Chapter 37

This kind of household registration system was abolished during the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty also stipulated two types of household registration: urban residents and rural residents, which is somewhat similar to the urban and rural household registration in modern China. However, this system was not rigid and could be changed. If you went to work in the city, as long as you paid taxes on time, after a year, you could apply for urban household registration with the guarantee of three urban residents. If the government felt that the city's population was too large, they would launch a campaign to encourage people to return to the countryside to farm.

This campaign to encourage return was not mandatory, it was persuasion, not coercion. The Song Dynasty government would use various preferential policies to entice people to farm in the countryside, such as tax reductions, tax exemptions, providing seeds, farming tools, and even oxen, making it profitable for people to see the benefits, and naturally, some would be willing to leave the city and farm in the countryside.

The reason the Song Dynasty had such a household registration system was entirely due to the reform and opening-up policy. Yes, reform and opening-up, which is basically the same as modern China's reform and opening-up, focusing on the vigorous development of commerce and foreign trade. During the Northern Song Dynasty, agricultural taxes accounted for less than 30% of the national total, meaning that the Song Dynasty's GDP did not rely on agriculture; commerce was the mainstay. Moreover, in commerce, foreign trade accounted for more than 40%, and during the Southern Song Dynasty, this situation became even more severe, with foreign trade almost accounting for half of the annual tax revenue of the Southern Song government.

When our country implemented the reform and opening-up policy, the first thing to break was the household registration system. The influx of rural workers into the cities during that time was similar to what happened in the Song Dynasty, so using the household registration system of the Tang Dynasty was clearly inappropriate. What made Hong Tao grit his teeth even more was that there were also "Beijingers" and "Southerners" in the Song Dynasty, known as "floating people" at the time.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, there were 1.5 million "Beijingers" in Kaifeng, and during the Southern Song Dynasty, there were over 700,000 "Hangzhou drifters" in Lin'an. In open ports like Guangzhou and Quanzhou, not only did a large number of Song people come to work in the city, but many people from Southeast Asia and even Africa also came to seek a living. Therefore, foreigners were not considered unusual by the people of the Song Dynasty. No matter how strange your clothing or language, no one would arrest you for it. The diversity of dialects was already a common feature in the major cities of the Southern Song Dynasty. In modern terms, the coastal ports of the Southern Song Dynasty were already international metropolises. Who has ever heard of an international metropolis lacking foreigners?

"This is the early stage of capitalism! If China had entered capitalism during the Southern Song Dynasty, what would have happened to Europe and America? By then, the fleets moored in the Persian Gulf would have been those of the Song Dynasty! No, we can't let the Mongols destroy all this. They are a swarm of locusts, only destroying and not building. I can't stop them from destroying other places, but they mustn't destroy the Southern Song Dynasty. They should go to Europe; it would be better if they destroyed that place!" Hong Tao was almost stunned. Although he had not yet set foot in any Southern Song city, from Luo Youde's simple introduction, he could tell that the Southern Song society was already beginning to sprout the seeds of capitalism, standing at a crossroads of moving east or west. If it could resist the Mongols and avoid being destroyed, it might have hatched a completely different capitalist country, leading the world by several hundred years into the era of capitalist mass production.

Once it entered this stage, nothing could stop it. The figures of Song Dynasty merchants like Luo Youde would be seen in every country and every sea in the world. All ideologies are nonsense; merchants are the main group that improves productivity. As long as they are given a free sky, they can show you their performance. The state doesn't need to invest much effort; as long as they are given a stable rear, they can conquer the world through their methods, with a scale and speed that is no less than that of an army. And when merchants get desperate, they become an army, even more fierce than the national army, willing to risk their lives for money, with explosive combat power!

However, there is a roadblock on the path of the Southern Song Dynasty's transformation: the Mongols in the north. They relied on a unique lifestyle and were at the most powerful stage of combat at this time. The Mongols were born warriors, and their lifestyle was not much different from a military camp. In the past, they fought among themselves, and their power was not fully revealed. Now, united, they made the whole world tremble. Not only could the Southern Song army not stop them, but neither could the people of Central Asia and Europe.

However, after Europe was ravaged by the Mongols, it paradoxically spurred their progress. After the Song Dynasty was devastated by the Mongols, China was like a character in the middle of an upgrade, suddenly interrupted, with all previous efforts wasted, and needing to start accumulating again. Even more terrifying is that future generations would think the Song model could not be upgraded and would start to reform it, making it worse and worse, eventually becoming a perverted centralized system, falling far behind Europe, unable to catch up.

If the Southern Song Dynasty could be preserved and complete its upgrade, what would China become? Hong Tao was not sure, but he felt that even if it did, it would at most be similar to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, not getting any worse. Since it's a business that won't lose money, why not give it a try? How to try it, Hong Tao had no specific plan yet. Stopping the Mongols sounds easy, but actually doing it is not like going fishing. He had never seen the Mongol cavalry, and whether he could stop them and how to do it, only heaven knew. Since the whole world couldn't stop them, he would need to come up with something new to have a chance.

Since he had a goal, for Hong Tao, it was a direction. Whether he could stop them was one question, and whether he wanted to try was another. These days, he had been thinking about what he should do in this era. If he wanted to continue living carefree, it was clearly unrealistic. There was nothing to enjoy in this era; there was nothing in any aspect, not even as an emperor, which was not as happy as driving the Ratman Superhero around the world. For someone who had experienced modern life, the things in ancient times were not enough to impress.

Unable to enjoy material things, he could only pursue higher spiritual enjoyment. What kind of spiritual enjoyment? Hong Tao had never been clear, but now he had a bit of an idea. Changing the course of world history with one's own strength is a great achievement. No, it's not entirely by one's own strength; he didn't have that much power. He could only be a catalyst, making the slow-moving wheels of history suddenly speed up. The driving force was not him but people of his time like Luo Youde.

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