New Shun 1730

Relying on the in-depth inheritance and preaching of the Taizhou School, and the village covenant, which is more positive than negative in changing customs and habits even in the eyes of later generations, the people in the village community are basically satisfied with all this.

Although the previous large-scale infrastructure did seriously damage the vitality of the village community, it seems to have survived now. How to transform it in the future, or something else, is another matter to be done in the future.

Zhao Liben also didn't know that this system of village covenants and village communities was maintained by four legs.

Baojia.

Shecang.

Xiangxue.

Shengtang. Or called Juhehui.

Among them, Baojia is the administrative agency of the village community.

Shengtang or Juhehui is a grassroots organization. Although it has a strong religious flavor, it is indeed effective.

The rest, excluding the national taxes that must be paid - Liu Yu did not give them special support because he felt that this road was not feasible and did not want to set it up as a model.

Shecang and Xiangxue both need money and materials.

The Confucian scholars and gentry who organized this village community are kind and even somewhat idealistic.

It should be said that this piece of land of 240,000 mu has gathered the idealistic and pragmatic Confucian scholars of the whole Jiangsu Province.

However, Jiangsu Province has 120,000 square kilometers, 480,000 square miles, and 150 million mu of land instead of arable land.

If the same configuration is spread all over the province, it must be spread all over the world, and there must be at least 2 million to 3 million gentry, scholars, and students with the same beliefs, the same level, and the same disregard for money.

In any case, the Confucian scholars who organized this township community are really not for making money.

They don't collect rent.

However, even if they don't collect rent, in addition to paying national taxes, community warehouses, township schools, and the large-scale infrastructure of the Huainan reclamation area forced by Liu Yu all require manpower, material resources, and financial resources.

10% of the land income must be paid for national taxes.

It's not much, but the problem is that after the tax reform, silver must be paid instead of in kind. In the context of Liu Yu using Northeast Nanyang commercial grain to impact Jiangsu grain prices, the actual tax payment amount is about 15%, or even higher.

Moreover, because the canal had just been completed, the capital contractors had not yet taken over the iron turbines that were brought to the countryside, and they really did not have enough silver.

12% of the land income was to be stored in the community granary for emergency use.

An average of 8% of the land income was to maintain the education system of 8-year-olds entering primary school as envisioned by the Yanli School.

In addition, the canal and seawall infrastructure in recent years, even if you can choose to do corvée, you actually have to spend money, which is almost 15% every year.

In addition, the village agreement and the first-class village community security also require the organization of the people to repair the river, press oil, dye cloth, etc., plus water control, river repair and embankment repair, which makes the corvée of the village community average about 70 days per year.

There are also support for widows, widowers and orphans, and land grants to some orphans before they reach adulthood...

Even with such pressure, some people can still make a living thanks to the kindness of the gentry, the lack of land rent and the problem of land occupation by landlords, the idealistic Confucian scholars who gather here and even pay out of their own pockets, and the fact that the place of corvée is not far from their homes.

Under the baojia system and the holy temple organization, the farming assistance society and mutual aid society organized based on baojia and holy learning have initially solved the problem of insufficient oxen.

Some idealistic medical students often come here to help villagers treat diseases for free, which also saves a lot of expenses. After all, Li Zhen was a medical student in the past. In the Yanli School, under the education of the separate halls, under the so-called "life is the holy way" concept, there are indeed many people who study astronomy, geography, medicine and agricultural books.

In addition, the strict land grant system strictly prohibits any form of land trading, and firmly opposes the hired farming system, ensuring that the tiller has his own land and that the land is not annexed.

But that's it.

It's not that they didn't do well, but the development outside was too fast, so they couldn't hold on.

They were surrounded by the embryonic zone of capitalism. It's impossible to achieve comprehensive self-sufficiency with a piece of land of 240,000 mu.

Zhao Liben's wife felt this the most.

These Confucian scholars are good. In order to embody the idea of ​​providing for the widowed, the orphaned and the lonely, and thanks to the help of quasi-religious organizations such as the Shengtang Juhehui, Zhao Liben's wife and children did not starve to death during the years he was away from home.

The 25 mu of land was given to others as land for widows and children to cultivate, and half of the income was collected to support the family and go to school.

His wife could only live by weaving.

But the problem is that the ultimate ideal of the village agreement is still "men farming and women weaving".

What can his wife weaving exchange for?

Others are men farming and women weaving, but his wife spins and weaves by herself, but can't sell it. And cotton has to be exchanged with people in the village.

Merchants outside... merchants outside don't buy their cloth at all.

Because these cloths are not easy to sell.

The short staple of degraded Asian cotton and the small cloth produced by old looms cannot compete with the large cloth woven by iron wheel looms and long-staple cotton yarn in the family textile industry after the Industrial Revolution.

In the extreme perfect state of men farming and women weaving, women are completely dependent on men, and widows have no way to survive.

Ethics and marriage laws are here. The man is not dead, but has been exiled or run away. He cannot unilaterally divorce and remarry.

The ownership of Zhao Liben's wife belongs to Zhao Liben, not to herself or her parents.

Farming is the main occupation for men.

Weaving is a sideline for women.

This is completely opposite to the situation in the surrounding villages of Nantong, where the sideline is the main occupation and the main occupation is the sideline.

Zhao Liben's wife really can't sell the cloth she weaves. If she doesn't grow cotton herself, then the cotton must be replaced.

It can't be sold internally, and there is no farming man in the family who can grant fifty acres of land... It can only be said that it is a blessing to have a younger brother who values ​​​​the family, relying on the help of the Holy Church Reunion Association, and his compassion and kindness. A man who is full of Confucian scholars can still live.

