New Shun 1730

Shocked or accustomed to it, both are social consciousness.

And social consciousness relies on material existence.

So, the reason for this shock is very simple.

Because in terms of material existence, the reason is very simple:

First: the ecology of North China has collapsed.

Second: the land that has been cultivated for two or three thousand years and the full popularization of land private ownership have long since disappeared from the village community public land. The public land here refers to the forest land and grassland collectively owned by the village community. The exclusive property rights of the land were completed too early, or the property rights of the "enclosure movement" were completed too early, so that the self-cultivating farmers in North China could only accept straw as fuel.

The enclosure movement in Britain solved the contradiction that this small hillside or this small grassland is yours or mine, or everyone can come to chop wood and herd cattle under the public land system.

This kind of "what to cook" reflects the social material foundation, and it is not even a feature of North China.

Historically, similar situations have occurred in the cotton seed improvement problem in northern Jiangsu in East China: because of the tenancy system and the bizarre share system, tenants are more willing to plant local cotton with more straw, because there is a lack of fuel in southern Jiangsu, and the straw of these local cotton can still be sold for a few dollars, and the bizarre share system straw in the cotton fields of northern Jiangsu belongs to farmers.

Material determines consciousness, and the material basis is like this, so naturally there will be a mentality of being shocked by the use of logs to chop firewood for living and cooking.

Of course, this material condition is not all bad.

Dialectically speaking, this is one of the reasons why the Dashun court can support the development of Jingxi Coal Mine and Xuzhou Coal Mine, and it has become an opportunity to upgrade the steam engine with well salt and other matching products.

At the same time, it also allows these immigrants to feel the abundance of products here before the first farming and harvesting. At least, the freedom of cooking and burning firewood has been realized.

This is a remarkable achievement. Historically, until the 1950s, many families in western Shandong often had no food - not just no rice to cook, but even no smoke to burn. Some villages had only one or two mu of land per capita due to salinization, and they could not survive with just sorghum stalks.

At this time, changes in the material level brought about conflicts in consciousness.

In addition to the simple material basis, this conflict also includes certain subjective policies and the "changing customs" of social consciousness.

Starting from the Dashun Jinghai immigration, Liu Yu consciously cultivated the "public land" consciousness and the small community consciousness of the village community in the policy of immigration villages.

In short, in addition to cultivated land and private land, there are also public land and grasslands that need to be redistributed every few years.

First, it is to cultivate social consciousness. Distinguish what is "mine", what is "ours", and what is "national". If everything is "mine" and "yours", then it is difficult to have the consciousness of "ours"; and if even the consciousness of "ours" cannot be established, it is difficult to understand what is "national".

Secondly, it is to rebuild the grassroots organizational power. Organizational power needs the support of power.

Power means the right to economic distribution, otherwise who will hang you? The right to economic distribution is the deliberate redivision of grassland every few years, the collective use of public land, and the prohibition of private ownership of public land resources.

Given the material conditions here, things such as grassland, firewood forest, and collective forest are theoretically unnecessary.

It is different from the situation in Dashun, where the material conditions do not allow and cannot exist at all.

Therefore, some policy rules are still added here. Relying on the initiative of the policy supervisor, the public land and grassland redistribution rights of the village community are forcibly divided in places where the material is rich and there are grasslands.

It is used to cultivate collective social consciousness and remove the cognition of "either mine or yours" caused by the millennium of private ownership, so that they understand that in addition to "mine" and "yours", there is also something called "everyone's".

Sooner or later, the grassland will be distributed unfairly, and sooner or later, there will be relatives and strangers. What to do then? The villagers need to grow up in the struggle. In theory, letting the daughter-in-law jump up and down at the door of the village chief and scold like a shrew is also a struggle.

However, this struggle is a matter of the future. For now, the new immigrants don’t think so much, but think about how to build their homes as soon as possible.

Even Wang Cheng, who was clamoring to hang himself and carry a coffin, and was eventually tied to a car and pushed onto the boat by his sons, put away his grievances after experiencing the great abundance of supplies, at least fuel supplies, and wandered to the village where their family will settle with the private school teacher.

It’s called a village, but now there is actually nothing, only a central point marked with wood and stone.

The men have to complete the construction of simple shacks in winter, and strive to have a place to live before tomorrow’s spring planting.

This time, Wang Cheng finally believed that there is indeed a lot of land here.

Or, he finally believed that in the temperate zone with distinct seasons, abundant rainfall and a relatively adaptable climate, there really was such a large area of ​​land that had not been cultivated.

