Chapter 707 Rising popularity
In midsummer and May, Mianbei is a lively scene, especially the big cities in the city are even more overcrowded.
With the continuous construction and production of various workshops, various products are also continuously produced, attracting customers from all over the world to gather here to choose and buy. As the origin of goods in Jingzhou, people have also enjoyed the benefits of high quality and low prices.
Jingzhou City is located in the east of the city. There are hundreds of restaurants scattered throughout it, and there are countless small stalls opened directly on the ground. What is sold in the diner shops are often exquisite goods sold in distant places, and they do not receive many individual customers. The street stalls sell daily necessities, attracting many people to stop by and choose.
Today's Jingzhou is no longer the chaotic depression of previous years. The permanent population in Rangcheng and the surrounding areas alone is tens of thousands, and the number of households has already exceeded 20,000. This is only the registered population of a city, and does not include data from subordinate counties. As for the number of people doing business and trading, it can exceed tens of thousands every quarter.
The gathering of so many people in one city reflects more than just the strict and thorough municipal management and household registration system. Just how so many people sustain themselves, provide food, and other matters reflect all aspects of the social structure.
The population explosion in Rangcheng is actually a relatively special situation. Although it is also due to the administrative skills of the general manager, it is also related to the special characteristics of the place and its people.
Guan Zhong has been in power for so many years, and under Yuwentai and Su Chuo's hard work, only Chang'an and Huazhou City have reached this level of population. There are also very few civilians living in these two cities. Most of them are clans, officials and their servants, as well as scholars, craftsmen and so on who are affiliated with the palace and government. For example, Huazhou City still has a large number of people living there. There are few real free people among the government, soldiers and families.
This was because Guanzhong was heavily farmed, and Yu Wentai was really frightened by famine, so the focus of Bafu's governance was to encourage farmers to reclaim wasteland, which became the first criterion for assessing the performance of county officials.
Therefore, the newly added households in Guanzhong were basically scattered in the countryside through land equalization. In addition, the large manor farming model that was already prevalent in Guanzhong also meant that the people did not have the need to gather in cities on a large scale.
Although there is some development of handicraft industry, the degree of marketization is also very small. Putting aside the government's military industry or supply and imperial production, the real folk handicraft production is mainly a series of handicraft workshops with Shangyuan Qumeng as the core.
Although the Jingzhou General Administration also puts the development of agriculture in the first place, it does not ignore the development of handicrafts and commerce. After all, the geographical advantage of the Nanyang Basin is too prominent, and it is different from the relatively closed terrain of Guanzhong. Even if we talk about It is not well connected in all directions, but its connections and interactions with surrounding areas are very comprehensive. It is an important hub for east-west and north-south communication.
Especially as the Jingzhou General Administration directly controls the Yangtze River port, this geographical advantage becomes even more obvious. In addition, Jingzhou's internal political stability, good public security, and prosperous industries have greatly attracted the surrounding areas.
The cities under the Jingzhou Governor's Mansion that were divided into various areas to receive refugees were often overcrowded. Since the General Governor's Mansion began to systematically accept refugees, the number of refugees who entered the country from all corners of the country has been estimated at more than 200,000. Coupled with the population flowing in through other channels, it is conservatively estimated that the increase in population should exceed 300,000.
Such a huge number is extremely astonishing, and even far exceeds the population originally controlled by the Jingzhou General Manager's Office. It's not that everything is desolate under the rule of the General Manager, but that there are still a large number of people in various places. For example, Shannan, Handong and other places have not carried out systematic household expansion and reorganization.
The inflow of such a large population is also an important reason for the rapid development of the Jingzhou General Administration Office. The high efficiency of the General Administration Office in resettling immigrants is also amazing. Within half a year, the resettlement volume of immigrants exceeded 80% of the influx of people.
This number is of course very remarkable. After all, the immigrants who immigrate are in an extremely chaotic state. Whether they are healthy, obedient, detained for shelter, or intend to live permanently, etc., various situations are different. It can be said that all kinds of accidents aside Factors, as long as those who enter the territory of Jingzhou General Administration and are willing to accept resettlement can settle down within half a year, obtain a piece of land or learn a craft, and thus have the basic ability to make a living.
In order to avoid conflicts between natives and guests as much as possible, the main focus of the General Administration's resettlement of these immigrants is to divert them to handicraft industries. After all, even the General Administration does not have full say in the existing land resources.
Nowadays, the population migration dividend brought by Hou Jing's Rebellion has not yet ended. If the fundamental contradiction of land resource redistribution is rashly set off, it will be tantamount to a continuation of Hou Jing's Rebellion. Moreover, it is wise to mess with yourself and retain people. fundamental priority.
Against this background, Rangcheng became the base camp for the development of Mianbei's handicraft industry. Local powerful people from Guanzhong and Jingzhou were attracted to invest in building factories, and the General Administration provided them with space and qualified workers for production. And these investments in building factories are not a blind expansion of production capacity. Not to mention the external market, there is a huge demand within the General Administration alone, and the numerous government orders can absorb most of the workshop's production capacity.
