Imperial Master of the Ming Dynasty

Whether these tenant farmers who participated in the rebellion were taken to do hard labor by the imperial army or to perform military exploits, it had nothing to do with them. The gentry basically got rid of this crisis.

With the plaque of "Law-abiding Gentlemen", unless the court is completely shameless, there is a high probability that they will not be touched.

Although there are other detailed terms and conditions in the entire transaction, the core content is nothing more than that each family spends thousands of stones of food in exchange for peace.

This is by no means an unacceptable condition for the gentry.

However, there are also smart people who have noticed the problem.

Previously, the National Preceptor was talking about "relief through work".

What I want to say here is that in ancient China, there were three main ideas for disaster relief.

The first is to open warehouses and provide food relief, and the food is given away for free. In other words, you are hanging on by a mouthful of porridge. You will starve to death and have no energy to cause trouble. It is only applicable to small-scale famines (at the level of a single prefecture and county). Once the scale of the famine spreads across states, If there is no food to eat, it will not work, because the victims will move to the state capital where there is food on a large scale. After eating, they will go to the next place. If there is no food to eat, they will cause trouble. This kind of disaster relief will not be completed.

The second type is the laissez-faire approach advocated by many scholar-bureaucrats in the Song Dynasty. In Jiang Xinghuo’s previous life, it was the prototype of neoliberal economics, which was also the approach of Magistrate Huang to “sleep when encountering difficulties”. The essence was that the imperial court Never mind, just promulgate policies to provide relevant rewards to local disaster relief workers, and then wait for other regions to actively transport and sell food in order to benefit from high food prices in the disaster areas, thereby stabilizing food prices.

Compared with the first disaster relief idea, once faced with a medium-scale famine, although this method seems quite unreliable, it must be admitted that under the natural control of prices that seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, it generally works quite well. , of course, the price is that many victims will starve to death.

The third type is to use work for relief. It is not uncommon to use work for relief in famine years. It first started in the Spring and Autumn Period during the Jinggong period of Qi State. There is a story in "Yanzi Chunqiu" that "Qi was hungry and Yanzi died on the road. That is to say, there was a famine at that time, and Yan Ying, the doctor, advised him to provide grain relief, but Qi Jinggong did not agree. At that time, Qi Jinggong planned to build a "road sleeping platform", so Yan Ying built the platform with his own hands. In the name of disaster relief, he ordered his subordinate officials to hire the victims with high salaries, lengthened the roads and deliberately delayed the completion date, and built the roads tall and grand, so that the victims could survive the famine years.

Coincidentally, in addition to letting things go, our Iron-blooded Song Dynasty also tried this kind of disaster relief idea. For example, in the eighth year of Xining, Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty, a disaster also occurred in the south of the Yangtze River. Zhao Mo, the prefect of Yuezhou, was ordered to go to the disaster relief. In addition to carrying out disaster relief, , and also recruited 30,000 migrant workers to build the city wall, and paid both wages and food to the migrant workers in the disaster area, which was equivalent to twice the wages. Of course, although the Iron-Blooded Song Dynasty was rich, the wages of so many people were not enough for the local government. They couldn't get it together right away, so they asked local scholar-officials to borrow money. In order to make wealthy people willing to borrow money, it was stipulated that the government would be responsible for repaying it after the disaster relief was completed.

The gentry present were all well-read classics and historical records, and indeed many of them were passed down from the families of scholar-bureaucrats in the Song Dynasty, so they quickly thought of past disaster relief cases in the south of the Yangtze River during the Song Dynasty.

"Could it be that the Imperial Master wants to borrow extra money and food from us to feed these people?"

Many people began to exchange glances with each other.

Donating several thousand dan of food in exchange for a plaque saying "Law-abiding Gentleman" is a good deal.

But if they loan out food and money as wages, they will suffer a big loss.

In fact, this was both an economic account and the reason why work-for-relief had never been implemented on a large scale before the Qing Dynasty.

That is to say, when you worked in the past, the government directly collected corvee labor, but now that you work, the government still has to borrow money to support you? Then why don’t the government take the path of “laissez-faire”? What does it have to do with the black-hearted prefect if you can't survive?

