What Ang Lee said was a very realistic problem. Since ancient times, the people at the bottom of society must have done the hardest and most tiring work, and received the meager salary. There was no exception in any era. No matter how perfect a society was, it was impossible to have a common prosperity, or to say, an equal prosperity.
The so-called let the people who were rich early on help the people who were not yet rich, and push everyone to be rich together, this was just an unrealistic fantasy.
No matter which empire, which dynasty, as the empire developed, the gap between the rich and the poor would always widen. The noble landlords would enclose more and more land, and the common people would lose their land step by step. In the end, almost all the land would be in the hands of a very small number of people, and the common people would have nothing. Then, the world would be in chaos, and a new dynasty would enter.
Why were the rich people not willing to help the poor, and then let the poor become rich? This was naturally because people were greedy. After having money, they would want to have more money, and they would never be satisfied. If they helped others, their interests would definitely be damaged. In addition, if they helped others, and others became richer than them, then their happiness would be greatly reduced, and their words would not be as strong as before.
Many people could clearly feel that the people around them didn't really care about them. If they won a prize, the people around them wouldn't be envious. Instead, they would be very jealous. They would be thinking about how to get some benefits. When they achieved success in their career, the people around them wouldn't sincerely congratulate them. Instead, they would be jealous.
If a person told them about his bad luck, the people around him would be very happy and laugh. If a person said that he had won a certain glory, he might not get any response, or even be ignored.
Of course, these jealous people were not bad people. They might be honest people who followed the law, but even good people would be jealous. Jealousy was human nature, and it was determined from the moment they were born. No one could change it. This was human nature.
People's nature was to put themselves as the center of everything, and everything had to be subordinate to their own interests. Wasn't there an old saying, "If you don't look out for yourself, the devil takes the hindmost"? There was also an old saying, "If you don't teach your disciple to beat the master, then you will be bitten by whatever you help." In short, the rich were not willing to help the poor. In addition to their own greed, it was also because they understood these principles and knew human nature.
But the smart rich would do things in moderation. When they exploited and oppressed the poor, they would leave some leeway. They had to give the poor a space to live. They could not exploit too much, and they had to give others a way to live.
When the rich group monopolized all the land and resources in the whole world, how much to pay the working poor was completely up to them. This way, the oppression would become more and more serious until the poor were forced to die or rebelled.
This was the case in ancient society. Later people learned the lesson and forced the rich group to put a curse on them, forcing them not to hire servants at too low a price. They had to have a minimum wage standard, otherwise, they would violate the law. In this way, although the poor were still very poor, with this minimum guarantee, they did not have to worry about food and water. There was no problem for them to feed their families. If it was particularly difficult, the court would provide rice and oil subsidies, which made the poor people even more grateful.
Under such circumstances, if someone called on these poor people to conquer the world, the poor people would not agree. After conquering the world, you would be the emperor, and I would still be a poor person, or I would have been beheaded long ago. No one was a fool, why would they not live a good life and risk their lives to rebel with you? The common people did not have high requirements, they were basically satisfied with food and water. Of course, they also had to have a stable home. Ang Lee was already thinking of a way.
Ang Lee lay in the back seat and began to think about the basic necessities of the people in the capital. At this moment, the problem of clothing was no longer a problem, it had been comprehensively solved. There was no problem in traveling, it was much more convenient than before. The underground passage was still being built, it would be better in the future. With the promotion of high-yield crops, food and water had become no longer a big problem. Only the housing problem was the biggest. This was also because there were too many people in the capital, in addition to the real estate speculators who took the opportunity to make trouble. Ang Lee was obviously already thinking of a way.
After chatting for a while, Yan Ruyu and Tang Er both fell asleep. Ang Lee looked at them sleeping, and a warm smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. Their days were too happy, and all of this was obviously due to Ang Lee's hard work in exchange for their comfortable lives. If he wanted to let more people live such a comfortable life, Ang Lee had to work harder. Not only did he have to study high-yield crops, but he also had to study how to improve the housing problem in the city. After all, with the development of workshops and business promoted by Ang Lee, the population began to concentrate in the city and resource areas. In the concentration of the population, the biggest problem faced was the housing problem. Materials such as food and clothes could be transported in at any time, but houses were fixed assets, they could not be transported. They could only be built in places where the population gathered. There was no better way to build houses in an area with limited land area, except to build on higher ground. Even so, it was still quite stressful.
Because of the limited land, it was impossible to use all of it to build residential houses, workshops, commercial shops, schools, military camps, government offices, and recreational grasslands. These all needed land area. After these were removed, the area that could be used to build houses would be even less. Therefore, in general, the pressure was still very great. In order to accommodate more people, they could only choose to expand the extension of the city and build houses in farther places.
The extension of the capital had been expanded very far, and the third and fourth rings had been built. The population outside the city had long surpassed the population inside the city. It was just that the residents were relatively scattered, so it did not seem as lively as the city. However, it was hard to say what would happen in the future. Perhaps the prosperity of the city would surpass that of the city.
There were a lot of workshops outside the city. Of course, there weren't many resource workshops because not every place had resources. On the other hand, there were a lot of processing workshops.
For example, there were many textile, dyeing, and clothing workshops. As long as materials such as cotton, linen, and silk were transported from other places, they could be produced in the workshop. These workshops were labor-intensive, and the demand for labor was very high. Each of them was a large labor force.
There were even more workshops for food and drink. For example, there were many workshops for pickling vegetables, bacon, and eggs. There were also many workshops for producing vinegar oil. Because there were many scholars in the capital, there was no lack of workshops for producing paper and printing books. There was also no lack of workshops for producing brushes and inkstones.
