"20 years? How is this possible?! Zeng Qi and Lu Yixuan shook their heads at the same time to express disbelief.

The term smallholder economy may sound backward, but in fact it has been the economic foundation of China, the largest country in East Asia, for more than 2,000 years. Whether it is the strength of the Han and Tang dynasties or the prosperity of the two Song dynasties, they are all built on the shoulders of thousands of hard-working farmers. Moreover, what China practiced was not European-style serfdom, but a tenant system, and even if the ownership of land was concentrated, there were few large farms and estates, and the landlords would break up the land into small pieces and lease them to landless peasant households, and exploit and enslave the peasants in the form of collecting land rent, issuing usury, or collecting taxes on their behalf, but the basis was still the small peasant economy. Such a social production model based on the economy of small farmers has been maintained until the 80s in the original time and space of Chang Ruiqing, and the spring breeze of China's reform and opening up actually began with the restoration of the small peasant economy. But Chang Ruiqing knows that this spring breeze is the last swan song of China's small-scale peasant economy.

This is because with the take-off of China's "socialist market economy," more and more Chinese peasants have either become rich in business or have gone to the cities for employment, and there are fewer and fewer peasants who can stay in their hometowns and keep that small piece of cultivated land belonging to the state and cultivate with peace of mind. Even in the "main grain-producing areas" where agriculture is developed, the smallholder economy is actually close to extinction. Instead, there are individuals or companies that lease large tracts of land, the former being similar to the "family farms" that originated in Europe, and the latter being factory farming companies. The small-scale peasant economy, which had underpinned China's feudal society for more than 2,000 years, was in fact on the verge of collapse. And such drastic changes were only achieved in the twenty or thirty years after the reform and opening up of China and G.

In this time and space, although history has just come to 1936, China is already one of the three major powers in the world. The current Chinese economy, if you look at it from the perspective of heavy industry capacity, including steel, automobiles, shipbuilding, aviation, petroleum and petrochemical, coal, electricity and other major industrial products have exceeded or reached the level of the early 80s in another time and space! If we look at the market economy system, democracy and the rule of law, and the scale of private capital. I am afraid that China in the 90s may not be able to compare with it. Under the impact of such a surging tide of capitalist industry and commerce, if the current small-scale peasant economy of the Federation of Greater China can be maintained for more than 20 years, I am afraid that it will really be a hell of a life.

"But. Have you ever thought about it, Prime Minister, farming is actually a very laborious thing, and the land that can be cultivated by a strong laborer is very limited, and if a large number of rural laborers enter the city to work......" Zeng Qi's face changed dramatically when he said this. Yes. Farming is a chore. Not to mention a little fat man like Zeng Qi, even if he is a strong man like Chang Ruiqing and two ploughing cattle, how much land can he plant? After all, the oxen can only pull the plow, and the farmers themselves have to do the work of planting seedlings, weeding, fertilizing, harvesting, and building irrigation facilities.

"Prime Minister, President Mao's opinion is right, we should still find ways to maintain the small-scale peasant economic system, otherwise once agriculture goes wrong, the whole country will be unstable......" Zeng Qi watched Chang Ruiqing make another suggestion, which is probably the benefit of the evil path of democratic constitutionalism. Dissenting opinions can be raised casually, even if they are wrong. Truly make sure that those who speak are not guilty -- at present, there are often separatist elements from Nanyang marching and demonstrating at the gates of the Prime Minister's Office of the Great Chinese Federation and the Senate and the Legislative House and the Presidential Palace, and such things are legal! As the Minister of Commerce and Federal Councillor, Zeng Qi has nothing to say in front of Chang Ruiqing?

However, Zeng Qi couldn't help but glance at Chang Ruiqing when he said this, and saw that the other party's expression was as usual, as if he didn't want to get angry, so he continued: "Prime Minister, I am more worried about urbanization than land concentration...... If industry and commerce are to really get on the rise, there is no need to worry about the concentration of land at all, but the landlords who have eaten too much land will really have to worry about it. If the peasants all went to the city to engage in industry and commerce, to whom could the landlord's land be rented? But if there is really no one to farm, how can the problem of feeding tens of thousands of people be solved? We can't introduce policies to encourage farmers to move to the cities. ”

It is not surprising that Zeng Qi had such an idea, and the emphasis on agriculture and the suppression of commerce was originally the most basic economic guiding ideology of China's feudal dynasties. Although Zeng Qi has drunk foreign ink for several years, he still has a lot of Confucian things in his bones. Moreover, physiocratism is not unreasonable, after all, China's economy has always been based on the small-scale peasant economy, which is agriculture!

