Volume 1: Birth! Seven time travelers Chapter 71: Northwest Crisis Emerges (Part 2)
"Come, Kuanren, please have some tea. This is the Mingqian that I begged from Grandfather Emperor, and I only got two taels in total."
"Thank you, Your Highness, for your kindness."
"Kuanren's hometown is Shunde, Guangdong. Hmm, the geography is not very good. Is Shunde on the coast?"
"Your Highness, Shunde is located on the west bank of the Pearl River estuary, so it can be considered a coastal area."
"Oh, the mouth of the Pearl River." Before traveling through time, Zhu Youdong, a foodie, had watched every episode of CCTV's "Searching for Flavors in Shunde". How could he not know where Shunde was? He started with this topic just to make the atmosphere as relaxed as possible so that he could get a relatively realistic picture.
"Kuanren, since Shunde is near the seaport, it must be located in the Pearl River Delta, right? The land here should be extremely fertile?"
"Your Highness is really able to draw inferences from one example. It is true. The land in my hometown is fertile. Rice can be grown at least twice a year, and some can even be grown three times. And the yield per acre is not low. If the year is good and the typhoon does not land... the best fields can yield about 70 to 80 grams of rice per acre."
"Hmm." Zhu Youdong gently closed the lid of the teapot and rolled his eyes: "Kuanren seems to be quite familiar with the things in the fields."
"I grew up in a poor family. Before I passed the imperial examination, I had to work in the fields to farm so that I could study."
"Oh, that's rare. Then, Kuanren, how does Xianyang, where you are in charge now, compare to Shunde?"
"this……"
"I'll tell you the truth. The reason I invited you to Beijing this time is that Liang Yong's incident was just an introduction. The real reason is that I want to understand the specific situation in the northwest. So, please speak freely. No matter what you say, I will listen carefully."
Taking a deep breath, Chen Shiji stood up and bowed deeply to Zhu Youdong: "I know in my heart that if it weren't for the Crown Prince's protection, I would have been dismissed from my post by the false report of Liang Zhongshi. So, I will just treat myself as a commoner and say some unpleasant things to Your Highness."
"Well, go ahead and tell me, tell me. What I want to hear is the truth. It doesn't matter if it sounds good or not. As long as it's true, it's fine."
"Your Highness just asked about the difference between Shunde and Xianyang. Well, let's put it this way. Shunde can only be regarded as a middle-level county in the Guangdong Provincial Government. And Xianyang is an undisputed upper-level county in the Shaanxi Provincial Government. However, compared with Shunde, the gap between Xianyang and Shunde is not a little bit."
Perhaps it was the atmosphere that Zhu Youdong had been creating that had worked, or perhaps Chen Shiji himself wanted to speak, so at this point he simply left his seat and walked to the center of the hall.
"Your Highness, the quality of a county depends on its production. Shunde's rice can be harvested two or three times a year, with an average yield of about four shi per mu, or eight shi per year. Xianyang's land can only grow wheat or millet once a year, with an average yield of two to three shi per mu. In this respect alone, Xianyang is far behind Shunde.
Secondly, although there are some wealthy families in Shunde who own thousands of acres of fertile land, most farmers have at least two or three acres of paddy fields. Before I passed the imperial examination, my family had 20 acres of paddy fields. In addition to me, there was an elder brother and two younger brothers in the family. The four brothers worked together to provide enough food and clothing for the whole family. In Xianyang, because the land yields less, having two or three acres of thin land at home is of no use at all. Therefore, in Xianyang, there are many landless farmers who need to cultivate other people's land to survive. "
At this point, Chen Shiji sighed deeply: "Your Highness, in my Ming Dynasty, tenant farmers generally rent other people's land and pay 50% of the annual harvest as rent. In Shunde, my hometown, due to the high yield, the landlords generally set the rent at 40%. In Xianyang, due to the low yield, the rent is generally 55% or even 60%. In this way, a landless farmer in Xianyang must rent at least 20 mu of land to barely make ends meet."
Zhu Youdong couldn't help but frown when he heard this: It was obvious that farmers in the south of the Ming Dynasty, even if they didn't own any land, could get by by renting five or six acres of other people's land . But farmers in the north had to rent at least twenty acres of land.
No matter how much land the farmers in the south have, most of them own a few acres of land. In the north, the majority of farmers are completely landless.
Let's not talk about whether there is enough land for people to cultivate. The key point is: people have limited strength. If a farmer manages only five acres of land and twenty acres of land, the results will be completely different. The former can cultivate intensively, while the latter can only cultivate extensively and rely almost entirely on the weather.
The yield per mu in the north is already low due to unfavorable natural conditions, and coupled with such extensive farming, it creates a vicious cycle!
"Kuanren, so the farmers in Xianyang are living much worse than those in Shunde?"
"That's right, Your Highness. Farmers in Shunde, as long as they have 10 to 20 mu of paddy fields and no sick people at home, will dare to send at least one child to school. Farmers in Xianyang, even if they have 200 to 300 mu of land, will have to think over and over again before making a decision to send a child to school."
"Well, that's great. Land and food are of course the foundation of a family. But in my opinion, these people should not just farm, right?"
"Your Highness is wise. Most farmers, except for a few foolish men and women, have to do other things besides farming. For example, in Shunde, my hometown, in addition to farming, we also raise fish and sell some river and seafood. Uh, and there is also, I think Your Highness knows that Shunde is very close to the sea, and this private salt..."
"Haha, no problem, no problem. As the crown prince, I must of course say that smuggled salt must be strictly cracked down. But today, you and I had a conversation, so I just listened to this."
"Thank you for your understanding, Your Highness. Your Highness, based on my observations during my two years in Xianyang, the farmers in Shaanxi rely mainly on tea trade for their livelihoods besides farming. Twenty or thirty years ago, it was said that the income from tea accounted for 50% to 60% of the income of an average farmer. However, in recent years, this income has dropped sharply to almost nothing."
Shaanxi is geographically adjacent to Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai, etc. During the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty, after the Ming Dynasty gave up Hami Guard, Shaanxi had become a border province in the northwest of the Ming Dynasty.
In the surrounding areas, most of the people there are nomadic people , who usually eat meat. Therefore, tea is a necessity for nomadic people. During the reigns of Emperor Wuzong, Emperor Shizong and even Emperor Muzong of the Ming Dynasty, tea from Shaanxi was sold throughout the northwest. Many Shaanxi farmers benefited from this.
"Well, Kuanren, I know about the tea trade in Shaanxi. But why did you say just now that the people of Shaanxi have hardly benefited from it?"
"It's all because of those Jing barbarians!"
"Um?"
The Jing Manzi mentioned by Chen Shiji are the people of Huguang (Hunan and Hubei were one provincial government during the Ming Dynasty). Huguang played a pivotal role in the economy of the middle and late Ming Dynasty, and was known as "When Huguang is prosperous, the world is prosperous." After discovering the high profits of border tea trade, the people of Huguang began to dump a large amount of tea produced in Huguang to Shaanxi.
Due to the superior geographical environment and other factors, the price of Huguang tea is still much cheaper than Shaanxi local tea even after long-distance transportation to Shaanxi. Therefore, Shaanxi merchants no longer purchase tea from local tea farmers, but instead become second-hand dealers: buying tea from Huguang people and then reselling it to many nomadic peoples in the northwest.
As a result, tea growers and merchants in Huguang and merchants in Shaanxi all became rich. However, the already poor farmers in Shaanxi lost one more thing in their limited income and became even poorer.
