Pillars of the Wu family

()September [-]th, Echigo Naoetsu Port, the largest port in Echigo has also undergone earth-shaking changes in the past half a year. With the efforts of the Kira family, the port facilities have been gradually expanded since the beginning of April. At the same time, the construction of the Sekigawa embankment reinforcement project and the Sekigawa dredging project are also in full swing.

Merchants passing by from Kinai and Yuao were surprised to find that this famous port of Echigo had turned into a large construction site at some time, and there were countless large and small projects being built everywhere. There were almost no idle residents in the town. The old people gathered together. Rubbing hemp rope means weaving bamboo baskets and straw mats, while women spin strands of hemp thread with spinning wheels.

The children near Joetsu were organized by the samurai of the Kira family to receive basic education. This is non-compulsory education, mainly simple literacy and moral cultivation, so that they know from an early age that it is the duty of the people to obey the orders of the king. There will be some group sports, such as eagles catching chickens, wrestling and other sports that children like. As long as children who are willing to receive these educations can enjoy the special treatment of lunch snacks.

Up to now, no one in Echigo has doubted the financial strength of the Kira family. From the beginning of the year when a large amount of grain was exchanged for soybeans and tea seeds, it has shown strong economic strength until the earthquake and flood. The food of the Kira family is also famous. Every hundred children can share a large bucket of delicious fish soup, and hot soup cakes that are one finger thick and three palms wide. Children who have been starving all year round can no longer stand the temptation of food , One after another, they fell into the arms of Kira's family.

Although farmers and townspeople are not willing to let their children do such dangerous things, they really can't resist the children's desire to eat and eat good food, so they can only let them go. The life of peasant families in this era is very difficult. , Raising children is also very difficult, and it is not new to say that a half-child eats my father to death. When teenagers are supposed to grow their bodies, starving all day long, let alone growing their bodies, will not make them healthy.

From Naoetsu along the river to the south, there are new towns standing on both sides of the river. People living in the new town no longer care about their original origins. No matter which country you are from in Kanto, whether you were a farmer or a craftsman before, you will accept employment tasks equally. At present, river dredging is an important task, which requires large ships to rely on manual use of iron rakes mounted on winches and through long iron rods to penetrate into the river water to dredge the river.

The iron rake stirs in the river to bring up the silt and then is washed away by the river. In order to ensure the effect of dredging, it is necessary to repeatedly drive the boat back and forth between the rivers to dredge. This process may last for more than one month. Limited, the construction of embankments requires the participation of all the people. Tens of thousands of people have to climb the embankments, and digging and carts must be completed in one step.

The silt at the bottom of the river is a very good fertilizer. Under the vigorous publicity of the followers, many farmers dug the river mud to make fertilizer. It didn't take long before they found that the soil quality of the new fields that caught up with the river mud became very soft and fertile. The crops are growing very well, and more and more farmers are scrambling to dig the river mud. There are even many old land attendants and a man from the farm who have drawn down a large piece of river mud to reserve here, and declare that no one can grab it.

River mud is not only found in river courses, those ponds and lakes are more popular with farmers than the center of the river course where the current is too fast to be salvaged. They dug up river mud in an organized way.

If you want to dig the tidal flats near the river, you can dig them, but you have to dig and backfill the excavated pits. Otherwise, you will be ordered to punish them. This measure has a good effect. Villagers who know the rules push flatbed carts and sacks to the slopes The soil was dug up and went to the river bank to exchange the soil for river mud and achieved good results.

It is not enough to just dig river mud as fertilizer. The promotion of high-temperature composting is still in progress. Fortunately, Echigo has a long coastline and a swamp wetland suitable for migratory birds. There are also many migratory birds here in summer. There are many guano soils piled up with bones and guano, and there are general branches from Shimoetsu to Joetsu, especially Shimoetsu, Chuetsu, and Sado Island, which have the most reserves. These are very high-quality fertilizers.

One of the core of the high-temperature composting method is to raise livestock. A large-scale breeding area must be established near each new field to raise cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks and other livestock. The easiest way is to enclose a forest in the nearby mountains and hills, and then erect Fences are erected to prevent livestock from escaping, and sheepdogs are used to guard the livestock grazing on the mountain.

The investment in the first type is relatively large. Fortunately, Kira’s family is not short of money, and Echigo is not short of labor force and rural women who are idle at home. As long as they are given manual money, these farmers can fence the entire mountain in half a month. , cow dung, sheep dung and other types of livestock manure will be sent to nearby fields as raw materials for high-temperature composting at the first time, combined with guano soil that can be seen everywhere and dead fish, shrimps and aquatic plants caught in the dense river ditches in Echigo For river mud, there is not much of a lack of raw materials for fertilizers. <After planting and before the rainy season comes, it is necessary to plant a large number of saplings under the dam, relying on the roots of the trees to support the stability of the dam. Although this method is slow in effect, it is still much better than doing nothing. We can only expect a solid promotion in a few years Can withstand flooding.

"Stay with Tanyue! The poor monk couldn't help but say a few words when he saw Tanyue's face. Tanyue's heavenly court is full, the ground is round, his brows are handsome, and his bones are so strange that the poor monk was shocked at first sight...Tanyue and look! This is the copybook written by the master of the Denjiao. The poor monk has a predestined relationship with Tanyue, and he only needs fifty copies...Of course this is impossible, twenty copies! As long as there are twenty copies of the copybook by the master of the Denjiao, you can take it home. Do you want to consider it? one time?"

"Hey! It turns out that Tanyue didn't have so much money to give away! That's it! The poor monk here also has a Buddhist treasure, Tanyue, let's see! This is the wooden fish used by Master Hongfa Kukai. Ten...only five guans are needed to be Tanyue's!"

