Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 808 0803 [Northland Jiangnan]

Zhao Fengji and Wang Huai stayed in Erguhe, while Fu Xingzhong followed the emperor northward.

Standing on the wide and long embankment, with the water level of the Yellow River gradually declining in front of him, Fu Xingzhong pointed to the other bank and said: "That's Changlu Town (later Cangzhou City)."

“During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, prefectures were established, but they were downgraded to counties many times.”

"In the early Song Dynasty, it was Changlu County. Because of the sparse population, it was downgraded to Changlu Town. Later it developed again and was renamed Changlu County."

"In the second year of Xining, the Yellow River burst its banks and the entire Changlu County was submerged. In the fourth year of Xining, Changlu County was reduced to Changlu Town again."

"During the Zhenghe period of the former Song Dynasty, the population of Changlu Town increased again. At that time, it was originally planned to restore the county governance, but the Yellow River burst its banks again, and Changlu Town was flooded again."

"Even the city wall in Cangzhou City, which is farther away, was flooded until only six feet remained."

Ju Ming sighed secretly in his heart.

Ju Ming naturally knew about the great flood during the Zhenghe period. He was serving as the prefect of Puzhou at that time.

Continue heading north, inspecting along the way, and soon arrive at the Juma River.

The area where the Ergu River flows needs to relocate people, but they are unwilling to come to Cangzhou and Hejian.

In order to protect Kaifeng and Shandong Jinghua area, the imperial court chose to sacrifice Hebei. Of the city walls as high as Cangzhou, only six feet of the city walls were not submerged. It is said that millions of people died in the entire Yellow Flood Area.

Cangzhou and Hejian need to divert the Yellow River to release silt, but they lack enough civilians.

Fu Xingzhong said: "I am not urging your majesty to cut down the gold. Considering the current situation of the Yellow River, the sooner these things are handled, the better. If it is delayed for more than five years, the Yellow River may burst its banks at any time. At that time, we can only repeat the old tricks. Just like what happened in the seventh year of Zhenghe, the entire Cangzhou, half of Hejian, half of Daming, and some surrounding counties were flooded to protect Kaifeng and Shandong. "

The area between Cangzhou and Hehe is originally vast and sparsely populated. If another 200,000 people are recruited to manage the river, will agricultural production be guaranteed?
Fu Xingzhong said: "The widening of Ergu Hebei Road requires the relocation of a large number of people. Firstly, it is difficult to leave their homeland, and secondly, there are many rivers flowing north, so these people are unwilling to move north."

Fu Xingzhong said: "Not only can I understand, but I will also be grateful to His Majesty."

If we do this, hundreds of thousands will die and millions will be displaced.

Ju Ming said: "You can divert the Yellow River and release siltation on a small scale first. When I quickly destroy the Jin Kingdom, I can raise money and food to control this area."

We must speed up the pace of eliminating money and free up money and food to control the river!
……

Moreover, the army must be transferred there. Once someone causes trouble, they will immediately carry out brutal suppression.

"Would it require a lot of manpower to divert the Yellow River and release silt on a large scale?" Zhu Ming asked.

That flood had a great impact on the subsequent alliance with Jin to attack Liao.

Fu Xingzhong said: "Before the Ergu River can be flooded to attack the sand, the Yellow River can be diverted to release siltation on the Beiliu side, which is Wang Anshi's method at that time. With the Yellow River sediment for silt irrigation, Cangzhou's saline-alkali land can be quickly and extensively controlled. Wait for the Ergu River If we start to use water to attack the sand, there will be basically no floods here, and the five surrounding states will become fertile fields.”

At this time, the court must force relocation.

"Then I can only be a tyrant again," Ju Ming shook his head and sighed, "Maybe after ten years, they will be able to understand."

On both sides of the Juma River are endless rice fields. From time to time, he would encounter ponds with endless green lotus leaves, which made Ju Ming feel like he was back in the south of the Yangtze River.