If you are in Guanzhong, this mode may not work well. The old Shaanxi people have a very fierce demand for land. If they don't have fertile land, they have to give them at least a piece of wasteland in order to retain people.
However, the exiles accepted by the General Administration Office were mainly from the Southern Liang Dynasty, and these Liang people were more receptive to production methods other than farming and weaving, and the market economy itself was relatively prosperous. Even if there was a little surplus of agricultural and sideline products in the rural farming family, it was very normal to exchange them for needles and thread.
In large cities such as Xiangyang, there were special shops selling daily seasonings such as onions, ginger, and garlic. This was unimaginable in Guanzhong. You have to go to the market to buy an onion to eat? What kind of prodigal son would do such a thing! Where can't you plant a few onions in front of and behind the house?
Therefore, the exiles did not have much resistance to working in the workshop, and were even more active than reclaiming wasteland and granting land. Because once you learn a skill, you can carry it with you, and you can get a meal for one day's work. If the situation in Mianbei is not good one day, or the war in your hometown ends, you can roll up your bedding and leave. But once you become a naturalized citizen and grant land, you will lose the freedom to move forward and backward with the burden of industry.
After all, these southerners were still forced by the war, and they came to Mianbei only for temporary shelter. The nostalgia for their hometown could not be easily cut off.
Most of the exiles who had skills or could pass short-term training were sent to workshops. As for the others, they were reorganized by local governments and unified to carry out reclamation work, expand the cultivated land area and meet the basic food supply.
Regardless of any period, population is the most valuable. Even if it is a rebellion, more people must be involved to make it more powerful.
While accepting a large number of exiles, Li Tai also knew that although this resettlement method is efficient and quick, it will also make people feel heavy and may not settle down for a long time. After all, the gap between the Southern and Northern Dynasties is quite deep, not only in terms of feelings and habits, but even the fundamental ideology needs to be integrated.
Therefore, in order to avoid the return of the population after the war, resulting in a large loss of labor and interrupting the current prosperity and development rhythm of the Jingzhou General Administration, Li Tai also made many preparations.
On the one hand, he strengthened the control of the outflow of people from the borders. In principle, large-scale outflow of people was not allowed without the order of the prefecture and county government.
However, border control cannot be comprehensive, and if the blockade is too strict, it will affect trade with the surrounding areas and cause certain obstacles to the inflow of people. Therefore, this ban is limited to the intimidation brought to the interior by legislation, and the actual implementation is not strict.
There is another way to prevent the departure of people from the country, that is, to buy off the other side. The entry of people from the border will always have a negative impact on the local people's livelihood. In addition, not all local tyrants are keen on sheltering the population and accumulating grain to become kings. They mainly expel the transiting people and rarely take them in.
Such people can become the eyes and ears of the government, and prevent the escape of people from the countryside through their monitoring of the countryside. While protecting the countryside from intrusion, they can also get a reward from the government.
Of course, in the face of such a large-scale group of people from the countryside, any compulsory means are actually inferior. The wages are enough to ensure the fruits of their labor, the public security is good to ensure the safety of their personal and property, and the material supply is sufficient to ensure food consumption. As long as these few items can be done well, most people can be appeased.
Coupled with some public relations methods to shape the benevolent image of the General Administration Office, these exiles will gradually settle down and will no longer make trouble.
After entering May, it is not only the business and livelihood that are bustling in Mianyang North, but also an activity that has become lively, that is, the people of Jiangling return to their hometown to worship their ancestors.
Li Tai decided on this project as early as the beginning of last year, and ordered Liu Guangde, the son of Liu Zhilin in Nanyang, to compile a book "Where are the Ancestors".
In the middle of last year, this book named "Nanyang Shicui" was compiled, and with the blessing of printing technology, thousands of copies were printed in a short time, and spread to Jiangling and other places through different channels, and soon became a focus of public opinion.
However, at that time, Jiangling was busy counterattacking Jiankang, and Xiangdong King Xiao Yi announced a personnel martial law, which greatly restricted the personnel exchanges between Jiangling and the outside world. It was not until the news of the recovery of Jiangling and Hou Jing's surrender came that the martial law order in Jiangling was lifted, so those filial sons and grandsons went north to look for their ancestral tombs.
"We must treat these Jiangling people who come north to find their roots with our heart. If their search is not smooth, the prefecture can also help them."
Li Tai seriously told the officials of the prefecture that no matter what he thought of these Jiangling people, they still had appeal in the eyes of the people of Nanliang. Their group coming north was also a kind of emotional comfort in the eyes of these people.
As for Li Tai himself, he had no time to personally entertain these Jiangling people. It was rare that Wang Sengbian remembered to send Hou Jing's hands and feet, so he had to send them back to Guanzhong before they were dry to show everyone. Of course, the most important thing was that the Zhongwai Prefecture summoned him back to the prefecture to discuss the matter of attacking Shu.