Chapter 524 The Most Powerful Empire in the World

What is a production team?

The production team in Chen Ming's cognition refers to a form of economic organization during the Red Dynasty. In state-owned farms, it is the basic unit of labor organization. In rural areas, it is a cooperative economy of collective ownership by the working masses.

In a word, it is an economic entity that uses land, labor and other means of production as capital, implements independent accounting, and is responsible for its own profits and losses. Of course, all its economic behaviors must be carried out under the guidance of the state and the permission of the law.

Chen Ming is not a student of that theory. In his understanding, this "production team" is a kind of egalitarianism. The effective combination of production capital and labor, the mutual balance of strong and weak labor, and absolute egalitarianism.

Under the trend of thought of the Red Dynasty, it is not surprising that the "production team" model appeared. But this model is absolutely impossible for Chen Han to appear at the moment. Even in the early military villages, this kind of "average" cannot be carried out under compulsory circumstances.

Chen Ming would not expect to be able to add the "production team" to the current Pingyang Prefecture.

But he still took out the name of "production team", because the "production team" in his order should actually be an infinitely small military cooperative.

Because Chen Ming firmly believed that although the life of farmers was hard, Chinese farmers were never busy all day, especially farmers under the rule of Chen Han.

During the busy farming season, farmers were of course hard-working; but what about during the slack farming season?

In the past, they served corvée. This is a key point.

In China, as long as the "light corvée" was "light", it was considered a great benevolent policy in all dynasties. Even during the Red Dynasty, China also had corvée, which was a different term for compulsory labor. But it was gone later.

Chen Han did not include corvée from the beginning. Otherwise, the lack of labor for sieges in various places would not be so large. Because of the weak foundation in the early years, Chen Han used money and food as an inducement for all projects since he occupied southwest Henan, intending to win people's hearts. Now that Chen Han has taken over the world, it is a bit difficult to change this rule.

Of course, Chen Han did not clearly announce to the world that corvée labor was completely abolished. This was just selectively ignored by Chen Han's top leaders. Just like the Qing Dynasty's "dividing the land tax into acreage", they said to themselves: Since the tax on acreage has been returned to the land, all the services and military supplies must be paid according to the process, and there is no such thing as labor service. That's all to flatter yourself.

When the time really gets tough, restart the "corvée labor" and collect the "corvée labor silver", there is nothing you can do.

As a time traveler, as a person who has gotten rid of vulgar tastes, it is also a dream of Chen Ming to benefit the vast majority of Chinese people. Now Chen Han has not reached that time yet, so he will continue to turn a blind eye to the "corvée labor". However, the people's "slack farming" time must be fully utilized. Whether the people themselves take the initiative to gather strong laborers to find work on the construction site, or whether the government and township officials' work teams beat gongs and drums and shout in the city and the countryside: recruiting people here, how much money a day, food and accommodation, etc., these are two completely different concepts.

But Chen Ming did not expect that his "mini version of the military cooperative" - ​​the production team, would directly evolve into a contracting team when he arrived in Shanxi.

Some local wealthy households even invited a group of people to sign the contract and really became foremen. Some of them took over the work and then went down to supervise the workers to work hard; some of them regarded the production team as their own hired workers, digging silage pools, storing green fodder, building sheep pens, and doing the business of raising sheep in pens. Because green fodder has never been pure green grass, anyone who thinks that silage is green grass is wrong. Corn stalks, alfalfa, sweet potatoes, pumpkin branches and vines, amaranth, etc. can all be used to make silage. And all of this requires labor!

If you really want to raise sheep in a pen, the labor required for the entire "project" is really not small.

In Pingyang Prefecture today, all those who want to raise sheep in a pen are wealthy families with land. Originally, the stems and leaves after they harvested the crops were still a big trouble to deal with. Who would have thought that these branches and leaves could also be used as green fodder, just right for raising sheep. Reasonable industrial layout is a skill that people are born with.

Even a few people with noble thoughts and morals would wishfully think that they can convince their own family members, so other families will be as "selfless" as themselves. Shanxi has little arable land and insufficient per capita arable land. Because of the influence of the previous war, a large number of migrant workers ran back to their hometowns. Now the rural labor force is quite abundant. If you can really form a production team in the early version of the military cooperative, do farm work during the busy farming season, and then go out to work during the slack farming season, or build a basic silage pool, feeding pigs, etc. can be done by women, which will naturally greatly increase family income. If it is done by one's own family, the efficiency will be low.

But how can things be so simple? Working with other families, the income distribution alone requires long-term discussions, and cooperative labor requires more adjustment. This is not something that can be done overnight.

If things develop in this way, it will eventually bring some benefits to the people. Moreover, with the increase in the number of high-quality iron farm tools and livestock - in the short term, the biggest benefit of Inner Mongolia stocks to Chen Han is this, in addition to war horses, the production efficiency of rural areas will definitely be improved, and the idle labor force in rural areas will have more and longer time to create wealth outside the fields.