Zhu Ming was silent after hearing this.

The entire Hebei East Road was severely affected. Rebels and bandits had been rampant for many years. Local people's livelihood was never restored, and it was difficult to provide soldiers, civilians, and food and grass during the war. The giant bandits such as Song Jiang, who even seriously disrupted Shandong, were able to grow bigger because of the famine that lasted for several years after the disaster.

"This place is very nice!" Zhu Ming nodded in approval.

Fu Xingzhong said: "One or two hundred thousand people."

Fu Xingzhong said: "This is the result of several years of governance. In order to resist the Liao Dynasty, the former Song Dynasty deliberately made the Juma River too deep for boats and too shallow for people to step on. Therefore, it was dredged every year to ensure that the river was not deep, and the river was full of dark water. pile."

"But at the end of the Song Dynasty, due to the truce with the Liao Kingdom for many years, Hebei's border defense gradually became desolate."

"For thirty or forty years in a row, the construction of the Great Water Wall in Hebei has been half-hearted. There are also officials and powerful people who have risked death to encircle the lake and build farmland. As a result, the area of ​​the lake is shrinking day by day, and the rivers are seriously silted up. When there is a flood, the banks will overflow."

"After the Jin State occupied this place, they also ignored everything, and the rivers and lakes became even more silted up. Countless people could not bear the Jin State's exploitation and fled south."

"When the Ming Dynasty regained this place, it was covered with swamps for thousands of miles, lakes and lakes were scattered randomly, and the population of the people had already been reduced to ten."

"After the people moved back, they immediately dredged hundreds of rivers and ditches connecting the lakes. Moreover, this was all former Song Dynasty farmland. Any private land was illegally stolen and the Ming court would not recognize it. All these thousands of miles of fertile land were distributed to the returned people. , No powerful family can annex it. People are very motivated, and they have a good harvest in the first year of their return!”

"This is not only the case on the south bank of the Juma River. After the Jin Kingdom ceded territory and sought peace, the court also resettled and exiled many people to the north bank. Today, the north bank of the Juma River is also filled with the fragrance of rice."

"Since last year, hidden piles in rivers and lakes have been removed. Next year, the Juma River will be dredged, so that Juma River can also be used for boating."

Ju Ming asked: "The imperial court did not allocate funds, how did you recruit civilian husbands?"

Fu Xingzhong said: "After the bumper harvest in the first year, everyone was happy. The following year, the rivers and lakes were managed, and everything responded. The people brought their own tools and started dredging in their own villages and towns. The men dug and carried, and the women cooked and delivered food. They don't pay a penny from the government. They don't complain at all, and everyone is smiling. Only the river workers who go a little further away are paid by the government. "

"If the people are happy with it, everything can be accomplished." Ju Ming was very happy.

Fu Xingzhong said: "No matter how hard and tired they are, they are still doing things for themselves." The area surrounding the Great Water Wall, which stretches thousands of miles, will be easy to govern after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, as long as the officials do not mess around and provide some orderly guidance.

How many acres of land do you have?

Sorry, the government doesn't recognize it.

Because these are all military camps of the Northern Song Dynasty, your family's land must have been illegally misappropriated. The change of dynasty won't chop your head off, so you can just have fun on your own.

All acres of land were distributed to common people, without any annexation.

At most, some local officials would allow their families or relatives to occupy a few more acres when dividing the fields. It's harmless.

Everyone has fields, and they are relatively evenly distributed.

What is being managed is the water conservancy of this village and town, and all the benefits belong to themselves. How can the people not be motivated?
The government only needs to issue corresponding instructions to each village based on the requirements of the river management officer. There is a highly respected person in the village who leads the whole village to work during the slack time. Even the old, weak, women and children also helped out while delivering meals.

Ju Ming looked at the rice fields in front of him and suddenly asked: "It's getting colder and colder these years. Can rice still be grown in the north?"