Seeing his sons and other men chopping trees and digging holes together, he quickly made a natural move as a diligent farmer and wanted to help. But soon, he was persuaded to come back by the young man.

Whether it was persuasion or scolding, it was almost the same, basically saying don't come to cause trouble.

For example, lifting wood requires an even number of people. Moreover, the people who are paired up must have similar physical strength. Otherwise, it will not be helpful but will cause trouble, and there may even be an accident.

Mr. Private School is not unable to lift it with his hands or carry it on his shoulders, but he also followed the rules here and did not participate in the work of building a new home. After all, this village has nothing to do with him, and the cultivated land has nothing to do with him either.

Looking at Wang Cheng who was nagging and giving orders, the private school teacher said: "Brother, you should take a rest. We have officials like Nong Zheng to direct us, but you don't understand. Here you are just adding chaos. "

"Everyone here performs their duties, and men and women have their own division of labor. I think you should take a rest and don't cause trouble here."

"That day I went to your house to drink and persuaded you to sell all your things, but you still scolded me. Now that you see this, you know that what I said that day was true, right?"

"As long as you are willing to work hard, there is plenty of land. You cannot be a landlord, but if you have the strength that Zhu Bajie had when he was a son-in-law, you can cultivate three to four hundred acres of land by yourself and no one will care about it. You may even wish to do it. "

Wang Cheng cursed subconsciously: "You are just a pig!"

But despite the scolding, I also vaguely feel that many of my ideas need to be changed.

When you were in Luxi, what was the dream of a farmer?

If I have a dream, it would definitely be to have the opportunity to buy more land in the future and become a landlord.

This is a social problem, not an individual problem. Consciousness, morality, law, etc., all need to maintain the existing system. The system in Dashun is like that. The land is privately owned and can be annexed. Of course, the landowner is the dream of the owner-cultivator.

What else could it be?

Isn't it better to leave the yeoman alone and become a worker? That was a kick in the ass to the brain. At least for now, thinking this way must be a fool's errand.

However, when I got here, I realized that even though Wang Cheng had never studied economics or political economics, he knew that Mr. Private School was right.

Here, the landlord is out of the question.

There is plenty of land, but no one wants to be a sharecropper.

Moreover, the land sales here are also very troublesome, with some shadows of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, involving permanent industry, private land, and a deformed variant of the land return system, etc. I’ve been chatting with the “landlord” these past few days, and I’ve gotten to know some of the principles here.

Therefore, here, for at least twenty or thirty years, if the court continues this policy, it will be impossible for the landlords to do so.

Because landlords live in symbiosis with tenants and long-term and short-term workers. Without light, there is no shadow, and vice versa.

There was only land, no tenants and long-term laborers, and no landlords.

Although I have not yet experienced a complete spring planting and autumn harvest, I have seen the vast land here, the suitable climate, and the fact that it is not the kind of place where wolves are everywhere, tigers and leopards are rampant, and you have to use a stick to urinate in winter. scene.

Wang Cheng is still full of hope for the future. Of course, the main thing is that it's all here, just like giving birth to a child. Once you give birth, you can't stuff it back, so you can only be full of hope.

When I arrived, I spent nearly half a year wandering at sea and experienced many storms. I knew that it was impossible to go back, so I had to be hopeful.

After scolding the teacher who teased him, Wang Cheng couldn't help but ask again: "Brother, if the court keeps its word, this will be a good place."

After that, he stretched out his old and calloused fingers, took a handful of soil, squeezed it hard in his hand, and said: "This soil is really good. It is indeed a good place to farm here. But I It feels like this year has been like a dream. You said, why would the court let us come to such a good place? I just can’t believe it.”

"The Li'er is there, and the officials are not talking about protecting each other. They just say that the emperor has three or five poor relatives. I really can't believe that the court will let us come to such a wonderful place."

The private school teacher laughed and said helplessly: "Brother, what do you want me to say? How to say it?"

"I said it's very simple."

"The imperial court really feels that the Yellow River may have a decisive battle in the north."

"So the imperial court really wanted to build the Yellow River."

"The imperial court doesn't want to slaughter you all. So it asked you to move here."

"This truth is very simple. It couldn't be simpler. But you just don't believe it. What do you want me to say?"

The private school teacher was also helpless.

Although Dashun was a feudal dynasty, it was a feudal dynasty that was not too fucked up. Historically speaking, the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which moved its borders and banned the sea before 1683, was a piece of the feudal dynasty.

