Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Shao Shude stayed in Huainan until Fangfei withered.

Yangzhou has fertile farmland, prosperous trade, and a vast economic hinterland. It is also the second best seaport in the country.

Of course, if only in terms of natural endowment, it is certainly not one of the best.But Yangzhou and Guangzhou at this time are actually inland river ports, not coastal ports in the strict sense.The former relies on the Yangtze River to communicate with the open sea, while the latter relies on the Pearl River.

In fact, it doesn't matter.

The draft of sea-going ships is not that deep, and as long as the water depth of inland river ports is sufficient, large ships can also berthed.

He is quite satisfied with Yangzhou's recovery, and he can even say he appreciates it. This is the truth.

This is also the bustling Yangzhou he imagined, although it is still some distance away from the peak.But the wheel of history is still moving forward, and Yangzhou is still developing.

The commercial tide that has erupted since the middle and late Tang Dynasty is unstoppable.Even if he does not intervene, business will still reach its peak in the Song Dynasty in history.

It was the golden age of merchants, the golden age of trade, and also the era when commercial tax played an important role in fiscal revenue in the classical era.

As a time traveler, Shao Shude is aware of a fact: Just as everything in the world has commonalities and also has individuality, the so-called "ancient" periods have commonalities and at the same time have strong individuality.

Facing such a late Tang Dynasty with outstanding characteristics, he has both worries and joys.

Life cannot be repeated, he has already made a choice.Just like buying and leaving the hand when gambling, the chips are bet, and now we are waiting for the treasure to be opened.

Before leaving Yangzhou, Shao Shude walked around and looked at several nearby counties.

The landform of Yangzhou at this time is quite different from that of later generations.

Many lands are still sandbars and islands, many places are still mud swamps, and many counties and townships of later generations have not yet appeared on the map.

Shao Shude actually knew about this a long time ago.But he still searched in vain. To some extent, this is a kind of vent, a kind of anger, and a kind of complicated mood after old age.

What was your state of mind when you first crossed?
What is the state of mind after being taught a lesson by the cruel world?
What is the mentality after surviving on the battlefield by chance, and then slowly accumulating strength?
What kind of mentality was it when the country was founded?
What is his state of mind now?
People are actually very complicated, with kindness, arrogance, self-esteem, tenacity, weakness and even the devil hidden in their hearts.

Shao Shude himself couldn't tell what state he was in now.

He only knew that the closer he was to the end of his life, the more he felt like a wild animal trapped in a cage, afraid of the pain caused by weakness, and wanted to ask for relief, but he was still nostalgic.

He made a lot of reforms and created a bunch of new dynasties, but he is a person who doesn't like change.

These things are all what he wanted to do from the beginning, and they have never changed.

The world is full of ups and downs, and in his twilight years, he is doing it with patience, with inertia, with the obsession and terrible habits formed over decades.

On the ninth day of April, several ships of the Ping Navy arrived in Yangzhou.

When the tall navy ships approached the trestle bridge cautiously, it caused a sensation.

Especially those big food merchants, they saw the warships and warships of the East for the first time, and they were more in awe of the tall hulls, and began to face up to the shipbuilding and navigation technology of this country-although there is still a considerable gap between them and such a large seafaring country, But it's really a lot of progress.

After Shao Shude took a last look at Yangzhou City, which was hidden among the fields and green trees, he boarded the boat and sailed south to cross the Yangtze River.

******
In April, the waves of the Yangtze River are rolling, and the water flows eastward, day and night.

Crossing the Yangtze River by boat is a new experience for Shao Shude.

He actually likes to take a boat, but refuses to take a sea boat.

He did not trust the navigation technology at this time and did not want to lose his life at sea, even if the possibility was slim.

Ping Haijun dispatched all new fast boats with good reliability. The waves of the Yangtze River were not as fierce as the sea, and the whole process of crossing the river could even be called gentle.

After landing at Jingkou, he stayed by the river for a long time.

This is a very famous ferry, located in later generations of Zhenjiang, on the east side of Nanjing.

Once the Northern Dynasties captured Huainan and pushed their troops to the north bank of the Yangtze River, the next step was basically to take Nanjing directly.

Let's go to Nanjing, and other places basically depend on the spread, so it doesn't take much effort.

As for the locations where the Northern Army crossed the river, there were basically only a few, and Jingkou was definitely the top priority.

Jingkou under Daxia’s rule did not have much military attributes. On the surface, it was definitely a prosperous commercial port—in fact, Jingkou was originally a water transportation node.

Materials and grain from all over the south of the Yangtze River have since entered the Yangtze River, and then collected and distributed in Yangzhou.This is the water transportation route that the imperial court picked up again after the separatism of the feudal towns in the mid-Tang Dynasty when the imperial court could not raise enough money and food in the north.

Daxia swept away the separatists, and the money and food in the north were naturally at their fingertips.But with the passage of time, there is no doubt that Jiangnan money and food will occupy an increasing share of the imperial court's income.Not to mention the reform of the tax system, Jiangdong and Jiangxi need to provide more than two-thirds of the money and grain, and the importance of Jingkou is growing day by day.