After hearing this, Chang Ruiqing smiled bitterly and shook his head: "Mu Han, I know that Mao Zd's opinion has a certain amount of truth, and I also know what you are worried about." But many things are not transferred by the will of you, me, and Mao, and now that China's social production has developed to this point, industry and commerce will develop by leaps and bounds in the next few decades, and in this process, most of the rural labor force will be attracted to the cities to engage in industry and commerce. This is a trend that we cannot stop, so we can only follow it, and we can only help the children of rural families to find employment and settle down in the city. ”

In later generations, there was not only the state-owned land, but also a household registration system, under the binding of these two chains, the production model of the small peasant economy is still inevitably collapsing, and the only thing that can be comforted is probably the only innovative word "peasant worker", at least the peasant is still ranked before the worker!

However, in the current Greater China Federation, of course, there is a household registration management system, but the people's right to free movement is implemented. If the peasants do not want to stay in their hometowns and farm, but want to go to the big cities to work, and their hukou can be moved at any time, there is absolutely no obstacle, and no politician dares to make a fuss about this issue, after all, Chinese peasants, especially the new generation of peasants who have received six years of compulsory education, still have the same thing called ballot in their hands, and this is the favorite of politicians......

However, it cannot be said that there is no obstacle for the peasants to really settle down in the city, and among all the obstacles that prevent the peasants from entering the city, the biggest one should be the house! Of course, the price of real estate in China should be very cheap in this time and space, well, this statement is actually not correct, it should be said that there is no real estate industry in China at all. The form of building a dozen or dozens of high-rise buildings and then selling them one by one has not yet appeared. At present, if you want to buy a house, the most common form is to buy a piece of land and find an engineering team to build it yourself, or you can buy an entire building or an entire street from a large real estate owner - Chang Ruiqing himself is such a large real estate owner!

Moreover, most city dwellers, including those who have just moved to the city and those who have been in the city for many years, live in rented houses, and few will buy a house that belongs to them (which is really their own, including the land). After all, the cost of buying an entire building or an entire compound is not something that ordinary people can afford. In addition, many ordinary people who go to the city to engage in industry and commerce have not forgotten that their roots are in the countryside, perhaps in their minds, going to the city to work and make money is only temporary, and they will still have to return to their hometown to marry a wife and have children in the future, so they have no idea of buying a house in a big city.

However, in the "second land reform" plan proposed by Chang Ruiqing, a full 10 billion square meters (10,000 square kilometers) of land located in the suburbs of the eight metropolises were allocated as "spoils"! The land was purchased by the federal government during the World War, in preparation for the development of metropolises and urbanization after the war. Although the potential for future appreciation of those lands is undoubted, there is still no interest at the moment, so Chang Ruiqing wants to use the "second land reform" to stimulate the urbanization process and help citizens who have already entered the city or are preparing to enter the city to buy their own real estate.

"But the problem is that the peasants have gone to the city, who will farm the land?" Zeng Qi muttered, he looked at Chang Ruiqing and stopped, guessing in his heart that the prime minister must have some clever plan.

"Of course there will be people planting the land." Chang Ruiqing said with a smile: "Because farming is also a profitable industry, agriculture will also be part of business in the future, isn't this the case in the United States and Western Europe now?" There are no farmers in the traditional sense of the word, only farmers who run agriculture as if it were a business. They will find a way to turn agricultural production into a profitable industry, and I have full confidence in that. ”

"Prime Minister, you have confidence, we don't have this kind of confidence!" Zeng Qi shook his head and said with a wry smile: "I'm afraid that Mao Zd, Chen Duxiu, and Zhou E don't have confidence in coming, if you insist on implementing the second land reform, Prime Minister, I will definitely follow, I'm afraid that these people will obstruct it, and if you don't do it, there will be a turmoil in the cabinet." ”

"What's there to be afraid of?" Sun Yuexun interjected at this time: "Are we afraid that we can't choose them? ”

"Of course, the election is electable, but democratic constitutionalism is not just a ballot box." Zeng Qi smiled bitterly: "If they play street politics with us, I am afraid that it will cause social instability and adversely affect economic development." ”

Hearing these words, Chang Ruiqing's thick eyebrows frowned slightly, and he was silent and smiled: "Brother Mu Han, you are right, it's better not to tear your face, besides, they are not really against me, they are all for the country, I think...... We can let them go out and inspect the agriculture of Europe and the United States, and let them know what the inevitable development direction of China's agriculture will be in the future. Brother Mu Han, why don't you go and see it too? (To be continued......)