The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of the Far East has promoted modern agricultural technology and soil fertilizer technology on a large scale in Liaodong, Northeast China and other regions. As a result, the level of agricultural production in the various areas controlled by the Far Eastern Company has far exceeded this era.

Do not underestimate the advanced agricultural technology of the Far Eastern Company, which is the capital of the Far East in this era, and its importance even exceeds that of industry. No matter where you are in this era, if you can feed your whole family, others can give you their lives.

After the company entered the Central Plains, it first had to face the problem of food and clothing for countless people at the bottom north of the Yangtze River.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the phenomenon of land annexation was extremely serious, and the landlord group, dominated by the bureaucracy and gentry, owned a large number of land and a very large number of tenants.

In the Ming Dynasty, a scholar, even if he was a poor bastard, as long as he was admitted to the juren, a large number of fields and assets would appear in his name overnight, and many farmers or merchants with land would put their own fields and assets under his name to avoid state taxes, and these people also became the domestic slaves of this gentry.

The large-scale annexation of land by the gentry and landlord groups of the Ming Dynasty was a major cause of the financial collapse of the Ming Dynasty. The tea tax, sea tax, mining tax, and commercial tax are very low, and they are basically impossible to collect.

Taking the tea tax in Jiangnan as an example, Chongzhen took back the eunuchs supervised by the various political secretaries, and the result was that the tea tax in Zhejiang Province was reduced from 200,000 taels of silver during the Wanli Apocalypse to 12 taels of silver per year.

It stands to reason that if a peasant loses his land, he should no longer bear the land tax. In fact, this is not the case, the gentry landlords not only enjoy the right of preferential exemption at the rate, but also collude with local officials to evade grain taxes by means of trickery, sprinkling, insinuation, etc., and pass these taxes on to the poor people at the bottom.

It can be seen from this that Daming's group of scholars are so unbelievable that they don't force their faces. And the history is still written by these readers, so the gentry group and the "eunuch party" of the Ming Dynasty are all the same, and no one should laugh at anyone.

If the Far East enters the Central Plains and still follows the policy of the Ming Dynasty, exempts taxes from the gentry group, and appoints the bureaucratic gentry group and local officials of the Ming Dynasty to manage the grassroots level, then the Far East Company will still be controlled by these moths.

The reason why the company started from scratch and trained its own grassroots management cadres is to break this vicious circle. Because the gentry clique and the local officials were already completely rotten from the roots.

After the Far Eastern Company enters the Central Plains and stabilizes the situation in various places, it will conduct a strict population census and land census, and then implement a strict land tax collection policy and adopt the method of tiered taxation to pay taxes.

The more land you own, the higher the land tax levied. Moreover, this land tax collection standard can be levied regardless of whether you cultivate or not.

In order to alleviate the problem of food shortage in the Central Plains, after the Far East occupied the Central Plains, it still had to implement a large-scale immigration policy. They mainly migrated to India, Indochina and the South Seas.

Although the Far Eastern Company did not confiscate the land of the gentry, it did not allow the gentry to keep domestic slaves in captivity. Landless tenants should be forcibly relocated or emigrated.

As soon as the Far Eastern Company massively migrated tenants who cultivated the land for them, there were not enough people in their hands to cultivate the land. The Far East Company will buy the landlord's land at market price.

Of course, it's up to you whether you sell your land or not, but you can't afford to pay the land tax. In the event of tax arrears, the tax authorities in the Far East will confiscate the land of the delinquent entity to offset the tax at market value. If the tax-delinquent units violently resist the law, they will also be severely cracked down on by the Far Eastern Army.

Although there is no problem with the general direction of the company's plan, it will definitely face no fewer problems when it comes to specific implementation. Because the area north of the Yangtze River is too large and has a large population, how can there be no problems.

Fortunately, the members of the Standing Committee of the Board of Directors of the company have always kept a clear head and prepared for the worst-case scenario.

Adequate material preparation is an important guarantee for the successful implementation of various plans. Without enough food, cloth and other materials for production and daily life, nothing can be done.

The company alone relocated the domestic slaves of the homeless people, tenants and gentry in the Ming Dynasty, and required a large amount of materials. In addition, in order to deal with many unexpected phenomena, such as natural disasters and so on, you must always be able to provide food in an emergency.

Resettle displaced people and tenants to cultivate the wasteland, and give them seeds, cattle, farm tools, surplus grain and other materials for production and daily life. The implementation of the migration plan, not to mention, the cost of materials is even more astronomical. There are a myriad of other needs, and those ones don't require huge material support.

Therefore, without sufficient materials, the company's entry into Daming is bound to be a chaos, coupled with the non-cooperation of local forces, and even resistance and incitement, the company can only rely on the local gentleman group of Daming as a last resort, which is of course what the Far East Company does not want to see.

In order to avoid this from happening, Far Eastern companies began to make silent preparations several years ago. The factories and mines in the Far East control zone have long been in action.

After more than ten years of development, the basic industry in the Far East has finally gained some scale. A large number of modern equipment driven by steam power, once it runs wildly, the terrifying production capacity will definitely roll dozens of streets in this era, regardless of quality, capacity and cost, the efficiency is at least dozens of times, or even hundreds of times that of handicraft workshops.

