Chongzhen, who was satisfied with the new version of the banknote, recognized this version of the banknote and agreed to officially issue the new version of the banknote from April 1, and at the same time recall the provisional version of last year.

However, the next report of Guo Yunhou on the cotton planting industry plan along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River did not make Chongzhen very satisfied, he said after reading the plan in his hand: "Guo Shangshu, is this cotton planting industry plan too rough."

The Ministry of Household intends to promote the planting of cotton in nearly 100 counties in Hejian, Jinan, Shunde, Dongchang, Zhangde, Daming, Weihui, and Huaiqing.

Although in addition to formulating these conditions for rewards and punishments, the Ministry of Household Affairs also talked about several measures on how to supervise and verify the real planting area of cotton fields, but these are not the main points.

The point is, who exactly does the household department plan to let develop these wastelands to grow cotton? If the household department is counting on poor households to develop wasteland to grow cotton, then honestly, is the cotton planting subsidy of one dime per mu really enough?

If the household department intends to allow the local wealthy to develop wasteland to grow cotton, how can it ensure that they have access to sufficient manpower? Growing cotton is the most labor-intensive, and the cotton field that an adult man and woman can take care of is only about 4 acres. Of course, this refers to homesteaders, who need to grow some food fields in addition to cotton.

If cotton is planted in a large area, the cotton fields taken care of by each laborer can indeed increase significantly, but when it comes to the flower-picking season, one person can pick up two acres of cotton. Therefore, the seasonal labor required to plant cotton is very amazing, if the household department does not make a calculation of this, blindly order the prefectures and counties to implement the cotton planting area, and when the cotton is not picked in the harvest season, the cotton planting industry plan promoted by the imperial court has not become a harmful move to the people? ”

Chongzhen's criticism did not make Guo Yunhou unhappy, but reminded him. If there is really such a situation as the emperor said, I am afraid that he, the head of the household, will become the target of public criticism at that time.

Guo Yunhou hesitated, and then replied to Chongzhen: "In fact, the plan drawn up by the household department is not only this one, because the imperial court decided to promote the cause of planting cotton in the above areas is too hasty, and the middle and late April is the season for planting cotton, the time given to the household department to draw up the plan is too short.

The plan in front of His Majesty now is one that the minister thinks is more upright and peaceful, and will not provoke more criticism. The household still has another plan, but in the opinion of the minister, that plan is too radical and extreme, so the minister does not dare to present it to His Majesty. ”

Zhu You was stunned, and immediately said curiously: "What kind of plan is it, even Guo Shangshu doesn't dare to present it." You go and get it, let me see, and if there's anything wrong, you can discuss and revise it. ”

Guo Yunhou immediately replied: "That's not necessary, the minister just brought that plan with him today, so I asked Your Majesty to see it for yourself." ”

Guo Yunhou said as he took out a few pages of paper from his arms and sent them to Chongzhen. Zhu Youzhen took the seven or eight pages of paper bound plan and looked down at it.

When he first looked at this plan, Chongzhen didn't think it was too radical and extreme. However, he can understand why Guo Yunhou feels that this plan is not suitable.

In this plan, the practice of issuing subsidies according to the area of cotton fields was abolished, on the grounds that there were too many intermediate links, which was prone to fraud, and it was very likely that low-level officials would collude with local large households to falsely increase the planting area of cotton fields, resulting in a large increase in the number of cotton fields planted, but the output of cotton did not increase much.

Since the purpose of promoting cotton planting is to increase cotton production, the household department's subsidies for cotton planting should really be used to increase cotton production.

Therefore, this plan holds that the household department should set up a state cotton storage depot in accordance with last year's plan and determine the price of cotton to be collected and stored this autumn on the basis of the price of seed cotton this spring.

For example, the price of seed cotton in the market this spring is 4 taels and 2 yuan per quintal, so you might as well set the price of cotton storage at 37 taels and one quintal, and the cost of planting one mu of cotton is about 03 yuan silver, excluding the price of purchasing fertilizer. The yield of cotton per mu is about 50 catties per mu based on the calculation of the lower middle field.

In this way, the output value of planting one mu of cotton is about 18 taels or more, and the net profit is about 14 taels. This output value is already about the same as the output value of the high-quality irrigated land in the north.

Therefore, as long as the household department signs a sales contract with the landlords who are willing to plant cotton in each county on the basis of 10 quintals, and pays a deposit of 15 percent, then the interest of the landlords in planting cotton in the above areas can be greatly increased.

Assuming that the area of cotton planted in Bafu expands to 5 million mu this year, that is, the purchase contract of 2.5 million quintals of seed cotton, the deposit to be paid by the household department is 138.75 million taels, about 1.94 million yuan.

Although this amount is 1.44 million yuan higher than the subsidy of 5 million mu of cotton fields, the household department can use these seed cotton purchase contracts to establish a cotton futures market. At the market price of seed cotton this spring of 4 taels and 2 cents per quintal, the futures deposit is also 15%.

In this way, the household department will be able to recover the deposit of 15.75 million taels from the futures market, deducting the deposit paid to the landlord, and can also use more than 180,000 taels of funds to pay for the cost of cotton collection, storage and transportation. In this way, the household department will not only not have to subsidize the cost of expanding the cotton planting industry, but will also be able to benefit from it.

