My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 585 Clearly arranged

In just a few words, Zhuge Jin keenly pointed out the changes in the contradictions between people in ancient and modern times.

This immediately gave Lu Su, Liu Bei and others a new perspective on the previous question.

"Zi Yu is indeed far-sighted, but sometimes the words he speaks on the spur of the moment are superficial and too lofty. However, those political views that have been carefully considered and discussed are still very solid." Liu Bei couldn't help but make such a comment in his heart.

Just now, during the previous topic, Zhuge Jin's viewpoint was slightly refuted and revised by my second brother. But those words were just his casual and prospective words, not something that would be implemented immediately.

As for those issues that can be implemented quickly, Zhuge Jin is of course very confident and will only bring them out when they are mature.

No one can expect a wise man to be able to speak with wisdom during brainstorming or inspiring discussions. That would be a mistake, not a human. These are the decision-making process, and of course we should allow for minor mistakes that we don’t think too carefully and correct in time.

As long as the final policy is stable and no decision is made on a whim, that is enough.

After Zhuge Jin initially won the approval of his lord and colleagues, he continued to press on and elaborated:
"Zijing's idea is actually mainly because he did not see the changes in the number of people and land. Of course, in today's world, after more than 20 years of war, a considerable part of the land has been sparsely populated due to massacres.

Cao Cao also wrote in the north, "Bone bones are exposed in the wild, no cock crows for a thousand miles, one out of a hundred people is left alive, the thought of it breaks one's heart." In those places, the people really had to be restrained and devoted to farming in order to restore national strength, so Cao Cao implemented military farming in Yuzhou and Jizhou, strictly restrained the people's work and rest, and governed the people like governing the army.

However, since the reigns of Emperors Huan and Ling, Yizhou and even parts of Jingyang have experienced relatively few wars, and the population is still relatively large. Yizhou still has three million households today, not counting the hidden households. The Chengdu Plain is only a small amount of fertile land, so it doesn't take three million people to farm.

We have taken the lead in implementing a system where taxes, grain and corvée can be offset against each other in prefectures and counties where population decline has been relatively insignificant since the reigns of Emperors Huan and Ling. This is also a way out for the people with little or no land, and for the people who are not good at transporting grain or traveling to other places. It provides them with a new way to survive. Why not do it?"

When Lu Su heard this, he couldn't help but admire it from the bottom of his heart: "This argument is deeply rooted in the debates of ancient and modern times, and it is indeed thought-provoking. But I still have one thing that I don't understand. Just now, it was mentioned that people who don't want to serve corvée can do some odd jobs during the slack season. Is there a far-reaching and detailed plan for this? Ordinary people may not be able to find enough opportunities for short-term industrial and commercial work."

Zhuge Jin was naturally confident in answering this question. He was very confident about the direction of the current development of industry and commerce, and felt that porcelain, tea, steel, and shipbuilding could all be further explored. There were also some upstream supporting supply chains for the military industry that could absorb a lot of labor.

However, Zhuge Jin had never been to Sichuan in this life and did not understand the local industrial and commercial conditions in Yizhou, while Zhuge Liang actually stayed in Yizhou for two years.

Therefore, Zhuge Liang carefully helped his elder brother answer this question: "Zi Jing, don't worry about this question. Not to mention that our army is now smelting iron and copper, building ships and firing porcelain and other industries, which can still absorb the surplus people.

Shu's textile industry is well developed, and Shu brocade is sold all over the world. Now, no matter how much is produced, it can be sold out. Originally, all the men in Shu had to perform corvée labor, and only women had more time to weave in their spare time, so the output of Shu brocade was always low.

But after the implementation of the new law, if you want to give the people in Shu something to do during the slack season, you only need to expand the Shu brocade industry. If the private weaving workshops are not large enough and cannot absorb enough labor, you can also run government-run weaving workshops. Make sure there are workshops in every county. If some counties are large and it is difficult for people to travel to work, you can also set up a government-run workshop in each township.

In this way, other industries such as iron smelting, copper casting, porcelain firing, and tea frying can develop freely and absorb some of the labor force first. The Shujin Workshop serves as a backup, providing a stable job for the people who do not want to perform corvée during the slack season and have no other skills. This two-pronged approach will surely allow the people to live and work in peace and contentment. "

Zhuge Liang's opinion is very concise and easy to understand.

But precisely because it is so simple and easy to understand, and no one has ever thought of it before, it is enough to reflect the wild and shocking nature of this idea.

A mature and prudent person like Lu Su was inevitably caught in the dark and subconsciously exclaimed: "Let men weave brocade?!"

This incident was indeed too unexpected.

Since ancient times, men have farmed and women have woven. Until the Han Dynasty, the textile industry was mainly done by women, leaving very few men to weave. Of course, with the development of industry and commerce in later generations, in dynasties such as the Song and Ming dynasties, this was not so uncommon.

Those who are familiar with middle school history textbooks know that when later textbooks talked about the "emergence of capital in the Ming Dynasty", they mentioned that there were large textile workshops in Jiangnan, which recruited many weavers to work. There were also people who resisted the tax collection in Suzhou Prefecture. The historical records show that most of the machinists who took action were obviously men.

