Chapter 1342: How Is There Already a Generation Gap?! (Begging for Monthly Tickets)

In the twentieth year of Hongxing, in the first month of winter.

Zhu Hexing's course on learning to be a County Magistrate was not yet finished, but he had already learned quite a lot — at the very least, his eyes had been opened wide!

First, he had presided over a chaotic imperial examination, and at the same time he came to understand that for many people, a fair examination was truly a precious opportunity, one worth staking their lives on — for all the restless troublemakers among the common folk, if you could not crush them utterly the way the roving bandits had, by settling 600,000 military-household troops across the land to hold the localities down, then you had to open up more channels of advancement and give them something to strive for.

Second, after the examination ended, he also witnessed the ability and ruthlessness of that veteran County Magistrate Ma Wanchun — with one examination plus one round of recommendations, he had gathered into his hands several dozen of the most restless people in Shizhu County. With them to organize and mobilize, 4,000 local braves were raised without much effort at all.

And once these 4,000 able-bodied men fell into Ma Wanchun's hands, the 3,000 roving-bandit military households up on Dafeng Fort would not last long! Most of the 3,000 people on Dafeng Fort were the old, the weak, women, and children; the able-bodied men among them numbered no more than 300 — otherwise they would not have let Ma Wanchun's 1,000 Xichuan troops hold the situation in check. Now with another 4,000 able-bodied men, plus the 500 Guards soldiers Zhu Hexing had brought, what suspense was left in the battle for Dafeng Fort?

The only suspense was how many of these able-bodied men whom Ma Wanchun had tricked into his hands would die.

But no matter how many died, Ma Wanchun would not feel the least bit sorry — and his merits would be enormous!

This fellow was a ruthless man, and even more a capable official!

And who knew how many such ruthless, capable officials there were in the officialdom of the Great Ming today! To use them well and keep them in check — that would not be easy!

Third, in Shizhu, Zhu Hexing truly witnessed the poverty and hardship of the people at the bottom!

He was now with Ding Yuying in Little Li Village, Nanshan Township, inspecting the land-distribution work — the matter of dividing the land was mainly the responsibility of the Shizhu County Revenue Colonel and the various township and village heads below him. Zhu Hexing and Ding Yuying simply brought several hundred fierce-looking Guards soldiers along as they walked about, to put some courage into the common folk below and let them know that the Great Ming's crack troops had arrived, that the roving bandits on Dafeng Fort were doomed, and that they could therefore divide the land with peace of mind.

As for the officials below rigging the land distribution and seizing peasant land in the process, Ma Wanchun was not the least bit worried — these officials were not the old scholar-gentry landlords; they had no great power of their own. It was the county yamen's "trial imperial examination" that had given them their chance to rise. If they did not know how to cherish it, they could be dismissed and investigated at any time without even reporting to the Ministry of Personnel — after all, these people were all still within their "probationary official" period!

And so Zhu Hexing, who had wandered about the Shizhu countryside for ten or twenty days, found no problems — but his mood was still somewhat gloomy.

Because in the Shizhu countryside he had seen poverty such as he had never seen before!

Although he had always known that the Great Ming had many poor and remote places, and that even within Yingtian Prefecture there were plenty of poor people who struggled even to eat.

But he had never before come into such close contact with the truly poor — those Guards soldiers could only be counted as of hardscrabble origin; after becoming the sharpest sword of the Great Ming Empire, they had long since lifted themselves out of poverty and were no longer truly poor.

And although the soldiers of the New Army did not receive treatment as high as the Guards soldiers, they could not be counted as truly poor either — their annual net income (after deducting food) was mostly above 30 taels of silver, equivalent to 30 shi of white rice, and it was all income they could use to support their families or save up.

As for people poorer than that, before entering Sichuan, he had probably only seen them in Huya Town — when passing through Huya Town he had briefly gone ashore and strolled around Ding Yuying's old home, taking a quick look without examining closely.

But however one looked at it, the poor people of Huya Town were far richer than the poor people of the Shizhu County countryside. At least they did not look gaunt and sallow, and they had not carved out large tracts of terraced fields on the slopes of Huya Mountain at any cost.

Yet in the Shizhu countryside, what Zhu Hexing saw was destitution everywhere — truly having nothing at all, with bare walls in the home. Sloping land and terraced fields that were despised in the southeast and the Central Plains were here regarded as treasures; each person could only be allotted a little over three mu, less than four mu, of such terraced and sloping land, and every one of them was as happy as could be.

"Yuying, your family are great farmers, and you understand farming better than I do. Tell me — with three or four mu of terraced fields like these, can they support a five-chi man?"