So far, the scheme has been detrimental to smallholder producers, but it is not harmful. After all, the most basic purchase contract also guarantees that there are 20 acres of land to grow cotton. Although the amount of land of homesteaders in the north is more than that in the south, it is basically between 15 and 25 mu, with less than 20 mu and more less than 20 mu.

Therefore, it is the landlord class whose land exceeds 50 acres or more that is more beneficial to this plan. They can take out some or most of the land and sign contracts with the household department for cotton cultivation, and use the rest of the land for their own food rations. As for those yeoman farmers, because of the lack of land area, they could not sign a sales contract with the household department, so they could not benefit from the cotton planting program encouraged by the imperial court.

However, for the household department, the purchase and sale contract of 10 quintals of cotton is already the smallest unit, and if the standard continues to be lowered, the cost of collection and storage will increase significantly, and the risk to be borne by the imperial court will gradually rise.

For Chongzhen, if the plan ends here, although he feels uncomfortable in his heart, he will also think that the plan is feasible. But the last part of the plan finally made him drop the plan and said: "Who drew up this plan, so risky to the world, does he want the people near Gyeonggi to rise up?" ”

Hearing Chongzhen's somewhat depressed, but full of resentful words, Guo Yunhou suddenly felt that a stone had been put down in his heart, and he was really afraid that this plan would be favored by Chongzhen.

He said to the emperor with some relief: "It is a low-level official of the household department, and when the Tongzhou warehouse of the household department was audited last year, only the warehouse accounts managed by this person were clear, and there was no shortage of materials.

Therefore, His Majesty made a special commendation and promoted him from a small official to the head of the six products of the household department, mainly responsible for the reserve warehouse affairs of cotton and cotton cloth. After the minister was instructed to draw up a plan for the development of the cotton plant, he ordered the officials above the level of the head of the household department to submit a statement to explain their views on the plan for the development of the cotton plant.

This plan was written by this person, and the discussion of this plan in the household department was also very intense, but there were many opponents and few supporters, and the ministers really couldn't make a decision, so they did not hand it over to His Majesty for reference at the first time. ”

Hearing about the origin of this plan, Zhu Youzhen's anger slowly subsided, and he was silent for a long time. I picked up the dropped plan again and read it carefully.

The reason for his annoyance was that the official named Li Changshi believed that there might be wasteland in Hejian, Jinan, Shunde, Dongchang, Zhangde, Daimyo, Weihui, and Huaiqing, but these wastelands were either saline-alkali land unsuitable for cultivation or public firewood and grass mountains.

What wasteland thinks is really good land that can be cultivated is almost non-existent. Although cotton is more adaptable than wheat and rice, the soil with too high salinity will not grow seedlings.

Therefore, if you want to reclaim the wasteland in the above areas, you must either invest capital in water conservancy and wash away the salt of the saline-alkali land, just like Tianjin treats the coastal saline-alkali land, first plant 2-3 years of rice, and then plant cotton when the salt in the soil returns to normal. Either allow the local households to occupy the common land, and let them turn the common grasslands and barren hills into cotton fields.

Li Changshi believed that poor peasants and small peasants were simply unable to exploit wasteland, and that they were already struggling to cultivate just a few grain fields to feed themselves. To open up a piece of wasteland, so as to turn it into arable land, it requires not only the input of manpower, but also the input of a lot of materials.

He also cited Shunyi County as an example, after the land restructuring in Shunyi County, most of the land was divided into villages, and the land in each village was roughly distributed more fairly. As a result of this distribution, fairness is fairness, and most of the poor people in Shunyi County have also obtained land again, and the displaced people in the entire county have almost disappeared, and the phenomenon of abandonment has basically disappeared.

However, the tax grain provided by Shunyi County this year is less than half of the amount subsidized by the government to the peasant households in Shunyi County, and the grain, agricultural and animal husbandry products provided by Shunyi County to the capital this year have also dropped to 60 percent of the amount provided in previous years.

According to Li Changshi, the reason for this strange situation is that in the past, these poor people paid most of their rations to the landlords, and they themselves were in a state of starvation, so Shunyi County could provide a large amount of grain and agricultural and animal husbandry products for consumption in the capital.

But this year, these poor and small peasants, having acquired their own land under the care of His Majesty, naturally had to keep their rations and then sell the excess. However, with the present production efficiency, these poor and small peasants have little surplus to speak of, so the grain that is naturally supplied to the market has dropped significantly.

In the same way, it can be seen that it is inappropriate to pin the cotton planting industry plan on poor peasants and small farmers. For one, they don't have so many resources to reclaim wasteland; Second, they could not risk starving and planting cotton in their fields.

Therefore, if you want to develop a cotton planting plan, you must rely on the landlord class in each county, who have a large amount of land that can be used to grow cash crops such as cotton, and also have a large amount of resources to open up wasteland. What the imperial court needs to do is to let go of their hands and feet, let them annex and concentrate land, so as to ensure more efficient development of production.

After slowly putting down the plan in his hand, Zhu Youzhen, who had a stern face, thought for a long time before saying to Guo Yunhou: "Tomorrow, you bring this Li Changshi to meet me, I want to hear him talk about his plan with my own ears." ”