New Shun 1730

Abe Masafuku believed that he had seen through Liu Yu's hidden purpose, but he did not think it was a bad thing.

Although Dashun might want to sell more goods in the future, the benefits of opening the port to Japan are enough to offset it.

At the very least, if Dashun buys Japanese rice, the price of rice in Japan can be raised. Samurai are the foundation of the shogunate, and their salary is rice. When the price of rice is high, they have money to spend, which can make them more loyal to the shogunate and is also beneficial to the rule of each feudal domain.

If the population is really controlled in the future, according to Liu Yu's "millions of people" is enough, Abe Masafuku has seen a bright future.

By then, the people will have one cho per capita, pay about 10 shi of tribute every year, and count the "two-mao method" that is, the winter wheat harvested three times in two years on the Dashun side, and the family will still have about 20 shi of grain left per year. Not only can it ensure that small farmers have enough disaster resistance, but also can export a large amount of grain to Dashun at that time to balance the outflow of gold and silver.

Japan's military system and political system at that time determined that there were indeed many "redundant" people in the population other than samurai.

The existence of these people could not increase food production because the land determined the upper limit; they had to eat more food to survive, causing social unrest and uprisings everywhere; they were not qualified to serve in the army, and the separation of farmers and soldiers and the sword hunting order were added; taxes were not counted per head, but according to the number of acres of land.

Abe Masafuku agreed with Liu Yu's statement: What's the use of redundant people?

After the defeat, reform was imperative.

However, whether it was Abe Masafuku or Tokugawa Yoshimune, the lesson they learned from the defeat was that their firearms were inferior to others.

Japanese public opinion believed that the feudal lords had held back the shogunate. If it weren't for the feudal lords holding back, the shogunate would have fought to the end and established a new monarch, at least without tribute.

With this lesson, the direction of reform was basically determined.

Radical, as Liu Yu said, try to be a good comprador, save money to encourage Sinology, create a force that can fight against the samurai, and unify the country in the future.

Reactionary, as Abe Masafuku thought, everything revolves around the stability of the samurai system and the samurai law, and the foundation is the hierarchy, identity differences, and the small farmers cannot be completely fragmented.

For the former, you must have the courage to die and the clan be exterminated after failure.

For the latter, it is to reduce the population, maintain the per capita land area, and ensure the small peasant economy to ensure the samurai rule.

For Dashun, the former, Japan must have people who are patriotic and use China to gain self-esteem.

Moreover, Liu Yu said that he supported the shogunate to reduce the feudal system, but Zhang Yi said that he would give Chu 500 miles of fertile land.

In the latter case, Japan's population would be locked at around 10 million. Once the industrial age came, with a population of 10 million, Hokkaido with iron and coal mines was robbed by the Dashun, Nagasaki with coal and iron was within the range of gunboats, and the country lacked raw materials. If they tried hard, they might become an important grain exporter.

But they could change it as they pleased, because it would cost money anyway. In Liu Yu's opinion, the shogunate was bound to be the comprador. As long as they wanted to reform, they had to do it properly, whether it was reactionary or radical.

Conservatives who were neither reactionary nor radical, curbed consumption and encouraged frugality, and they would be easily beaten again.

Now we should teach Abe Masafuku a lesson, and then go back and find Kang Budai to concoct an article "On Population" with quotations from classics and spread it widely in Japan.

It would be best if Japan had another famine in the next few years, so that Japan would know what the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were, and immediately exclaim that this book was the true way of heaven and earth.

He had not read "On Population", but he had seen pigs run even though he had not eaten pork, and he also knew the three famous arguments of Malthus.

Suppose that forty items are produced, but there are fifty people who need them. If nothing is done, the forty richest people will definitely buy these things.

If there is social welfare and poverty relief, each of the forty people below the richest ten will be given one dollar. Then the result is that the first forty people will buy the things, but the price of the things will inevitably increase by one dollar.

So social welfare is of no use, but will cause people in the middle class to spend more money.

Suppose that fifty items are produced, and the wages paid to the workers are only thirty dollars, plus the factory owner, then nineteen items will inevitably not be sold. If they cannot be sold, the workers can only be laid off, resulting in fewer people who can afford to buy things, and then continue to lay off until society collapses.

However, if there are nineteen nobles, knights, servants, etc., who do not produce, but only buy and do not sell, then all the fifty items will be sold, and the wages of the workers will tend to stabilize.

Also, there is a poor law in the UK, and too many people in the poorhouse are living a life worse than death. Some members of parliament suggested that people should be allowed to hire the poor in the poorhouse to build houses at a low price.

First, it will alleviate the housing problem in Britain, and second, it will promote social employment.

Malthus immediately opposed it, believing that it was precisely because there were few houses that the poor did not get married and had few children. If the Poor Law encouraged large-scale house building, the result would be that "having a house would cause relationships between men and women to occur too early, resulting in more children. These children would enter the labor market, which would inevitably lead to more housing shortages and lower wages. In other words, the more houses are built, the more houses are lacking."

On the contrary, if houses are not built, people who cannot afford houses will not have children, and there will be fewer and fewer people, and eventually there will be no shortage of houses.

