The family of this young lady who sold sachets was also a pitiful family. All the families who came to the capital in the past one or two years to seek development basically lived a miserable life. Only a very small number of them could truly live a good life, and the majority of them were not much better off than when they were in their hometown. They all earned a lot, but they also spent a lot, and in the end, they did not have much left.
For these outsiders, the biggest attraction of the capital was the bustling and lively atmosphere. It allowed them to have a more colorful life, and they could see many things that they did not dare to think of before. They could also see a trace of hope, even if this hope almost did not exist, but at least it was a weak ray of hope. It allowed many people who lived a difficult life to have a thought in their hearts. What if they succeeded?
Every day in the capital, there would be some blood-boiling stories of counterattacks. These stories would appear in the major newspapers in the capital in a timely manner, thus encouraging more ordinary people to stay in the capital and strengthen their confidence. No matter how bitter and tiring it was, they would still insist on staying in the capital. What if one day their luck changed and they became rich? That was a great thing that could change the fate of themselves and their descendants. Even if the probability was not high, there was still hope.
And if they continued to stay in their hometown, they could only work in the fields every day, in the wind and rain. A year's harvest was only a little bit of food, and at this moment, food was not worth much. Even if the weather was good, they would not be able to earn any money, and could only barely make ends meet. If there was a natural disaster, then there would be nothing left. This kind of hard work of looking at the sky to eat made people unable to see any hope at all. It could be said that with a glance, one could see clearly what their future life would be like. It was a very ordinary poor life. Every day, they would work at sunrise and rest at sunset, working with their backs to the yellow soil and the sky. It was boring and tiring.
If one had been born in a village and had never been to a bustling city, and had never experienced the bustling and colorful life of a big city, perhaps one would be able to endure the dull life of a village and be a small farmer for the rest of one's life. However, once a person had been to the bustling capital and then returned to the village where he was born, he would find it hard to accept. He would absolutely not be willing to be a farmer for the rest of his life. Even if his life in the capital was not satisfactory, he would not return to the village to farm every day.
Although farming in the countryside could keep a person from starving to death, the dull life in the countryside was also unbearable for many people who had seen a prosperous life. A person would rather rent a small house in a big city than return to the countryside to live in a large house. This was the true thought of most people, and it also reflected the worldview of the people of the Tang dynasty at this time.
However, this thought of most people happened to be grasped by some people who speculated in real estate. They knew that ordinary people all thought so, so they desperately hoarded real estate and rented it out at a high price. The rent was as close to the limit of most people's tolerance as possible to ensure that the balance of income and expenditure of ordinary people in the capital was equal to the rent. After deducting the necessary expenses, the rest of the income of ordinary people in the capital was used to pay the rent, so as to maximize their own benefits.
These people who relied on real estate speculation to gain wealth were really hateful. If the imperial court did not take care of it, something big would happen. Even if it eventually infringed on the interests of some aristocrats, it had to be carried out. It could not allow some people to occupy too many resources. Otherwise, ordinary people would become more and more dissatisfied. Ang Lee had already begun to make arrangements. First, he took certain measures to stabilize the price. Then, through the strategy of boiling the frog in warm water step by step, he gradually lowered the price of housing in the capital so that the rent could enter a reasonable range, so that the ordinary people could live a better life and the people from other places could have more happiness.
The young lady in front of him was not young. According to the standards of the Tang dynasty, she should be able to get married at this age. Many of them even had children. However, this young lady was wearing men's clothes and selling sachets on the street. At first glance, he could tell that she was not married.
"Young lady, you're not young anymore. Have you ever thought about getting married?"
Ang Lee asked.
This question made the young lady embarrassed. She told Ang Lee that it was not that she did not want to get married. It was just that everything had changed after she came to the capital. If she did not come to the capital from her hometown, she could get married now. However, after coming to the capital, the situation had changed too much. It was not that she did not want to get married, but that there was no one she could entrust her life to.
Was the young lady's requirement too high? That was not the case. The young lady's requirements were not high at all. She only wanted a stable residence. That was to say, a place to live. Only then could they form a family. If they did not even have a stable place to live, then how could they form a family? What would they do after forming a family? Would they have to sleep on the road? These were all very realistic problems, very realistic.
Were the young Langjun who had a house useless? The capital was so big. Could it be that all the young men did not have a house?
Of course, there were young Langjuns who had their own houses in the capital. In fact, there were quite a few of them. However, if the proportion of the total population in the capital was calculated, there were very few young Langjuns who had their own houses. The proportion was less than 10%. However, there were relatively more young Langjuns who had their own houses and lived with their parents. After all, many old people in the capital had their own ancestral houses. However, even if these people were included, the proportion was only 30%. At least 70% of the young people's families did not have a house.
Even if the families in the capital had their own houses, the housing situation was not very optimistic. After all, there was no family planning policy in this era. A family had many children, especially boys, and they all had to marry. If there was only a small house and there were three sons in the family, where would the three sons live after they got married? The old parents and three sons were already not well-off to live together. If there were three daughters-in-law, it would be even more stressful. This did not take into account the grandchildren who might be born in the future. In this case, the living space would be too crowded. They even had to rent a house to relieve the pressure. However, this would imperceptibly increase the cost of living greatly, causing the family to be even more stressed.
The current situation in the capital made it difficult for the young lady who sold sachets to find a suitable Langjun. After all, she was not a noble, so it was unlikely that she would be chosen by a Langjun with good conditions. Those Langjuns who did not have anything could not give her a secure future.
