Lu Ming

Chapter 400 Fang Yuegong

In the Ming Dynasty, Songjiang Prefecture was located in the ancient Huating County, with Huating, Shanghai, Jiading, Qingpu and other counties under its jurisdiction. Its jurisdiction area was quite large, covering almost the entire right half of the Yangtze River Delta.

Although Shanghai County in this era is very prosperous, its area is very small, only the area around Shiliupu.Therefore, most of the Shanghai natives of later generations, according to their ancestral home, are actually Jiading people, Qingpu people, or Songjiang people.

Songjiang Fuya, located on the original site of Songjiang No. 17 Middle School in later generations, was a large building complex in the [-]th century.After all, in terms of regulations, the government office is two circles larger than the county office.

On the second day after the tea-tasting meeting held by the Land Deed Alliance, an envoy sat in the warm pavilion in the back house of the Songjiang government office, drinking tea with Fang Yuegong, the prefect.

The emissary's surname was Lu, and the reason why he was sent to find the magistrate was because Lu Jinshen and Fang Zhifu were both Jinshi in the second year of Tianqi; both parties were of the same year and had contacts on weekdays, so they were qualified lobbyists.

Fang Yuegong, the prefect, was born in Gucheng, Hubei Province, with four long characters.This person looks mediocre, not tall, and a little rich. He is 38 or [-] years old, and he is relatively young among middle-aged cadres.

At this moment, Fang Zhifu is personally lifting the copper teapot from a clay stove with charcoal burning at his feet to refill tea for an old friend sitting next to him.

"Fourth elder brother, it's too simple, and honesty and honesty are not so good. I will send someone to send an oil stove tomorrow. It's cold and humid in winter, so it's just right for me."

The intrusion of some people has affected this plane more and more deeply.

Take the furnace charcoal for heating in winter as an example. Now the big families with the least money are using kerosene stoves that can adjust the fire and are convenient and clean.The second-class rich families will use traditional silver white charcoal, and the third-class will use ordinary charcoal like Fang Zhifu.

"There are so many ministerial fees in the yamen, so what can I do?" After Fang Yuegong finished refilling his old friend's tea, his face became a little unintelligible: "You don't want to send me kerosene, I am a poor official Can't afford it."

"Where are you talking, brother can control elder brother asking for money?!" Lu Jinshen feigned anger.

"The ones who don't need money are the most expensive." Fang Zhifu said here, put away his joking face, and asked seriously: "You moth are always going to the Three Treasures Hall for nothing, what is the matter, let's be honest!"

Lu Jinshen laughed when he heard the words: "Brother Fang knows me."

The next moment, Lu Jinshen also put away his smiling face: "Recently, there are some people who are rebellious and do not follow the rules, and the situation is very difficult to control. I hope that my brother will take action to suppress it a little. My brother is very kind!"

"Hmph." Hearing this, Fang Yuegong shook his head: "Don't look for me for the business of seizing people's property."

"Oh, brother Fang already knows?"

"It's a joke, you guys have been making a fuss these days, killing people and setting fire every night, do you think I, the prefect, are dead?"

"Hehe, since the elder brother has known about it, the younger brother opened the skylight and said the truth." Lu Jinshen didn't have the slightest bit of shame on his face at this time, staring at the prefect brother and said: "This matter has already made all the gentlemen unable to step down. Now we wait Shi Cheng is riding a tiger, and I hope that my brother will take action to suppress that group of Qiu Ba for a few days, and all the gentry will be rewarded after the incident!"

Hearing this, Fang Yuegong looked out of the window with an expression that was not what I expected. He reached out and knocked on the table: "A generous report? What a generous report?"

"But if the elder brother speaks, the younger brother will obey everything!"

Before Lu Jinshen could finish his sentence, Fang Zhifu seemed to have waited for 1 years, and hurriedly said a word: "I want to build a pond."

Immediately afterwards, he added expressionlessly: "Shitang."

Fang Yuegong in history was actually the same type of person as Hai Rui and Wang Zunde: he only wanted fame, not money, and was shy for being an official.

When Zhang Xianzhong occupied Gucheng in the tenth year of Chongzhen, he heard that Fang Yuezong, a resident, was Fang Yuegong's younger brother, so he occupied the house of Xia Yuezong, detained him under pretext, and asked him to contribute money.

However, after Zhang Xianzhong visited Fang Yuezong's house, he found that Fang Yuezong was indeed a commoner, so he immediately respected him and released him.

The official careers of these clean and honest officials all have one thing in common: they are officials and public officials, they are not afraid of the rich and powerful, and their families have no money left.They are different from most officials - "winning their names in life and after death" is what they really pursue.

But in terms of the means of being an official, Fang Yuegong, the last scholar appointed by the Chongzhen Emperor, was undoubtedly much better than the above two.

Fang Yuegong is the prefect of Songjiang who took office last year.After he took office, he chose a project that is deeply popular and famous in history: building seawalls.

As mentioned earlier, since the early years of Chongzhen, the tide and wind disasters in the south of the Yangtze River have never stopped.The resulting breach of the embankment caused a large number of deaths among the people, and the victims were scattered all over the place.

It was at this juncture that Fang Yuegong began to plan to build embankments.

So why can he leave his name in history?Because it was built as a stone pond.Yes, before Fang Yuegong, all the seawalls in the south of the Yangtze River for thousands of years were mud embankments.