There are three options for disaster relief, and when local officials engage in work-for-relief, they are choosing the path that will cause them the most trouble. No one except a good official who truly serves the country and the people and is not afraid of ruining his career will choose this way.

Because in ancient times, it was very, very difficult to organize large-scale work-for-relief programs.

In the face of disasters, ancient officials were very short of manpower, and they were usually responsible for defending the territory, and it was too late to protect themselves. How to organize? Even if there is an organization, there will always be gangsters, believers from sects such as the White Lotus Sect, idle market thugs, etc. among the victims. These people will not work conscientiously. Not only will they not work, they will also make trouble. , and even take the opportunity to "do big things".

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, when hundreds of thousands of people were building the Yellow River, a "stone man with one eye came to stir up rebellion across the Yellow River." To put it bluntly, isn't that what it was all about? When there are many people, who doesn’t have them? In these troubled times, is there still a shortage of heroes who want to stand out?

Therefore, if you want to implement work-for-relief, you need two essential conditions. One is a government with sufficient manpower, organizational and management capabilities, and the other is an army capable of suppressing any incitement of disaster victims to cause trouble.

The gentry looked at each other, and soon someone asked tentatively: "What does the National Preceptor mean when he talks about work-for-relief? Are you detaining these White Lotus rebels to work as coolies?"

"That's right, Imperial Master, we can understand 'relief', it means disaster relief. What is 'work'?"

"The workers are naturally the civilians responsible for water conservancy projects." Jiang Xinghuo explained calmly, "The National Division is planning to form a relatively large team of civilians to be responsible for repairing dams, rivers, ditches, flood discharge lakes and other water conservancy projects."

"This is a large scale, what do you mean?"

"It must be tens of thousands anyway." Jiang Xinghuo gave a conservative figure. In fact, when it comes to providing work-for-relief, it will definitely be far more than tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands, or even dozens. Ten thousand!

But even so, this number still shocked the gentry of Songjiang Prefecture.

"Tens of thousands of people?!" The gentry gasped again.

After all, on weekdays, building bridges and paving roads to gain a good reputation requires only a few dozen or more than a hundred manpower.

Have you ever imagined how spectacular a large-scale water control project would be?

Of course, it doesn't matter how big the scene is. What the gentry think of Xiao Jiujiu is that they are paying the victims with work-for-relief, or in other words, who is the source of the food for the surrendered White Lotus rebels?

Of course, the gentry did not think that the Imperial Master would be as kind-hearted as Zhao Mo, the governor of Yuezhou in the Song Dynasty, and would pay people wages, but the necessary food should always be provided.

But this food cannot come from them.

The best result that the gentry hoped for was that the imperial masters would help them repair water conservancy facilities without requiring them to pay a penny or a grain of grain.

"Is there enough food in Changzhou Prefecture?"

The leading old man asked tentatively. In fact, he was asking if they were needed to provide food. If so, the negotiation would probably break down.

"enough."

Jiang Xinghuo glanced at them, tapped his fingers regularly on the dining table, and said, "Don't worry, after signing the contract, we won't need you to provide food for the work-for-relief program."

Seeing that the Imperial Master seemed to be easy to talk to, someone soon began to bargain aggressively.

"Then, can we still discuss these thousands of stones of food?"

Jiang Xinghuo raised his eyebrows and glanced over.

The gentry caught by his gaze immediately fell silent.

It seemed as if they were being targeted by a wild beast, and they were terrified.

"You, you have to pay an extra two thousand stones."

"National Master, the court should have some rules." He said bravely.

"rule?"

Jiang Xinghuo shook his head and laughed, and said sarcastically: "The world is so big, could it be the land of the king? The shore of the land must be the ministers of the king. Your Majesty has appointed me to be responsible for flood control and disaster relief in the south of the Yangtze River. Then I will decide the rules here. You guys If you are not convinced, you can go to Nanjing to see His Majesty for comment."

Everyone was speechless.

Jiang Xinghuo continued: "Of course, if you think you are capable, you can also choose to go against me. However, you must carefully consider the consequences of this."

He stopped, and his smile became more indifferent: "You can't afford it."

