New Shun 1730

After leaving the prefectural government office, there is an abandoned Catholic church not far away.

The cross has been taken down long ago. The ban on religion has had the greatest impact on Fujian, Guangdong and Songjiang Prefecture. In the past, Xu Guangqi's family was one of the earliest believers, and the Catholic culture in Songjiang, Shanghai and other places was quite popular.

Songjiang Prefecture pointed to the church in the distance and said: "This church was originally donated by the granddaughter of Xu Guangqi in the previous dynasty. The Xu family was also a prominent family, and later married the Xu family. The Xu family also served as the Nanjing Tongzhengshi of the previous dynasty. After that, the family prospered. Before this dynasty did not ban religion, there were many people with honors and honors."

"Now this place has been changed into the Salesian Church. The remaining churches are either sold or rented to those who make textiles, or rented to merchants as warehouses."

"This Songjiang Prefecture has always had the habit of drowning baby girls. The Salesian Church also adopts those baby girls whose parents cannot bear to drown them."

Liu Yu nodded, thinking about the Wuzhimi system in Nanyang, and asked : "Where does the money of the Charity Church in Songjiang Prefecture come from? Although money is vulgar, nothing can be done without money."

"Reply to Lord Jing. First, the government allocates some money, and the gentry and merchants donate. But the main thing is interest and land rent. Some official fields are allocated, and there are also gentry who specialize in management, lending money and collecting interest, and then taking in and adopting those baby girls. If the Charity Church in Songjiang Prefecture has accumulated land in the past few years by buying land in disaster years and lending money normally, it has accumulated 1,700 acres of land."

Liu Yu looked up at the abandoned church and thought that it was indeed the same routine whether it was the system of controlling Wu Zhimi, the Charity Church system, or those begging to run charity schools.

Buying land, lending, collecting rent...

I think so. In this day and age, it is not enough to rely on the donations. We must find a way to make money.

These people in need of help are originally victims of this era.

But the way to make money by adopting them is the root cause of their harm.

The land of 1,700 to 1,800 mu, in addition to some official land and some donations, is probably hoarded when the land price is cheap.

The annual rent is enough to collect several thousand taels.

It is definitely run by a prestigious local gentry, and there must be corruption. With such a large estate, it is very easy to make accounts with several thousand taels of income from rent and loans a year. Whether it is nine out and thirteen back, or big buckets and small buckets, there is no problem on the books.

However, it is better to have it than nothing.

"How to raise these baby girls?"

If other high-ranking officials asked, Songjiang Prefecture Governor would probably say some polite words. But he knew that Liu Yu had done many things in Wendeng, so he told the truth directly.

"Since I came here, I know that it is difficult to raise a child, and it costs a lot of money. And we have to hire a wet nurse. So I thought of a way."

"Put these baby girls in the tenant's home for foster care. At the beginning of each month, the people from the charity home will go to test and give some rice money."

"First, with this baby girl, you can get rice money. Second, it is difficult for tenants to marry. If you foster this baby girl in their home, she will be a child bride, and she will also be a daughter-in-law for their son in the future."

"In this way, most of these baby girls will survive."

"Since I did this, there is a song in Songjiang Prefecture: Remember the abandoned children in the east of the city, and the tenants come to the door every month."

After that, he said: "The Whale Marquis knows the suffering of the people, and the people are not stupid, they are very cunning. Before, the Charity Home in Jiaxing Prefecture had a How can a wet nurse feed dozens of people? Someone came up with a 'clever' solution. The Salesian Home admitted to adopting the baby girl, but asked her biological mother to take her back to raise her, and the Salesian Home would give her a few hundred coins for raising her. "

"However, this sounds like a good idea, very clever. But when it was implemented, it made the abandonment of baby girls in Jiaxing Prefecture even more serious: abandon them first, enter the Salesian Home, and then take them back, and you can get money. Who wouldn't abandon them?"

"Although my method is also detrimental to one's virtue, the Whale Marquis also knows how difficult it is to be a child bride. In addition, she was thrown into the tenant's house since she was a child. Since she had to breastfeed, she must have raised her son at the same time. One is a biological child and the other is a foster child. There is a world of difference between them. "

"At the age of seven or eight, As a wife, without the support of parents and brothers and uncles, you can imagine how hard life is. "

"But even so, this method can still save a few more lives. When doing things at the grassroots level, you can never rely on conscience. It is difficult to do things with only conscience but no means. And often the original intention is very good, but the work is worse than without that original intention. "

"In terms of the original intention, the Jiaxing Prefecture Charity House and the Songjiang Prefecture Charity House, the former is stronger. But within a few years, the trend of abandoning babies in Jiaxing Prefecture has become more and more serious, and Songjiang Prefecture is slightly better. "

Liu Yu heard this and praised: "You are right. Relatively speaking, your method is better. Isn't Jiaxing Prefecture encouraging people to abandon babies? After abandoning babies, they take them back to raise them, and get hundreds of coins for nothing. Who wouldn't abandon them? "

"But, your method is only a temporary solution. Do you think there is a fundamental solution to reduce the trend of abandoning baby girls in Songjiang Prefecture?"

The prefect of Songjiang thought for a while and said, "As for the fundamental solution, I have seen some clues. Songjiang Prefecture's industry and commerce are developing day by day, and women are good at spinning and weaving. If cotton, silk and other goods are exported more in the future, raising girls can also make money, and the trend of abandoning baby girls may be alleviated. However, it is hard to say that if you can get married at the age of fourteen, you will work for your husband's family after you get married, and the money you earn will not be given to your parents. "

"Unless Songjiang Prefecture changes its customs again in the future, so that families raise girls until they are twenty before marrying them, in order to save more money for spinning and weaving. If this is possible, the number of abandoned baby girls may be reduced. "

He was also from the Wude Palace, served as a lieutenant around the emperor, and was released from the court. Liu Yu can be regarded as the "role model" who came from Wude Palace in recent years. Songjiang Prefecture Yin has done a lot of research on how Liu Yu became successful.

