Reborn in the last years of Kangxi

Chapter 1069 Everyone is happy
As the twelfth lunar month enters, all parts of the capital gradually start to feel like the New Year.

During the Chinese New Year last year, it was the time of national mourning, and the city was full of deserts, and it was deserted.This year is different. After the draft, those who have been marked to marry must prepare for marriage; those who have been marked can also marry themselves.

How many people are planning to get married, not to mention other things, even the pastry mats in Daoxiang Village sell [-]% more than every year.

Tianhui and Niuniu's boot shop also sold out all their stocks, and several master chefs lived and boarded in the factory building, working overtime.

The Cao family's New Year's goods are also almost ready, and the village chiefs from all over the country also send local products, money and rice.

However, there is a fly in the ointment in the end.Cao Yong can't return to Beijing for the New Year, which makes Xifu very worried.

Cao Yong is in Ganzhou, but he is busy again.

He stayed in Ganzhou not only to do logistics for Nian Gengyao, but also to immigrate and cultivate wasteland.

The new city between Ganzhou and Xining is already under construction.The designated reclaimed land is between Xincheng and Ganzhou.

In order not to delay next year's spring plowing, the seeds, equipment, cattle and horses needed for reclamation and spring plowing must be prepared before March.

The source of these immigrants is refugees from Shandong and Zhili.

Cao Yong has received the letter, and the immigrants have been escorted to Ganzhou in five batches.The first batch will arrive in Ganzhou at the end of the twelfth lunar month.

The magistrate of Ganzhou, surnamed Duan, was born in a professional class and was in his forties. He used to be an official in Sichuan, but was transferred to Ganzhou last month.I thought it was a light provincial yamen, and I was just making a display, but I didn't expect to catch up with the immigration and land reclamation.

It is a good thing to set up new counties under the jurisdiction and increase the population. If it is in the interior, it is a good thing.But in the northwest border, the migrants were again, and if something went wrong, the crown on his head would be lost.

Three thousand households, more than 2000 people, this is not a small number.And according to the imperial court, these immigrants are only in the early stage. If they are settled well, they will expand the scale of reclamation in the northwest.

If there is one bad thing, he will lose it.

Ganzhou is an important military area, and the local people are not rich.Not to mention other things, these three thousand immigrant households are transiting and living in Ganzhou temporarily, and Ganzhou may not be able to bear it.

Although the new city has been built, most of the immigrants will be resettled outside the city.

It is the twelfth lunar month of winter, and it is cold in the northwest, so it is impossible for immigrants to sleep in the open.In that case, I don't know how many people will freeze to death.

Cao Yong is also worried about how to resettle immigrants for the winter. With Ganzhou's ability, it is okay to resettle hundreds of households, but if there are too many, problems will easily arise.

It seems that they still have to be sent directly to Xincheng.

He still can't decide whether to just build a simple nest, or to use the tents directly purchased from the Northwest Army's logistics.

The former is more troublesome, and the latter is much easier.

In the end, he took Duan Zhizhou and several officials from the household department to an open place outside the city to conduct an experiment.

That is to ask people to dig a nest and set up a military tent.Then, water basins were placed in the two places, and a pocket watch was used to check the time when the water was frozen in the two places without any heating.

In the former, the surface of the water is only a little bit of ice in an hour; in the latter, it is frozen solid in an hour.

Then, an iron stove was placed in each of the two places, and the fire was ignited for heating, to see how long it took for the water in the two water basins to thaw.

Use this to determine which of the two simple dwellings is more resistant to drought and warm.

Needless to say, the nest is not a little better than the tent.

It's just that when the weather is cold and the ground is shaking, digging a nest is not easy.A family of four had to dig seven or eight feet square and three feet deep to barely accommodate them.

Such a nest requires two strong laborers to dig for a day.

Cao Yong looked at Duan Zhizhou, Duan Zhizhou couldn't help changing his face, and said with a bitter face: "Master Cao, this year's corvee has been used up, and it's almost the New Year, and the common people have to rest."

He said this not only because he was sympathetic to the people, but because when the new city was built, the people in Ganzhou were also recruited as corvees.Now that the people have only returned home for less than a month, if they transfer people at this time, I am afraid it will arouse public resentment.

The people in Ganzhou are tough, even though there is a large army stationed there, but if it really arouses the anger of the people, that is a big deal.Although he is a new official, there are lessons learned from the past.

He was dismissed from office due to civil unrest during his first tenure and his last tenure.

"Master Duan, do you know what the wages of local laborers in Ganzhou are like? How much is rice for a stone?" Cao Yong asked.

Duan Zhizhou obviously didn't expect Cao Yong to ask this question, he was stunned, then lowered his head and thought for a while, and said: "There is no rice in the northwest, white rice is expensive, the top rice costs one or two silver coins, and the second rice costs one or two five cents. Wheat and sorghum are cheaper, eight qian for wheat and five qian for sorghum. For helpers, it depends on the market of each industry, more or less, ranging from five qian to a few taels of silver per month.

Cao Yongyuan didn't like this Duan Zhizhou.

Nian Gengyao transferred him to Ganzhou at this time, to put it bluntly, he was still a villain against Cao Yong.

Although Yongzheng now values ​​Nian Gengyao as his brother-in-law, he follows Nian Gengyao's wishes for personnel affairs in the Northwest.But Cao Yong knew that such a scene would not last long.

