The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 400 Zhu Jingkun's suggestion and Zhu Jianxuan's decision
In Zhu Jingkun's report, he also analyzed historical experience before elaborating on his final recommendations.

Zhu Jingkun believes that similar things actually happened before industrialization when the labor force's labor object was land.

During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the early Western Han Dynasty, and after the Three Kingdoms period, there was more arable land and a relatively small population, so the secondary labor force was naturally utilized as much as possible.

Women and children also had to directly participate in farming, and women would also receive land grants from the government, but the amount was usually less than that of men.

However, as the population continues to grow and agricultural tools continue to upgrade, the total land area cannot increase on a large scale.

When the ratio of labor force to labor objects gradually reaches a certain higher critical point, secondary labor force such as women are gradually excluded from labor.

Since the Song Dynasty, the population has continued to reach new heights, and women's participation in labor has continued to decrease. At the same time, the restrictions on women by etiquette and laws have become more and more numerous.

By the time of Chongzhen's reign, the world's population had probably exceeded 200 million.

At that time, it was considered normal for women to stay at home and not go out of the house, and foot binding among women became more and more common.

After the Chongzhen period, although the emperor and the Qing court required common people not to bind their feet, it was never completely eradicated.

Ultimately, the economic contradiction between labor and land cannot be resolved.

It was not until the Xianning period that industrial construction gradually unfolded and the object of labor changed from land to factories, leading to a continuous increase in social demand for labor.

Especially after the Tiangong Dynasty, military settlements and land companies became popular throughout the country, comprehensive industrial construction was launched, and the demand for labor reached a new critical point.

As a result, secondary labor forces such as women and children were naturally reintroduced into the labor market.

But the current Ming Dynasty should not be short of labor.

Ordinary people who cannot see statistical data still have the impression that the population of the Ming Dynasty is between 500 million and 600 million. In fact, the population of the Ming Dynasty is now close to 1 billion.

When the Ming Dynasty had a total population of 500 million to 600 million, the annual population increase was already more than 10 million.

As the population base continues to grow, the annual population increase soon exceeded 20 million, and is now even approaching 30 million.

Over the past twenty years, the population of the Ming Dynasty has increased by an average of 100 million people every five years.

With an average of at least 10 million people sent overseas every year, the population of the Ming Dynasty is now approaching 800 million.

It is impossible for the Ming Dynasty to lack labor.

The various policies currently implemented by the imperial court, while stabilizing the local situation, have also indirectly led to local labor shortages.

So just a little adjustment can change the status quo.

As for what should be done specifically, Zhu Jingkun proposed three directions of thinking.

The first direction, based on the logic of the economic level, is to take advantage of the situation to reduce this phenomenon so that the market is still dominated by able-bodied workers.

Regulations were issued that clearly required that all men, whether able-bodied or semi-able-bodied, working in factories must receive the minimum wage.

Child labor should be banned, and underage children should be explicitly prohibited from working in factories. At the same time, more orphanages can be set up to take in all orphans.

Slow down immigration. Immigration from America, Linzhou and Africa has been going on for many years. The Ming people have already occupied an absolute advantage in the local area, so official immigration can be reduced.

Speed ​​up the elimination of old military settlements and garrisons, and at the same time speed up the mechanized transformation of military settlements and garrisons and state-owned land companies to reduce the demand for labor in state-owned industries.

In short, it means increasing the number of free men in the market, reducing the number of half-men and increasing the cost of use.

Reduce the tendency of private factories to actively employ female and child workers.

The second direction is to maintain the status quo of military settlements and state-owned companies, but to control the use of banding from an institutional level, thereby suppressing the expansion of private manufacturers.

After all, private manufacturers are an unstable factor. They can try anything for profit and exploit any legal loopholes.

The key is that it will lead to the corruption of social morals, promote extravagance among the people and intensify conflicts among the people.

The key is that human resources are always the most important resource. Allowing private manufacturers to control too much human resources will fundamentally reduce the court's control.

Especially for industrial industries where a large number of people are concentrated, it is recommended that the government-run industries should always be the main focus and the scale of private enterprises should be controlled.

The third direction is to accept the current situation and even actively utilize semi-labor force.

The imperial court supported women to take the imperial examinations and become officials, and supported women from the countryside to leave their homes and work in factories to earn money.

At the same time, it was stipulated that the basic wage of a half-man was 70% or even half of that of an able-bodied man.

Maximize the role of these half-men and provide more cheap labor resources for the garrisons and official and civilian factories.