"The general trend is like this." Shao Shude said with emotion: "The prosperity in the south of the Yangtze River is used to dissipating masculinity, just like the land of Sichuan, but it is indispensable to the world."

The saying "Young people entering Sichuan" only appeared in history for the first time in the Northern Song Dynasty. But before that, why didn't people realize it?

In fact, Jiangnan and Shu are not too different, both are places rich in wealth.The only difference is probably that Shu is relatively closed, and Jiangnan cannot be alone.

After leaving the river bank a little far away, Shao Shude was not in a hurry to go to Nanjing, but habitually inspected the countryside.

He found a characteristic, that is, the farmland in the south of the Yangtze River is generally well maintained.

A prominent feature is intensive cultivation.Taking the vegetable bed as an example, the dozens of steps of land that looked like leftovers were artificially divided into several pieces, and different vegetables were planted.

The field ridges are combed very neatly, and they are often taken care of at a glance.

As far as the eye can see, there are almost no weeds, and it is obvious that they are often hoeed.

The vegetable leaves are green, and it seems that someone often waters and fertilizes them.

A large wooden barrel was buried in the middle of the field, which was full of feces and urine, and the stench was suffocating.

The farmer's manure scoop was lying on the ground. Maybe he was so scared that he ran away after seeing a big shot coming to inspect...

This is an agro-ecological scene that is very different from that in the north.

Shao Shude remembered a memorial submitted by the prince, which focused on the future development of agriculture in the south of the Yangtze River.

The prince has already deeply realized that compared with the farmers in the north, the farmers in the south of the Yangtze River have pitifully few fields, and they can only take the route of intensive cultivation.

The way he thought of was to strengthen breeding—it coincided with Sinong Temple.

Many vegetable seeds cultivated by the latter were gradually promoted to the vast south.

Now they are focusing on the breeding of fruit trees and tea. In short, they are working hard on this road.

So, is there any other way?
Shao Shude only thought of the mulberry fish pond.

This is actually an ecological agriculture model that was once all the rage, and then slowly declined.

In his impression, it existed in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.But like many things, before the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were actually embryonic forms.

He went all the way south from Huainan, watched the terrain on both sides of the Strait for a long time on the Caoqu Canal, and realized the particularity of Huainan and Jiangnan agriculture.

In terms of land, because there are swamps, rivers, and lakes everywhere, there is basically only one way to obtain land, that is, to reclaim land from lakes, but this requires a long process, and it will not be effective in a short period of time.

Taking Yangzhou as an example, large swamps are completely undeveloped.

The developed part is often not developed enough, and the farmland is surrounded by rivers and lakes, forming isolated islands in the middle of the water.

The really mature part is just around the city.

The common people know very well that before filling enough land, they must take every field in their hands seriously and cultivate it as intensively as possible to obtain higher yields.

And rivers and lakes cannot be let go.Shao Shude saw people raising fish, shrimps, and water chestnuts in the rivers and lakes around Duotian in Gaoyou. This is a good example-although the calories of freshwater fish are ridiculously low, they are still a source of income, and the water surface is impossible. wasted.

When this kind of behavior develops later, some people sum up experience to expand benefits.

The swamp was dug and dredged to form a pond, and the silt was piled on the other side to form farmland.Rice and wheat can be planted in the fields, mulberry trees can be planted on the riverbank around the pond to raise silkworms, fish can be raised using silk reeling wastewater, silkworm chrysalis, silkworm excrement and other materials, and the sludge rich in fish excrement and other decayed matter can be used to fertilize mulberry trees to form a The whole cycle.

He wondered if the model would work at this point.But as far as Huainan and Jiangnan are concerned, there is indeed only one way to adapt to local conditions-if you want to develop such a vast swamp, what else can you do?
In fact, the Sinong Temple has already been piloted in Jiangning Prefecture, Nanjing, and this year is the third year.

Shao Shude tracked the progress from the regular memorials.

On the whole, it is actually okay, the silt is really fertile, the rice field has a high yield, and the mulberry trees surround the pond, forming a natural boundary.The recruited farmers are picking mulberry and raising silkworms, reeling silk and weaving cloth, and all the details are slowly being perfected.

This is the current solution for Huainan and Jiangnan agriculture.

If the pilot is successful, it will be vigorously promoted in various places in the south of the Yangtze River in the future to form a certain scale.

This is the ultimate version of the intensive farming small-scale farming economy. Compared with the rough model of tens of mu of land per household in the northern Great Plains and both farming and animal husbandry, it is completely in two styles.

But should measures be taken according to local conditions, shouldn’t that be the case?

In the future, when the population in the north increases and the average land per household decreases, the model of combining agriculture and animal husbandry can still continue, but it will definitely not be as smooth as it is now.At that time, the standard of living of a northern farmer will definitely not be as good as that in the south of the Yangtze River. After all, the efficiency of land use and production lie there.

Some things are indeed inevitable.

Tang Dezong couldn't get money in the north at that time, so he had to rely on money and food from the south of the Yangtze River.

In the future of Daxia, he may still have to go to Jiangnan to make money, but the reasons are different.

On the tenth day of April, Shengjia left Jingkou and traveled westward, arriving in Nanjing two days later.