Daming Military Empire

Chapter 272

On a small hill outside Kaifeng Mansion in Henan Province, Chen Zilong, the new governor of the three provinces, quietly looked into the distance with his hands behind his back. In front of him was an endless field, or should I say it is a wilderness now, because now there is not a single point in the entire field. The greenery, the land is all dry and cracked.

Chen Zilong stood still for a long time before he sighed and looked back. He understood the emperor's eagerness. The plain in front of him was almost as big as the Liaohe Plain. , as well as the Jinzhong Plain, and the Loess Plateau, the same is true. This is about [-]% to [-]% of the land of Daming. It has been abandoned for these years, which has seriously hindered the development of Ming. If it continues to be abandoned, it will cause a huge impact on the rise of Ming. resistance.

The emperor sent him here to change the current situation in the northwest, sow more drought-tolerant crops in the dry area, so that this land will no longer be deserted.

In the distance, a three-person-wide canal is under intensive construction. The recruits of the Reserve Corps have been fighting continuously for nearly two months, but they have never cried out that they are tired, and they have never delayed the progress, because this land is their homeland , and this piece of land has been handed over to the Tunwei of the three provinces to take care of by the emperor, and their relatives will benefit from digging the canal, so they have no complaints, digging desperately, digging desperately, under their unremitting efforts In just two months, almost all the canals in the three provinces were dug!

However, Chen Zilong is still waiting. As an expert in agriculture, he certainly knows that the most suitable time for sowing has passed. However, sowing in dry areas cannot be measured by conventional farming hours. Need water.If the temperature is not suitable, the growth will be stunted at most, and the harvest will be less. If there is no water, the crops will not be able to survive at all, so there is no harvest.

Digging canals can only solve the irrigation problem in the growth and maturity stages of crops. Any crop in the seedling stage needs a lot of water. Small canals alone are not enough, unless the canals are dug as wide as the Yellow River!
Naturally, it is impossible to dig the canals as wide as the Yellow River. In that case, they would be called canals, not irrigation canals. To dig all the canals scattered across the fields in the three provinces into canals, even if everyone from all over the Ming Dynasty came to dig them, I am afraid it would take several hours. Years, so he can only wait.

Based on his observations over the past few years, he knows that at the turn of spring and summer, there will be a relatively heavy rainfall in the arid area of ​​Northwest China. The rain will be intermittent for about half a month. After the rain, the river will become full and the land will become It is humid, and some drought-tolerant crops can pass through the seedling stage without irrigation at all. The one month after the rainfall is the only suitable time for sowing in the whole year, because it will be hot and midsummer later, and the moisture in the land will be very low. It is about to be evaporated, and in autumn, the land will be dry again!
Of course, he is not only waiting for the rain, but also waiting for Dilong. Fortunately, the railway from Beijing to Kaifeng has entered the final stage of laying, and it will be opened to traffic in about ten days, and Dilong will be able to pass by then The train quickly passed Kaifeng, and then slowly drove from Kaifeng to various places in Henan.It’s just that the railway from Kaifeng to Xi’an and Taiyuan has just started construction. Although nearly 30 people are working hard on each side, no one can say whether it can be completed before the end of the rain. No matter what, at least the earth-moving dragons along the line can be guaranteed to arrive.

Chen Zilong sighed for a while, then walked down the mountain, because it was almost noon, if he didn't rush to the construction site for digging the canal, today's lunch would be lost, behind him a team of elite guards silently spread out, Protect him tightly, front, back, left, and right.

At the beginning of May, the long-awaited nectar finally came to the northwest. At this time, the Beijing-Kaifeng Railway had already been opened to traffic, and trucks of overturned dragons were constantly being transported from the capital. At this time, the outside of Kaifeng had turned into a forest of steel. For use in Henan, Henan's Fandilong has already arrived, and is now on its way to various prefectures, prefectures and counties. These are all prepared for Shaanxi and Shanxi.

The railway from Kaifeng to Taiyuan was built relatively smoothly, and it was almost completed at this time, but the railway from Kaifeng to Xi'an was in trouble, because the terrain near Tongguan was too complicated, even if the Ministry of Industry continued to build railway bridges, there was no way. Over the past, because the railway is different from the road, you can't twist and turn among the mountains, and you can't fluctuate up and down, otherwise the train will not be able to pass at all.

Due to time constraints, it was too late to excavate the tunnel. The Ministry of Industry could only ask Sun Chuanting to take the captives away from the official road and cross the mountains, and go directly to repair the remaining section of the railway to Xi'an. As for what to do with this mountain, that is We can only pass the news back to the capital to see if there is anything to do there.

When Zhu Cijiong received the news, he was in a hurry. He quickly ordered the Ministry of Industry to rush to produce a large number of explosive tubes thicker than thighs. He was going to explode the mountain!

The explosive tube made of black powder is not very powerful, even if it is as thick as a thigh, it cannot catch up with the TNT explosive of later generations. However, the Ministry of Industry has invited many veteran mountain blasters from many private quarries. Really blasted enough gaps in the mountains blocking the road, and the railway was successfully repaired to Xi'an.

After the short rainy season, the land in the dry area finally became moist, and all parts of the Northwest seemed to come alive suddenly. Including the old, women, old and young, there are only five or six million people in total to cultivate two to three hundred million mu of land. If it were before, someone would run to Zhu Cijiong at the risk of being beheaded and scold: "You bastard, will you If you know how to farm, don’t command blindly if you don’t know how to farm!”

But now, it is estimated that no one would think of scolding the emperor. The earth-turning dragon is like a god when it turns over the ground. A land-turning dragon can turn over at least one hundred acres of land in twelve hours!
How many Dilongs did the Ministry of Industry make?I'm afraid Bi Maokang can't figure this out. Anyway, Wang Gong's factory has shut down. More than 1 people have gone to the machinery factory to help. Stop, work overtime, and go to the northwest when it is done. The Beijing-Kaikai Line, Xikai Line, and Kaiyuan Line have never stopped. You can see trains full of Dilongs running on the railway all day long.

After more than a month of hard work, the land in the northwest was finally filled with seeds of hope again. It was already early summer, and Chen Zilong came to the hillside again, looking into the distance. The scenery in front of him was different from that of two months ago. It's different, there is no trace of dry cracks in the field anymore, all the land has been overturned and fluffy, and some seeds that were planted earlier have sprouted thin green shoots, and a gust of wind blows by, and there is a smell of soil, The faint greenness in the eyes is like early spring.

(End of this chapter)