My Portable Ming Dynasty

Chapter 427 The Problem of Child Labor
The headlines of the capital's newspapers were dominated by news of two ocean-going exploration fleets.

Su Ze once devoted a lot of space in the Yuefu Xinbao to introducing the distant Nanzhou.

Humans are always full of imagination about places they have never seen before, and the people of the Ming Dynasty were also full of imagination about this mysterious land, which was separated by a vast sea and was rich in gold and silver.

However, Suze was actually more concerned about North America.

Compared to South America, which is covered by tropical rainforests, North America is the real treasure.

The history of European migration to North America dates back to around the beginning of the seventeenth century, around 1600 AD.

Now it is the sixth year of the Longqing reign, which is 1572 AD. At this time, large areas of North America were unclaimed wasteland.

Colonizing North America was much cheaper than colonizing South America, and North America also had much richer resources.

On one point alone, North America possesses abundant coal and iron resources, which South America cannot match.

Su Ze had read an article in the original timeline that said although South America had also established civilization, it never progressed and remained in the Stone Age and Bronze Age, mainly because South America lacked iron.

It's not that there are no iron ore deposits in South America, but rather that the iron ore deposits in South America are located in remote areas, making mining very difficult.

So when the Spanish set foot on South American soil, some tribes were still using weapons from the Stone Age, which allowed the Spanish to create a miracle in colonial history, destroying a vast indigenous South American nation with a small army.

North America is different. It has abundant reserves of timber, iron ore, coal, and oil, and many of these minerals are easy to mine.

North America has fertile land, and it is much easier to cultivate than the tropical rainforests of South America. There are also fewer dangerous organisms and infectious diseases.

They initiated the expansion into the Americas ahead of schedule and established Ming Dynasty settlements on the west coast.

This is Suze's Americas travel guide.

Of course, this is already a rather far-sighted plan.

At present, we still need to develop ocean-going technology first. Reality is not a game where producing immigrants can increase the population. Only by reducing the dangers of ocean voyages and letting people see the benefits of immigration can we attract more immigrants.

Putting aside other examples, Penghu is a good one.

Su Ze's disciple, Zhang Chun, a scholar who passed the imperial examination, took office as the education commissioner of Penghu. In a letter he sent back a few days ago via a fat pigeon, he wrote about the wave of emigration to Penghu.

Penghu primarily attracts immigrants from Fujian.

Penghu and Fujian are separated by a sea, and their climates and environments are quite similar.

However, Fujian has a large population and limited land, and there is a saying that it is "eight parts mountains, one part water, and one part farmland". Since the Song Dynasty, the contradiction between land and population in Fujian has been very sharp, and there is even a bad habit of infanticide in the area.

Infanticide is the act of drowning a child who cannot be raised. During the Southern Song Dynasty, when Zhu Xi served as a county magistrate in Fujian, he wrote "An Admonition Against Killing Children" to dissuade the local people from infanticide.

However, simply advising the people is useless; the contradiction between people and land in Fujian is the intractable problem.

Therefore, compared to other regions, Fujian has a stronger tradition of immigration.

For example, the main force of those who went to Southeast Asia were people from Fujian.

Li Wenquan made substantial profits from his plantation in Penghu.

The plantation owners who followed Li Wenquan to Penghu for colonization and development were transformed into shareholders of the Woyin Company (the Penghu Colonization Group collectively invested in the Woyin Company). These plantation owners owned large tracts of land and also established sugarcane and sugarcane wine factories.

These Fujian natives returning home in glory triggered an even larger wave of migration.

Besides Taipei, Tainan, and a few other early immigrant cities, more towns have been developed, and the number of immigrants on the entire island of Penghu has exceeded 100,000 households.

Su Ze was surprised when Zhang Chunxin presented this data.

It's important to understand that 100,000 households is a truly staggering number. Keep in mind that the several waves of migration in the early Ming Dynasty, although the total number of immigrants reached one million, were official migration activities organized when the dynasty was newly established and its organizational capabilities were at their peak.

Even so, the scale of a single migration rarely exceeded 100,000 households. This was not because Zhu Yuanzhang did not want to, but because such a large-scale migration required a massive amount of work support from the government; otherwise, the migrants would turn into displaced people and rebels.

The immigrants from Fujian who went to Penghu this time were all self-made immigrants who brought their own food.

All the Penghu government had to do was register households and distribute land.

In his letter, Zhang Chun also analyzed the reasons for the Fujian emigration wave.

The main reason is the conflict between people and land in Fujian. After the invasion of the southeastern pirates, the population of Fujian recovered, and the conflict between people and land became more acute.