Zhu Jingkun proposed this direction, but he himself did not recommend doing so.

Zhu Jingkun believes that although women have the ability to work, their physical abilities are obviously weaker than men, and they have no advantages over men in intellectual abilities.

In particular, according to the research conducted by Zhu Jingkun in Jiangnan, it was found that women's rational analysis and group collaboration abilities are weaker than men's, and they are more prone to internal disputes.

The key point is that the existing etiquette and legal system is based on the premise that women do not participate in general social governance and social labor.

Introducing them to participate in social governance and generally participate in social labor now will subvert the existing social ethical common sense and may cause social unrest.

At the same time, Ming Dynasty does not lack labor at present.

Rather than bringing women with relatively weaker physical strength into the labor force, it is better to let them give birth to more strong laborers according to tradition.

Introducing universal participation of women in social labor will not bring much benefit but will cause many problems, which will not outweigh the cost. Unless it is done to control population growth, there is no need to do so.

Finally, Zhu Jingkun expressed his opinions specifically on the issue of women taking the imperial examinations and becoming officials.

Official specialized schools for girls can be set up to impart knowledge that traditionally should be mastered by women.

Be a qualified housewife, taking care of your husband and children, doing needlework and embroidery, maintaining good manners, etc.

High schools can appropriately add basic natural knowledge courses, but should avoid involving political knowledge.

The imperial examination for women should be conducted simultaneously with school education, with county examinations for primary schools, prefectural examinations for middle schools, and annual examinations for universities.

Graduates of the university who pass the final examination are awarded the title of "female student", which distinguishes them from the traditional ordinary male students.

They could work in government offices, but they could only hold positions organized by the court that were specifically responsible for women-related work.

For example, the management and education of girls' schools, and the management of various service facilities specifically for women.

At the same time, the system of girls' schools can also be used to select suitable candidates for wives and concubines for royal family members and nobles.

Zhu Jingkun does not recommend allowing women to directly participate in the normal traditional form of imperial examinations.

At the same time, Zhu Jingkun also believed that as long as the problem of labor distribution was slightly solved, even if the court directly banned women from taking the imperial examinations or directly banned factories from hiring female workers, it should not cause too many problems.

After reading the report, Zhu Jianxuan had a very good impression of his son.

Although it still has typical biases and limitations, it has done a sufficiently in-depth analysis and has grasped the internal roots of the problems and phenomena. The degree of women's labor participation determines their real social status.

This social status is similar to a weight, the weight that can be shown on the scale of society, rather than their apparent social class height.

At the same time, the current biological situation determines that women are naturally weaker than men in physical strength.

In a male-dominated society, the proportion of women's participation in labor is, in most cases, not determined by women's own decision, but by the ratio of labor to the objects of labor.

If the total population is low, the total labor force is small, there is more land and jobs, and there is a need to increase the labor force as much as possible, women will be introduced into the labor force.

A large number of men joined the army and died in the two world wars. At the same time, the war's increasing demand for material production also directly led to two waves of female labor.

Now that women have an economic foundation, the women's rights movement has gained momentum, which in turn has led to more women participating in labor.

If the total population is large, the total labor force is large, and the objects of labor, that is, land or jobs, are reduced, women may be driven out of the labor market.

Combined with the influence of actual social and cultural trends, the process of expulsion will be varied.

According to the example given by Zhu Jingkun, after the Song Dynasty, women in Shenzhou were gradually driven out of the agricultural market and could only engage in the simplest family handicrafts.

Various etiquette and legal restrictions were also introduced, and foot binding became a trend in the Song Dynasty.

However, in the early Qing Dynasty and before, foot binding was equivalent to wearing small shoes. When children were young, cloth strips were used to tighten the soles of their feet to control the growth of their feet.

During the Song Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty, the size was simply narrowed, while in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the size began to be controlled as a whole.

In this way, you can put your feet aside after you become an adult. Of course, they are not as flexible as people with normal feet. It is like an adult's body with a child's feet, but you can still run and jump.

However, this wrapping method is prone to failure because the pure cloth strips have no rigid restrictions.

Among the concubines in Emperor Chongzhen's harem, some were successful in foot binding, some were not, and some were unsuccessful. Even those with bound feet could ride horses and run, and all of them had to unbind their feet before entering the palace.

Broken bones appeared after the population explosion in the middle of the Qing Dynasty.

When they are young, their feet are broken and then entangled, which completely eliminates the possibility of growth and completely loses the possibility of running and jumping.

Even if you let it go after adulthood, you won’t be able to function normally, and failure is unlikely.