In addition, the affairs of Songjiang Mansion are closely related to Liu Yu. What is good above will be replicated below.

Just like the naval officers who were born in Jinghai Palace, the gifts they gave Liu Yu were either stones or specimens of local flora and fauna. The Songjiang governor also knew that Liu Yu liked to talk about practical things and do practical things. Not to mention how he did it on weekdays, since he accompanied Liu Yu out today, when he spoke, he looked like he was purely doing practical things.

When he got what he wanted, Liu Yu nodded repeatedly when he spoke.

While talking, they entered the abandoned and renovated church together. The person in charge of the work here quickly knelt down and bowed down. After removing them one by one, Liu Yu took the record book and looked at the whereabouts of the baby girls on it. Sure enough, most of them were given to tenants for foster care.

Even if you give birth to a girl, you can change her to a daughter-in-law after she is raised. But raising children in the early stage is really not something that poor families can afford.

But after all, it is all his own flesh and blood. If he really drowned, or was thrown into a tower for abandoned babies, or left to die in a mass grave, he was still thinking of sending him to a Salesian church, where he might still be able to survive.

In addition, Xu Guangqi's granddaughter has devoted her life to this matter, and Catholicism spread widely before Songjiang Mansion.

Just looking at the matter of adopting abandoned babies, it is indeed better than the previous government. The habit of drowning babies in Songjiang Mansion has gradually become less and less, and most of them are still abandoned.

After casually flipping through the accounts, it was still easy to see that there was something wrong with the accounts. The interest rates for loans given by the Salesian Church actually abide by the law very much, and all loans are made at 30% interest. But Liu Yu dealt with businessmen and moneylenders all day long. Before he got married and became independent, his family also made money. How could he not know the tricks involved?

But he didn't say anything, just looked at it and put it down.

Picking up the registration book, he randomly selected a tenant farmer from a nearby village who adopted a baby girl, and said, "I just want to go and have a look, so I can get to know the life of this tenant farmer in Songjiang Prefecture."

Songjiang Prefecture Yin knew Liu Yu's temper and hurriedly said to those who were eager to inform: "Don't make any noise. I will accompany Marquis Jing there. Don't let his family know in advance."

According to the records in the record book, the group left the city and turned to a nearby village.

People from the Salesian Home come to visit and check on me every month, so I am familiar with the situation. Working in the Salesian Home provides you with money and tax exemption. Therefore, this is not a purely welfare job, but something that requires a lot of hard work to find a way to do.

The people working at the Salesian Home led Liu Yu and others into a gatehouse and only looked at the gatehouse. This was completely different from the tenant farmers' homes that Liu Yu saw in Wendeng and other places.

Compared to the tenant farmers in the north, just looking at this family, it seems that the tenant farmers here live a much better life than the tenant farmers in the north.

There are complete farm tools in the yard, and there is even a small animal.

When he entered, the owner of the house thought he was just someone from the Salesian Hospital, but when he saw the official uniforms behind him, he shivered with fear.

After trying to dissuade him, Liu Yu smiled and said to Songjiang Prefect: "If I hadn't chosen someone at random on my own initiative, I'm sure it wasn't some deceptive trick... I really want to suspect that you knew about it in advance and arranged it for me. As for acting. If I, a tenant in Songjiang Mansion, can do this, what do I have to worry about?"

Songjiang Prefecture Yin hurriedly smiled and said: "This is not only the luck of Marquis Jing, he has chosen such a family. It is also because the seeds planted by Marquis Jing are now bearing fruit. This is not the norm for tenants in Songjiang Prefecture, but there are two types of tenants in Songjiang Prefecture. ”

"Although these two types of households are both called tenants, they are completely different. The household that Marquis Whale saw is exactly the kind of tenant household that is different from other households."

"Although I don't know, I know it even if I make a little guess."

After saying that, the governor of Songjiang asked the farmer: "Is your family the kind of person who sold their land and didn't own any real estate, but only rented and farmed the land?"

This tenant farmer, who looked like a middle peasant based on his family situation, quickly kowtowed and said, "Your Majesty is right. The villain is the kind of person who sells his land and does not own any real estate, but only rents and farms the land."

Liu Yu was slightly startled, and the Songjiang Prefecture Yin smiled and said: "The Marquis Jing does not know something about the countryside of Songjiang Prefecture. This involves two things."

"The first is the overseas trade established by Marquis Whale."

"The second is that the imperial court spread the head tax into acres of land and levied taxes on a per-acre basis, regardless of head."

"Although the official also hopes to govern the people and make the tenants like this family. But the official has to say that this kind of tenants is not a common tenant in the Celestial Dynasty. It is actually a special case of Songjiang Prefecture and is not common in Songjiang Prefecture. It’s not a lot. They are said to be tenant farmers, but they are actually good farmers. Although they are not wealthy, they are still from a middle-class family. This is... a fake tenant farmer.”

"Does Marquis Jing know that since the poll tax was spread across the land, there have been many folk songs?"

"It may be said: The tax is light and the emphasis is on the acres, so it is better to sell the land to tenants; or it may be said that the joys and sorrows are incompatible, and the tenants are stronger than the owners; or it may be said that the taxes are oppressive and the people are powerless to resist, but the lords will not have any trouble if they add labor."