This Duan Zhizhou, from the seventh-rank magistrate to the fifth-rank magistrate, is considered lucky.But if there is no accident, if there is no accident, the official career will stop here.

Unexpectedly, he is a down-to-earth and good official.

Cao Yong has seen the resume of Duan Zhizhou. He was a Jinshi in the 48th year of Kangxi, and he was awarded the magistrate for the first time.Kangxi came back in 52 years, made up the county magistrate of Xinjin County, Sichuan, and was re-elected for three terms.

Cao Yong thought he was a mediocre official when he saw that he had not changed places for three terms.

Judging from today's perspective, this conclusion seems to be drawn too early.

"Since the corvee is used up, let's recruit workers. The wages will be paid according to the number of completed nests." He calculated the wages and rice prices, and said: "A qualified nest, three silver coins."

In this way, a strong laborer can dig fifteen nests in a month and earn four taels of silver, enough to buy sorghum for half a year's ration.This is an extremely attractive salary, even if it is a big festival, you don't have to worry about not being able to recruit people.

Even if it is inferior labor, if you only do half the amount, you can still get more than two taels of silver.

Duan Zhizhou heard this, but he was not happy. He frowned and said, "Lord Cao, these are three thousand households. If they are all housed outside the city, they will need at least three thousand land nests. In terms of wages, they need nearly A thousand taels. In the accounts of Zhizhou Yamen, there are only more than three hundred taels of silver, which cannot afford the expenses.”

Cao Yong couldn't help being surprised that there was only more than 300 taels of silver in a Zhizhou Yamen.

Immediately after thinking about it, I was relieved.

Although this is an important military location, the people's livelihood is really withered, there is no extra tax, but there are not a lot of yamen that should be there.With less income and more expenditure, it is no longer easy to have a surplus in the book.

"The money is paid directly from the household department, and the wood is ready-made. It will be good to send it directly to the immigrants. The old tent is also there. It can be directly used as the roof of the nest. It should be warmer than thatch." Cao Yong said: "It's just that you need to be quick. How to choose the site, measure, and plan, you have to send a few proper people there. It's better to use the village as a unit, on the edge of the reclaimed fields, so as to save the people from resettling, and then spend a second time. Son."

Although Cao Yong is of high rank, Duan Zhizhou was not convinced because he was too young.

I spent half a day with him today, and saw that what he did and said was all about the people's livelihood, so I unknowingly put away my underestimation, and said seriously: "Around twenty places have been circled around the new city, and each place can reclaim three fertile fields. From [-] to [-] mu. At that time, we only need to resettle [-] to [-] households according to the roster of household registration. However, the officials have gone to see that the new city only has a river five miles to the south, and there is no water source on the other three sides. Then The terrain on the side is relatively high, if the wells are not drilled, the harvest will be limited."

After listening to this speech, Cao Yong couldn't help but look sideways at this section of Zhizhou.

Even he himself, who visited the new city several times after the construction, never thought about the water source.

He just looked at the endless wilderness, thinking about how many acres of land could be reclaimed and how many refugees could be resettled.

Duan Zhizhou is familiar with people's livelihood and can also pay attention to water conservancy. It is a blessing for the people to have such a local official.

In Cao Yong's heart, he couldn't help but love talents. He glanced at him and said, "If that's the case, you can write a report."

After hearing this, Duan Zhizhou lifted his spirits and said, "What does your lord mean?"

"Since the people have been moved from thousands of miles, they cannot be allowed to guard a large area of ​​land without food. The corn and sweet potato seeds shipped from Henan are drought-tolerant. But for safety, each village still farms more. The wells in both eyes are good." Cao Yong said.

It can be said that the two of them had many accidents today, but they also knew that the other party, like themselves, was able to think about the livelihood of the people.

With the support of Cao Yong, the household official, Duan Zhizhou dared not do it.

It was too early to dig a well, but the construction of Diwozi was imminent.

As a result, Zhizhou Yamen began to get busy.

On the third day of the twelfth lunar month, on the stone wall in front of the yamen, a job recruitment notice with the seal of Zhizhou was posted.

Within three days, more than 600 laborers signed up.

The old and the young were kicked out, and 400 people were left to listen. The Zhizhou Yamen prepared shovels and hammers and distributed them to everyone.

As for the supervisor, the subordinate officials of Zhizhou Yamen were used, and each person signed up voluntarily for two coins a day.

By the eighteenth day of the twelfth lunar month, all three thousand nests had been dug, several days earlier than Cao Yong expected.

Just because this recruitment is paid "by piece", everyone worked hard, for fear that they would slow down and dig a few nests.

Put it aside, such a tiring job, I'm afraid I can't bear it long ago.

On the side of Xincheng, Cao Yong and Duan Zhizhou are careful people, and they will not make such mistakes.

Recruiting workers on business, although they bring their own dry food, but the yamen also prepares hot porridge, spirits and other things to warm the body and keep out the cold.

When these people happily received their wages in the yamen, they had to add some things, which made the originally deserted Ganzhou shops much more lively.

At this time, the first batch of immigrants had already arrived in the new city and lived in the built nests.Each household received rice grains and other items according to their population.

For a time, everyone was happy...

*
The capital, the imperial palace, and the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

Yongzheng looked at the secret document that Cao Yong handed over, which also included the new city's agricultural affairs drafted by Duan Qinglin, the magistrate of Ganzhou...

(End of this chapter)