There is no such thing as the Kangxi and Qianlong eras

Chapter 375 Japan's Vision
The new notice from the Prince of Han's residence was posted all over the streets and alleys of Nanjing within a few days.

Next to each notice, there were two Han soldiers guarding it, and there were also specially hired scholars who were responsible for reading the notices to the illiterate people.

"Scholar, what does this notice say?"

"That's right! They even let us beggars and vagrants come to hear the notices."

"Could it be that this new dynasty is also going to expel us?"

"Probably not. I think this Prince of Han seems like a good emperor. A good emperor wouldn't make things difficult for us beggars."

"That's hard to say..."

The onlookers were abuzz with discussion, even the beggars and vagrants were chattering and making a ruckus.

The scholar in charge of reading the notice spent a long time shouting and yelling before he finally managed to control the situation, and then began to read the notice aloud.

The scholar's voice wasn't very loud, so not everyone could hear it, but the notice was brief and didn't take much effort to read.

Those who didn't hear it were mostly on the periphery; they either went to ask the people in the inner circle or squeezed forward to hear the second reading.

After reading the notice three times, I finally got a general idea of ​​what it said.

In summary, there are three points:
First, everyone can go to the township to participate in the land distribution (including beggars and vagrants).

Second, in the first year of land distribution, all taxes were waived, and in the second year, taxes were reduced by half.

Third, cotton fields and rice fields will be taxed separately and will no longer be combined.

After the notice was read, the crowd erupted in excitement, and everyone, including beggars and vagrants, spontaneously knelt down and kowtowed.

The onlookers didn't understand any fancy praise, or even recognize the words written on the notice, but once the person reading it to them finished, all they could do was kneel down, kowtow, and shout "Long live the Emperor!"

The land redistribution and tax exemption were only one aspect; what truly moved the people was the separate taxation of cotton and rice fields.

What Nie Yu considered a very ordinary matter, something he could decide with a wave of his hand, was something the puppet Qing government could never accomplish.

Collecting separate taxes for cotton fields and rice fields would not only disrupt the administrative order of the Qing dynasty, but would also significantly reduce the revenue of the Jiangnan region.

They're just pretending to be ignorant when they know the truth!

The people of Jiangnan can tolerate it, so what does it matter if a few more taxes are collected?
Now, the Han army has arrived and immediately sorted out the messy taxes. Then they have formulated new laws that separate cotton from rice, and the people of Nanjing immediately cheered "Long live the Emperor!"

People celebrated in the streets and alleys.

Many people simply took out firecrackers and hung them in front of their doors.

Hearing the commotion, the beggars and vagrants no longer idly stayed in Nanjing. Instead, they gathered and lined up at the government registration office mentioned in the notice, preparing to settle down in the countryside and be allocated land.

Aside from local gangs that have formed something like the "Beggars' Guild," who would actually want to run out and become a beggar, going hungry every day, and turning into a cold corpse at the alleyway if they get sick or have a conflict?

Moreover, even if you join the "Beggars' Sect", it doesn't mean you can rest easy.

This is the ancient "Beggars' Guild." How many good people can survive in here?
Those who do well are always the leaders, while those at the bottom are left begging for food.

The beggars and vagrants of Nanjing eagerly broke away from their gangs and went to the government office to register for settlement and land distribution in the towns and villages.

The gang leaders were naturally furious, but their anger was useless; they couldn't fight city hall. They weren't even much of a force, just a little finger. The Han government in Nanjing spent almost a month setting up multiple registration offices inside and outside the city, barely enough to accommodate the huge number of beggars and vagrants registering.

Among them were some Nanjing citizens and slaves who couldn't stand the intense pressure and competition in Nanjing, so they chose to give up their urban household registration and move to rural towns and villages to live.

In recent years, the abnormal population growth pressure in Nanjing has finally been somewhat alleviated.

This decree was not only implemented in Nanjing, but also promoted and implemented in all the prefectures and counties in Jiangnan under Han rule.

Nie Yu did want to drive the industrial revolution, but the Jiangnan region was suppressed by the puppet Qing dynasty, and its industry was practically non-existent.

Even if the Han Dynasty had steam engines and could quickly establish an industrial base, the large urban population backlog would be impossible to absorb in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.

Moreover, the excessive growth of the urban population and the large-scale abandonment of rural land are actually unreasonable. It can be said that the pace has been too fast and backfired.

The British solution to this mess was to exile the excess urban population to their colonies, turn all the abandoned land into factories, completely disregard the lives of the local farmers, and frantically expand their maritime economy through overseas colonization.

The Han Dynasty certainly cannot do that; the Han Dynasty is not a tiny island nation like England.

The Han Dynasty's base is already too large, and it will only grow larger in the future. If they were to completely copy the British, they would only end up with nothing.

Therefore, it is necessary to dilute the urban population and allow all the beggars and vagrants who are unemployed and can only hang out in gangs without engaging in production to resume production and work.

With the urban population largely dispersed, the remaining labor force can be deployed to the early stages of industrialization, including building towns and cities, dredging canals and wharves, constructing water conservancy dikes, and sending workers to coastal areas to supplement the labor force urgently needed for opening up the sea.

The opening of the sea was particularly important here. Only by opening up maritime trade and expanding foreign trade channels could the cotton and raw silk industry produced in the Jiangnan region of the Han Dynasty achieve rapid development.

In fact, as early as the late Ming Dynasty, the raw silk industry in the Jiangnan region of China was very developed, and it was even able to export to Mexico, a trade known as the "silver silk trade".

The current state of decline is due to both the suppression and oppression by foreign colonial powers and the fault of the puppet Qing dynasty.

Emperor Qianlong's complete isolationism led Japan to follow suit, and half of China's "silver thread trade" was sold to Mexico, while the other half was sold to Japan.

Until the 20th century, Japan accounted for a significant share of China's foreign exchange inflows of silver (one-third of the world's silver production).

After all, it's quite bizarre that Asia's largest silver mine is located in such a small country as Japan!
Japan needed raw silk from China, while China absorbed Japan's silver, creating a stable supply and demand relationship in the "silver silk trade."

After deciding on the grand strategy of opening up the sea, Nie Yu began to consider whether to stage a Han Dynasty version of the "Black Ships Incident" in advance to force open Japan's doors.

The Jiangnan region has been secured, and the Ministry of Industry is already drafting detailed regulations and rules for the Industrial Revolution plan.

If things go smoothly, it will gradually be rolled out in the next two years. The Han Dynasty already has steam engines and spinning machines, and can link the two together for production. If it were during the Industrial Revolution, the efficiency would only be extremely high.

At that time, the output of raw silk in Jiangnan will surely increase dramatically. The raw silk of the Han Dynasty will not be sold to the puppet Qing Dynasty. Instead, it will have to cut off contact with the puppet Qing Dynasty and crack down on the smuggling of raw silk, salt and grain to the puppet Qing Dynasty.

By imposing reverse trade restrictions, they could plunge the Qing dynasty into a financial crisis, leaving it without the funds to wage war.

Since raw silk could not be sold to the Qing dynasty, it could only be sold to foreign vassal states.

We'll set aside the British and Spanish for now; they're too far away. We'll have to wait for the British merchant Henry to return to the Han Dynasty and then see how things go.

As one of the outer domains, Japan was the only one relatively close to the Han Dynasty, and even maintained necessary trade relations with China. The Han Dynasty had to get its hands on Japan's raw silk market (Japan's closed-door policy was similar to that of the Qing Dynasty, with the shogunate opening a front port to monopolize profits).

(End of this chapter)