In addition, all the Langjuns who had their own houses in the capital were very arrogant. Not only were they picky about their wives, but they would also continue to take in concubines after they got married. After all, they had houses. It was simply a fool's dream to expect these Langjuns with good conditions to humbly pursue a young lady from a poor family and treat her well wholeheartedly. It was simply impossible. There were few rich men who were not scumbags. Ang Lee was a standard scumbag. He had many beautiful wives and concubines at home, and many of them had not been given a status.
Ang Lee was really not sure how the young lady who sold sachets would end up. This was because in a short period of time, it was difficult to alleviate the housing shortage in the capital. Most of the young Langjuns could not afford to buy a house.
The ideal husband of the young lady who sold sachets was naturally a local family with a house in the capital. It did not matter if he was older or uglier, as long as he had a house. Only in this way could she solve the housing problem for the rest of her life and have a good life. However, there were not many people with a house in the capital. The proportion of them in the population was too low. Almost everyone targeted these people. This caused a large number of young women to be unable to find a suitable husband. At the same time, there were more sons of poor people who could not find a wife, which caused a big social problem.
This kind of thing usually happened in the developed society of the later generations. Now, the Tang Dynasty, which was transformed by Ang Lee, had begun to have this kind of thing. This was a very serious social problem that must be solved first. If this problem could not be solved well, the population of the Tang Dynasty would plummet in the future. This was not a good thing. If a strong empire did not have enough population, it could not develop well. Without a large population, it meant that its power was weak. Only when the population was large enough and the empire's territory was vast enough, the empire would be great and truly invincible. For the Tang Dynasty, which was now in the midst of rapid development, the population was really crucial. Only when the population gradually increased could the Tang Dynasty have enough manpower to complete many plans, stabilize the newly developed frontier, and maintain the prosperity and stability of the core area of the Tang Dynasty.
There was still a lot of barren land waiting to be developed in the Tang Dynasty, and all the land development required a certain amount of manpower. Without enough population, many plans could not be really implemented, and the empire's frontier could not be developed.
In fact, at this time, all the people of the Tang Dynasty poured into the capital, which had a certain disadvantage. That was, it reduced the population of various places, which made many counties more and more destitute and difficult to develop. Naturally, it reduced the sustainable development of these small places.
However, the capital was now in great need of human resources. Therefore, the people of various places were allowed to leave their hometowns and come to the capital to seek development. According to the laws of the Tang Dynasty, ordinary people could not easily leave their hometowns. Otherwise, it would be against the law. Only when the imperial court asked the people to migrate could they leave their hometowns. This was done to stabilize the population of various places and arrange the population according to the amount of arable land in each place.
The main reason why the capital was in urgent need of people recently was because Ang Lee had invented too many high-tech machines. These high-tech products were very important to the future of the Tang Dynasty. If they wanted to manufacture and develop these machines and some supporting facilities, they would need a lot of labor. It was obviously difficult to meet the requirements with only the local labor force in the capital. Therefore, they had to turn their eyes to the whole country and allow the people of all places to enter the capital.
So why not break up these machine workshops and make them in various places? In this way, the population would not need to migrate, and it would not cause a shortage of housing in the capital.
This was naturally because many machines were closely related. Only when all these machines were gathered in a place not far from each other could a complete industry be formed and cost be saved to the greatest extent. If these machine workshops were scattered all over the Tang Dynasty, there would be no way to develop them. The production cost would be too high. For example, producing a machine required a lot of parts. If these parts had to be bought in many distant places, the production cost would be too high, which was very disadvantageous.
Compared with migrating the workshops, the cost of migrating the population was the lowest, and it was also the most convenient and reliable. Therefore, in order to save costs, they could only adopt the method of migrating the population. As for the shortage of housing caused by the sudden increase in the population, it could be solved slowly. It could not be rushed. It could always be solved in the end.
In addition, as more and more machine workshops appeared in the capital, they would eventually have to migrate to other places. Moreover, it would be an overall migration. It would definitely not be the migration of a few workshops, but the migration of hundreds of workshops to a city together, thus forming a new production base there.
For example, in Lai Zhou, a prefecture along the sea, there were already hundreds of thousands of people gathered there. This made the originally inconspicuous Lai Zhou one of the most prosperous cities in the entire Henan Province. Its prosperity was close to that of the eastern capital, Luoyang.
The main reason for this situation was that more than a dozen new ports had been built in the coastal area of Lai Zhou. There were also five large shipbuilding workshops, ship repair workshops, and fishing ports. Most of the ships returning from America and Australia chose to dock in Lai Zhou, and the ships departing from the Tang Dynasty also departed from the ports in Lai Zhou. Thus, Lai Zhou had become the main shipping transfer center of the Tang Empire.
Lai Zhou was the easternmost point of the capital's east-bound railway. It was a large railway station. Every day, the materials unloaded from the sea ports could be continuously transported to various places through this large station. The materials from various places could be easily transported to Lai Zhou. As a result, it was impossible for Lai Zhou not to be prosperous.
There were a large number of workshops in the capital, which required a large amount of labor. This contributed to the continuous prosperity of the capital. Similarly, there were a large number of shipyards and supporting workshops in Lai Zhou. Needless to say, there was a large demand for labor. With a sufficient population, prosperity would naturally follow.
At present, because the industrial distribution was mainly concentrated in the capital, Luoyang, Lai Zhou, and a few other areas, this led to the prosperity of these few areas. However, as the development continued in the future, the land in these areas would not be enough. Thus, the industries would inevitably be transferred to more cities of the Tang Dynasty. Thus, prosperity would spread to every corner of the Tang Dynasty. After the imperial court had money, it could also take out a part of the money to build the border, thus promoting the stability and prosperity of the border.
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