In other words, this is a testing ground for Confucian scholars, but in the normal outside world...either in the budding area of ​​capitalism, one goes to work in a factory; or, one dies.

Therefore, the industrial revolution in Dashun and the resilience of the textile industry, or that the crushing rate can be higher, are due to the fact that Nantong's side business has become the main business, and the main business has become a side business.

What is most similar to the textile industry families in Nantong are not the workers in the handicraft factories in London and Paris, but more like the farm workers in Ireland who grow some potatoes in small plots of land and earn wages mainly by growing wheat in the enclosed farms of the nobles. Once potatoes get sick, there will be mass deaths - this is the Nantong model. Men farm and women weave, but the cultivated land is about the same size as the Irish allotment, or even worse. Grow some food, and most of the monetary income comes from working. If you are in a hurry, you can do it if you pay a little money, but the buyer can squeeze you a little more harshly.

But in this case, if you don’t want to do it, and people are rushing to do what you have, it will naturally be difficult for widows like this who have no land, have children, and cannot accept the continued low wages to support their children, find a job.

It is the same all over the world. When British and French factories and factories were rising, they gave priority to recruiting people from nearby areas who had their own homes. Only when there is a shortage of manpower will we recruit workers who require additional expenses for accommodation.

Therefore, no matter from which angle you look at it, if people like Zhao Liben, who were affected by Liu Yu's reforms, committed crimes, and were exiled, their wives and children can survive, no matter what, they should be grateful to those who organized the rural village community.

This cannot be denied.

According to Liu Yu's method, in Zhao Liben's situation, the wife went out to be sold and ended up dead, the child was caught wandering and sent to the reformatory for evil children, and the second and third brothers signed a deed of sale and went to Nanyang or Ceylon. This is a normal situation.

Now, two of Zhao Liben's original three children are still alive, and his wife is also still alive. This is not normal at all.

When Zhao Liben ran away, he had three children.

The eldest son is the eldest son. There are two girls left.

Now when I returned, the youngest girl died of diphtheria.

The eldest son and daughter are still alive.

As long as his son is alive, he will have 25 acres of farmland.

According to the Three-Character Classic of the Yan-Li school, students should enter school at the age of eight and live in a rural school at the age of ten, in order to cultivate "classmate feelings."

Food and housing are all supported by township school funds collected from the township commune, which reduces a lot of survival pressure on the family.

But Xiang Xue’s money certainly didn’t come out of thin air.

Theoretically, in this situation, we can learn from the early Ming Dynasty, or learn from the current North Korea.

Township communes generally collect cloth and fold it, allowing those who cultivate the land to exchange for those who specialize in weaving in order to pay the "tax" and promote the development of commodity exchange.

But after all, it is just a small rural community, not a country.

There is no need to raise troops or national defense, and it is useless to collect cloth, so the widow who can only spin and weave cannot make money with her little skills.

This time Zhao Liben came back, and with the money he had exchanged for his life from the riot in the gold mine, he bought some wine and meat, and the former widow's family had a good meal.

There is no meat, and this is not around the city. Even if pigs are killed, they will not stupidly choose to kill pigs in the spring and summer when wild vegetables and pigweeds begin to sprout. Isn’t that something wrong with their brains?

But there was wine, and some salted lard that was considered "canned food" in later generations.

The second brother killed another chicken and cooked a fish, which was served with fragrant lard. It was a hearty meal.

Picking up the wine bowl and taking a sip, Zhao Liben couldn't help but laugh and said: "This is the sorghum wine from Guandong. I drink this stuff over there, but when I come back here, I drink this again."

The second brother took a sip, wiped the corner of his mouth and said: "How can anyone make wine here now? All they drink is Guandong wine, sorghum wine over there, and sugar cane wine from Nanyang. I heard that they come in boats and ships." Luck this way.”

"On the reclamation farms in the south, wheat is grown in the fall and cotton is grown in the spring. There is nothing for making wine."

"Hey, let me tell you, brother, I heard that in Guandong, you have to be hit with a stick when you pee? Is it true?"

Zhao Liben took a piece of fish with chopsticks and deftly picked out the fish bones with his tongue. Thinking that he would take them to Guandong, he couldn't help but spat: "Don't listen to their nonsense. How can it be so scary? It's really cold, but if you go to the oil shop It’s not difficult to change into a pair of cotton trousers after working for half a month, cooking pots, or working on the Liao River.”

"I said, second brother, when I came back from Songjiang, I saw that people there were busy harvesting wheat and growing cotton. Don't the gentlemen here know nothing about agronomy and can't grow cotton? So they said they should grow some cotton. Isn't cotton now better than Is food expensive?”

His second brother chuckled, shook his head and said: "It's difficult. It's difficult. Cotton eats up the ground. It's not that we haven't grown it before, but the cotton grown at that time was old. Now the old cotton is worthless. People come outside to collect cotton. , all harvesting new cotton.”

"It's not that you can't learn, but they don't accept our students at all. Because...because something happened."

Speaking of this, Zhao Liben's second brother gritted his teeth.

"Someone was caught before for mixing old cotton bolls with cotton and selling them. What they said made sense, saying that they wanted to improve cotton seeds, and mix old cotton bolls with cotton and sell them as new cotton. When the time came, they would sell the cotton seeds and plant them again, making them neither new nor old. They said that it would directly affect the improvement and replacement of cotton seeds in the world, and that they would not accept cotton from us."

"When they collected the lint cotton and ginned it to remove the seeds, the old seeds were mixed with the new seeds. The Duke of Xingguo said that he had wasted many years and offended hundreds of thousands of people just to change the cotton seeds. The new seeds and old seeds were mixed together, and that batch of cotton seeds was completely useless. I heard that he was furious because of this incident. He even sent people to the township to scold our township head."