Daming Military Empire

Chapter 252 Working together for development

In fact, Xu Guangqi has been paying attention to the situation in the Northwest. After several years of investigation and research, he has already had a detailed plan for the development of the Northwest. In the past, he wanted to use the knife of the rebel army to solve the problem of the clan. The Northwest could not develop, so he I haven't mentioned it to Zhu Cijiong all this time. Now that the rebels and the clan are settled, the emperor also asked about it. He was about to tell the whole story, but unexpectedly the emperor suddenly became embarrassed and stopped talking!
He couldn't help asking curiously: "Your Majesty, what's wrong with you?"

Zhu Cijiong sighed: "I don't feel comfortable thinking that the Northwest will be abandoned for ten years. Such a large territory will not only fail to create benefits, but also consume a lot of manpower and material resources to maintain it. It's a pity. If the Northwest can develop, Ming's The speed of development can at least be doubled."

Hearing this, Xu Guangqi suddenly said: "The emperor forgives the sin, but I didn't make it clear. What I mean is that it will take ten years for the northwest to sow crops normally. As for now, although we can't sow as in normal times, we can still find a way." Some crops are planted, but the yield may be lower, and there is no need to waste ten years."

Zhu Cijiong asked anxiously after hearing the words: "Oh, what can be planted, and how much lower will the yield be?"

Xu Guangqi didn't answer right away, but looked at his student Chen Zilong proudly, and said with satisfaction: "These are all Zilong's specific work, let him tell the emperor in detail."

Chen Zilong was taken aback when he heard the words, he thought he was simply here to observe, and he didn't expect to speak. Of course, the magistrate was not for nothing in the past few years, he quickly realized that this was an opportunity for his mentor to show himself Well, he hurriedly said respectfully: "Your Majesty, it's like this. Before I went to Liaodong to take office, my mentor told me to study which crops are resistant to drought in Liaodong and how to grow crops in arid areas. I went to Liaodong Afterwards, after detailed investigation, it was found that the drought in some areas in the inland west of Liaodong was also quite severe, almost similar to that in the northwest, so they organized people to conduct experiments there. The results were: wheat, sorghum, potatoes, soybeans, rapeseed and other crops They are relatively drought-tolerant, and generally require more water in the seedling stage. As long as the seedling stage passes, irrigation once every ten days or so can guarantee a harvest, but the harvest is about [-]% lower than in other places.”

It's only [-]%, that is, [-]%. This is not a problem at all. You must know that there are [-] to [-] million mu of land in the northwest, and most of them are now abandoned. If they are all utilized, how much can they produce!Zhu Cijiong asked excitedly: "How did you solve the irrigation problem? Now in many places in the Northwest, it only rains a few times a year. It's not enough to depend on the weather."

Chen Zilong quickly explained: "The main thing is to divert water from the Liaohe River for irrigation. For this reason, Weichen organized manpower to dig a lot of channels to introduce the water from the Liaohe River to areas without water sources, and then built water trucks and dug irrigation canals. It was a bit troublesome at the beginning. Just arrange for someone to watch it."

In fact, during this period, the drought in the Northwest really eased, and the water flow of the Yellow River and its tributaries was relatively sufficient. Zhu Cijiong noticed this when he was on his own expedition. There is also a record in the history books that Li Zicheng flooded Kaifeng. The city of Kaifeng was flooded, so it was no problem to irrigate the farmland.

Since digging canals to divert water can solve the problem, it is not a bad problem. Zhu Cijiong drew a circle around arid areas such as Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan, and asked hopefully: "How many diversion canals will be dug in this area, and how many people will be needed?"

He is also standing and talking without back pain. His stroke covers 300 million square kilometers of land. Such a large place cannot be seen on the map. It is scary, but when it is connected to the actual area, it can scare people to death!
Surprisingly, instead of being frightened to death, Chen Zilong said with confidence: "Weichen has calculated that there are about 3 million mu of arable land in the arid region of Northwest China. Calculated by one labor force per 400 mu, it will take about three to four million laborers." .However, for long-distance water diversion, the river bed of the diversion canal needs to be solid, otherwise the water seepage is too severe, and the water may not be diverted too far. In this way, one hundred acres of labor is not enough.”

When Zhu Cijiong heard this, he waved his hands excitedly and said, "You don't need to be heavy, just pour the cement directly. After the cement dries, it basically doesn't leak much water. But now the Northwest probably doesn't have so much labor. Chuyang, how many guards are there in the Northwest?"

After the Great Migration in the Northwest, except for the large and small cities, other places except Tunwei are the population controlled by the vassals and local tyrants. The peasant uprising army has been in trouble for almost ten years, and the vassals and local tyrants have basically been killed by them, that is, Said that in addition to the urban population in the Northwest, there are only Tunwei and the family members of the rebels left, so Zhu Cijiong only asked this question.

Sun Yuanhua heard the words and quickly replied: "Back to the emperor, there were more than 130 million households in the northwestern guards. Calculated on an average of five people per household, there are about six million people. In recent years, the emperor has recruited more than half a million soldiers. To form a legion, there are still about one million young and strong laborers left, about two million available laborers, and the remaining two million are old, weak, sick and disabled."

In other words, it is enough to use the Tunwei and its family members, Zhu Cijiong said excitedly: "Okay, you can cooperate with Zilong to plan and move all the civilians to the area along the river, and the other places will be excavated by the Tunwei. canals, and grow crops."

At this time, Yang Sichang, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up. He said worriedly: "Your Majesty, please forgive me for talking too much. More than half of the northwest is the land of the vassal clan. Why do they agree with the Emperor?"

This guy is really upright. No wonder he offended so many people during the Chongzhen Dynasty. Of course, he didn't mean to be afraid of people's disapproval, but to remind Zhu Cijiong that doing so would benefit those moths in the clan for nothing!
Naturally, he doesn't need to worry about this problem. Zhu Cijiong and Xu Guangqi looked at each other faintly, and then pretended to lament: "Oh, these rebels, I don't know how much hatred they have against the royal family. Almost all the royal family in the northwest were killed by them." Now, where are there any suzerains, and now all these lands have come back to me, two to three hundred million mu, all abandoned there, dear friends, think about it, how much pressure is there on me!"

This is a typical example of him being a good boy when he gets cheap money, and complaining about suffering after gaining two or three hundred million acres of land in vain. Except for him, the emperor, no one else would have thought of such a good thing!

Sun Yuanhua was typically deceived by his acting skills, and he asked stupidly: "Your Majesty, what about the output of the guards? They also have to support their families, so we can't let them work for nothing, right?"

Zhu Cijiong heard the words, and said generously: "Let them let go of planting, as much as they can plant, the tax will be exempted, and I will share half with them for the things planted."

This is what he took for granted. Even if people let go of the cultivation, they will not be able to plant much land. It is the limit for a middle-aged man to work hard to manage [-] acres of land. Counting the old, weak, sick, and disabled as middle-aged laborers, there is still more than half of the land. The land can't be planted!
Chen Zilong is an expert in this field, and he couldn't help reminding carefully after hearing the words: "Your Majesty, my humble minister dares to work hard for a maximum of [-] mu of land a year. No matter how much, they won't be able to plant it even if they are exhausted."

Zhu Cijiong couldn't help but blush when he heard the words. Doesn't this mean that more than 80.00% of the land has to be abandoned!

(End of this chapter)