For the ancients with low productivity, after a large stone was excavated, trimmed and polished, and finally transported to the seaside, the pure labor cost was extremely high.In addition to consumables such as glutinous rice and egg white used as adhesives, a real stone pond built with thousands of boulders, this cost is really extremely difficult for the local government.

Therefore, it was not until Fang Yuegong in the late Ming Dynasty that the first stone pond in the Jiangnan area was successfully built.From this point, it can be seen that Fang Yuegong's official and organizational skills are completely superior to those of other honest ministers-the Jiangnan area has always been rich, why no one can handle it before?
To put it bluntly, this is a question of ability and determination.

You must know that when Fang Yuegong called the gentry to raise funds at the beginning, he also encountered a lot of resistance.

The gentry were afraid of increasing the economic burden, and emphasized that there were three difficulties in building stone ponds: first, the cost was high; second, the technical requirements of stone ponds were higher than those of earthen ponds;

However, Fang Yuegong insisted that migrating inland is equivalent to giving up the land to the sea, so he tried his best to build a stone pond.

After that, Fang Zhifu drove a small boat every day to solicit donations everywhere, and promulgated Songjiang Prefecture's embankment repair policy: "rich households with a hundred acres of land will be persuaded to lose [-]% of silver per mu."

All of the above reflects Fang Yuegong's brilliant governance ability: money is not so easy to collect, and if the wrist is not high, how can the gentry submit to it just by rafting to collect donations and put on a show?
Then there is project management. Fang Yuegong is also very strong in this aspect, even much stronger than many projects in later generations.

Not only did he look around for skilled craftsmen, but after the construction started, he eliminated the disadvantages. He did not allow the yamen and tolerances to be deducted layer by layer, and visited the supervisors at any time to check whether all the silver coins issued were in place. Finally, the Shitang project was successfully completed.

After the completion of Shitang, the common people specially built the "Rewarding Gong Temple" to thank Fang Yue for his tribute, which has been worshiped by villagers until later generations.

The above events prove that although Fang Yuegong is an honest official, he is a very scheming and honest official who is well versed in the world.

So the lobbyist Lu Jinshen who came today left in a hurry after visiting Fang Zhifu - he took away the donation conditions proposed by Fang Zhifu.This condition is too harsh, the lobbyist has no right to make decisions, and has to go back and discuss with everyone.

After sending away the Tong who had been planning to seize other people's property all day long, Fang Dazhi shook his head, sighed, left the Nuan Pavilion, and walked to another side courtyard of the back house.

Fang Yuegong in history did not really settle all parties until a few years later and started the formal construction of Shitang.But this matter has been planned since he took office last year: such a huge project, under the social conditions of the Middle Ages, it is normal for several years of preparation in advance.

So when he met Lu Tonghou just now, he unceremoniously threw a big problem to him. Anyway, he didn't want to care about those messy things, so the lion opened his mouth.

While thinking about what happened afterwards, Fang Zhifu walked hurriedly, and soon he entered an inconspicuous room in the side courtyard.

After pushing open the door, Fang Zhifu stepped into the room, hurried to the desk, put his hands on the table, looked at the picture scroll on the table, and turned his head to the person beside him and said, "What did you just talk about?"

The person next to him smiled and said, "It's about cement."

"Oh yes, cement!"

Standing beside Fang Zhifu was a middle-aged man named Luo Shizhi.

This person is one of the earliest dealers selected by Xiongdao in Jiading County.Since Luo Shizhi's elder brother is the current doctor of the Ministry of Industry, the products that the Luo family represents in Xiongdao are mainly some building materials: cement, wood, and glass.

In fact, before Lu Jinshen came to the door today, Luo Shizhi had already communicated with Fang Zhifu in this courtyard all morning.

And what was placed in front of Fang Yuegong at this moment was exactly what he was thinking about, a watercolor dam drawing.

In fact, the things on this picture have far exceeded what Fang Yuegong imagined in his dream.Because this is a large-format color map developed with digital photos, on which is an extremely majestic dam in the eyes of tomorrow.

Looking at the lifelike scenery of the Tainan Plain in the color picture, as well as the magnificent and long dam, the jasper-like reservoir, and the white dragon-like floodgate. Although Fang Yuegong has seen this picture for a long time, but this He still couldn't extricate himself, he rubbed his fingers on the picture while muttering words.

"Fourth brother, the material used for this dam is the cement." Luo Shizhi began to explain the benefits of the cement dam to the Futai adults in detail.

After quietly listening to Luo Shizhi's introduction, Fang Yuegong nodded and said: "If this cement dam can really block a weir lake with a height of three to five feet as shown in the picture, then it can be used to build my Zhangxu seawall. It is enough."

"Hehe, the fourth elder brother seems to believe that seeing is believing." Luo Shizhi sat down at this moment, poured a cup of tea on the same charcoal stove, and after taking a sip, he said with confidence: "This matter is easy. Tomorrow, the fourth eldest brother can choose a boundary in the mansion, and ask master craftsmen to use the old method to build a section of seawall."

"As for my side, I also sent craftsmen to build ponds with cement and boulders, both of which have the same length and width."

When Fang Yuegong heard this, he immediately understood Luo Shizhi's meaning: "This is a good idea. Afterwards, order people to destroy the wall and see which one is more secure."

(End of this chapter)