The problem is that Dashun has never done such a bad thing, so people here in Dashun think that migrating the Yellow River is a very troublesome thing.

I have never experienced it, so I can't understand what the private school teacher means when he says, "The court doesn't want to slaughter you all."

Of course, Dashun is actually not a good bird, and many systemic oppressions are also deep-rooted.

The simplest problems of the Grand Canal are protecting the canal but not the farmland, competing for water to support the canal in the dry season, and releasing water to flood the fields in the rainy season to protect the canal. Dashun has been doing it year after year. But compared to what the private school teacher said was terrible, "In order to build the Yellow River, they directly forced people to kill and massacre to create a no-man's land more than ten miles wide, and moved the boundaries to build canals." After all, it was beyond the scope of the Dashun farmers at this time. The imaginary category of good people.

Now Wang Cheng uses his understanding of "how can such a good thing be our turn" to find reasons for his previous thoughts. It is not unreasonable.

Because of what the society in Dashun is like on a daily basis, or in other words, under private ownership of land and extremely exclusive ownership, everyone is the enemy of everyone else, and everyone else is their own enemy. It is natural for the people of Dashun to Thinking of a simple truth: Why would such a good thing happen to him when the emperor still has three or five poor relatives?

And Mr. Private School’s explanation is really helpless: In fact, the imperial court wants to build the Yellow River, but it doesn’t want to kill you. It's really that simple and not that troublesome.

Of course, this massacre cannot be said to be an unreasonable massacre.

If you really want to slaughter them, it's very simple: just force them to relocate without considering resettlement. Then they will definitely rebel, and if they rebel, there will be a reason to massacre them.

Mr. Private School has not studied much, and he has never experienced the forbidden sea that does not exist in this world.

But I have read the basic history books.

Not to mention these small farmers, they are soldiers and legions with outstanding merits. In order to save money, aren't they just massacred? Isn't it easier to massacre the common people than to massacre those troops who have made great achievements in war?

Therefore, the reason he could give could only be this straightforward: there were people in the court who still believed in benevolence and did not want to massacre the people.

This truth is so simple and straightforward that even though Wang Cheng didn't want to believe it, after thinking about it for a long time, he still couldn't refute it.

"Then you tell me, the imperial court has announced that from now on it will be 80% tax and 1% tax. The first five years will be tax-free, and there will be no other assessments except national taxes. Is this a sure thing?"

Wang Cheng lacks a basic understanding of what taxes are for. For example, if he thinks of reasonable things such as raising an army, building rivers, and building roads, they all rely on taxes.

However, his long-term awareness has made him accustomed to taxation as a matter of course.

Isn't it a matter of course to hand over the emperor's food?

Why do we need to pay the royal rations?

Because I have to pay the imperial rations, I have to pay the imperial rations.

The private school teacher thought for a while and said: "I believe this. In fact, I am looking forward to paying the emperor's rations here. It's not that I don't have back pain when I stand and talk, but speaking of it, paying the emperor's rations is not necessarily a bad thing."

"You have to know that paying imperial rations here means that students here are qualified to take the imperial examination, take the practical examination, enter the Imperial Academy, and even pass the imperial examination to be the top scholar."

"What I'm afraid of is that we don't pay the royal rations here, and the imperial court only uses this place as a prison. Or maybe it's just to give the emigrants a place to go, instead of just being refugees and starving to death."

"If you really want to do that... it's not a good thing. As the saying goes, learn martial arts and sell yourself to the emperor's family. The prerequisite for getting ahead is that the imperial court really regards this place as the mainland of the Celestial Empire."

"Look at me, I have been studying for several years and teaching for more than ten years, and I was moved here. In short, the court still hopes that the people here will not forget that thousands of miles away, they also want to read with the same text, drive with the same track, and even have the same righteousness. It’s the same across the sea.”

"It's always good to be literate. Even though there won't be many candidates here in the future, I think it's not a bad thing to be literate."

"I don't farm, but I teach, so you may not be able to see some things clearly, but I can see them more clearly."

"The imperial court allowed the Bayi tax to be implemented here, and its intention was to restore 'Zhou rites and schools'."

"In the past, how could academies, prefecture and county schools, volunteer schools, etc. be maintained? They relied on academic fields."

"School land is tax-free and requires little tax, and is rented out to support students' education."

"Now, the imperial court is here to implement a school system. It will no longer allow tax-free school fields, but will allocate money from the imperial grain tax to run schools."