Fu Xingzhong explained: "These are early-maturing rice. Due to climate reasons, the sowing time is later than in the south. Just harvest it before the weather turns cold."

In the early Song Dynasty, the Liao Kingdom invaded from time to time.

So the Northern Song Dynasty developed the Great Water Wall system, which connected hundreds of lakes, large and small, and nearly a hundred natural rivers. Hundreds of artificial canals were dug for this purpose.

First, it can effectively resist the invasion of the Liao Kingdom, and second, it can farm on the spot to obtain military supplies.

The effect is very obvious. Countless saline-alkali lands in Hebei have been transformed into paddy fields. But if the Liao army really couldn't get through, they could only go south on Hebei West Road - the Jin soldiers couldn't get through either, so they had to go around Zhending.

Farming failed in the first year because of problems with rice seeds.

The next year, I switched to early-maturing rice and got a bumper harvest immediately.

This huge water wall system needs to be maintained every year. If it is not maintained for several years, a large number of river channels will be blocked. Paddy fields are also divided into four squares. When to irrigate and when to drain water must be managed uniformly.

At its peak, this place became "Northern Jiangnan".

The emperor of Liao even wrote a letter to Song personally, hoping that people on the north bank of the Juma River could also go down to the river to fish and collect reeds, and that the Song army would not interfere at will.

Moreover, the Liao State also learned from the Song State in farming and built a large number of rice fields on the north bank.

However, the Liao Kingdom lacked management and often "exhausted the lake to catch fish". When water was diverted to irrigate fields, some river sections were drained directly without regard to the consequences.

……

The Great Water Wall of the Northern Song Dynasty had no problems until the end of the Northern Song Dynasty.

Mainly due to lack of management, the rules established early on are no longer taken seriously.

During the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, they simply stopped doing annual repairs.

Moreover, the lake is being reclaimed for farmland, causing the entire area to flood from time to time.

Both the Jin and Yuan Dynasties had a laissez-faire attitude, especially the Yuan Dynasty, which cut down a large number of trees in the upper reaches to build palaces, and the Ming Dynasty also continued to cut down trees. This resulted in floods every year and the water system in Hebei became a mess. In the end, only Baiyangdian was left.

Ju Ming is very lucky, because it has been abandoned for a short time, and the water system has not been completely messed up.

The imperial court did not allocate much money, and this fertile field returned to the level of the mid-Northern Song Dynasty.

Ju Ming came to the paddy field and reached out to touch the rice leaves: "Over there in the south of the Yangtze River, the rice will be harvested in a few months, right? Here, it hasn't heading yet. How is the yield?"

Fu Xingzhong said: "As long as it is harvested before frost, the yield is definitely not as good as that in the south of the Yangtze River, but it can be regarded as good farmland in the north. Only the good farmland around the Great Water Wall can pay an annual field tax of 20,000 shi!"

Ju Ming became more and more happy after hearing this, and then said with contempt: "The Jin Kingdom has occupied this place for several years, and they can't even hold a hen that lays golden eggs. They only know how to exploit and plunder, but instead force the people to flee south." "

Fu Xingzhong said: "When it is completely managed, the land tax may reach 30,000 shi."

The officials in these prefectures and counties must have the best political performance, and some have been promoted and transferred.

Since the Juma River was temporarily unavailable for boating, Ju Ming rode along the south bank.

When he arrived at Baiyangdian, what Zhu Ming saw was an endless lake. Not only is the water area larger than in later generations, but most of the lakes are connected together.

Fu Xingzhong said: "Most of the polder dams have been demolished. The former Song Hao Bandit Lake was used as farmland. In the next two years, all the land will be returned to the lake."

There are lotus leaves everywhere in the lake, and the green color makes people like it.

Ju Ming said happily: "Call the local magistrate, tongpan, county magistrate and other officials, and I will go boating on the lake with them."

(End of this chapter)