I, Liu Bian, Sanxing Han Dynasty

Chapter 443 The drought ends
Who else!
Luoyang, looking at the good news coming from all over, Liu Bian really wanted to shout out this sentence.

However, considering his status as the emperor, he still endured it.

In August, the area with the most severe drought - Sanfu, which had not seen rain for more than five consecutive months - finally had rain in the summer, which brought hope for the planting of winter wheat next year.

And in any place in the north, it rains later than in Sanfu.

Zhuge Jin proposed the method of Lishe, which replaced clan mutual assistance with neighbor mutual assistance under official encouragement and guidance, so as to attract landless people in the north to migrate south and relieve the land pressure in the north. After being widely implemented, it played a good effect.

Today, the earliest people who set out have already settled down in Jingyang.

The only regret is that, due to the limitations of the times, although Liu Bian and Ma Riti, who was in charge of the matter, attached great importance to it and arranged Sanfu as a backup migration site, it was still inevitable that some immigrants would die of illness due to acclimatization.

But at least, the vast majority of immigrants can survive and build new homes in new places.

After expressing his joy, Liu Bian looked at the next memorial.

He was delighted again - "Zhang Rang and Man Chong raided three powerful families in Hejian State and obtained nearly 80,000 dan of grain, as well as acres of land..."

Liu Bian made another fortune.

In fact, because of the abilities of these two people, the grain shortage that was originally expected to be caused by the drought is no longer a problem that needs to be worried about, at least in Jizhou.

Liu Bian then continued to read, but found no good news from Xuzhou. However, he was not in a hurry, as the time had not come yet.

Liu Bian sat firmly on the high platform. He didn't know where the next challenge would come from after Xuzhou, or whether it would come from multiple parties.

But he has already repaired his weapons and is ready to fight at any time!
"Father, Dad..."

Hearing these two murmurs, a smile immediately appeared on Liu Bian's face.

He stood up, stretched out his arms, and took his second son Liu Ze from Tang Wan's arms.

Liu Ze was born weaker and took him longer to learn to say "father" and "mother" than Liu Cheng.

Therefore, Liu Bian would show more sympathy to Liu Ze.

After teasing Liu Ze with Tang Wan for a while, the latter, perhaps tired, fell asleep in Liu Bian's arms.

Looking at Liu Ze's sleeping face, Liu Bian smiled slightly and handed him to the palace maid who had been waiting beside him.

Liu Bian took Tang Wan's hand and said, "Come to think of it, my father-in-law has been the governor of Kuaiji for more than ten years, right?"

Tang Wan thought about it carefully and nodded.

"I will issue an edict to transfer my father-in-law to the capital to serve as an official. What do you think, Wan'er?"

"It's up to you, my Lord." Tang Wan responded, and then suddenly seemed to have thought of something, and asked carefully, "Your Majesty, did my father do something he shouldn't have done in Kuaiji County?"

"My father-in-law has been an official for many years. Wan'er, don't let your imagination run wild." Liu Bian comforted her, "I think it's been many years since we met, and there should be some new faces in the court..."

Tang Wan then nodded.

Liu Bian's expression eased, and he only thought of the memorial from Chen Deng, the governor of Minzhong, which he had seen yesterday - I heard that the governor of Kuaiji, Tang Mao, ruled over corrupt officials, but he could not stop them. Because of this, the supervisory officials were related to Your Majesty, and all of them were ranked high in the annual examinations...

There are ways to use it if you lack the ability, but if you have a bad heart, then it will be useless.

I just hope Tang Mao won’t let me down.

……

Jiangxia County.

"Mr. Fan, be careful!" Before he finished speaking, Huang Zu had already stepped forward and supported the Mr. Fan he was talking about. Huang Zu was born into a famous noble family in Jiangxia, so the person who could be treated like this by him was naturally not an ordinary person.

The former Sikong and current Shizhong Fan Ling.

"No problem." Fan Ling waved his hand and said, "Before, when I was building ditches in Youfufeng, the terrain there was flat, which was completely different from Jiangxia. Building ditches here is much more difficult. I have to conduct on-site inspections to know how to build each waterway."

Fan Ling's purpose of coming here was also very clear - Jiangxia has a dense water network, but there are still some lands that are abandoned because there are no ditches connecting them.

There are also some saline lakes and swamps here, which make it impossible to cultivate land.

He came here to investigate and plan water conservancy projects and build canals.

Huang Zu heard this and said quickly, "Thank you Mr. Fan for your teachings. I will keep them in mind."

Fan Ling glanced at Huang Zu and said, "Some scholars think that water conservancy is a minor issue, but they don't know that water conservancy is related to people's livelihood. Building a canal that can divert water for irrigation is much more useful than writing ten articles... It's great that you have the heart to learn."

Although he said so, Fan Ling could see clearly what Huang Zu was thinking.

There is no doubt that the areas through which the new canals flow, previously abandoned land, low-quality fields, etc. will become different.

The tower near the water gets the moon first.

However, what Fan Ling wants now is to build the canals first so that Jiangxia can reclaim more land for the people to cultivate.

If Huang Zu could provide more manpower during the construction, what would be wrong in letting him get more profits after the project was completed?

Having served as one of the Three Dukes for so many years, not to mention that fame and fortune were like floating clouds to him, he could also see through many things.

Although he had a bad reputation, he had the emperor and his former officials as his backers, so he could go wherever he wanted.

Huang Zu understood what Fan Ling meant, and said, "To be honest with you, Mr. Fan, I loved boating when I was young, and I have studied the art of water warfare. Although it is different from digging ditches, the method of using water flow does have some similarities."

After hearing this, Fan Ling looked at Huang Zu twice more.

This was not the first day that Huang Zu had accompanied him. However, before today, even if Huang Zu said he wanted to learn, Fan Ling thought it was just talk. But today, it seemed that he was really serious about learning water conservancy?

Or did Huang Zu just want to gain his recommendation?
After thinking for a while, Fan Ling asked, "I remember that Huang Ziyan is from the same clan as you?"

Huang Zu immediately replied: "Yes, my uncle is a distant relative of our ancestral clan."

"Then you should know that Huang Ziyan and I have different political views. Even if you learn how to build water conservancy projects, I will not recommend you."

Huang Zu heard this, gritted his teeth, and bowed, saying, "Mr. Fan, I really want to learn water conservancy from you, not for a career in government."

"really?"

"Really!" Huang Zu emphasized. In order to avoid suspicion, Huang Wan had never exchanged names with others to nominate clan members. Huang Zu was still only a county official with a salary of 100 stones.

For Huang Zu, if he could be recommended by Fan Ling, he would be happy to build a canal for free.

Fan Ling laughed. He didn't believe that Huang Zu would have such a big change in one day.

But the free labor should not be wasted!

Anyway, he has said that he will not recommend it. As for what will happen in the end, we will have to wait and see!
The conflict between him and Huang Wan, which had arisen earlier due to their different positions on the eunuch party, now seemed to be a thing of the past.

Thinking of this, Fan Ling smiled and said to Huang Zu: "Let's go and take a look ahead."

"Yes!"

(End of this chapter)