Chen Ming thought too simply. Moreover, this production team is eligible to apply for interest-free and low-interest loans from the bank.

…

Chen Ming in Nanjing City did not know about this "change". He now had to pay attention to more than just Shanxi. Moreover, it was approaching the end of the year, and Chen Han was now facing three major problems to solve: the first was the coronation ceremony in February next year. At that time, the number of envoys from various countries who would rush to Nanjing would be considerable, and there would be the King of Ryukyu himself; the second was the national census. This time, the Fu Han Army did not even give up on the central and southern Fujian, and the people of the Tiandihui also opened the door obediently. Even though they knew that the Fu Han Army had found out everything about their background after they came to their territory, they still could not refuse; and the third was the resolution to exempt non-monetary gold and silver from circulation, which would definitely cause a stir.

These three things were much more important than the current pilot project in Pingyang, Shanxi. It will take at least a year or two to see the effect of Pingyang Prefecture in Shanxi, but the three major events here are going to be done right away.

The first big problem Chen Ming is facing now is the issue of the country's name, and other issues such as costumes, altars, ceremonial guards, year names, titles, etc. have been solved. Except for the fact that there is no crown prince, which makes Li Xiaomei a little dissatisfied and surprised, there are no other problems.

Just this one country name!

According to China's traditional rules, the country's name is either from the source, such as Qin and Song; or from the title, such as Han, Wei [Cao Cao], Jin, Sui, Tang; or follow the prophecy, follow the founder and respect the succession.

Among these rules, Chen Han has no title, and no prophecy, and can't use the founder and respect the succession. After thinking about it, only the first one from the source is reliable.

Chen Han started in Lushan and occupied the southwest of Henan. He dug up several vassal states during the Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, such as Liang, Zheng, and Han. Among them, the word "Han" was first rejected by Chen Ming. Then there was another group of people who thought that Han should be used, because the reign title set by Chen Ming was the first year of the Han Dynasty.

The Yellow Emperor's era is unreliable, and Chen Ming felt that there was no need to use "ancient". As a time traveler who wanted to revive the Han Dynasty and revitalize the country, couldn't he give himself a "first year"?

The first year of the Han calendar! It will start next year.

Chen Ming originally had some opinions about "Han" as the country name. First, his surname was Chen, not Liu; second, he felt it was a bit narrow. Because the word "Han" represented the Han Dynasty in a large sense, he felt that it was a bit unfavorable to rule Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang and those ethnic minorities.

But he was even more dissatisfied with the two country names of Liang and Zheng, and he didn't want to learn from the Mongols and Yuan Dynasty. Unknowingly, Chen Ming, who was tired of it, had decided to continue to use "Han" as the country name.

However, on the surface, he remained silent and did not express his opinion, allowing the people below to continue to argue and quarrel.

Then there was the second question, the national population census, and the results satisfied Chen Ming. As for the areas controlled by Chen Han now, based on the traditional concept of Han territory and Guannei, the Fu Han Army now lacks most of Yunnan and half of Gansu, and Yunnan and Gansu are obviously not densely populated areas. According to statistics, there are more than 185,350,000 people under Chen Han's rule. All the people in the labor reform team are not included.

If Yunnan and Gansu are taken away. Chen Han's population now can be close to 200 million. The population of Tibet, Mongolia, and Northeast China is too small, and it is not worth mentioning compared to Han territory.

This number makes Chen Ming quite satisfied. Although it is far less than his estimate when he first crossed over, at that time he thought it was almost 300 million. But after seizing some data from Beijing, especially the Ministry of Households, some problems were clarified. A population census conducted in the early Qianlong period only counted more than 140 million. When the Chen family started the rebellion, it was the middle of the Qianlong period, and the Qing Dynasty had just conducted a population census, and the population at that time exceeded 200 million. Of course, the actual population is definitely more than this number.

So, in the years when the Fu Han Army started the rebellion, although the destruction was great, the population reduction was not much. It feels a bit like the population count at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the founding of the Red Dynasty. The country has been in chaos for decades, and there has been little change. Chen Ming also had to sigh that the "Kangxi and Qianlong prosperity" was indeed a period of rapid population growth in China, and sweet potatoes and potatoes made great contributions to China. In the future, the world will be stable and the population growth rate will inevitably increase greatly. No matter what, this is a great news for the future of China. And China at this time was definitely not an aging society. Few people could live to 60, and it was rare for people to live to 70. It was no joke. There were fewer people in their 60s than those in their 90s.

When Newton saw this population census, his eyes widened. The whole of China actually had a population of 200 million, which was really a huge number comparable to the whole of Europe.