Although Su Ze promoted crops such as potatoes and sweet potatoes that can be grown in mountainous areas, the cost of cultivating mountain fields is very high, so it is better to cultivate land in Penghu.

Secondly, there are the unique characteristics of Fujian.

In the Fujian region, clan power is quite strong. Once someone profits from colonization in Penghu, it will attract the entire clan to colonize Penghu as well.

The clan members who came earlier to settle down would also provide support to the newcomers, and there were even clan-based collective settlements.

Of course, local officials still disliked this phenomenon. When allocating land, they would try to separate members of the same clan to prevent a single clan from gathering in one village and instead arrange for several surnames to live in one village.

However, this clan connection still led to a snowballing development trend in the colonization of Penghu.

The last reason is that Penghu's conditions are indeed good.

After Su Ze initially solved the miasma problem, coupled with the popularization of hygiene knowledge, the mortality rate of the colonists was greatly reduced.

People began to realize that Penghu truly is a treasure island.

The advantages of shipping are self-evident; Penghu was the first stop for those heading to Southeast Asia and boasts numerous excellent ports.

The island has high mountains in the center, but the coastline is all plains.

The plains are suitable for growing rice and sugarcane, the low hills can be used to grow tea trees, and there are also abundant fishery resources brought by the Kuroshio Current.

According to Zhang Chun, new immigrants can support themselves solely through fishery resources, which is an advantage that immigrants from other places cannot match.

Of course, Penghu is not without its advantages.

Frequent typhoons and landslides are also the biggest problems faced by Penghu immigrants.

But Fujian has the same problems too.

For Fujian immigrants, coming to Penghu was a gamble for wealth and status. Success meant returning home in glory and bringing more fellow Fujianese to immigrate. Failure meant being buried in a foreign land, since staying in Fujian would likely mean starving to death sooner or later anyway.

People from Fujian also place great importance on education.

Zhang Chun said that Penghu had already proposed levying commercial taxes and then requested the imperial court to establish primary schools.

Zhang Chun, the Penghu Provincial Education Commissioner, suddenly became very important.

Before this year's typhoon season, Zhang Chun traveled to all the towns and cities in Penghu to plan the location of the primary school and prepare to open the school and train teachers.

Su Ze was very pleased after reading Zhang Chun's letter.

He recommended Zhang Chun to serve as the education commissioner of Penghu because he saw Penghu's development potential.

It now appears that Penghu is developing even faster than expected.

With 100,000 households already immigrated, that's a conservative estimate of 300,000 to 400,000 people. If this continues, Penghu's population will soon exceed one million.

That means Penghu will soon be established as a prefecture.

Just then, the fat pigeon flew into the study again.

To make it easier for the fat pigeon to come and go, Su Ze specially installed a one-way window in the study window for it to enter and exit. Now the fat pigeon no longer knocks on the window and flies directly into the study.

After flying in, the fat pigeon landed on Su Ze's pen holder, its cross-eyed eyes staring at Su Ze.

Su Ze smiled wryly. These pigeons were getting more and more picky. It seemed they were tired of eating rice and had started eating mixed grains again.

Su Ze opened the cloth bag containing the grains, and only then did the fat pigeon stretch out its legs.

Upon opening the mailbox, I found a letter from Lin Bingzheng, the provincial education commissioner of Shanxi.

This former magistrate of Fangshan County, now the provincial education commissioner of Shanxi, was promoted because of Su Ze's recommendation in a memorial to the throne. After that, he and Su Ze often corresponded.

Shanxi was one of the first provinces to levy commercial taxes and also one of the first to begin educational reforms and establish primary schools.

Shanxi Province of the Ming Dynasty has a total of four prefectures, twenty states, and seventy-seven counties. Lin Bingzheng's work has been remarkably effective. Primary schools have been set up in all the prefectural cities, in the garrison primary schools in the twenty states, and in the seventy-seven counties, primary schools have also been set up in three counties.

According to Su Ze's "Discussion on Elementary Education", each county should set up a primary school and recruit ten-year-old children to learn to read and write.

After graduating from primary school at the age of fourteen, graduates could try to enter the preparatory courses of the Imperial College, the Military Academy, and the Naval Academy, or continue their studies locally to participate in the imperial examinations.

The earliest batch of primary school students in Shanxi are now twelve years old and have completed more than half of their studies.

In his letter, Lin Bingzheng mentioned his elementary school grades, but also the problems he encountered there.

That is, the proportion of underprivileged students recruited initially was still too high.

