"100,000 team members and 10,000 village chiefs" is the result of the discussion between Zhang Guoan, the owner of the island, and his friends...... The purpose of this plan is obvious, the feudal dynasty has never delegated its own management to the county seat, that is to say, in many villages and towns, mainly rely on the local gentry, that is, some large households to manage on their behalf. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

These squire class is a unique class in this time and space, mainly composed of a number of influential figures in rural society, such as the imperial examination and the first scholars or the first scholars, the local more educated small and medium-sized landlords, the small and medium-sized officials who retired or returned to their hometowns or lived in the countryside for a long time to recuperate, and the clan elders.

They are similar to the officials and different from the officials, similar to the people and above the people. Although some of them once held limited power seals, and a very small number of them may be promoted to the official office, on the whole, they have always been in the position of the opposition faction of the pure faction and the ruling group in this society.

The various social positions they now attained in the territories governed by the Great Song or Tatars are typical of the ruling structures of this time and space in the functioning of their rural social organization.

At the same time, they play the role of the imperial court and government decrees in the rural society and lead the implementation.

The decrees and decrees of the various ruling groups, whatever method of dissemination, must be known to the people through the gentry class if they are to spread throughout the rural society.

The squire only needs to inform the squire of the policies and decrees, and the squire is responsible for the rest of the process of disseminating and enforcing the villagers. This kind of political position, which corresponds to the lowest level of the ruling class, is difficult for other strata except the gentry class to bear.

They also act as political chiefs or political spokesmen for rural society.

Under the relatively stable feudal ruling order, the obedience or resistance of the rural people to the imperial court decrees and various taxes was first fed back to the squire, and they followed the squire's suggestions to win the squire's approval, and then the squire reflected the public opinion to the government.

In this process of conveying the feelings and opinions of the rural people from the bottom up, the squires deliberately shaped themselves as the political leaders of the people, and sometimes even united with the villagers to act as the protectors of the villagers' interests, especially during the period of economic crisis and government corruption.

Thus, the gentry class was a bridge between the feudal rulers and the lower classes of the peasantry...... Once it is relaxed and decomposed, the social and political order will be disorderly.

The economic status of these gentry was mainly manifested in the occupation of land, the possession of real estate, the taxes they bore, and their indirect dominance over the rural economy.

The economic status of each class was linked to the amount of land occupied, and the gentry owned far more land than the peasants, and the economic benefits derived from the land were higher than those of the peasants, and their economic status was generally higher than that of the peasants.

The economic status of the gentry can also be reflected in their indirect dominance over the rural economy, they control the economic interests of the peasants by leasing land, take the lead in raising funds to build canals and roads, control the factors of production of the rural economy, and stabilize the local people's hearts and reduce the pressure on the government through donations for disaster relief, so as to maintain economic relations with the villagers and the government.

The squire class has always been the most reliable believer in Confucian culture, especially in the era of the change of dynasties and the change of imperial power, the determination and courage of the squires to defend Confucianism are better than those of the officials.

This long-standing fondness for Confucianism established the squire class to enjoy a high cultural status in society.

The cultural status of the gentry class was also related to its own composition.

Some of the gentry were officials who had passed the imperial examinations, had retired, or had been releasing in the countryside.

These people have had high-ranking officials, glory and wealth in their lives, all of which are closely related to the piety and pursuit of Confucianism, and what they get from the imperial examination system is not only the way to enter the office, but also the development of Confucianism, which invisibly affects the cultural values and even social values of the people around them, and gradually establishes their own cultural dominance in the rural society in the process.

The gentry also had the right to manage and adjudicate the long-standing clan rights in the rural society and the security of the rural society.

Normally, the patriarch is elected by the squire's comprehensive clan opinion, or is approved by the squire's cooperation; Some squires were themselves patriarchs and had moral and nominal primacy over a clan.

In addition, the squires funded the establishment of local security teams or regimental training, and most of them also served as their own leaders to control and manipulate the social order in the villages, especially in remote villages, where the military control of the squires was particularly obvious.

From the above, it can be seen that the gentry class is an important class in this time and space society that cannot be ignored, and a considerable part of their various powers and social positions are tacitly approved or even granted by the imperial power.

The purpose of the upper rulers was to make up for the lack of local administrative capacity by allowing the gentry to control the people at the bottom of the rural society, which was not easily controlled by the imperial power.

At the same time, the gentry received support from the vested interests of the clan and the rulers, and this mode of management could safeguard the interests of both the upper rulers and the clans, and with the support of the two forces, they became the representatives of the rural people, constituting another force of the ruling class outside the government.

The situation in Liuqiu Island is completely different from that of the Great Song Dynasty, they are basically a new society, and many places are not similar to the Great Song Dynasty, but everything they develop cannot get rid of the influence of the Great Song Dynasty.

Therefore, how to establish one's own gentry cultural system is a very realistic medium-term goal.

Zhang Guoan, the owner of the island, said to Wang Defa's family: "Our training of the Liuqiu guards will enable them to organize agricultural production of 200 to 500 people and more than 100 households...... Agricultural planting technology is easy to manage, but it lacks the driving force of agriculture......"

Wang Defa said with a smile: "In addition to animal power, it is not a big problem to add one or two low-pressure pot camel steam engines in each village, and even ordinary steel is not needed, cast iron is enough!"

Don't look at the fact that each village only has a dozen more horsepower, which is a few dozen more strong laborers......"

In Zhang Guoan's design, in such a village-level unit that is slightly smaller than in the Great Song Dynasty, the land of each peasant household is privately owned, and can be developed independently or jointly...... Of course, they must be led and commanded by a qualified village chief.

The countryside here is full of new farmers, and it has not been possible to establish a system of Song gentry culture that may be better than the United States in the past few decades, so it can only rely on precautionary arrangements.

The members of the Liuqiu Guard are natural candidates for village chiefs, they have received a certain amount of cultural education in the army, and because of the characteristics of the Liuqiu Island itself, most of them have experience in agricultural production, and a few have experience in industrial production.

During the military training, how can the experience of supporting farmers and workers have only one helping role?!

And their organization and discipline are certainly far beyond that of ordinary peasant households...... Most importantly, they should have an innate ability to obey the rules and requirements of the flow style.

There is no squire class on Liuqiu Island now, so in the words of the owner of Zhang Guoan, they can only build grassroots personnel who identify with the characteristics of their own society.

It can be done alone, and at the same time, it can also be jointly developed, and this organizational form is most suitable for the cultivation of some cash crops.

At least for now, on the island of Liuqiu, growing food has become an unsuitable agricultural production, and some of the more nimble farmers see this very clearly.

They don't need to be guided, and they don't have to do ideological work, because they all come from the Great Song Dynasty, where business ideas are very deep...... The peasants were far from being locked up in the land, and the Tatar bandit groups had no chance to limit their freedom, so their ability to accept new things and methods was still strong.

Zhang Guoan and his friends believed that they could establish a form of social organization with their own characteristics...... All this is just a matter of time. (To be continued.) )