The gentry were silent.

They knew Jiang Xinghuo wasn't trying to scare people, he could really do this.

After all, who are they if they can't even win against Ding Meixia? When the gentry is said to be powerful, it is based on the all-round influence of the entire class, not their family name.

For a moment, the entire hall was silent, and you could hear a pin drop.

After a long time, someone finally spoke: "Okay, I, Mr. Bai, are willing to pay the grain."

"I'm willing to hand it over too."

The gentry agreed one after another, fearing that if they were half a step too late, they would miss this opportunity.

Finally, in a moment of silence, only the leading old man remained.

He looked around and sighed when he saw that no one was paying attention to him.

When they came to the banquet, they had agreed on an offensive and defensive alliance, but now when faced with the opportunity of "atonement" given by the Imperial Master, everyone was rushing to flatter them.

"I, I am willing too."

At this moment, Huang Ziwei stood in a daze, with unconcealable astonishment in his eyes.

Is this still the Songjiang gentry he knows?

When did it become so easy to compromise?

You must know that Magistrate Huang wanted to do something before, whether it was infrastructure construction or judicial rulings, anything, even a big one, as long as it involved local powerful and influential gentry, it would inevitably be difficult.

Inviting people to a restaurant for a banquet requires three or four invitations to settle the matter, which makes him, the prefect of Songjiang, become a grandson.

So later Huang Ziwei simply started to show off, just do whatever you want.

Hearing that the Imperial Preceptor Jiang Xinghuo was coming, Magistrate Huang did not have any illusions about the Imperial Preceptor. He felt that even if the Imperial Preceptor was careless and had a butcher's knife in his hand, he would not be able to kill all the gentry in Songjiang Prefecture without any reason. Kill them all, right? Even the charge of colluding with the White Lotus rebels is not enough, because among the gentry here, there are only eighty or less sons serving in the court. There are too many forces involved. Unless the court is crazy, it is impossible for them to rule by themselves. Fundamental things.

After all, to put it bluntly, the emperor is the biggest landlord, so why bother the landlord?

If all the gentry in an important government were slaughtered, the landowners and scholars would be in danger, and the dynasty would lose its "scholarship". The dynasty and the gentry would rule the world together.

Huang Ziwei never thought that someone could force the gentry to pay obediently, let alone that the gentry would cooperate so obediently?

This simply subverted his past understanding.

"Okay, let's sign and pledge."

Jiang Xinghuo said lightly.

The gentlemen present hesitated for a moment, then gritted their teeth and wrote their names and pressed their bright red fingerprints.

When all the gentry signed the deed and were about to leave, Jiang Xinghuo knocked on the table again and said, "Drink the porridge before leaving."

"One porridge and one meal, when you think about where you came from, it's not easy; half a thread, half a thread, always think about the difficulty of material resources. Don't you understand this principle?"

As soon as this statement came out, the gentry were stunned. Naturally, they could not have heard of "Zhu Xi's Family Instructions" written by Zhu Bolu in the future.

I just feel that, Master Imperial Master, your words are truly a motto.

So, I held my nose and drank it.

All the gentry dispersed, Jiang Xinghuo waved his hand, and the soldiers behind him also walked out of the screen, and Cao Song stood beside him respectfully.

Jiang Xinghuo looked at the pieces of paper in his hand and smiled with relief.

Do the gentry think they are lifting up the house and opening the windows?

In fact, once this piece of paper was signed, the foundation of their actual rule among the people was cut off.

From now on, more than 100,000 tenant farmers will become part of the manual workshop area and will never return to the fields to accept their personal rule and ideological restraint.

Moreover, these people who have seen the new lifestyle have their own social connections. They will definitely spread the word from one to ten and spread the fire of the first industrial revolution throughout Jiangnan and even the world!

By then, it will be too late for the gentry to realize what they have given up.

PS: [Important reminder (there is no charge for this content)] Chapters 316 to 356 are about the rectification of officialdom and the suppression of rebellions in Jiangnan. They do not contain any theoretical knowledge. They are all practical content. If you are not interested, you can jump directly to Chapter 366. "Class" will contain theoretical knowledge content from now on.