Gao Huan passed through the prefectures and counties all the way, and saw the scene he was in Nanjing, and he couldn't see.

In the prosperous land in Jiangnan, the lives of the people were not as good as he imagined.

After leaving Chizhou, Gao Huan went north, passed through Luzhou Prefecture, and entered the Fengyang territory.

Fengyang was the Zhongdu of the previous dynasty, but he only had a political status, but his economy was in a mess.

This place belongs to Zhili, but compared with the several prefectures south of the Yangtze River, it is simply poor and far from Huai'an, which is in the lower reaches of the Huai River.

Gao Huan, who was pretending to be a traveling businessman in front of a dilapidated village entrance, was talking to two old men.

A group of children who were not wearing pants surrounded themselves curiously, with innocence in their pupils and a hint of shyness.

Luzhou is close to the Yangtze River, and the situation is fine. Whenever Gao Huan goes, the people choose to buy his products. However, when they enter Fengyang, they only see them watching, but few can take out money to buy them.

"Membersman, how is the harvest this year?" Gao Huan finished drinking water, "Is life okay?"

The old man shook his head, "Life is sad! The new dynasty has just arrived, and it has been more than ten years of good life. Now it's Wang Xiaoer's New Year, and it's getting worse every year!"

Gao Huan couldn't help but ask, "Why is this?"

The old man sighed: "Twenty years ago, my family's five people were allocated twenty-five acres of land. Now my family's thirteen people are still twenty-five acres of land. On average, one person is less than two acres. Apart from paying taxes, it is difficult to support one person!"

Gao Huan nodded slightly. Although Li Yan's reforms restricted land annexation, as the population grew, the average arable land of the people was rapidly decreasing.

At the beginning of Gao Huan's dynasty, each person had five or six acres of land, but now there are only one or two acres per capita left, and the yield of grain per mu has not been raised, so people everywhere have relapsed into poverty.

It is easy to imagine how hard life will be if you have to support one person if you have less than two acres of land.

"Yes! In the past few years, I could eat rice and noodles every meal, but now I can only eat some food, some bran, and some sweet potatoes and corn. I can barely survive for a year." Another old man said: "In this way, you can't starve to death, but it's hard to save money! In addition, our place has a flood, with floods every three years, and a major flood every five years. After a flood, all your savings will be consumed, and you have to borrow money like a rich man!"

Gao Huan nodded. Most of the founding heroes of the Ming Dynasty came from Huaixi, which is not without reason.

Now in the south of Jiangnan, singing and dancing are becoming more peaceful, and wealthy businessmen live in luxury, just like a prosperous era, but the lives of the people have not changed fundamentally.

Gao Huan asked: "It's hard to live in this village. Is anyone looking for a job in the city?"

The old man said, "Why didn't you go? You can't support so many people in the fields. Many young people took their families to the city, but they worked so hard and their lives were not good!"

After hearing the old man's words, Gao Huan decided to go to the city and take a look to learn about the lives of the people who left the countryside and went to the city.

"Brother-in-law, thank you for your water!" Gao Huan returned the broken pottery bowl to the old man.

He knocked off the thumb-sized maltose for the children, and led the guy away with the car.

Gao Huan has been understanding the sufferings of the people and understanding the world, but is still in the cycle of historical cycles.

This may not allow the dynasty he established to perish immediately, but if it continues to develop, it will inevitably not be able to escape the fate of perishment.

Gao Huan left the village and continued his journey. What he saw along the way was that on the one hand, the people's income decreased and poverty alleviation occurred, and on the other hand, the prices of salt and grain and oil increased. The prices of various daily necessities increased the people's hardships, and many people had to rely on borrowing money to survive.

Under such circumstances, many people leave the countryside and go to various cities to find job opportunities and want to live a good life.

However, after they entered the city, they found that the city was actually harder than in the countryside. What awaited them was the labor day and night, and their lives were not as leisurely as in the village, but the harvest was not much better than in the village.

Although I am poor in the village, I am really busy, that is, during the busy farming season, there are several months of slack farming every year, and I can rest, but when I enter the city, I work every day, but my income is very limited.

However, although the city is hard, they cannot return to the village, because they have no land they cultivated and have no livelihoods when they return to the village, so they can only stay in the city.

These people cannot gain a foothold in the city and cannot return to the village. They can only gather outside the city to form huge shanty towns.

Outside Huai'an City, Gao Huan looked at the tens of thousands of shanty towns surrounding the city, and felt compassion in his heart.

At this time, Gao Huan walked through the shanty town, walking on the muddy road with nowhere to stand, looking at the low, dark and dilapidated shanty towns on both sides, and the children running around naked, and women making fires outside the house to cook, and understanding the current situation of the people at the bottom, and also understanding that there are major problems in his country.

A year ago, Gao Huan accepted the result of the Citizens' victory and agreed to let Chen Youlong form a cabinet. One of the important reasons was that he also noticed problems in society and hoped to give concessions to merchants, use their vitality to help them develop their economy and create more jobs, and use them to resolve some contradictions in the process of the alliance's transition from agricultural to industrial.

However, the scene in front of him made Gao Huan realize that although Huang Zongxi's improvement solved the problem of the national treasury deficit, it did not make the world better.

At this time, Gao Huan followed the joiner and walked through the street. Finally, he came to a yard where dozens of men had gathered, looking like they were all poor people dressed.

"Everyone, this is our president, Zhao Desheng!" Zeng Baolong, who arrived in Huai'an first, introduced to everyone: "Everyone applauds and welcomes you!"

There was warm applause in the yard, and Zeng Baolong immediately introduced: "President, this is Zhao Tai, it turns out to be the captain of JAC Salt Industry and Security Team. This is Liu Jiming, and he is also a worker of the original salt industry!"

Gao Huan shook hands with the two and asked, "After the salt industry is reorganized, are you still working in the salt industry? What's the situation with the workers there?"

Zhao Tai said angrily: "After the group of profiteers controlled the salt industry, they did not want to resume production, but instead laid off employees. They even deliberately burned down factories and closed several salt factories, artificially causing a shortage of salt, and then increased the price of salt to sell salt! I only worked in it for a month, and they were fired. Those who stayed behind did not want to be fired, so they had to accept salary cuts. Life was not as good as before!"

Gao Huan was a little angry. He asked Huang Zongxi to take charge of the improvement, hoping that the factory would benefit better after the improvement and provide more positions for the society. However, he did not want those businessmen to operate according to his ideas, but instead played these tricks.

Zeng Baolong said: "President, they are also building momentum for the abolition of labor law in Huai'an. It seems that they will pass this law this year!"

Gao Huan frowned when he heard the words, "If they were asked to abolish the labor law, they would ignore the status and rights of workers in the future. We must launch a law protection movement to prevent them from abolishing the law!"
Chapter completed!