"Except for India, there is no other place with such a dense population as China. The authority of the Mughal Empire in India is already shaky, and the fragmented and weak Indian subcontinent cannot compete with China in terms of strength. Your Highness, your dynasty is definitely the most powerful empire in the world." The pride of the Anglo-Saxons made Newton always put the Kingdom of Great Britain and China on the same level in his heart. After all, the Kingdom of Great Britain had many colonies, but the data in front of him crushed his pride.

Before there was a government in India, could the three million people in the American colonies be compared with the huge China?

——The plains of North America and Russia are our corn fields, Canada and the Baltic Sea are our forests, Australia is our pastures, Peru is our silver mines, South Africa and Australia are our gold mines, India and China are our tea plantations, the East Indies are our sugarcane, coffee, and spice plantations, and the southern United States is our cotton plantation.

Such an empire that never sets will have to wait for a hundred years.

This is a population of 200 million. And how many people are there in the entire Kingdom of Great Britain? 11 million. How many people are there in the old enemy Kingdom of France across the strait? 28 million? And Prussia, I don’t know if there are 9 million, and Austria is close to 20 million people. Is Spain, Portugal, and fragmented Italy as many as Russia? The Russians from the cold land have only more than 3,000 people. Newton didn't know how many followed the 30 million. Russia's national conditions were much more obscure than those of France, Prussia and Austria, but Newton didn't think that there were 35 million Russians.

With China's huge population, it can really be compared with the whole of Europe.

Newton had been in China for a long time. During these days, he had filled more than 30 notebooks with records of China, which filled a whole box. There was another larger box filled with various materials he collected that interested him.

Newton knew very well how powerful China was, and how solid the Chen Han Dynasty's rule over this huge country was. The government was everything, and the emperor had supreme power. No one could go against the emperor's opinion.

All under heaven belonged to the king, and all the people were his subjects. The absolute authority of the emperor had left traces on this land for thousands of years. There was no Senate of Rome here, no Parliament of Britain here, and no National Assembly of France would appear. When the king raised the banner of war, the war force that a rising Chinese Empire could mobilize was endless.

"Comparable to the whole of Europe?" Robert looked at Newton in surprise, as if he was looking at a madman. "Oh my God, Mr. Newton, one of the most outstanding sinologists in England, are you crazy? I have never denied the importance of population. Population has always been important for a country, but population cannot determine everything.

The Mughal Empire in India also had a large population, but what about them now?"

Since the death of Aurangzeb Khan, what was left behind was a fragmented empire. The power of the Mughal emperor was overthrown by his governors, and the power of the governors was overthrown by the Marathas, and the power of the Marathas was overthrown by the Afghans. In such a melee, the Europeans broke in.

When God loves a certain nation, he always gives them everything he wants. This is the time when heaven and earth are united!

In the Mughal Empire at that time, the peasants of Punjab used their Sikhism as an ideological weapon and organizational form, demanding the elimination of caste differences and proposing the establishment of a "kingdom of truth" where land belongs to peasants. They launched a peasant armed struggle that lasted for decades, one after another, and the scale became larger and larger, although they were eventually defeated by the rulers of the country. But the decline of the Mughal Empire was inevitable.

In 1761 AD, the Afghan nomadic army and the 100,000-strong army of the Marathas fought in Panipat, and the Marathas suffered a disastrous defeat. The Marathas were a powerful force of the Mughals to resist Western invaders, but after this battle, their strength was severely weakened. This was the end of the "Seven Years' War". Two years ago, the British defeated the French and included India in their sphere of influence. They first went to the rich state of Bengal. Although the huge oppression and brutal rule made Mir Qasim, the puppet established by the British, no longer tolerate their control and launched an anti-British uprising. But in the spring of this year, in 1774 AD, the British army completely occupied the rich state of Bengal.

How many soldiers did the British use?

The people who defeated the indigenous princes and nobles of India were the bottom people of India.

The powerful Kingdom of Great Britain has the most extensive and richest colonies in the world. Their huge colonial interests in India and North America continue to feed back to the Kingdom of Britain.

After the fierce Seven Years' War, the Kingdom of Great Britain stepped on the corpses of its old enemy, the French, and stepped onto the true top of Europe. Although France still has a strong war power, the huge war expenses were transferred by London to the North American colonies, causing dissatisfaction among local residents. But at this time, Robert could not see the war that would break out on the North American continent next year.

Before the independence of the thirteen states of North America, the Kingdom of Great Britain was the most powerful country in the whole of Europe. Because the Eastern world, or more precisely China, has been isolated from the "Western world" for a long time, no one would deny that Britain at this time is the most powerful country in the entire Western civilization.

Every British person is proud of the victory of his country. Now let Robert suddenly "believe" that the entire European continent can only compete with China if it is tied together. He will be convinced.

"Then you wait for the future "Zhongyuan Daily". You will find my answer from it." Newton came here to tell Robert what he knew, but in the end, he didn't want to say it.