New Shun 1730

Cities and people are sometimes similar. The joys and sorrows of ordinary people do not attract much attention; but the joys and sorrows of Ming people always attract the attention of many people.

Yangzhou and Huai'an have always been star cities.

The decline of such star cities has brought an impact on the literati group, which is imaginable.

It was prosperous during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Song Dynasty, and even the Yuan Dynasty. It was still good in the Ming Dynasty. But it was destroyed in the hands of Dashun.

A thousand years of culture was destroyed in an instant.

A thousand years of scenery turned into ruins.

In the original history, Yu Dafu once went to Yangzhou with the poets' praises and historical dreams of 1,500 years, looking for the Jiangnan of his dreams.

But after arriving, he wrote to Lin Yutang: I advise you not to visit Yangzhou, but to dream about Shanghai, imagining Ouyang Gong's Pingshan Hall; Wang Shizhen's Red Bridge; Shi Gebu in "Peach Blossom Fan"; Lin Ruhai in "Dream of Red Mansions"; and the villas of salt merchants, the enchantresses of local officials... You don't have to travel, it's better to dream.

Now Yu Dashun is even more like this.

Now it's not just the rise and fall of one or two cities, but it seems to be a symbol.

A millennium cultural context, a millennium inheritance of transformation and pain, and the suffering under the great changes that have not happened in a thousand years.

In addition, the dreams of literati are broken.

Songjiang Prefecture, which prospered after the capital moved south, does not have the taste of Yangzhou, but a new era full of money.

It lacks the singing girls of Yangzhou, the elegance of Xiaoqinhuai River, and the luxury and refinement of salt merchants.

From the data, the effect is actually very good.

A large amount of capital fled south across the Yangtze River, and the effect of capital concentration began to manifest. More light industries developed. Even the taxation of the court and Liu Yu's reform of relying on capital and land taxation showed very positive data.

It can even be said that the Jiangnan region ushered in a golden age of foreign trade and active capital.

But the taste... is no longer the taste of Jiangnan in the hearts of literati.

The snow-like sarcasm, impeachment, and accusation did not have much impact on Liu Yu.

Because the imperial power did not care about the decline of Yangzhou, but only cared about whether the central fiscal revenue was affected. Especially after the canal was no longer used for the grain transport, even the concerns about the stability of the grain transport did not exist. Yangzhou had become a discardable price in the heart of the imperial power.

So when the reform was carried out in the first year of Weixin, the emperor assigned troops to Liu Yu for the purpose of future suppression.

From the abolition of the canal grain transport by Dashun to the end of the reform in Jiangsu in the fifth year of Weixin, more than 40 uprisings, large and small, with grain transport workers, small merchants, trackers, laborers, and salt workers as the main body, broke out.

In total, about 30,000 people were massacred.

No less than 200,000 people were gradually relocated to the Northeast, Nanyang and other places, not including the number of people who migrated within Jiangsu Province.

This reform, which involved salt administration, cotton seed improvement, industrial and commercial development, silver-based paper currency, cotton textile industry, capital enrichment, and population migration, changed not only Jiangsu, but also the economic structure of Dashun as a whole.

It is unprecedented that a reform has such a large impact.

…………

The fifth year of Weixin, the twelfth month.

Northeast, outside the pass, Huanglongfu.

Later generations called this place Changchun and Gongzhuling.

Now Dashun has set up a government here and adopted the name of Huanglongfu, which is to show its martial arts of attacking Huanglong.

The biting cold wind blew from the northwest, rolling up thousands of piles of snow.

A mist rose on the Dongliao River, which had already frozen.

It was the breath of people and the sweat of horses, which condensed in the cold wind.

Hundreds of sleds slid forward on the smooth and flat ice surface.

The horses with nailed shoes stepped on the hard surface of the Dongliao River, making a clattering sound. The driver huddled on the sled, and the leather hat on his head was covered with white frost.

With his hands in his sleeves, his cotton jacket kept a little warmth, and the whip was clamped under his armpits. The horses were very obedient and did not need to be whipped.

The ice surface was densely covered with traces left by the horses' hooves. I don't know how many sleds passed by on the ice every day.

In the evening, the caravan arrived at Sanjiangkou, Liaoyuan Prefecture.

Here, it is close to the intersection of the East and West Liaohe Rivers. Standing on the East Liaohe River, you can hear it clearly on the West Liaohe River.

The wool of Chifeng and Tongliao in the upper reaches of the West Liaohe River; the three-piece suit of soybeans and the two-piece suit of sorghum in the upper reaches of the East Liaohe River meet here.

With the advantages of Liaohe River's water transportation and the free highway after the winter ice, the Liaohe River Basin was pulled into the primary capitalist system of Jiangsu Province after the reform.

In other words, capital is changing the vast area outside Shanhaiguan according to its own needs. Because it is one of the most vulnerable places for small peasant economy, it is not that the local people do not want to do men farming and women weaving, but the conditions do not allow it.

Most of the transportation-developed areas along the river south of the Songliao watershed have completely become economic vassals of Jiangsu capital in these years.

Capital in southern Jiangsu wants to eat.

Central Jiangsu plus northern Jiangsu are far from enough to satisfy the appetite of southern Jiangsu capital.

The most notable thing.

The banknotes of Songjiangfu Bank became legal tender in the Liaohe River Basin, completely replacing silver and copper coins.

In fact, a large amount of over-issued paper money that could not be exchanged for enough silver and gold was used to transport tussah silk, soybeans, bean cakes, soybean oil, sorghum, sorghum wine, wood tar, etc. from south of the Songliao watershed to southern Jiangsu along the Liaohe River.

Let’s put it this way.

