Cultivation of chastity

Chapter 222 The Rapid Development of Cangzhou

Zhang Liang and Cen Wenwen headed north all the way, observing Cangzhou in a leisurely manner.

During this process, one of the famous spies kept collecting the information they inquired and reported to Zhang Liang. Looking at the report, Zhang Liang frowned.

It's not because these spies found out that the officials in Cangzhou are corrupt and accepting bribes, and the rich and powerful families are rampant.

Instead, it was detected that not to mention the court officials, even the local wealthy families, seemed to give up their families to work for the country.

This kind of gesture of unity in Cangzhou, to be honest, Zhang Liang felt particularly inconceivable when he saw this report.

"Since when did the aristocratic family serve the country and the people like this?" Zhang Liang couldn't help being silent when he saw what the spies had inquired about.

Cen Wenwen also took out a pen and paper at this moment, carefully witnessing what he had seen and heard, and his heart was also full of confusion.

What a family is, others don't know that the Cen family where Cen Wenwen belongs to has been inherited from Cen Peng, one of the 28 Yuntai generals in the Han Dynasty. After hundreds of years of inheritance, it can be regarded as a Zanying family.

If it is said that individuals in the aristocratic family may have the idea of ​​sacrificing themselves for the country, but it is incredible for the whole family to spend money and food for the development of a state, even for the development of the country.

But now, according to the news from the spies, the big and small aristocratic families in Cangzhou took the initiative to provide money and food this time, either to invest in the land around the main road, or to encourage the clansmen to reclaim wasteland around Nanpi.

Some even offered to buy cattle from Youzhou to plow the fields for the people in the same village, making the whole spring plowing extraordinarily lively.

To be honest, those families in Youzhou who invested money in the early stage are quite disgusted with the behavior of the Cangzhou family.

At the beginning, Xue Dading wanted to start the road of the triangle ring road, and he needed the first sum of money and food from the Youzhou family.

But with the construction of this road, these Cangzhou aristocratic families more or less knew Li Tai's Cangzhou development plan for Xue Dading

Those who immediately called their parents and mothers asked Xue Dading to dedicate their insignificant strength to this whole project.

The Youzhou family was the original investor, and invested in road construction in advance.

Although Li Tai was not allowed to collect tolls, some of the shops around the triangular ring road were taken away by the Youzhou family with the tacit consent of Li Tai and Xue Dading.

This made the Youzhou family call the bet even more desperately, after all, their investment has begun to see returns!
But in Li Tai's entire project, building roads is only the first step. First develop wheat, then grow cotton, and then develop sea salt.

It can be said that if the entire project plan continues to be implemented, it is not enough to rely solely on the investment of the Youzhou family. For Li Tai, it is necessary to unite more forces that can be united. The Cangzhou family who sees the sweetness and wants to eat it is naturally the most suitable.

Not to mention that these Cangzhou aristocratic families have a very important resource compared to the Youzhou aristocratic families, and that is the local land.

So with them joining, when they are willing to take out the land to grow wheat, then the first phase of the project will naturally be fully carried out, especially when it comes to farming, and the local people will be convinced if the local family guarantees it.

As for the local aristocratic family in Cangzhou, they looked down on Xue Dading at first, and simply ignored Xue Dading's plan.

What a plan to develop Cangzhou, who would be so stupid to throw money on the roads, and even pay corvee money and food!
Is this because there is so much money and food in hand that there is no place to spend it?It's better to save it first and buy some land in the future!
But when these three roads were built, and horses and horses came and went on them, when the local aristocratic families saw the benefits of these roads and wanted to block the roads or buy surrounding land, they encountered difficulties.

For those who want to block the road and set up a gate, and want to collect tolls, Li Chunfeng took the initiative to let the corvees accompany them to develop local fighting.

These people are faced with organized and disciplined corvee, it would be strange if the family militiamen in their hands can beat them well.

When the group fight was over, Xue Dading sent people over to arrest them.

Li Chunfeng's corvée was just a formality.

But the other side was not so lucky. He was directly caught in the prison and calmed down first, and then sentenced according to the court law.

To put it simply, if you want to collect tolls, then the government is pulling the strings.

As for those who wanted to buy the land around the triangular ring road, they soon discovered that all the land deeds around the avenue had been bought out, part of which was naturally taken away by the Youzhou family, and the building of shops had even begun.

