Chapter 361 Lecture on Land Issues
The commercial real estate planned by the Ministry of Construction in Sanya New City is actually far more than just "Sanya Garden". The reason why it has attracted widespread public attention is mainly because of the sky-high sales price of "Sanya Garden" for ordinary people. Even the cheapest garden house costs as much as eight households of naturalized residents. Although ordinary people cannot afford it, they will inevitably discuss it. Fortunately, the local naturalized people enjoy a certain level of living security and are not squeezed out to the point of survival. Therefore, there is no resentment against the rich among the people.
In addition to high-end commercial and residential communities such as "Sanya Garden", the Ministry of Construction has certainly not forgotten the large number of ordinary migrant workers and some wealthy households who have taken the initiative to move to the Sanya area. Most of the migrant workers are subordinates of various maritime merchants and need to be permanently stationed in the Sanya area. According to statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce, there are currently as many as 200 shopkeepers, managers, etc. dispatched by foreign merchants to the local area. The remaining people. There are also many wealthy households from counties under Yazhou and even Danzhou and other places in the north who plan to move to Sanya to settle for various reasons. These people have a certain economic foundation and have certain requirements for the living environment. After all, living in a place like the Shangzhan Inn is not a long-term solution. After all, you have to buy a house.
The Ministry of Construction has launched business apartments priced at 500 to 800 yuan per unit for this group of consumers who will not take the initiative to become naturalized citizens in the short term. However, the quality of this kind of house is not much better than the affordable housing purchased by naturalized residents. It is just a tube building with a slightly larger floor area. But for outsiders who are eager to find a permanent residence in the local area, there is no choice. They can either buy this business apartment, which is not very cost-effective, or continue to live in hotels and business stations.
In addition to economic considerations, there are also political reasons for such residential areas being planned for outsiders. This is a system established by the Executive Committee early on to group the residences of outsiders together to facilitate registration and supervision by relevant departments.
As early as last year, the Ministry of Civil Affairs had begun to launch a household registration system for naturalized citizens to register people and gradually improve the government affairs system. As the Sanya area becomes more prosperous, the number of immigrants is also gradually increasing. The local laws and regulations for naturalized residents do not fully apply to outsiders. This requires relevant departments to increase the supervision of immigrants. . To achieve this effect, the most efficient way is to restrict the scope of activities of outsiders, especially their residences and places of work.
After the split of the Military and Police Department, the Police Department was incorporated into the newly established Ministry of Justice, but its establishment did not increase much. The Executive Committee allocates most of its resources to the military, so that the police are often stretched thin and often need to second militia or militia members to help maintain law and order in certain public places. The plan launched by the Ministry of Construction to concentrate the migrant population has simply done a great favor to the Police Department.
While Sanya New City is gradually becoming more lively due to the rise of real estate, large-scale farm development organized by the Ministry of Agriculture is also in full swing in the coastal plain area in the upper reaches of the Liangjiang River area, about ten miles away from the coast.
According to the plan of the Ministry of Agriculture, this area with very rich water conservancy resources will continue to be developed in the next two to three years, and the planting of food and cash crops will be promoted on a large scale in units of 1,000 acres. Faced with this collective farm-style management method, some of the local small and medium-sized landowners have been hardest hit.
Because the Haihan people offered higher remuneration and better treatment, many long-term workers and even tenants who had previously worked for landlords quit their jobs and joined Haihan. Some farmers with only a small amount of land also chose to sell their land to Haihan and then join the naturalized system to work. The rewards they could receive in this way far exceeded what they could earn from cultivating the land themselves. This has led to labor shortages in many landowners' homes and large areas of land being abandoned. The Haihan people shipped large quantities of high-quality rice from Annan, which greatly lowered the price of rice in the local market, making it almost unprofitable for the large local grain growers. The Yazhou government is also using various methods to put pressure on the landowners, hoping that they can "actively" sell the land under their names to the wealthy Haihan people.
However, in this land-based society, many people are still unwilling to sell the land assets accumulated over generations. Regarding this situation, the Executive Committee had already anticipated it and did not implement compulsory acquisition of these people. Instead, it adopted a laissez-faire attitude - if you don't want to sell the land, then just hold on to the land and wait to die.
