Chapter 112 Section 9 Zhu Yuanzhang's special policy towards his hometown

How to revive Fengyang, the "hometown of flying dragons", protect this "fundamental place" of the country, so that the economic development of his hometown will be faster, and the life of the villagers will be better. Zhu Yuanzhang did not waste his brains.He provided many "special policies" for Fengyang. The first is the Great Migration. The return to his hometown in April of the twenty-sixth year of Zhengzheng (1366 AD) left a deep impression on Zhu Yuanzhang.He was deeply shocked by the destruction of his hometown by the war. Later, he chatted with the ministers about his feelings during the trip and said: "The fields are barren. Since the rise of the army, people have died or migrated to other counties, and cannot return to their hometowns. The flesh and blood are separated. Lives and careers are gone, this generation would rather have no complaints?" (Volume 20 of "Records of Emperor Taizu of Ming Dynasty") At that time, the history books also recorded, "North of the Lianghuai River and south of the Dahe River, the place is in a depression." "("Yuan History" Volume 186, "Zhang Zhen Biography"), due to "many people fleeing, the city is empty" ("Ming Taizu Records" Volume 34), a large area of ​​land was barren, until Hongwu changed Yuan, Fengyang Mansion has It is "in ten years, the cultivated land has turned into grass" (Volume 51 of "Records of Emperor Taizu of Ming Dynasty").

At the time of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, there were only 3,324 local residents in Fengyang County ("Zhongdu Zhi Hukou", quoted from Chen Wutong's "Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang"), less than 16,600 One hundred and twenty people.The population of Fengyang Prefecture does not exceed 130,000, and the population density is only five people per square kilometer.There are ruins everywhere and few villages, which of course makes Zhu Yuanzhang feel very uncomfortable. To revive the economy, you must first have a labor force. In order to quickly change the appearance of your hometown, after the founding of the country, Zhu Yuanzhang organized several large-scale immigration in Fengyang.The biggest one was Zhu Yuanzhang's "migration of 140,000 people in the south of the Yangtze River to the central capital" in the seventh year of Hongwu.This was the largest number of immigrants immigrated by the government through administrative means in the history of the Ming Dynasty.

Apart from this time, there are also immigrants from Shanxi on a relatively large scale.In October of the sixth year of Hongwu, "Nai ordered Jiang Wen to move his people (people from all places in northern Shanxi) to live in Zhongli Mansion. There are 8,238 households with a total population of 39,349" ( "Ming Taizu Records" Volume 62). In total, there were as many as six immigrations during the Hongwu period, and the number was between 200,000 and 300,000.Such a huge number is extremely rare in the history of immigration in the Ming Dynasty and even in the history of Chinese immigration.

In addition to ordinary immigrants, Fengyang also has a huge garrison.According to "History of the Ming Dynasty Bingzhi", during the Hongwu period, there were a total of 64,960 troops stationed in the prefectures and counties of Fengyang Prefecture. Together with their families, there were 188,000 military immigrants.Calculated in this way, the total number of immigrants accepted by Fengyang Prefecture during the Hongwu period was nearly 488,000 (including 300,000 civilian immigrants and 188,000 military immigrants).As we mentioned earlier, at the beginning of Hongwu, the population of Fengyang Prefecture was only 130,000.The immigrant population is more than three times the local population, accounting for 80% of the total population of Fengyang Prefecture after immigration.

Not many people thought of Fengyang, where rabbits don't shit, Zhu Yuanzhang had his own way.Hu Gan, a native of Hongwu, mentioned this emigration in the epitaph of Wu Jike, a native of Zhejiang.The Wu family is from Lanxi, Zhejiang. "In the spring of the eighth year of Hongwu, there was a decree to send the poor and landless to Fengyang, the central capital, to raise them. On the aisle. The public should guard against his son, it is appropriate to be virtuous, and there is no selfishness to abolish righteousness. There are many kinds of things like this" (Hu Gan's "Hu Zhongzi Collection", "Wu Jike's Epitaph").From this record, we can see the coercion and cruelty of this immigration.