The less houses are built, the less there will be a shortage of houses.

Similarly, there is the problem of food.

The more expensive the food, the less there will be a shortage of food.

These arguments are very famous. In fact, it is precisely because of these arguments that Malthus's "Essay on the Principle of Population" is no longer an isolated pamphlet, but a set of political economics in its own system, not just a study of population.

If it is only the study of the opposite side of population, it cannot allow the "knowledge of the Celestial Empire" to continue to lead the direction of the surrounding barbarians. After all, with the opening of ports, the old system will continue to disintegrate.

If you want to be the Celestial Empire, you must lead the trend in the tribute system in this era of change and point out the way for them one by one.

Malthus's entire system is not just about population issues, but involves all aspects of economics and politics, which is almost perfectly in line with the various needs of the Japanese ruling class in the era of change.

Just like the views put forward by Malthus in the famous Corn Law Debate, it will definitely be welcomed by the Japanese ruling class.

That is: the higher the price of food, the more wealth people who rely on land rent or rice salary income have, and the more they can buy, thereby promoting the stability of industry and commerce. Regardless of whether the rent belongs to the landlord, the samurai, or the government.

The higher the price of grain, the higher the wages of hired workers. In this way, the wages of workers are also higher.

When grain is expensive, workers' wages are higher, farmers get rich by selling grain, and the rentiers and rice-earning classes are also rich. If everyone is rich, then as long as the price of grain is raised, the whole country will prosper.

At the same time, if the price of grain is low, the cost of hiring workers will be low, and industry and commerce will prosper for a short time. When industry and commerce are improved, the number of people engaged in non-agricultural industry and commerce will increase, and Malthus concluded that "too much industrial population is not conducive to the peace and happiness of the country."

This whole system will be welcomed by the Japanese ruling class from now on and in the future.

In particular, if we want to plan for the long term, we need to consider that one day in the future, with the opening of ports and the impact on the small peasant economy, the development of industry and commerce will inevitably produce a debate: Is land rent an obstacle to social development? Or does it curb social development? Does the new era need a non-productive rentier class? Is the existence of samurai good or bad for society?

If the foundation had been laid earlier, the samurai class would have directly used Malthus's theory to denounce those who believed that samurai were useless in developing industry and commerce.

From the theory of the necessity of the third party, to the promotion of social development by land rent, to the excessive industrial population being detrimental to national peace and happiness, this whole set of things is enough to make the samurai's reactionary resistance reasonable.

Moreover, Malthus was originally a conservative, believing that the traditional culture of Britain lies in the aristocracy and landlords. The development of industry and commerce will destroy the traditional culture of Britain.

The traditional culture lies in the aristocracy and samurai, which is itself a very "powerful" argument direction.

It was used to reduce the population in the early stage and to support the samurai's reactionary counterattack as theoretical support in the later stage, providing a full set of services.

Dashun was keeping an eye on the various feudal lords and not allowing them to launch a movement to overthrow the shogunate with a small victory. If the ruling class was stable, the reform would not succeed.

If the shogunate really wanted to unify the feudal lords and abolish the samurai, it would have to prepare for at least 20 to 30 years.

If Dashun had not completed the steam revolution and had not obtained the raw material base in India, it would have directly imitated Zhang Yi to bully Chu, speak nonsense, support the feudal lords to resist the shogunate, and directly bombard Edo.

If the steam revolution was completed and a unified Japanese market with the land rent class abolished was urgently needed, then sit back and watch the show.

If there was also chaos within the country, then incite the samurai to raise the magical Malthusian rebellion, shouting that the orthodoxy of the Japanese tribe lies in the samurai system, and the existence of samurai who eat salary but do not produce can promote the development of industry and commerce.

If it felt that Japan was somewhat difficult to control, then just roll up your sleeves and do it yourself, intervene militarily, divide and rule, pull one faction to fight another, and dismember Japan into Kyushu Island, Shikoku Island, Kanto, and Kansai.

Blocking several possibilities, even if you don't know the full picture of "The Theory of Population", you have heard of the famous Malthusian Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Based on this line of thought, considering where Malthus sat, and the extension of this line of thought, it is easy to concoct a skill to curb Japan's population growth; and to provide a theory for the samurai class to resist when Japan awakens in the future.

It's just that my cultural level is relatively low, so I can replace the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with the Four Evils to prevent the book from being seized by Japanese customs. "The Scenery of the Imperial Capital" was banned for a hundred years because it introduced the Catholic Church in the capital of the Ming Dynasty.

He can't do it, but Kang Budai's cultural level is enough. He is not an orthodox Confucian scholar but is quite close to Huang Lao. The magic change of the meaning of "Heavenly Way" should be enough to spread in Japan.

This can also be regarded as a kind of "radiation effect of the Celestial Empire on the cultural circle". Anyway, Japan can't learn the ideas of the Celestial Empire's reform; the possibility of Japan's reform cannot be copied by the Celestial Empire. The two countries seem to have similar texts, but their economic foundations and political systems are very different. If they want to continue to exert influence on Japan, they can only "customize" it for them.