It can be said that the iron fist of feudal imperialism can make the big and small families in Cangzhou understand what the ruling class is.

If the imperial court can't deal with aristocratic families, it refers to a class, not to individual families.

Even if there are five families and seven surnames, if one dares to jump out of rebellion, one counts as one. The court will definitely wipe out the five families and seven surnames to make room for other wealthy families.

Therefore, after the Cangzhou family discovered that the hard ones could only be smashed into teeth, they had no choice but to choose the soft ones to join the project.

These Cangzhou aristocratic families who didn't eat the first bite, now finally get a few mouthfuls of soup, how could they not be willing to spend a few more cents on food, no matter how hard they can let outsiders take away all their money. !

During this process, the agronomy society of the agricultural college naturally took root in the local area.

There is no way, if you don't work, for the aristocratic family, it would be too much for one more person, and it would be too much to raise one person for nothing.

But when it’s time to work, you can’t wait to use one of your subordinates as if it were two people. There is no reason to dislike your labor. If there is a technology that can increase the labor force, you must quickly support it.

In such a situation, it is very important for agricultural societies and agricultural student professors to teach how to increase productivity.

Another point is that under Li Tai's arrangement, the Agricultural Society began to master the precious resource of cattle at the grassroots level.

Because the number of farming cattle is limited now, Li Tai did not directly sell the farming cattle to the local family, but chose to distribute them to the Agricultural Society first, and let the Agricultural Society rent out the cattle in the form of leasing.

To be honest, if it is completely left to the laws of the market, then the cattle must be leased by the landlord family at a high price, or given priority to them. Li Tai did not specifically stop this, but let them develop.

Because of this kind of thing, as the number of cattle cultivated by the "Grass Planting Project" continues to increase in the future, it will naturally gradually benefit the bottom.

Besides, these aristocratic families in Cangzhou didn't need to rent them out. If they had some, they directly bought cattle from the aristocratic families in Youzhou who participated in the "Grass Seed Project".

What Li Tai really needs is to calculate how many acres there are in the area through these oxen plowing the fields.

There will definitely be discrepancies in this estimate, but it is much more reliable than sending someone to slowly inquire, at least it can be regarded as a reference method.

And to find out how many acres these aristocratic families have in their hands is also convenient for the future land inventory policy, or the policy of dividing the land into acres, and it is always a good preliminary preparation.

This is also the second purpose of setting up the Agricultural Society besides disseminating planting technology. Even for the imperial court, this kind of social attribute that can directly know the situation at the grassroots level is more important than making money itself.

Just like this, at this moment, not to mention Xue Dading and the first batch of investment families from Youzhou, those families from Cangzhou are also frantically throwing money and people at this moment, and even renting cattle from the agricultural school to reclaim the fields.

Although Cangzhou now supports the planting of wheat, reclaiming the land in spring and then planting beans to nourish the fertility of the land can also bring good harvests from wheat cultivation in autumn.

At least because of the relatively mandatory planting of wheat in autumn last year, now the local aristocratic families and the local people see that the wheat grows lush and green in spring and can be harvested in late spring and early summer, and their enthusiasm naturally comes.

After all, after the wheat harvest, the time has also entered the summer. For ordinary people, if the imperial court has not arranged for them to do corvée, as the road has been built, then they can go to the Grand Canal to work hard, because there is a lot of energy on the entire waterway. .

As long as the people come back during the autumn planting, they will not miss the next year's planting.

This kind of arrangement is tantamount to freeing up a lot of time for the people to make money. For ordinary people, the long-term benefits may not know anything except reading, but if they are asked to calculate how to earn a few more copper coins , these people probably know much better than Li Tai.

Therefore, now the entire Cangzhou, because of the advancement of the entire planned project, is naturally twisted into one rope from top to bottom.

And the huge dividends brought about by this project have allowed everyone from the officialdom to the aristocratic family, from the aristocratic family to the wealthy family, from the wealthy family to the common people.

And as the wealth of all classes has increased, naturally many problems have been directly covered up by economic development.

This is why after Zhang Liang came to Cangzhou, he felt that everyone in Cangzhou, from top to bottom, seemed to be very positive.

After all, if wealth can be obtained reasonably and legally, then these aristocratic families will naturally not refuse.

But the problem now is that the profit brought by this whole project, not to mention the Cangzhou family, even the Youzhou family can't afford it, so it is naturally distributed.