The second policy is tax relief.In the sixteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang once had nothing to do. He read Liu Bang's biography again and found that after Liu Bang became emperor, he was exempted from the tax and labor in his hometown.Thinking about the last time I only exempted the villagers from taxes and labor for ten years, it was obviously not as generous as Liu Bang, so I issued another decree: In Fengyang Shizhen's hometown, the mausoleum is here.In the past, Emperor Gao of the Han Dynasty was born in Fengxian County and was the magistrate of Pei County.The people of today's Fengyang and Linhuai counties are not the same as the people of our township, but they are the same as the people of Zhongli Yiyi.I started from Linhao and played songs from the whole village.Blessed people from Fengyang Mansion will be my parents' officials, those old ones were born on my land and will never be expropriated.Every day, Yong Yongxi eats wine, and when the season is in season, he buys sticks of good incense to burn, offers heaven and earth, forms a righteous society, and obeys the drinking rituals of the village. (Volume 5 of "Fengyang New Book") After careful consideration of this imperial decree, what Zhu Yuanzhang exempted was the tax and labor of the indigenous population who "the old people were born on my land", and the foreign population was not universally exempted.This conclusion can also be verified in another imperial decree.It was an imperial decree issued on the 28th day of the first lunar month of the 29th year:

Some people say that when there are non-natives who are local natives, there are those who are waiting to buy officials and pretend to be natives... Now the Ministry of Households is ordered to send people to Fengyang Mansion to clean up natives and non-natives. Those who came from the village of Xu Lijia came to the government with their heads and were rewarded with fifty ingots of banknotes.Fraudulently claiming to be a local citizen will be punished with a felony, and those who can surrender themselves will be exempted from this crime. It turned out that because Zhu Yuanzhang implemented preferential policies for the aborigines, many immigrants bribed officials and pretended to be aboriginals in order to enjoy the right to be exempted from endowment.This further proves that Zhu's tax exemption policy for his hometown is only for his fellow villagers, and does not benefit immigrants.Many historical records on this point are wrong.

For example, in Volume 3 of "History of the Ming Dynasty", in March of the 16th year of Hongwu, Bingyin said, "The people of Fengyang and Linhuai counties were exempted from the corvees and taxes, and they have nothing to give in the world."Volume 7 of Tan Qian's "Guoyan" said: "Jiachen in March of the 16th year of Hongwu, the two counties of Fengyang and Linhuai will be exempted forever." This series of records has misunderstood Zhu Yuanzhang's original intention.In fact, what Zhu Yuanzhang wants to highlight is only the special status of his fellow villagers.

The third is to build water conservancy.The construction of water conservancy is a national policy, but Zhu Yuanzhang paid special attention to the construction of water conservancy in Fengyang.It is recorded in Qianlong's "Fengyang County Chronicles" that as early as the eighth year of Hongwu, he specially sent two Marquis Kang Duo and Yu Chunyuan to personally grasp the water conservancy construction in Fengyang. After Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperors of all dynasties also used Fengyang as "the foundation of the imperial industry and the location of the ancestral mausoleum, depending on other places" (Volume 275 of "Ming Xianzong Records"), and paid special attention to the construction of water conservancy.

The fourth is to develop transportation.Zhu Yuanzhang opened up a post road from Fengyang to Nanjing, with 20 stations.The Qingliu Pass, which is "narrow and complete", has been rectified, and the traffic conditions in Fengyang have been greatly improved. In addition to various special policies, Zhu Yuanzhang built a large number of projects here, which also played an important role in driving the local economic development. After the construction of Zhongdu was stopped, Zhu Yuanzhang continued to build the imperial mausoleum, the tombs of ten kings and four concubines, and Longxing Temple in Fengyang. The project was huge and many people were employed.During the construction of Zhongdu, Zhu Yuanzhang once "declared to build the mansion of the prince in Zhongdu" in November of the fifth year of Hongwu (AD 1372).After the Zhongdu was dismissed, the construction of the Duke's Mansion did not stop because Zhu Yuanzhang encouraged the founding fathers to retire and return to their hometowns.

In August of the eighteenth year of Hongwu (1385 A.D.), Zhu Yuanzhang bestowed 10,000 ingots and 500 taels of silver on each of the princes to buy wood and hire labor, "to return home and build a mansion".At one time, Fengyang was hundreds of miles away.A large number of Huaixi heroes came to live in Fengyang, and their daily consumption was huge, which inevitably drove the development of local commerce, construction, and service industries in Fengyang. Zhu Yuanzhang's special policy has indeed received obvious results.The population of Fengyang has increased significantly, and the land of Fengyang, which has been desolate for a long time, has once again become a prosperous scene of "a county full of mulberry, hemp and greenery".Many barren fields have been reclaimed, and the amount of land has reached 400,000 hectares.In the Ming Dynasty, the levels of prefectures and counties were divided according to the amount of tax and grain. Above 200,000 shi was the upper mansion, over 100,000 shi was the middle mansion, and below 100,000 shi was the lower mansion.In the eighth year of Hongwu, Fengyang Mansion, on the basis of reducing and exempting a lot of taxes and food, still had an annual income of more than 200,000 shi, and became a wealthy and prosperous upper mansion.Linhuaiguan in Fengyang has become an important commercial town with dense residents and gathering of merchants.