In this era when farmers in most parts of Dashun were generally poor, many lower-class people were still hungry and had a serious lack of protein intake.

The largest commodity traded to the south from the Songliao watershed was the fragrant bean cakes rich in protein after oil was pressed.

And most of these bean cakes... were used as fertilizers in the cotton fields in northern Jiangsu where land was enclosed for cotton planting.

As Liu Yu pointed out in a conversation with a large number of capitalists in southern Jiangsu this year, in the autumn of the fifth year of Weixin:

"The people in the Northeast do not want men to farm and women to weave, but the conditions do not allow it. Cotton planting is an impossible fantasy."

"The task of capital in the Northeast is not to disintegrate the small peasant economy of men farming and women weaving, because it does not exist at all."

"Instead, it should quickly pull the south of the Songliao watershed into the economic system of capital. Make all grain and agricultural products commercialized as vassals of Jiangsu capital."

"We should use cotton from northern Jiangsu, cotton cloth from Nantong, small commodities from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and paper money from Songjiang Prefecture, along the Liaohe River, and use sea transportation to quickly and violently pull the Songliao watershed into the economy of this capital. system. "

"The simplest cycle is to use the bean cakes in the Northeast to fertilize the fields, grow more cotton, and then thank the large demand for cotton caused by the cold winter in the Northeast for more bean cakes. "

"Paper money only needs to ensure that it can buy cotton, cotton cloth, small commodities, silk, sugar and spices in Nanyang, and porcelain in Jiangxi in southern Jiangsu. Then, it is equivalent to that paper money can buy 50 million mu of land in the Liaohe River Basin. "

"And 50 million mu of land of soybeans and sorghum has strengthened the firmness of paper money, which is an important boost to Jiangsu's implementation of comprehensive paper money reform. The Academy of Sciences is absolutely not allowed to try conceptual cotton seeds and promote cotton planting in Shenyang. "

These words are already very naked.

It is a summary of the reforms in the past few years that have forced some regions into the capitalist system.

It is also an important reminder to capital before he is about to leave Jiangsu.

In fact, reality is developing in this way.

As Liu Yu said before, Jiangsu Province alone cannot support the continued development of capitalism in southern Jiangsu. If we do not want to destroy the small peasant economy and cause a comprehensive collapse and the combination of Li Zicheng and Hong Xiuquan, we must abandon the canal economic belt and use the advantages of sea transportation to pull Japan, North Korea, Northeast China, Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America into the system.

The very unstable, fragile, and even unformed small peasant economy in Northeast China, where men farm and women weave, has completely pulled Northeast China into this system within 20 years.

Cold and cotton have a wonderful and magical relationship.

Cotton cannot be grown in cold areas.

But the per capita demand for cotton in cold areas is several times that of warm areas.

The same latitude area of ​​the Songliao watershed in Europe is Bordeaux, France, which is protected by the North Atlantic warm current; the place where Liu Yu fought with the Russians in the past, the coldest place in winter was close to minus 50 degrees Celsius, and the same latitude area in Europe was Amsterdam, which was impossible to need six kilograms of cotton trousers; the cold Changjin Lake, the same latitude is the warm Lisbon and Barcelona, ​​where people may be full of poetic praise for the ghost thing snow.

And it is absolutely impossible to grow cotton in these places that need cotton the most. In places further south, such as around Shenyang, local officials tried to grow cotton, but after only one year, they were attacked by the capital of southern Jiangsu and a large amount of cheap cotton under the command of Liu Yu, which made the local rich families afraid to grow cotton for at least 30 years.

Just like the cotton trousers of the people who were resting in Sanjiangkou County, Liaoyuan Prefecture, Huanglong Prefecture at this time, the cotton trousers inside were made of improved Mexican long-staple cotton from northern Jiangsu. There were four pounds of cotton in a pair of cotton trousers.

As the saying goes here, a fluctuation in the futures exchange in Songjiang Prefecture would shake the Jilin Shipyard to Yingkou.

The magic at the intersection of the old era and the new era has already been staged.

The people in the mountainous areas at the junction of Hubei and Sichuan were still revolting to avoid starvation; about 4 million shi of bean cakes were buried in the cotton fields of northern Jiangsu and the vegetable fields of southern Jiangsu every year, and were piled up with pig manure and cow manure to ferment into fertilizer.

The magic from this macro perspective was not felt by the millions of people affected.

Just like a fish living in water will not feel the existence of water; just like a person living in air, only after the air is sucked away will he feel the importance of air.

The new things in the past 20 years have been taken for granted by the people here since ancient times.

Just like the Sanjiangkou County of Huanglongfu at this moment.

The urban structure of the Liaohe River Basin is different from that of other places: there is a county government office on the street of the county town, but opposite the government office is not a Confucian temple or a shrine of sages, but a banknote exchange office in southern Jiangsu.

Business people rush here and spend some handling fees to deposit and withdraw some cash - this was not a thing more than 20 years ago, but now it is indispensable - the former imperial court's Tongbao can also be exchanged for banknotes here; if it is those gold diggers who have made a fortune and have not been killed by their partners, they must also exchange the gold in their hands for silver paper notes according to the exchange rate in southern Jiangsu a few months ago.

The shops lined up on the street, whether they were grain warehouses or shops selling groceries, cotton cloth and cotton, all used paper money for transactions. Even the people in the county government collected taxes in the same way.

Although in theory, a small note of one cent of silver could be exchanged for a copper coin or one cent of silver, in reality no one exchanged it.

If paper money can buy white cloth, black cloth, blue cloth, red hairbands, tin foil, burning paper rattles, tobacco, liquor, beef and mutton, silk, white sugar, brown sugar water, tea, spices, and iron plowshares, then why should we change them into copper coins?