The major factories and mines in the Vladivostok Industrial Zone have been converted to varying degrees, specializing in the production of various production and living materials. Even the newly built Manila Industrial Zone and Liaoshen Industrial Zone are at full speed and have joined in active production.

So far, in addition to the shortage of food, the company's reserves of other materials, including farm tools and seeds, ploughing cattle and wagons, cloth and cotton, bedding covers, pots and pans, needles and threads, etc., are very sufficient.

Even in the case of tight food reserves, it is the final data that the company has come up with after preparing for the worst in all aspects. It does not include the company's seizures in various parts of the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, just the official warehouses and treasury of the Ming Dynasty, the princes and nobles, as well as the Jiubian military towns, local officials and armies and other units, have stored a huge amount of grain. Although the grain in these places is often withheld by local officials, or the new grain that was newly put in storage that year is replaced by unscrupulous grain merchants for old grain, the amount is still very considerable.

Once the Far Eastern Army attacks, the 10 main forces of the new cavalry divisions and several mounted infantry field divisions and garrison divisions will surely move south to occupy various areas in the north of the Ming Dynasty, and the armed police forces and other paramilitary forces and militia forces that will follow up will also be overwhelmingly pressed.

Moreover, the Far Eastern Army in all directions will be able to receive all-round air support from the airboat units in the air and intelligence support from the intelligence department on the ground, and each unit will be led by local intelligence officers.

With such a rapid attack, the officers and soldiers in various parts of the Ming Dynasty could not react at all. Even if they reacted, it is estimated that most of them will collapse at the touch of a button, and even the Far Eastern Army will disperse in a hurry before it arrives. If the war situation is so smooth, the battlefield capture of the Far Eastern Army is bound to be abundant, and there will be no shortage of food and other materials in short supply in the Far East.

Moreover, after the Far Eastern Army occupied the northern part of the Ming Dynasty, in order to win the support of the broad masses of the people at the bottom, it would liquidate and crack down on some local tyrants and inferior gentry who were in trouble in the countryside and the common people, and confiscate their land and family property.

These local tyrants and shoddy gentry are all wealthy and thousands of acres of fertile land, and they are all obtained by exploiting and looting the people at the bottom on weekdays. Of course, the Far East Company cannot let these people go, one is to set an example to deter those local forces who are trying to resist the Far East, and the other is to give an explanation to the local people and win the support of the broad masses of people at the bottom.

The Far East Company confiscated the property of these local tyrants and shoddy gentry, and could also get a large amount of grain. Don't underestimate the seizure of the battlefield and the confiscation of the property of the local tyrants and inferior gentry, although there is no accurate data, but the amount is definitely an astronomical amount, which must be an important supplement to the Far East Company, and can greatly link the food shortage situation in the Far East.

In addition, in the north-south Grand Canal of the Ming Dynasty, a large number of southern grain will be transported to Beijing every year. Every year, millions of stone grains travel back and forth between the north and the south, and there are also a large number of boat wharves and warehouses along the coast. At that time, the main vanguard of the Far Eastern Army will take control of the canal as soon as possible and intercept a large number of northbound boats from the south.

If conditions permit, the Admiralty will organize a large number of inland river steam deck barges and river engine sailing ships to enter the Nanzhili and Huguang areas south of the Yangtze River to plunder grain.

According to the preliminary forecast of the Ministry of Intelligence, the Far Eastern Army launched the Central Plains Campaign, and the new and old grain seized and confiscated from all parts of the Ming Dynasty would reach 20 or 30 million stone even according to conservative estimates. This is all intelligence data that the Ministry of Intelligence has been collecting over the years, and although the data is not necessarily accurate, the discrepancies are certainly not large.

There is no need to mention the official warehouses and treasury in various parts of the Ming Dynasty, although the official grain stored in it is not enough all year round, and it is all old grain, but the amount is absolutely considerable. The vassal kings and nobles in the northern part of the Ming Dynasty are not rich and rival countries, and most of the grain stored in their granaries is rotten, plus the amount of grain stored in their Zhuangzi and grain stores around the country is huge.

If the intelligence department's forecast is relatively accurate, the Far Eastern Company's grain reserves will basically be able to meet next year's needs. This is still the worst-case scenario demand of the Far Eastern company, and if all goes well, there may be a slight surplus.

Although the company's various materials have been prepared, many factories and mining enterprises are still producing various materials at full capacity. This year, the number of displaced people has also dropped significantly, mainly because the natural disasters in the north are weakening year by year, and next year the Far Eastern Company will also take over the Central Plains, and all kinds of resources will be occupied by all kinds of material preparations for next year.

Most of the ships of the Admiralty and the company's shipping department are constantly traveling to and from India, the South Seas, Luzon, the Indochina Peninsula and other emerging grain-producing areas in the Far East, carrying large quantities of grain to the coast of Liaodong, Taiwan Island, Luzon Island and other places, making active preparations for next year's Central Plains Campaign.

(To be continued.) )