The reason is quite simple: for children from poor families, ten years old is already considered to be half a working adult. Even if the imperial court provides meals for primary school students and these families do not need to support them, losing this half of their working adult is still unacceptable for many families.

Moreover, primary school is different from taking the imperial examination. After primary school, there is a preparatory course before one has the opportunity to enter the Imperial Academy and the Military Academy.

Having only a primary school diploma doesn't grant any special privileges.

Many families begin to object to their children continuing their education after six months or a year of schooling.

Lin Bingzheng also expressed his concerns in the letter.

He knew that Su Ze's original intention in establishing the primary school was to use elementary education to break down class barriers and give those from poor families a chance.

But now, even in primary school, so many children from poor families have dropped out of school. Among them are many whom Lin Bingzheng personally met and considered to be promising students, but who have also dropped out of school for various reasons.

Lin Bingzheng also mentioned another problem: the employment of child labor is serious in many parts of Shanxi, and many out-of-school children are forced to become child laborers.

In particular, some coal mines employ children to work underground because the larger the mine shaft is dug, the more likely it is to collapse.

The plight of these mining children was quite tragic. However, unlike the problem of slave laborers in Fangshan mines, these mining children were not trafficked and forced to work. Many of them were handed over to the mines by their parents.

In Shanxi, child labor was considered a family matter, which was beyond the jurisdiction of the government. If the government tried to intervene, the mines could produce complete employment contracts, leaving the local government helpless.

Su Ze sighed. Child labor was an unavoidable problem during the period of industrial development.

Su Ze also understood that these families naturally had their own difficulties, and many of them did not think that it was wrong to let their ten-year-old children work in factories.

In the agricultural era, it was perfectly normal for ten-year-old children to work in the fields.

In many cases, ten-year-old children can already handle most of the farm work.

Child farmers were the norm in the agricultural era, while child labor was a new phenomenon that emerged in the industrial era.

Not to mention child farmers, even child prostitutes were common in ancient society.

Du Mu once wrote, "A graceful young woman of thirteen or so, like a budding cardamom flower in early February. Along the ten-mile road of Yangzhou in the spring breeze, nothing can compare to her with the beauty behind the rolled-up beaded curtain."

Poets were used to it when their children were sent away by their parents to become courtesans at the age of thirteen, and some even wrote poems praising their youth and beauty.

But Su Ze knew that agriculture and industry were different.

Therefore, the problem lies not in the "children," but in the "workers."

Although farm work is hard, it is not as dangerous as working in a factory.

Coal mines are dangerous even for adults, let alone children.

All kinds of machines in this era are like that. Many machines can cause accidents if not operated properly, and once a work-related accident occurs, it will either result in death or disability.

Moreover, in the past, when they did farm work for the family, they were still their own children, so they wouldn't be overly exploited.

But it's different in factories. Factory owners don't tolerate idlers; they'll squeeze every last drop of blood from the workers.

Su Ze learned from Lin Bingzheng's letter that some coal mines had working hours of more than six hours a day, and some child laborers had to work underground for six hours a day, which was extremely strenuous.

Su Ze put down the letter. He had just taken out a blank memorial, but then put it down again.

The problem of child labor cannot be solved by a single law.

It's still a matter of mindset.

As the saying goes, before the industrial age, children were expected to work, so many families didn't think sending their children to factories was wrong, and even the children themselves thought so.

Impoverished people already live on the brink of starvation, and a lack of labor could lead to starvation. Using children as child laborers may be a last resort.

Factory owners did not feel that employing child labor was shameful; some even felt that giving these children jobs so they could make a living was a good deed.

Su Ze picked up Lin Bingzheng's letter and went to Luo Wanhua at the newspaper office.

After reading it, Luo Wanhua was indignant at first, and he asked:

"What does Brother Zilin want me to do?"

Su Ze said:

“The issue of child labor is primarily an economic one; it stems from the fact that people struggle to make a living, which is why children are forced to work.”

Luo Wanhua nodded.

Su Ze said again:
"Secondly, it's a matter of mindset. People don't think that dropping out of school to become a child laborer is wrong. Even the child laborers themselves think so. There are even people who send children younger than ten years old to factories."

"Therefore, to get to the root of the problem, we must first address the issue of mindset."

"Therefore, I would like to ask Brother Yifu to publish these issues in the newspaper to first arouse social discussion, and then find a way to guide public opinion to pay attention to the issue of child labor."

Luo Wanhua understood Su Ze's meaning, and he immediately said:
"Brother Zilin! It's my duty!"

(End of this chapter)