In short, because the population of the capital was very large, the demand for various materials was very high. Therefore, all kinds of workshops popped up like bamboo shoots after the rain. Such a large workshop required a lot of human resources. It was impossible to not have a lot of people. This naturally caused the current situation of the capital to be difficult to live in.
It was the same situation in the imperial capital in the future. The living environment was very bad, and houses were always in short supply. Moreover, the housing prices kept rising, and they were already ridiculously high. It was difficult for ordinary workers to buy a house of their own in the imperial capital.
Many people, after various analyses, felt that the price of houses was too high and it was unsustainable. Sooner or later, it would be greatly reduced. In the end, not only did the price of houses not decrease, but it also increased. It was so high that it made people doubt their lives.
In fact, these people did not think about it. The population of the Imperial Capital was increasing explosively. It had increased by ten times in the past few decades. With such a large population entering the Capital, it would be abnormal if the housing prices were not expensive. There were too many people who needed housing, and some people had more than one house. There were not that many people left, so it would be strange if the housing prices did not increase. If the people who entered the Capital chose to leave the Capital, then the housing prices in the Capital would drop to the bottom. No one would even want to give it away for free. This was not an alarmist talk, but something that would happen.
However, there were too many opportunities to earn money in the capital, and there were better living conditions. Many people who had the means would choose to settle down in the capital even if they had to risk their lives. There would not be a situation where everyone would escape from the capital. After a group of people escaped, more people would enter the capital. The capital was attractive enough for the people of the world to be willing to come, thus promoting the prosperity of the capital. It was almost impossible to lower the housing prices.
This was because as long as the housing prices were lowered, people who could not afford to buy houses would once again run to the capital. This would increase the population of the capital, and there would be a shortage of houses again.
In Li An's previous life, some of his good friends had said similar things. They complained that housing prices were too expensive, and if the housing prices were reduced by 60%, they would buy two large apartments. One of them even said that if the housing prices were reduced by 50%, he would buy a duplex apartment. There were too many people who had such thoughts. In this way, how could the housing prices be reduced? There was no way to reduce it at all. There were too many people, and there were too many people who wanted to buy a house. It was unrealistic to reduce the housing prices. Those who dreamed of buying at the lowest price should wake up early. If they bought a house late, they would have earned a few years' worth of money for nothing.
After returning to the mansion, it was already very late. Other than resting, Ang Lee had nothing else to do.
The next morning, Ang Lee went to work at the R&D center early. He first handed the blueprint of the rat trap cage to a blacksmith and asked him to think of a way to make a batch. There was no need for a lot, a hundred would be enough. Of course, more would be better, the more the better.
Then, Ang Lee casually told them about the shortage of housing in the capital, and asked them to come up with ideas. It could be considered as chatting.
Ang Lee wanted to see if these guys could come up with a better idea. After all, there was always someone to learn from. Maybe these poor people had a better idea? Maybe these poor people could think of a way that even the court officials could not think of?
"Assistant Minister Li, you can't blame the lack of housing. In the past few years, there are more and more people in the capital. Previously, we were in the suburbs, and there were empty spaces next to us. Now, we are surrounded by people, and there are all kinds of workshops and offices. It's really lively!"
"That's right, that's right. There are too many people, and it's normal to have no place to live. If you want a place to live, you have to build more houses. There is no better way. This is a dead end."
The two of them opened their mouths and said.
Li An said unhappily, "What you're saying is nonsense. You can pull anyone off the street and they'll say what you're saying. I'm asking you to think carefully about whether there's a more ingenious way to resolve the housing problem."
Everyone frowned and thought, and they were all in pain. It seemed that there was no good way.
This made Ang Lee very proud. It seemed that these idiots were useless. They could not think of any way.
"Assistant Minister Li, this humble one thinks that it is possible to make a carriage that people can live in. That is, a carriage that can be pulled away. Make more. Wherever the people are, the carriage can be parked there. If it can't be stopped, then the carriage can be pulled to a nearby parking place. It doesn't matter even if it occupies the court's wasteland. When the court needs this land, they just need to move the carriage to another place."
A craftsman suddenly said.
When Ang Lee heard this, he was shocked. This idea was indeed quite good. This made Ang Lee think of the yurts on the grasslands. Of course, it was a mobile yurt. This kind of house could be moved at any time and did not have to stay in the same place. It had a very strong flexibility. This was also the characteristic house of the grassland people. In the farming people, very few people would do this. All the houses were fixed and could not be moved. This obviously limited the flexibility.
The mobile house proposed by this craftsman seemed to be able to solve the housing problem in the capital. Just now, Ang Lee thought for a long time and felt that food and clothes could be transported back and forth, but the house was fixed. But if it was a mobile house, then wouldn't it be the same as clothes and food? What was wrong with letting everyone live in a mobile house? Although the conditions were a little difficult, at least they could rest!
In addition, since the court prohibited the people from privately occupying land, the people could occupy the land near the capital to build houses. This was because these lands could be expropriated at any time. If the people built houses, the loss of the people would not be compensated, but the court would be compensated. In short, the interests were not balanced.
With these mobile houses, this problem did not exist. These mobile houses, even if they occupied a wasteland, when the court needed to use this wasteland, these mobile houses would leave this wasteland and go to the open space next to it. In any case, these mobile houses could move. The people would not lose anything, and the court would not need to compensate. It could be said that no one lost anything.
Of course, this would reduce the living experience and make people feel uncomfortable. It didn't seem to be a long-term solution, but in the current situation, there seemed to be no better way. In the face of extremely high rent, ordinary people who didn't have a place to live should be willing to live in this kind of house.
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