In this world, Emperor Chongzhen openly banned and strongly opposed foot binding, while the Northern and Southern Dynasties confronted each other for a long time and maintained a low-intensity war for a long time.

Under the dual constraints of the system and reality, although foot binding has not been completely eliminated, it has gradually become a niche hobby.

At the same time, the most extreme bone-breaking techniques were not developed as in the same period in history.

Liberating women and granting them the same political rights as men was the "political correctness" in the civilized world where Zhu Jianxuan lived in his previous life.

But that also occurred in the context of world history in the previous life, and has no social basis in this world.

Even if Zhu Jianxuan, as a ruler, strongly promoted and supported it, it would not have a particularly good effect, because that would be like trying to find a sword by carving a mark on a boat.

Just like Emperor Chongzhen's forced promotion of judicial independence, it was not able to continue at the time, and it was not until the Tiangong Dynasty that it became truly possible to implement it.

Zhu Jianxuan felt that it was his eldest son, a semi-native who grew up in this world, whose suggestions were more realistic.

The Ming Dynasty court should have guided and resolved the internal contradictions of specific problems that arose, rather than forcing women's liberation on the surface.

Mainly, in the absence of external threats, there is no need to proactively overthrow the existing stable social and cultural foundation.

There are natural differences between men and women, and both sides should have different social divisions of labor.

What we should do is to make this division of labor more reasonable, while controlling any form of oppression and confrontation to avoid internal friction between the two sides.

Instead of making women become the same as men, that is a trend of thought fostered by modern European and American societies, which is different from that of China.

Zhu Jianxuan thought about it for a long time and finally decided to adopt some of his eldest son's suggestions.

Special schools for girls were established, factories were prohibited from using child labor, widows were strongly encouraged to remarry, and adultery was severely cracked down.

Expand childcare institutions to accommodate widows, widowers, orphans and those living alone, and promote labor protection and pensions.

At the same time, we will continue to intensify the crackdown on illegal immigration.

As for the attitude towards private manufacturers, Zhu Jianxuan does not think there is a need to suppress them specifically.

State-owned industries can grow rapidly, can provide necessary basic industries, and can concentrate resources on tackling key industries, but their terminal diversity is too poor.

Therefore, private industries must continue to exist for a long time, and they must continue to be allowed to develop on their own and must not be curbed too harshly.

However, Zhu Jianxuan will not specifically support it. If private manufacturers want to recruit people directly, they will have to pay a sufficient price and work harder.

The purpose of private manufacturers is to increase product diversity and give full play to the subjective initiative of private merchants and craftsmen.

In the future, there should be a distinction between government-run enterprises that are stable, and private enterprises that have more money and opportunities, or are more flexible and diverse, with different tendencies.

If private industry can neither provide a more stable environment than state-owned industry nor provide more money, opportunities or even freedom, then it has no meaning to exist.

Therefore, Zhu Jianxuan simply ignored Zhu Jingkun's suggestion to slow down immigration and eliminate the number of garrisons.

Of course, immigration will continue and even accelerate.

The local population is still too large. The key point is that during the industrialization process, the population growth has not decreased significantly.

According to Zhu Jianxuan's understanding, ordinary people used to have as many children as they could afford, but now most people aim to have three to seven children.

This fertility rate is still ridiculously high in modern times, which surprised Zhu Jianxuan a little.

Zhu Jianxuan began to doubt whether his experience from his previous life was still reliable, or whether he had gone too far in making adjustments in order to prevent population decline.

Because past experience generally believed that industrialization might slow down population growth, Zhu Jianxuan took the initiative to create more self-cultivating peasant families.

We continue to build high-standard factory dormitories and establish new military settlements.

Zhu Jianxuan does not build high-density high-rise residential buildings, does not implement universal compulsory education, and does not take the initiative to promote women's liberation.

So much so that it was a bit overdone.

But even so, Zhu Jianxuan's attitude remains unchanged.

The military farming model of the garrisons must continue to develop, and the old garrisons must be disbanded step by step to turn them into self-cultivating farmers, while new garrisons must be continuously established overseas.

The key is to strive to ensure that the rate of immigration keeps pace with the rate of population growth.

Zhu Jianxuan had no idea of ​​controlling birth and population, and his natural goal was to fill the wastelands all over the world with Ming people.

In that case, even if the Ming Empire falls apart in the future, or even a large-scale civil war breaks out, the meat will be rotten in the pot, and no matter how we fight, our people will control the world.

(End of this chapter)