From this we can see that it is not that men cannot work in the textile industry. It is just that since ancient times, there has been a shortage of strong laborers, and there are not enough people to do the heavy physical labor, so men are left to farm and do corvee labor. Textiles, which only require delicate work and not physical strength, are left to women.

But the insight of Zhuge Liang and Zhuge Jin was obviously sharp enough to break this prejudice. They deduced the contradiction that "in ancient times, the land was vast and the population was sparse, while now some areas have more people and less land", and naturally came to the conclusion that in areas where there is a surplus of strong male labor, it is also beneficial to partially allow and encourage men who can't find work to join the textile industry during the slack season.

Zhuge Liang then analyzed Lu Su's surprise and eloquent speech, saying, "What's so strange about this? Some counties in Yizhou still have more people than land. Since men have surplus, why not let them expand their industries and increase their output? Even if this work was originally done by women, as long as the increased Shu brocade can still be sold, the more the better.

Zi Jing may not know that I have seen and heard some strange things during my two years in Shu. Because there are many people and little land in Shu, men have nothing to do during the slack season if they are not doing corvée. Moreover, with so little land, the income from farming in a year may not be as much as what the women in the family can earn from weaving in a year.

As a result, poor families may rely on women for more than half of the money and food they need to feed themselves throughout the year. Therefore, many poor families in Shu are more afraid of their wives than those in the Central Plains. Now that the government-run weaving workshops have been established, it is a good thing for men to put aside their grudges and exchange their labor for more money and food. "

Lu Su had never been to Yizhou, so of course he had no way of knowing these folk stories.

After hearing Zhuge Liang's account of these details, he felt a sense of empathy. He suddenly felt that places with a large population and limited land were indeed more suitable for the development of industry and commerce.

After reaching a consensus on this point, everyone basically had no resistance to the reforms of corvee labor and tax deductions in the following two years.

The rest are minor fixes.

For example, Lu Su also noticed that if the measure of "paying money and grain instead of corvee labor" was implemented, would there be insufficient money among the people and whether there would be sufficient means of payment.

Everyone talks about the matter at hand. In order to get things done, everyone speaks freely when they encounter any difficult issues.

After listening to this, Liu Bei praised Lu Su's meticulousness and felt that this was something that he had to pay attention to.

In later dynasties when forced labor was implemented and grain was exchanged for silver, it was common for the people to be exploited by rising and falling prices.

For example, the "One Whip" system implemented by Zhang Juzheng in the Ming Dynasty was indeed good for the court's finances and saved a lot of cumbersome and wasteful links. However, after the grain tax was converted into silver, the people had to sell their grain before paying the silver. The powerful and wealthy merchants suppressed the grain prices in advance, taking advantage of the fact that you had to sell, and forced you to sell at a low price. When there was a shortage of food, they would hoard grain and reap another wave of profits when the price rose.

It is easy for people of insight in any era to think that the powerful exploit the people by taking advantage of the rise and fall of prices. Lu Su himself was born into a powerful and wealthy family, so he naturally knew how those despicable powerful people did it.

There are not enough copper coins in the world nowadays. If industry and commerce develop too quickly, many things will have to be traded in large quantities, and it will be easy to have a shortage of money. Then there will be huge ups and downs in prices, and the people will naturally be exploited.

Fortunately, Brother Zhuge had previously done some deductions on this issue.

Zhuge Liang unsurprisingly used the trick he used in history to maintain the value of the "Zhi Bai Qian" currency and prevent inflation:

"I think Zijing's worry can be solved by increasing the amount of money circulating in the market. There is not enough money in the market now. If more things flow into the market by force, there will be a shortage of money.

To solve this problem, when Situ and I discussed it earlier, we exhaustively enumerated all the directions of our efforts:
The first direction is to ensure that the same amount of money flows faster. But this cannot be done for the time being, so I won't bother with it.

The second direction is to increase the amount of money. We can work hard on this. We have been opening copper mines in Yuzhang County for many years, and the production is still increasing. Using the copper in Yuzhang to mint coins can definitely alleviate the problem of insufficient money in the market during the pilot of "corvée to coin".

The third direction is to add other things that can be used as substitutes for money. I think Shu brocade is a good choice. Shu brocade is expensive, and its production is controlled by our army and Liu Zhang. Cao thieves and other princes find it difficult to produce it. Therefore, as long as we increase the production of Shu brocade and allow the official price to be unlimited to sell or purchase Shu brocade, Shu brocade can be used as money.

Of course, to prevent others from hoarding or maliciously raising the price, there must be a slight difference between the selling price and the purchase price set by the government. For example, if the government sells a piece of Shu brocade for 4,000 coins, the price can be reduced to 3,500 coins when the government buys it back. This 500 coins, or more than 10% difference, is the "handling fee" for buying back the official price.

As long as we open up the sale and purchase and ensure that we do not break our promise, over time, Shu brocade will be spent like money in the hearts of the people. The problem of money shortage will naturally be solved. "

(End of this chapter)