It's just that Zhang Liang and Cen Wenwen couldn't be afraid of the scene of such a wealthy family giving up their home for the country.

After all, in the eyes of anyone, the Cangzhou family and the Youzhou family who came to invest here are simply crazy.

It can be said that the whole trip to Cangzhou made the two of them more and more terrifying, even full of unimaginable.

But at this moment, everyone from the common people to the aristocratic family gathered under Xue Dading's subordinates obediently, and worked wholeheartedly in accordance with Li Tai's overall plan from planning to the city.

At least for the people of Cangzhou, the small money they earn is the most real.

At the same time, Xue Dading, a guy with strong execution ability, brought his relatives from Hedong as the backbone, and the people's strength from the whole prefecture who were constantly gathering, naturally began to work hard.

However, Xue Li followed his tribe and joined Xue Dading's sect. At first, he only thought that he would follow his tribe, hoping to have a chance to make a difference.

But he didn't expect that Xue Dading not only didn't treat others as human beings when he was working, but he didn't even think of himself as human beings.

He works nine hours a day. As for the officials under him, it would be a good thing if he leaves the government office, but as long as he stays under his command, basically you start with the front heel, and the back heel will receive a new task and go out .

It can be said that many yamen servants work under Xue Dading, which is really a lot of complaints.

But Xue Li is different. For farmers who have studied family martial arts since childhood, and even went to the field to farm, Xue Li can quickly and well complete the tasks in the field or the tasks issued by Xue Dading.

After finishing, he immediately ran to Xue Dading's side, accepted the new task, completed it as quickly as possible, and returned to Xue Dading's side again...

Compared with other ordinary servants who accepted the mission and wished to hang around outside until dark after completing the mission, Xue Li's arrival was really the big scroll king opening the door for the small scroll king, and scroll home.

But for Xue Dading, Xue Li, a member of his tribe, appeared by his side every time. Once or twice was nothing, but he often heard Xue Li say in his ears: "Xue Inspector, I have finished my work. This is the receipt. Next What is the mission!"

Hearing more, he will naturally notice Xue Li, and Xue Li himself is more heroic and strong, which makes Xue Dading even more fond of him.

After checking Xue Li's information, I more or less knew Xue Li's background, and I was more satisfied.

One day, Xue Dading called to stop Xue Li who was going back and forth every day, going back and forth between the fields and the mansion, and asked,
"The other yamen servants have taken over the tasks outside the government yamen, and they won't be back until today's Shenshi at the earliest. Why can you often go back and forth in an hour!"

"Maybe it's because I'm also a farmer, and I know that farming is not easy. If the governor's policies that benefit the people can be implemented earlier, the people will have a better harvest!" Xue Li said sincerely.

"You are hardworking and hardworking. You are indeed Xue's unicorn son. Since you have some talent for farmland, I will write to King Yan to let you enter Youzhou Agricultural College to learn orthodox agricultural knowledge. .

In the planning of Cangzhou, wheat planting is only the foundation, and it is planned to plant cotton on a large scale in Nanpi and other places with abundant water conservancy.

Few people in Cangzhou know about this thing, I hope you can learn something, and it will be convenient for Cangzhou to govern well in the future! "

Xue Dading felt that he couldn't just do what Li Tai said.

After all, I don't even know what cotton is, and the whole plan is all from Li Tai's mouth.

In the future, Nanpi will become the main cotton planting base, and vigorously develop cotton. I have no plan to change this plan.

But I am the governor of Cangzhou, and I need to be responsible for the people of Cangzhou. What if the cotton cannot be grown here in the future, or if the cotton grown is not sold well, what should I do? Who will be responsible for the people of Nanpi at that time!

So Xue Dading felt that he should arrange one or two of his own people to go to Youzhou Agricultural Academy to study agricultural knowledge well.

I don't have many requirements. One is to learn wheat planting, the other is to learn cotton planting, and the third is to understand the construction of salt fields.

At least he has someone in his hands, so he won't be completely confused about what he will develop in the future.

After all, Xue Dading is a person who climbed all the way from an official slave to a governor of a state. Although Xue Dading can't see the development of the situation clearly in the overall situation, it is still very appropriate for Xue Dading to start small when doing things.

Choosing a few reliable clansmen to learn agricultural knowledge is not bad for the family or for yourself.

(End of this chapter)