Turbulent Times Chapter 1313: It’s time to expand the territory
Fortunately, due to the law of tidal movement in the Bohai Bay, there are also a small number of deep-water channels among the silt in the shallow sea area. Large sea-going ships can berth directly on the shore, becoming a rare natural seaport.
However, in order to take advantage of this, the dredging of the salt river must be completed, and the salt field will be connected to the river channel through the salt river before it can become another important port fortress for the desalination field, and it can be directly connected to the inland three hundred miles away.
Except for Snake Island, Daluo Island, Bailing Island and other islands, quite a few of the hundreds of thousands of refugees that Wang Junlin had recruited in the past two years were scattered to the saltworks for resettlement.
There is no set date for Wang Junlin's return, and no one has notified the civil and military officials under Lu Shang in advance, so Fanyang County can't arrange the reception in advance. Apart from Yang Kongchan, only Qian Zheng, who is in charge of the political affairs of the salt field Xu Xiaohu, who organized the dredging of the Salt River, and Lian Zhongtao, who was in charge of the weapons and equipment production base, came to greet them after hearing the news.
Wang Junlin stood on the seawall and listened to the three people report the development, changes and achievements of the saltworks in the past year.
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"My lord, according to your original instructions, a rammed earth wall was built on the periphery of the area where Yanzhen was originally located. Now it has more than 400 steps in length and 600 steps in width, with a dock inside and a seaport outside. In terms of the size of the area and the inner and outer cities, Yancheng is much larger than other counties in Fanyang County.”
Looking at the city in the distance, Wang Junlin nodded and said with a smile, "That's right, but Yancheng's regulations are large, but it's far from being a strong and strong city. Fanyang County has heavy rains in summer and autumn, and the soil is soft. It is a rammed-earth building, which is not strong enough and is prone to collapse. It also needs to be covered with blue bricks, which are reinforced with bricks and stones produced by our brick factory. In addition, the coastal area of Yancheng is vulnerable to strong winds and tides. Next, we need to repair the seawall For reinforcement, a large area of miscellaneous forests should be planted inside and outside the seawall to prevent the sea from wind, and land protection and embankment should also be considered.”
Qian Zhengkuo said: "My lord's words are very true. From my humble opinion, in addition to protecting Yancheng from storms, seawalls and forest belts can continue to extend southward. Those places that are barren and vulnerable to flooding The tidal flats are ready to be transformed into fertile fields.”
In addition to salt pans and a large number of inland fields that have been reclaimed, nearly half of the land in Yancheng is coastal beaches and swamps. He said that Qian Zhengkuo has made great progress in the past two years in charge of the saltworks administration.
It's just that the reclamation of good farmland in the coastal areas is actually a business with money in the short term. Before the reclamation of fields in other places in the salt field, nearly 500,000 mu of fertile farmland was reclaimed in two years. However, more than 300,000 taels of silver were invested before and after, and the amount of rice and grain shipped to the island alone cost 240,000 shi, because it was the continuous hard work of nearly 100,000 people for two years to achieve such results. .
Although under Wang Junlin's will, a large number of refugees have gone to Fanyang County, and there is no shortage of labor, but with Wang Junlin's character, let these people work, not to mention wages, at least let them have enough food.
But now that the world is competing for the deer and a large-scale battle is imminent, Wang Junlin wants to concentrate the resources in his hands and use them on the army under his command. In the Sui Dynasty, there was only one county, and the overseas islands had no resources. They relied on various profitable businesses and raised an army of tens of thousands. As for the Annan Kingdom in Goguryeo, they could barely maintain their own troops.
"The land of a county is still too small, it's time to expand the territory." Wang Junlin suddenly found that the development of the forces under his command had entered a bottleneck, and what affected and restricted all of this was that the territory he controlled was too small up.
Only with a larger territory can we expand the planting scale of the high-quality grain produced by Nie Xiaoyu, thereby producing more grain, accommodating more migrant households, and having a wider base for recruiting soldiers. There will be other much-needed resources such as iron ore, coal, etc.
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Wang Junlin, Shen Guoer and others stopped in Yancheng for a short while, then went west along the post road on the south bank of Yunyan River.
The dredging project of the Salt River has been going on for nearly half a year. The construction sites on both sides of the strait are busy, but they are orderly. Forcing the people to work, and the corrupt officials below did not give the people enough food to compare with, which made the masters of Xianyinmen who accompanied them secretly amazed.
In the past two years, regardless of the overseas islands such as Snake Island, Dami Island, Baekling Island, etc., there are more than 34,000 households resettled in the salt field alone, more than 76,000 young adults, about 5,000 strong Yong was incorporated into the new barracks of the Far East Marching General Manager's Mansion, and was sent to the Snake Island training camp for intensive training. After the training, he was assigned to each battalion to make up for the consumption in the battle with Yang Su's rebels.
According to Wang Junlin's request, Fanyang County recruited people to work, whether they were local people or refugees from other places, in addition to paying with rice and grain, at the same time, they also adopted a method of paying with reduced taxes.
Ding Zhuang pays two and a half catties of japonica rice for one job, but if Ding Zhuang works one job in the form of tax reduction, the collection amount of three catties of japonica rice will be reduced in this year's summer and autumn grain rent tax collection; women and children will be halved Compensation: There are mules and horses participating in the dredging work, and they are given 15 catties of grass and 2 catties of feed every day, which is counted as one job.
By adopting the reduction of taxes and remuneration, workers with surplus food are encouraged to receive less rice as much as possible, thereby alleviating financial pressure.
Only in this way, the laborers did not starve to death, freeze to death, or die from exhaustion. Up to 250,000 stone.
Fortunately, in another two months, Fanyang County will enter the rainy season, and the Yunyan River will be dredged before then. Large ships with a size of more than a thousand stones will be able to go directly through the Yunyan River to participate in the battle in the hinterland of Fanyang County. Regardless of defense, merchant ships can also directly transport a large amount of resources to the county town and the counties of Fanyang County. While improving efficiency, it saves a lot of manpower and material resources. It is also conducive to the irrigation of fertile fields, and even increases a lot of paddy fields. The high-quality rice varieties that come out can produce more than one million shi of grain every year, so in the long run, it is worth spending such a large price.
In the evening, Du Ruhui, Shan Xiongxin, Liu Ziming and others came from the county to greet them. As soon as they met, Du Shihui congratulated him and said, "Congratulations, the princess gave birth to a fat boy. I heard that you are fat and fat." The fat one weighs nine catties. After the lord and I meet, we should wait until tomorrow to discuss business matters. It is better for the lord to go back to the mansion to see the concubine and the little prince..."
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