Whether it is cultivating fields or building water conservancy projects, collective farms under the Ministry of Agriculture have advantages that are far beyond the reach of ordinary landowners. Thousands of people are often mobilized to work, and the Ministry of Agriculture uses a large number of human and mechanical tools in the process. The work efficiency is far better than the scattered labor of farmers at the same time. If the landowners plan to grow some food for their own consumption, then it is probably enough, but if they want to sell it out, they will definitely not be able to sell it to collective farms with extremely low production costs. Moreover, in addition to food, most of the daily necessities on the ground in Yazhou are now directly or indirectly supplied by the Chuan Chuan Group. People who do not cooperate with the Chuan Chuan Group will find it difficult to buy even salt. Therefore, although there are still many landowners in the agricultural planning area, their lives are not easy at all now, and they are trapped on their own land.
In fact, there are still quite a few people among the people who don't quite understand the policies of the Executive Committee. Although most of these people went bankrupt because they suffered various oppressions from the landlord class and finally defected to the Crossing Group, but They do not quite agree with the land system implemented by the Crossing Group and its attitude towards landlords - after all, every poor person in this era has or has had a dream of being a landlord in their hearts.
This backward ideological understanding is not just an individual's. When the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture were promoting land policies, they found that grassroots staff were resistant to their work because many people did not understand why privately owned land must be transferred. The land was taken into public ownership, and in the future it would be impossible to purchase privately owned land from the collective.
In response to this situation, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Propaganda jointly organized a workshop to train grassroots cadres and help them understand and implement the current land policy. As the chief instructor of the Time Travel Group, Ning Qi would come to the workshop from time to time to teach students, brainwash them, and answer all kinds of weird questions from them.
"Mr. Ning, I have a question."
After Ning Qi finished his lecture, he saw someone raising his hand, so he nodded and said, "Go ahead."
The practitioner then said, "I recently went to the landlord's house to do some work. The landlord said, we cultivate our own land and have never provoked the Haihan Executive Committee. Why do we have to try our best to take over our land? I don't know how to answer them." That’s great. Please teach me, Mr. Ning.”
"I'm afraid you are not the only one who has encountered this situation. I think most of the people here have encountered similar problems at work, right?" Ning Qi saw that most of the students below were nodding lightly, and he knew something in his mind. , and then said: "This sounds like a question of justice. If what we do lacks legitimate reasons and is not moral, then you seem to be unable to do it with confidence, or even convince yourself to carry out the orders of your superiors. Order, right?" "Then we might as well spend some time today to talk about the issue of land ownership." Ning Qi turned back and wrote the word "land" on the blackboard: "Whether it is Ming Dynasty, It is still the previous dynasty. No matter how it changes, it will always be the upper class of society that changes, those who are qualified to determine land ownership. The people at the lower class, including the landlords who question your work, actually have no understanding of the land ownership system. They are nothing more than vested interests in this system, so they must maintain this land system that benefits them and oppose all policies that may deprive them of their rights.”
"We might as well first take a look at the role of the landlord class in society." Ning Qi wrote the word "official" on the blackboard, and then wrote "peasant" below it, pointing to the blank space in the middle Said: "Between the government and the peasants, there are the landlords and gentry. In this social system, they act as the middle class between the government and the peasants, controlling the stability of society. They rely on the land to collect rent and lend money to accumulate personal wealth. They use wealth to gain social status, monopolize rural handicrafts and commerce, manage clan affairs and religious organizations, and constantly grow their own power. But what about farmers? I think you all have personal experience. After a year of hard work, only enough is enough. If something happens to the family, they can only borrow money from the landlords in the same village. If there is a famine, they will often have to mortgage their fields to the landlords in exchange for food. You lost your family property and became refugees, right? Many of you came to Victory Port this way, right?”
Many of the students in the audience nodded silently. If they had not lost their family property, how could they have ended up in such a remote place as Victory Port to work? Of course, judging from the current living conditions, it would be a good idea to settle down in this place. It's not a bad thing, it can even be said to be a great blessing in my life.
"What did these landlords do after they exploited you?" Ning Qi unknowingly pitted the students against the landlords subtly: "Because they have limited knowledge in their minds and cannot be like us. In this way, various commodities are produced to make money, so the way they can think of to make money is to continue to exploit and squeeze you. They dare not squander it, and they are unwilling to turn their money into capital and invest it in industry and commerce, so they can only use it to buy More land, and then squeeze more farmers through land annexation.”
"Take the farm we are currently cultivating near Fenghuang Town as an example. You also know that we have organized and built a large number of water diversion and irrigation projects in the local area, covering an area of nearly 10,000 acres. From your perspective, these projects can Can it be achieved by relying on a certain landowner or a certain village? ”
Seeing the students in the audience shaking their heads, Ning Qi continued: "According to convention, such a large project can only be organized and implemented by the local government, but can the Yacheng government manage it? Will it? Obviously the officials have not Such interest and motivation were not available before and are unlikely to be available in the future. Why? Because these lands do not belong to them at all, and the benefits obtained have nothing to do with them. Maybe he can add something to the memorial and benefit himself. Even if the performance of a good leader is good and the harvest is poor, it will not affect the official position under the butt. So this is a dead end. People with land have no ability to increase productivity, and people with ability do not have enough benefits. Push, the root of this contradiction lies in the land system!”
