Chapter 686 Sinicization of Korea
Inciting public opinion first is Chen Ming's usual tactic. No matter how blunt it is, he always creates a wave of 'public opinion'. Now that Chen Ming wants to take action against North Korea's old system and interest structure, this is what he will do.
First stink their reputation, and then destroy the biggest reliance of these North Korean dignitaries. Without reputation, no matter how powerful the powerful North Korean family is, they are still pigs and sheep to be slaughtered by the imperial army.
The "Financial Daily" has smeared and discredited the two groups of aristocrats and political power in North Korea, and placed all the shortcomings and sources of disasters in North Korea on the two groups of aristocrats and political power.
"After the Japanese Rebellion, there were two attacks by slaves in the late Ming Dynasty. At that time, North Korea suffered a disastrous defeat and was unable to fight back. The majesty of the royal family was greatly reduced, and the rights and interests of the royal family were also greatly reduced. Coupled with the oppression of the Manchus, the internal taxation of North Korea was To make matters worse, bureaucrats and local tyrants took the opportunity to annex land. As mentioned before, under the tribute system, farmers often have to pay several times higher tributes in order to obtain high profits. This has long been the case in Korea after the implementation of the Datong Law, just like officials in China in the past. For one cent of tax, they can push back one tael of tax.
The intensification of land annexation, as well as economic development and the prevalence of usury, have caused class differentiation in rural areas. Peasants who can keep their father's land without selling it to others are one or two out of ten. It is a common phenomenon that farmers have no land and only cultivate other people's fields. Peasants cultivated landowners' land, and the tax burden had to be at least half of the harvest. Excluding seeds, false loans, and grain before the end of the year, the income is only 10% to 20%..."
The newspaper described the peasant riots that took place last winter in Kim Ki-dae's tone, the reasons and process of what happened, and classified the final cause as the greed and cruelty of two classes of North Korean nobles, as well as the final tragic fate of these North Korean farmers. . 'Kim Ki-dae' revealed the true face of North Korea's political situation at the moment - the local area is huge and difficult to control. In that chaotic situation, as North Korea's top official, his words were not recognized by local powerful officials, so he was thrown away. Kim Jida bears the responsibility on himself. Therefore, it became excusable that Kim Jida was unable to stop this riot that had already begun.
This is a long, long paragraph, in which a lot of ugliness is exposed.
The rioting peasants killed some of North Korea's lower-class nobles, and the land they originally owned and the land of the latter have now become the possessions of the middle and high-level people. Even the rioting peasants themselves have become commodities for the two groups of nobles to earn profits. When conflicts brew, the powerful class not only fails to resolve and alleviate them, but instead uses more intense means to stimulate and promote the development of conflicts.
A lot of black materials were secretly collected by the National Security Bureau, and were now revealed by the Financial Daily through the mouth of Kim Ki-dae. This is of course a serious violation for JFK.
"... Exploitation in North Korea is increasing day by day. The exile of farmers and small armed uprisings have been breaking out continuously before the invasion of the Qing Dynasty. Farmers are displaced and their fields are deserted. Farmers' enthusiasm for production disappears, and the bottom class The occupation of dikes by two groups of nobles resulted in the destruction of water conservancy and irrigation facilities, seriously hampering the development of agricultural production..."
In Chen Ming's eyes, today's North Korea is an old system that is more stable than the previous Chinese landlord and gentry class. The two classes of nobles are like the scholar-bureaucrats in the Song Dynasty. They not only have a higher reputation than the gentry class in Ming and Qing China , and also has absolute official support. It took hundreds of years to form the current old system. This old system, which has not yet reached its end according to historical development, is so controlling.
Farmers, businessmen, and craftsmen are all under the control of this system.
Just like a tree with lush branches and leaves, its roots buried deep in the soil must be deep and developed that ordinary people cannot imagine.
No one knew that Chen Ming had discussed this matter with Chen Cong several times. When he made the decision to wipe out the entire North Korea with a thunderbolt, Chen Cong was still looking at him with a worried look on his face. Chen Ming asked him to do whatever he wanted. Speaking, because there are only him and Chen Cong in these discussions, if you have anything to say, just say it!
Chen Cong is still firm in his belief - in fact, it was also Chen Ming's original "plan" for North Korea, one country, two systems.
At that time, Chen Ming considered the special situation of North Korea and planned to incorporate part of North Korea into the Northeast, namely the four counties of Zhenfan, Lintun, Lelang, and Xuanyuan during the Han Dynasty, and then divide the other territories into a province, which was temporarily implemented The old routine that was beneficial to the two groups of nobles was slowly changed in small ways, and finally the sand gathered into piles, brewing a mighty torrent to cleanse the entire North Korea.
But when North Korea's preliminary census report came to Nanjing two years ago, Chen Ming saw that the population north of North Korea's Gyeonggi Province was only over one million. At that time, he thought it was better not to talk about Zhenfan, Lintun, and Lelang and Xuanzhen are separated. Let’s just divide them between the north and the south. North Korea immediately implemented the Han system, and South Korea continued one country, two systems.
But now, Chen Ming wants to immediately implement Han systems and apply Han laws to the entire North Korea. There is no time gap, buffer, or initial political and economic preferential treatment. All the old systems that were beneficial to the Yangban nobles were abolished, except for the grace to North Korea - a scientific examination specifically targeted at North Korea was held to select officials.