Zhu Hexing, supporting Ding Yuying — who was already three or four months pregnant — as they walked along a mountain path, suddenly asked about farming matters.

Ding Yuying, who had stayed alone in the Shizhu county seat for some days (it was inconvenient for her to travel too far, so Zhu Hexing had not brought her along when he went to inspect the more remote countryside), was first taken aback when she heard Zhu Hexing's question, then shook her head and said: "Husband, that is hard to say. Though my family are great farmers, we do not have a single mu of terraced or sloping fields."

Zhu Hexing asked: "Why is that?"

Ding Yuying said: "Terraced fields are not very common in the southeast, and they are not worth much. Great farming families like mine generally do not want terraced fields, because terraced fields are very easy to farm at a loss."

Li Jinxue, who was following behind Zhu Hexing and Ding Yuying, had arrived at Nanshan Township together with them and was now the Shizhu County Revenue Vice Magistrate — an official in charge of farming and household registration, and the land distribution was also under his management. He of course understood farming too, but he did not know what "farming at a loss" meant.

Hearing Ding Yuying's words, he could not help interjecting: "Farming at a loss? Is there such a thing as farming at a loss? Madam Zhu must mean a poor harvest, surely?"

Ding Yuying glanced back at Li Jinxue. "What business can guarantee a steady profit with no risk of loss? How could farming be any exception?

Terraced fields come in small patches, so there is simply no way to use a small amount of labor together with oxen to farm extensively — you can only invest large amounts of labor in intensive cultivation. Moreover, terraced fields have trouble retaining rainwater and fertility; they cannot resist drought, and they also require a great deal of labor to accumulate fertilizer. Opening up terraced fields on a mountain slope costs a great deal of money; hiring laborers for intensive cultivation costs money; buying manure also costs money. With so much capital invested, how much can you harvest? High input, low output — how could it not lose money? And terraced fields are prone to drought; once the weather turns dry and rain is scarce, it is very easy to reap nothing at all, and then you have lost everything, with no capital left!"

"Farming is a matter of sustaining people — how can you calculate profit and loss?" Li Jinxue simply could not understand Ding Yuying's words. "Should one stop farming just because farming does not make money? If no one farms, what will all those people eat?"

Ding Yuying shook her head. "Although in business there are cases of losing first and earning later, in the end it is all for the sake of making money. If you keep losing money, how can you keep going? Farming is the same. If farmers keep losing money, the capital in their hands will grow thinner and thinner, and without capital, how can you farm?"

"How much capital can farming require? You have seeds, a few farm tools, a plot of land, and a bit of strength — is that not enough?"

"That is capital!" Ding Yuying said. "Are seeds, tools, and land not money? Strength can also be sold for money. A strapping five-chi man who goes to work as a hired farmhand can get five or six taels after room and board. If he goes to the city to work, he earns even more — though of course his expenses are greater too. He could also go overseas to make a living; the risk is great, but the chances of getting rich are many."

"Go to the city? Go overseas?" Li Jinxue was stunned again and again. "Does the Great Ming not forbid farmers from leaving their land and migrating?"

"It has long ceased to forbid it," Ding Yuying said, "and besides, it could not be forbidden! Those who can live and work in peace in the countryside will naturally not migrate away; for those who cannot survive, or who wish to go out and seek wealth and rank, what good is there in forcing them to stay in the countryside?"

Li Jinxue shook his head repeatedly. "Since ancient times, farming folk have been attached to their land and reluctant to move. If they could keep a few mu of poor fields in their hometown, who would be willing to leave their homes and go elsewhere? The Shun bandit regime has in recent years also tried to send people to Burma, saying that if they go they will be given land for free, and can even get paddy fields. But how many people are willing to go to such a miasmic, pestilent place?"

Ding Yuying shook her head. "Forcing people to migrate out and forcing people to stay in the countryside are both wrong. Whether to go or stay must be up to the individual!"

"All up to the individual? Then the court simply does not care?" Li Jinxue truly could not understand Ding Yuying's way of thinking.

"The court still concerns itself with this?" Ding Yuying likewise could not understand Li Jinxue's line of thought — the two of them had a generation gap! No, not just the two of them — the people under the Shun regime and the people under the Great Ming regime had developed a generation gap!

The old group is exploding again — welcome, everyone, to join this book's new group. Group number: 635667889

A chapter recommendation for Yixiu Qiankun's new book "I Want to Be a Grand Secretary" — it is a Ming officialdom story set in the Jiajing era. A Yixiu production is sure to be a fine work!

(End of chapter)