"Many of you feel that there are problems with the current land policy of the Executive Committee. They are just thinking that you might become a landlord one day. Then I can tell you now that being a landlord will not solve the fundamental problem. Landlords The social wealth occupied is not as much as you think.”
Ning Qi looked at the doubtful expressions of the students and continued: "Let me take Fenghuang Town as an example. According to the land information provided to us by the Yacheng government, Fenghuang Town has 50% of the existing cultivated land. They belong to homesteaders, who account for less than one-third of the local residents. The other half of the land belongs to local landlords, and their proportion of the population is even lower, less than one-tenth. If the farmers in Fenghuang Town divide the local area equally. Will all the farmland become rich? No. A few more acres of land will not be enough to change the economic situation of farmers, because under the condition of private land ownership, productivity cannot be significantly improved. Students who have questions about this issue can compare the grain output of this summer’s harvest in Fenghuang Town and Shengli Port area. The facts will tell you how powerful the collective farms are.”
"I have three questions. I hope the students can think carefully and find out the root of the problem. First, under the land system of the Ming Dynasty, between the landlords and the farmers who rent the land, who is supporting whom? Second, why do the poor become poor, and why do the rich become rich? Third, should farmers pay land rent to landlords? ”
Ning Qi wrote down these three questions on the blackboard, and then said to the students: "Many people, including you, believe that if there is no land of their own, or no landlord is willing to rent out the land, then farmers must Starved to death, so in order to survive, we must find ways to purchase land or maintain the current land system. But is this really the case? You have been here for a while, do not have your own land, and have not been engaged in farming. You are not living well now, and I believe you are living more like a human being than before you came to Victory Harbor! Will people starve to death if they are separated from the land? Under the rule of the Haihan Executive Committee, this situation will never happen! Because we have a better and more mature social system that can support more people through social division of labor.”
"Some people may ask, since Haihan's system can allow people to live off the land, why do we need to acquire more land?" Ning Qi drank some water to moisten his throat and looked at the students below, whose eyes gradually brightened. They continued: "The advantage of the Haihan system is that it can effectively utilize labor and produce output in an efficient production method. Whether it is food or other products, our production costs are much lower than those of the Ming Dynasty. We It is precisely because of this that our products are selling well, and in exchange for more wealth, we can provide a better living environment for you here. Have you ever experienced the living conditions you enjoy in Victory Port in the past?"
The students in the audience shook their heads collectively. Indeed, what they enjoyed after coming here was unmatched before. The comprehensive guarantee of food, clothing, housing and transportation provided by the executive committee made it impossible for these people who could not even keep their own property to be picky anymore. What. This is also the biggest reason why they are willing to stay here and continue to work with the executive committee even if they cannot own their own land.
“But those who can enjoy the treatment of naturalized citizens are only a very small number of people under the Ming Dynasty. The ideal of the Executive Committee is to let as many Chinese people as possible live the same life as you now, so that everyone can have clothing. It will be difficult to realize this ideal of having clothes, a house to live in, food to eat, and books to read, because it requires a lot of wealth, so much that you may not be able to understand that you can only obtain so much wealth by winning. The current manpower in Hong Kong is far from enough, so we will continue to introduce immigrants to expand our production capacity.”
"When there are more people, there is always something to eat. There are already tens of thousands of people here. With so many mouths to eat, we cannot rely entirely on buying food from outside the island. We must cultivate it ourselves. And the meaning of the existence of the Ministry of Agriculture is, It means using the most efficient farming method to grow as much food as possible with the least manpower and input. To achieve this, we must rely on collective farms to feed the growing population. , and the existence of the landlord class is a stumbling block to our great cause. On the land they own, we can obviously grow more food with fewer hands, but we still have to endure their existence. This is really a shame. A very funny thing.”
Ning Qi pointed to the students in the audience: "And you are the biggest force to change this ridiculous status quo! For every acre of land you expropriate from the landlords, you can produce hundreds of kilograms more grain every year and feed more people. Naturalized citizens, create more wealth to change your own living conditions! If you want to live a better life, then first complete your current work and expropriate all the land in the Phoenix Town area as quickly as possible! .”
(End of chapter)