A reckless monk with five big and three rough, was holding a bunch of things to stop passers-by from selling around. This man has thick eyebrows, big eyes, high nose and wide mouth, and a Chinese face, but he also has an extraordinary aura, but he is always a little bit fierce if he is a bandit. The appearance, especially the bearded face and the big man, the shiny big bald head is shiny, which is a bit like the flowery monk Lu Zhishen.

After a round of selling, the reckless monk walked into the bamboo jing house with a few strings of copper coins in his hands. Seeing the young monk sitting on the porch meditating, he threw a few strings of copper coins on the porch, and walked into the jing house for a while. He came out with two cups of tea, and said to the young monk, "Chan Master Zongyi has been meditating for half a day! How can I meditate with an empty stomach? How about drinking some tea and I will go out for a walk?"

This young monk is Yoshikawa Shoki's high-ranking student Toranozamune, who has only come to Etsu for only seven or eight days, and that reckless monk is Asayama Rijo who was swindling in Shiga County. This monk's common name is Asayamazaemon , Taboo Zenshige, was originally the lord of the Izumo Kingdom Chaoshan, the son of Nizi's vassal Chaoshan Qinggang.

When I was young, I divorced my wife because of poverty. Later, because of a dispute with my colleagues about the position, I killed someone in a rage. Afterwards, I was afraid that Nizi’s family would pursue me, so I fled overnight. Dressed up as a Yamabushi monk, he traveled around the world, and at some point wandered around to practice on Mt. Hiei in Kinai.

I used to openly sell a pile of Ming dynasty clothes at the Yamaguchikan of the Ouchi family, and the sales were very good. Later, I bluffed around in Sakai-cho, causing dissatisfaction among the Sakai-cho congregation, and reported it to Miyoshi’s house. He was a spy of another family, so Matsunaga Hideo arrested him, chained him to a wooden post, and locked him next to the traffic artery in Sakaimachi.

The original intention of the Miyoshi family was to deter Xiaoxiao, and at the same time demonstrate the authority of the Miyoshi family over Sakai-cho. If ordinary people were chained to wooden pillars and allowed merchants to and from Sakai-cho to visit, I might not be able to bear it, but Chaoshan Sun Cheng is different from others, he is not afraid at all, but his days become more and more nourished, and he is famous for arguing with passers-by from all walks of life when he has nothing to do.

Slowly, more and more people stopped to watch, and many of them would feed him food and water, and he was locked up like this for a hundred days. The name of Chaoshan Rijo spread all over the streets and alleys of Sakaimachi. Matsunaga took a look. If it doesn’t work, let him go, apologize and send a ceremonial gift to send him out of the country. The folks in Sakai Town heard that the master was pardoned and also gave him clothes, food, coils, and 8 volumes of the Lotus Sutra. Became a monk of Rilian Dharma Huazong.

"Alright, where do you want to go?" Huzai Zongyi took out a copper bowl. The Rinzai sect in Japan still retains the habit of begging when they practice outside. This is also a kind of practice experience.

"Okay! Then let's go to the nearby villages!" Both of them were activists, and they picked up the Zen sticks and bowls and left.

Shiwei is in September, and the preface belongs to Sanqiu, which refers to late autumn and September. It is the harvest season just after the autumn season. In front of the villages, young and old women gather to dry the grain. They talk and laugh in low voices. This year's grain production has increased again Many, these farmers who have been looking at the fields all year round look at the full golden ears of millet, and they also show cheerful smiles. The whole month is like a festival, and the joy of harvest is floating around.

Chao Shanri took a curious walk to a grain drying field and saw a group of old people tearing a strange crop, so he stepped forward and said, "This Tanyue is very polite! I don't know what kind of crop it is?"

"This master is asking the little old man?" The old man looked like he was going to be over 70 years old, and he stood up quickly and said at a loss: "This is the crop that the Lord asked us to plant. The name is corn. This is a good thing! You may not believe it, but this corn is so precious, it can produce eight stones of corn instead!"

"It turns out that the eight stones of corn from the opposite land..." Chaoshan Richeng was stunned, and hurriedly asked: "Wait! Just now Tanyue said it was the opposite land?"

"That's right! The little old man would never dare to deceive the master! If you don't believe me, ask everyone?" The old man was afraid that the five big and three thick monks would not believe him, and if the Lu monk raised his fist the size of a sand bowl and hit him , then the gain outweighs the loss. Fortunately, they are all from their own village, and several old people immediately testified for this old man.

"Master! You may not believe it. The corn in this threshing floor is only the mass production of five lands. Fifty lands produce four hundred shi of grain. Can you believe it? We couldn't believe it at the beginning!"

"At the beginning, the samurai masters who came from Kyoto went to the fields to harvest the grain in person. These noble lords who had not done any work took a sickle to harvest a little bit, and the samurai from the lord's family also went to the field to harvest. In the end, they weighed ten stones and five buckets of grain from the real estate. These samurai gentlemen are jumping and screaming like us country folks, and everyone is crying!"

Chaoshan Richeng still didn't believe it, stared at the expressions of these old people, and asked word by word: "Can every land produce eight stones of grain? Or is there only one land? Or is it the grain production of several lands?"

"Each antiland can produce more than eight shi of grain! And it's more than that! The highest one can produce nine shi and eight dou of grain. According to the estimation of the masters, the average grain output of our village is about eight shi and five shi. Wrong!" The old man said with certainty: "Please believe me, little old man, at that time a master Feng Xing from Kyoto took a strange thing and calculated it for a long time, and the number he reported was exactly this number. You can hear it clearly at the edge of the mountain!" (To be continued.)