As we all know, Xiaotian people were recognized by European and American powers and could treat each other as equals. That was after the Russo-Japanese War. Of course, there is also a saying that after the Sino-Japanese War, it means almost the same anyway.

In short, Japan's national strength is constantly increasing, and the former powers want to flatten and round Japan easily, and when it is no longer so easy, the foreign powers treat their childhood as a human being.

The unequal treaties signed by the foreign powers and Japan were not officially abolished until the beginning of the twentieth century. The Meiji government has been running for decades for this matter.

From the historical facts, it can be seen that if you want those foreigners in Europe and America to look down on you and stop talking to you loudly, you have to have a hard waist. To put it more bluntly, when your national strength is stronger, people will treat you as a human being.

Ii Naobi and Matsudaira Qixuan's consistent strategy of rectifying the military and military is to ensure that the shogunate can straighten his back when talking to foreigners, and does not need to nod and bow all the time. Isn't Songping Qixuan such a person?

I just came to borrow money from you, so I have to stand and borrow it!

For their military policy, Chuemon, of course, fully supports them. However, to build a new army, the funds required are like mountains and seas. An army of 10,000 people wants you 1,000,000 taels a year, which is considered a small amount. Three or four million taels are enough to make the army look good.

So Chuemon started at an early age, trying to open up new sources of money for the shogunate, fueling him, and pulling this broken ship forward. At present, the customs of the shogunate has been able to make a surplus of hundreds of thousands a year, and this is because of the need to repay. If you count the repayment, it is easy to lose two million a year.

With the strengthening of domestic and foreign economic and trade exchanges, this number will reach a new level every year, rising step by step. In the future, millions, or even 12 million or 20 million, will be idle.

But this mainly affects the industrial and commercial people in the towns. The shogunate made money, mainly to buy foreign guns, foreign guns, and steam warships, and did not invest this money in the expansion of domestic production. In other words, only a small part of the money remains in Japan to promote economic development.

Japan is a country that has nothing but rice and silk. Eighty percent of the population are peasants and live in vast rural areas. Farmers are the main body of Japan, and when they become rich, Japan can really be rich.

Naomasa Nabeshima of the Saga Domain provided very effective assistance to the countryside during the reform of the domain government, revitalized the rural economy, and supported the farmers in the domain. After learning of his successful experience, Chuemon felt that the shogunate should learn from it and change the plight of the vast number of farmers in Tianling.

It just so happens that Ninomiya Zuntoku, the father of Ninomiya Zunyuki, who is here to meet Chuemon, is the shogunate minister who has been working hard to solve the three rural issues all his life.

Ninomiya Zunde has quite profound insights into rural issues. He realized that the lords repeatedly exploited and oppressed the farmers; the rural usurers took advantage of the farmers; and the problems of population reproduction, resulting in more people and less land, and no increase in land yields, were smoldering in the vast rural areas. middle.

To solve these problems, it is actually very simple, but it is impossible!

Might the lords reduce their exploitation of the peasants? Of course not!

Is there a need for the usury industry to exist? Is necessary!

If the yield per unit of land cannot go up, and there are many remaining rural populations, what should we do?

Faced with such a situation, Ninomiya Zunde put forward a series of suggestions. The first is to ask the lord to investigate the average output in the territory for several decades, and then to collect the annual tribute appropriately according to the average output. Let farmers have savings in good years and grain in famine years, increase farmers' ability to resist risks, and at the same time ensure that the lord has a roughly fixed income.

Then adjust the situation of the rural usury industry. Because of their meager financial resources, self-farmers and semi-owners often do not have enough money to deal with emergencies. Situations such as illness, marriage, funeral, etc., may require debt.

If you don't borrow money, you will sell the land, and you will become a tenant farmer, lose the means of production, gradually become impoverished, and become the slave of the creditor. After borrowing money, under such heavy feudal oppression, it is inevitable that they will not be able to pay, and then the land will be confiscated as usual, and they will be reduced to tenant farmers or farm laborers, and will fall into poverty.

According to the current productivity, it is almost impossible for farmers to become rich. Therefore, the lending industry has its existence in rural areas. But the horrific interest is unbearable for the peasants.

Therefore, Ninomiya Zunde proposed the "Lending Assistance Law", giving farmers a certain degree of loans when they needed them. All interest on the loan is forgiven, and the principal is also repaid over five years. Do your best so that farmers will not go bankrupt because of borrowing, which will lead to the decline of the entire countryside.

As for the issue of increasing the yield per unit of land, Ninomiya Junde believes that it is necessary to give priority to matters related to improving the basic conditions of agriculture, such as improving soil, reclaiming wasteland, building dams, and digging canals. Then adopt reasonable management methods such as purchasing farm implements and fertilizers in batches to reduce the cost of agricultural production as much as possible.

The method proposed by Chuemon to let the rural surplus laborers go to engage in the sericulture industry was also conceived by Ninomiya Juntoku. However, Japan's own market is so large, and the foreign trade exports at that time did not increase as it is now, so he did not find a good rural sideline~lightnovelpub.net~ to solve the problem of population redundancy.

But he still tried his best to promote the cultivation of sweet potatoes. It is better to eat sweet potatoes than to die in a famine year. In many fields that are inconvenient for rice cultivation, it is always right to plant sweet potatoes. Anyway, the main thing is just rice, and the gentlemen don't look down on those two sweet potatoes.

All in all, when Chuemon wanted to restore the vitality of the villages in Tenno, there were already people who tried their best to try and solve the problem.

Now Nigong Zunde has passed away, but his son is still there, his disciples are still there, and his reform experience in 600 villages in Kanto is still there.

If he can make good use of his legacy, Chuemon feels that the reform of the shogunate he is promoting is no longer a lame reform. It is a comprehensive reform from top to bottom, from top to bottom.

"Please come this way." Terazawa Shintaro's voice came from the corridor, and Chuemon straightened up.

There were two middle-aged men in their forties, who should be Ninomiya Zunxing and Tomita Gaoqing. They inherited the legacy of Ninomiya Juntoku, trying to continue to change the poverty of the vast rural areas in Japan, and make the rural areas glow with new vitality.