How many acres of land is suitable for a household? Since ancient times, there have been two sayings in China: one hundred mu and one fifty mu, of course, due to the different sizes of mu, the difference between the two areas may not be large. Ideally, whenever a new dynasty was established and land was redistributed, it was often granted according to this amount. This figure is certainly not made out of thin air, but is a summary of thousands of years of experience.

Du Zhongxiao also faced this problem. How many acres should be cultivated by the camp and cultivated idle land, and it should be divided evenly according to households? The 50 mu of one man in the previous dynasty was calculated based on the natural geographical conditions of Guanzhong and the Central Plains, including fallow. In another place, such as Jiangnan, one husband will definitely not be able to take care of fifty acres, and generally ten acres is enough. There are not only the factors of the small number of people there, but also the reasons for the tradition of intensive cultivation, and the influence of different degrees of industriousness.

At this time, Jianghuai planted rice and wheat, and when the wheat was ripe, the two Zhejiang provinces happened to be idle. Often, people from Zhejiang and Zhejiang provinces went north by boat to harvest wheat for the people in the Jianghuai area and take away half of the harvest. This kind of cross-regional wheat customer has been very popular in Zhejiang and Zhejiang since the Song Dynasty.

Specifically in the area of Tangzhou and Dengzhou, because the climatic conditions are better than those north of the Huai River, it stands to reason that the per capita cultivated land should be less.

There is a limit to man's ability to work, beyond which more land will not bring more benefits. For Du Zhongxiao, a manager, there are two criteria for evaluation. First, on the whole, the per capita grain production of the labor force is the largest. In terms of area, the average grain yield per mu is the highest. The most suitable area obtained by the two does not coincide.

If we don't consider this problem, let the slender men here blindly cultivate idle land, be greedy and chew too much, and the fields that come out cannot be planted, and poor management will lead to a decline in land fertility and affect the stamina of agricultural production.

I sent people to visit the neighborhood for a few days to see that the first month of the leap month was about to pass, and the camp and field affairs yamen wanted to give an answer.

Seeing that Cui's master book was busy after the case, Du Zhongxiao said: "Master book, a few days ago, I sent officials to check the people's situation and see how many fields there are around a household. There are different theories, some say 50 acres, some say 30 acres, and some say 10 acres is enough. The main bookkeeper has been an official here for many years, and he is familiar with the people's feelings, which statement do you think is true? ”

Master Cui put down his pen and thought for a while and said: "According to the lower officials, these statements have their own truth, depending on how the judgment is determined." Fifty acres per household, if there is no paddy field, it is all dry land, which should be suitable. If there are a few acres of paddy fields, then 30 acres per household is enough, otherwise it will not be able to be planted. If it is all paddy fields, two crops of rice and wheat a year, ten acres is enough. ”

After speaking, Master Cui added: "When Xia Guan said this, it is assumed that every family has ploughing cattle and farm tools. If not, don't worry. ”

Du Zhongxiao nodded and said, "From the perspective of Tangzhou, the climate is humid, there is no shortage of rain, and there are many rivers, so it is not difficult to open some paddy fields." However, there are still a lot of mountainous slopes here, and it is impossible to have all paddy fields. It is more appropriate to set a family of 30 acres and some orchards to grow vegetables. Newly established villages, idle fields can be cultivated, and this number can be determined. Thirty acres for one household, plus five acres of mulberry garden. ”

Master Cui nodded, and after a while, he asked, "Yun Juan, why don't you let each village set the number of fields to be opened by themselves?" They open more and are willing to contribute more to planting, isn't it a good thing for the yamen? ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "Master, this is not how things work. If there is land, there will be taxes, and there will be servants, and if there are more plants, the taxes will naturally be heavy. There is always a lot of power for a husband, there are more fields, and it is already difficult to plant, plus the tax paid by the servants, the strength is not enough, speaking of which, it is our yamen that has heavy taxes. Set an appropriate amount, ordinary people can be well-off, and they can also have a little spare energy, so that the government and the people can have two pennies. ”

This is a matter of management skills, and there is no way to do it when the land is uneven in other places, so the camp and field work are drawn on a blank sheet of paper, and of course strive for perfection. There are too many lands in the family, and it is difficult to plant, and then the errand is apportioned to them, so it is natural to complain. However, taxes are determined according to the locality, and the more land at home is, the more taxes there are, and the per capita cultivated land exceeds a certain amount, which will aggravate the contradiction between the government and the people.

This is the problem of the smallholder economy, and if you want to make yeoman farmers the cornerstone of social stability, you need to have the right scale. In this era, here in Tangzhou, there are a few acres of paddy fields at home, and the appropriate size of a family is 30 acres. If this number is generally exceeded, there will inevitably be people from other places who will come to work as tenants or take part-time jobs in the future, and the camp will not pursue this economic model.

As part of the army, the land for the field work was not to be bought or sold, not to be rented, and the farmers were to be left to be self-reliant. The level of development of the productive forces is not enough, and the small-scale peasant economy of one household is destined to be the mainstream, and it must be planned from the very beginning.

This size is calculated based on a small family of five, and if there are more children, the family will be separated. There is a large amount of idle land, which is reserved land for their descendants. As for how many generations this reserve can manage, it is beyond Du Zhongxiao's ability to plan, he only needs to plan three generations.

Picking up the situation of several typical villages investigated by the officials from the case, Du Zhongxiao carefully considered it. How many families are suitable for a village? If there are too many households, the cultivated land will be too far away from the residence, and it will be difficult to cultivate. The number of households is too small, the population is too scattered, and the management of the yamen is inconvenient. How far away is a village from its neighbours? It is inconvenient to communicate far away, and there is too little idle space when it is close, which is not conducive to future development.

These issues must be settled in the next few days. With a general norm, the servants can do things, and they cannot be allowed to do whatever they want. This big framework will be of immense benefit for decades to come.

The size of the village was set, and there was a rough plan. For example, in addition to arable land, how much land should be left for planting fruit trees, how much land should be used for vegetable gardens, how much land should be used for woodland, and how much land should be used for grassland for grazing cattle and sheep. A typical village, these are essential.

In addition, there is a reason for how far to set up a bazaar and how to organize and manage each bazaar. Under the natural evolution, these are naturally occurring according to geographical and economic conditions, and the Yingtian Yamen is organized in a unified manner and can be laid out in advance.

With this general plan, the industrial layout is carried out by roughly estimating the output of food and agricultural cash crops in a certain area. For example, if there are many mulberry trees and many oak trees in a certain place, you can set up a silk reeling workshop. If there is a lot of grain in a certain area, you can set up a winery. If there is a lot of arable land in a certain place, you can set up a workshop for iron farming tools. Then combine the natural conditions of water conservancy and minerals, and arrange them in the most suitable place.

It is impossible to enter the era of large-scale industry all at once, and it is inevitable to go through a widely distributed scattered and small industrial stage, and after developing to a certain extent, the industry will gradually concentrate. This time may be very long, but it cannot be artificially skipped, otherwise industry will become a tree without roots, water without a source, and disconnected from society.

This kind of economic layout has a name for five small industries, and after privatization, it is called township enterprises.

To develop industry, we can't just think about building big factories in big cities, because that is not conducive to the accumulation of the private sector, and the private sector will not be able to buy the things you make. The consequence is that the industry is in the air, and the development of light industry is weak, which drags down the process of the entire industry.

A slender man of 120,000 people corresponds to more than 100,000 households, and the scope of several large states is not the same thing as the small-scale camp in Yongcheng.