Chen Cong felt that this was too radical. He said seriously at the time: "Your Majesty's idea is not that I disagree, but reforming the tax system, reducing rent and interest, and paying taxes together with officials and businessmen, and tiered taxation will cause panic among the power class in North Korea. I believe that as long as this policy is issued, the big households in North Korea will probably become restless overnight! Even if the army can easily suppress the entire North Korea, North Korea will definitely be in a depression, which is very unfavorable to the situation in North Korea!"
But Chen Ming smiled and nodded, saying: "Uncle Wang, don't you think that my previous plan was too conservative? North Korea is right next to us. If we can't solve it cleanly, how can we solve Annan and Myanmar in the future? How to solve those local chieftains?" Of course, Chen Ming's sudden change in attitude has something to do with the fact that Chen Ming was deeply disgusted by North Korea before.
"To incorporate Korea into the territory, we must completely break the messy interest lines on the Korean land. I have been thinking about how to break this situation for a long time. The Korean local nobles control everything. It is not that changing local officials can make things happen." Chen Han's township official system has been implemented for many years. Aren't there still remnants of old forces in some places? And "change" without fundamental changes is useless, just like Emperor Chongzhen, he changed so many ministers, but this imperial edict may be an imperial edict in the Forbidden City, and I don't know what it will be like outside the Forbidden City. There are many things in the cabinet of the late Ming Dynasty that violated the imperial edict. It is impossible to break this situation by gentleness.
Chen Ming's plan was based on peace and harmony before, but now that Korea has been in internal strife, peace and harmony no longer exist. So let's start from pragmatism.
"I am going to start immigration in North Korea. I can use the favorable immigration conditions in North America, South America and Southeast Asia to attract immigrants."
"In addition, I will expand mines in northern North Korea. North Korea has very rich mining resources, including iron ore, copper ore, gold and silver mines." In addition, North Korea is also rich in magnesite, which ranks first in the world in reserves, and 7 strategic minerals such as tungsten, molybdenum, graphite, barite and fluorite are also among the best in the world. Although these things are useless now.
But the value of North Korean mines is obvious.
In some reports related to North Korea in the previous life, Chinese mining groups invested heavily in the mining industry in North Korea, such as Huishan Copper Mine, Maoshan Iron Mine, Longdeng Coal Mine, etc., which are all signed for decades of operating rights. Although these mines are not famous. Maybe they are still in the mountains, and large-scale mining is difficult, but we should also try to mine them.
Anyway, Chen Ming has made up his mind. While thoroughly sinicizing North Korea in politics, he also vigorously extracts human resources from the North Korean people. Either he invests in distant immigrants, which is equivalent to "spreading branches and leaves" for the North Koreans; or he develops the labor-intensive mining industry to greatly reduce the number of laborers bound by the land, just like the phenomenon that Chinese gentry and landlords have faced in the past few years - the number of tenants is decreasing. When farmers have more options, if the landlords and gentry do not take the initiative to reduce the rent, the labor force can also flow to other industries. It is a tragedy that rural land no longer belongs to farmers, and it is even more tragic that rural fields no longer have farmers to cultivate.
In the past, in order to retain tenants and make more profits, Chinese gentry and landlords gradually shifted from the traditional model to the farm economy, which undoubtedly brought great impetus to Chinese society. And the same scene should now appear in North Korea.
Chen Ming wants to use the toughest means to tell the former power class in North Korea that land is only a means of production, and labor is productivity. Without labor, the means of production are only means of production, not wealth for them.
In addition, Chen Ming will also implement a strict monetary system in Korea. If a sum of gold and silver precious metals can be harvested from Korea, then the benefits to the Chen Han central government will not be just that much gold and silver precious metals.
Korea has relatively rich silver mines. In the early days of the founding of the Lee Dynasty, in order to avoid the Ming Dynasty's demand for gold and silver in Korea, mining was even banned. When the Japanese invasion came, in order to offset military expenses, technical personnel were hired from the Ming Dynasty to vigorously develop the silver mines in Duanchuan. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Korea's demand for silver and gold increased in its trade with the Qing Dynasty. During the Shunzhi period, the Korean government allowed local merchants and nobles to mine silver mines in Paju, Jiaohe, Gushan, Gongju and other places, and the government levied taxes according to production. At that time, there were 68 silver mines in operation throughout Korea.
In the early Kang Mazi period, the silver mines in Korea were operated by the government. In the early Qianlong period, as the output of silver mines decreased, the Korean central government transferred the silver mines to local management. Subsequently, the Korean central government began to mine gold mines in Chengzhou and Suian, but both stopped due to low official mining efficiency. However, at the same time, the trend of private gold mining became increasingly popular among the Korean people. According to statistics, most of the working people in Pyeongan Province of North Korea went to gold mines. At the same time, the trend of privately mining copper, silver, gold and gold in Gyeonggi, Chungcheong, Hwanghae, Pyeongan, Gangwon, and Hamgyong Provinces continued despite repeated prohibitions.
Copper mining in Korea was not very developed at first, because Korea could rely on Japan for copper supply. However, during the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods, the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan stopped exporting copper, and the Qing Dynasty required a large supply of copper, so copper mining in Korea also developed.
Chen Ming did not know much about the specific distribution of North Korea's mineral resources. The gold and silver mines were his backup. If the previous coal mines, iron mines, and copper mines could not attract a large number of workers, Chen Ming would completely open up North Korea's gold and silver mines.