land. If we can educate them with practical knowledge and make them learn to plant, cultivate, store, harvest, thresh, etc... I think they want guns, steel, and small commodities. , cloth, etc., can only be exchanged for food. "

"If Honolulu can export one million stones of commercial grain every year, the imperial court's immigration will be much more efficient."

"Once the Yellow River bursts in the future, something big will happen. How many victims the court can remove depends on your activities in Honolulu."

"In other words, whether the lives of millions of people in the Yellow River floodplain area, and even the fate of their descendants, will have to suffer from the scarcity of land and the hardship of the flooded river, depends on your activities in Honolulu."

"If you do well in Honolulu, you can take advantage of immigration in the future."

"You have made a lot of shit in Honolulu and failed to achieve the goal of making Honolulu a commercial grain base. So even if the imperial court is determined to adopt the policy of immigration, it is unable to do so. Is the immigration policy going to follow the example of the Virginia Company and people cannibalize each other?"

"You have to know that even if sea transportation is convenient and cheap, the price of loading the rice in Songjiang Prefecture and crossing the Pacific Ocean is not something the imperial court can bear."

"You also need to know. Today, from top to bottom, from the saints to the people, no one thinks that the Yellow River can burst. But the problem is that although river control can be controlled, after all, manpower is limited and unpredictable. Once it happens A breach would be a catastrophe.”

"Let me make it clear. If the canal is abandoned, the acquiescence to protect the north but not the south is meaningless. If something happens in the future, it will be a big deal."

"The huge problems of the canal's abolition, waterworks, and commerce along the way have only been temporarily suppressed, and have not been completely solved. At least there are no less than a million people who are dissatisfied with the imperial court, or the people whose families have been ruined by the imperial canal's abolition of the canal. Every day is getting worse. The people of Japan are everywhere along the Yellow River. If something happens to the Yellow River, if the court cannot solve it with the above measures, blood will flow into the river."