"You have also seen the situation here. Even if there is a school field, will you come to rent it? If this is the case, then cut it off from the root."

"In my opinion, that's a good thing."

"Furthermore, it also shows that the imperial court does not want to make this place a prison, but wants to make it a county directly under the jurisdiction. Otherwise...if it is just to move people here, people like me don't have to come. It will be a waste of the imperial court." money."

"If it's just to relocate people to relieve the difficulties of the Yellow River, why do we need to collect taxes, run schools, and even teach people like me to occupy seats on the boats?"

Different identities have different perspectives.

The perspective of a homesteader and the perspective of running here to continue to be a teacher are naturally different.

The private school teacher is a scholar, but he is just a scholar.

Fan Jin was also a scholar before he won the imperial examination.

In the late Ming Dynasty, Gu Yanwu lamented that the number of students was hundreds of thousands. In Dashun, the number of students is about one million.

Scholars like private school teachers are very common in Dashun.

This generality means that they are not out of work.

Teaching to enlighten people is also labor, and it is not a break from work.

And as long as you don't quit your job, you won't become a mentally ill person.

Being out of work makes people bewildered.

Labor makes people sober.

The private school teacher has both participated in social labor and read books. He can still more or less distinguish the difference between "field assistance for students" and "central funding to build schools."

Although, in Dashun, the latter is generally what "retro-style Confucian scholars" like to talk about most: schools, six officials, Zhou rites, appropriations, ten taxes and one, etc.

Of course, the private school teacher in Wangjiazhuang and the retro-style Confucian scholars are incompatible with each other.

Relatively speaking, he still prefers the "retro" model in which the central government levies taxes and allocates funds to run schools, and does not like the "renting of land and renting students to assist students" model.

Since he had gone to school, he knew to a certain extent how many twists and turns there were in a school with no taxes and no taxes.

Xuetian began in the Northern Song Dynasty and developed in the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties.

It is also equivalent to the imperial court directly allocating production materials to the school. The school, as a landlord, collects rent from tenants, maintains the operation of the school, and subsidizes students studying.

The official supported school land, those who can enjoy the benefits of school land rent, must be at the level of scholars. If you don't go to school, the official school land has basically nothing to do with you. After entering school, various subsidies are mostly paid from the school land.

Now, in the eyes of the private school teacher, what the court wants to do here is more like popularizing school education. In other words, the taxes collected should be used to run schools, and the people who enjoy the benefits should be considered as all registered citizens.

He can still tell the difference between them.

Is this a good thing? The private school teacher thinks that this is certainly a good thing.

However, doing so will have costs and will bear the dissatisfaction of the people - if the number of imperial examinations is limited, what is the point of ordinary people studying? Why pay taxes to run schools? It is better to change the 8:1 tax to 1:15 tax, and everyone will be happy. Collecting money to run schools is supposed to bear dissatisfaction.

Therefore, from the perspective of private school teachers, it is certainly a good thing to charge money to run schools and bear dissatisfaction, rather than directly throwing the problem to the local and grassroots like the Northern Song Dynasty and the Mongols, or letting the county school rent out the means of production for rent in order to save trouble.

This means that, at the very least, the court does not intend to use this place as a vassal state.

This is of great significance to a scholar who has read the books of sages, attended school, and opened a private school.

To be honest, he is not very satisfied with the attitude towards them here: you are just chickens [scholars], just a group of people who work for wages to teach.

Although scholars are generally associated with sourness in Dashun, they still have a unique identity after all. They are also treated preferentially and have a sacred aura in the hierarchy.

In the Celestial Empire, the three words [scholars] have special meanings.

And here, the special meaning of "scholars" is directly broken: they are just people who receive monthly wages, and there is no difference between them and those who weave, cut wood, or even farm.

Scholars here do not have the sacredness of the imperial examination system of the Celestial Empire. They are just an identity card and a qualification certificate, proving that you are qualified to receive a salary in the school.

This change may be difficult for scholars who have left their jobs to accept.

But for these scholars who do not leave their jobs, there is nothing difficult to accept, just a little discomfort, and they will soon accept it.

In short, there are nearly one million students in Dashun, and not all of them are Fan Jin and Kong Yiji. There are still some scholars who work like Ji Xianian, the writer, Wang Tai, the paper firecracker seller, Gai Kuan, the teahouse owner, and Jing Yuan, the tailor, in the last chapter of "The Scholars", and do not think it is shameful to not leave their jobs.