Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 1814, Yunmeng Granary

In Jingzhou, Huguang, on the wide and thick Jingzhou Dam, Zhong Fan, Zhang Si'an and others strolled, watching the mighty Yangtze River rolling eastward, and looking at the former Yunmengze, it was extremely busy, and cars Rice transplanters are busy in the vast fields.

"Steaming clouds and dreaming waters, shaking Yueyang City, wanting to save money without boats, living in a shameful sage, sitting and watching anglers, is only envious of fish!"

Looking at the scene in front of him, Zhong Fan also recalled Meng Haoran's classic poems.

I vaguely remember that when I came here last year, it was still a water town of Zeguo, with vast mist and mist, and the rolling Yangtze River constantly swept here, making this vast and fertile land just the hometown of birds.

Now, with the completion of the construction of the Jingzhou Dam, Baili Yunmengze has benefited from it and has become a fertile field. At this time, it is the time of spring planting, and the fertile fields are busy. I believe that by autumn, there will be It will be a golden harvest.

"Mr. Zhong~"

"With this Jingzhou Dam, our Huguang will have [-] miles more fertile fields. From now on, Huguang will become my second Jiangnan in Ming Dynasty."

Zhang Si'an, the governor of Huguang, looked at the extremely busy spring planting scene in front of him, and said excitedly to Zhong Fan.

The biggest problem in the Huguang area has always been that the Yangtze River brings too much water. The river network is densely covered with numerous lakes, and the Jingzhou Yangtze River often floods, making this large and vast area impossible to cultivate.

Therefore, since ancient times, there has been a tradition of building river dams in all dynasties. Gradually, dams were built on the Jingzhou side, and a large number of swampy lands were turned into fertile fields.

"Haha, what is Jiangnan?"

"Now the grain produced in Jiangnan is less than one-tenth of that in Liaodong and Hezhong."

"In the south, rice is mostly grown. The fields are not level and they are all paddy fields, which is not conducive to the development of mechanization and farming."

"The map of Hezhong and Liaodong mainly grows wheat. The fields are very flat and open, which is very conducive to mechanized farming. Often, a farmer can cultivate thousands of acres of good land."

"Where the land is vast and sparsely populated, the land is abundant and very fertile. When autumn comes, you can see an endless golden ocean as far as you can see. When the wind blows, it undulates like the waves of the sea, which is very beautiful."

When Zhong Fan heard this, he immediately said with a smile.

He had been a political envoy in Central Asia Province and had seen the developed mechanized agriculture in the river. To be honest, he really didn't like the agricultural planting in front of him.

In the native agriculture of Ming Dynasty, those in the north are stronger than those in the south, because there are many plains in the north, where wheat is the main crop, while the south is hilly, where rice is the main crop, which is not conducive to mechanized farming.

"Cultivate thousands of acres of fertile land by one person!"

"It's no wonder that Liaodong and Hezhong provinces are now the provinces that my Ming Dynasty wants to be rich in."

When Zhang Si'an heard this, he couldn't help sighing.

This is something that is unimaginable in Huguang. How is it possible for a single farmer to cultivate thousands of acres of land? The cultivation of rice is more troublesome than wheat, and it is impossible to say that there is so much land for farmers here. to plant.

There are many people and little land here. Before large-scale immigration, the land here was even more scarce, and the conflict between people and land was sharp. Landlords and gentry had a lot of land, but farmers often had little land.

The land that every household can cultivate is only a pitiful few acres of land. Those thousands of acres of land are all landlords, not farmers at all.

"Agricultural development lies in actively exploring a development model suitable for the region, and in using more machinery to improve efficiency."

"Of course, for a place like Huguang, it doesn't have the advantages of provinces like Liaodong, Hezhong, Central Asia, and Black Soil, and there is no way to develop large-scale agriculture like these places."

"If you want to get rich and develop, you still need to set up more factories, workshops and commercial banks, so as to drive employment, improve the economy and promote development."

"Now Jiangxi is doing very well. They are vigorously building railways connecting the north and south and east and west. In addition to dredging the Yangtze River and building ports and wharfs, Nanchang, Jiangxi has also established a large number of factories and workshops."

"Now it has attracted a lot of commercial firms and factories to invest in. Steel factories, cement factories, motorcycles, textile factories, etc. have sprung up like mushrooms. Relying on more and more convenient transportation and its own population advantages, in the future Maybe it will develop very well.”

When it comes to agriculture, Zhong Fan is very good at it. It is under his leadership and promotion that the ranch economy in Central Asia has achieved great success.

Successfully promoted the emergence of a brand-new large ranch economic model, allowing the Han people to raise cattle, sheep and horses on a large scale. Central Asia Province has become an important meat warehouse, and the annual output of cattle, sheep and horses is continuously sold to Ming Dynasty everywhere.

"I also ask Mr. Zhong to give me some advice~"

When Zhang Si'an heard this, he quickly said respectfully again.

"Look, if we built this dam in the past, how many people and how many days would it take to successfully build this dam?"

Zhong Fan pointed to the dam under his feet and asked.

"At least hundreds of thousands of farmers will be recruited, and it will take at least a few years to complete the construction of a dam."

Zhang Si'an thought for a while and said.

He wanted to build this Jingzhou dam a long time ago, but it took a long time to recruit hundreds of thousands of farmers to build it, so he didn't dare to do it.

Since ancient times, it is easy to go wrong when serving in corvee. Chen Sheng and Wu Guang killed the officials and rebelled when they were in corvée. When they were in corvée, they had to bring their own food. There is not even a place to hide from the rain, and it is even more miserable to be a corvee in the winter.

I don't know how many people died in the corvee, so he didn't dare to recruit hundreds of thousands of people to build this Jingzhou dam at once, for fear that something would go wrong, and his own black hat would be lost.

The dams here in Jingzhou are also built one by one in history, a little this year and a little next year, and sometimes when a certain dynasty is strong, it can be built properly.

But if there is a famine year or a time of chaos, there is no way to repair it. Therefore, the dam here has not been repaired in the long history.

Until now, the Jingzhou Dam has finally been built.

"Then how many people did we use to build the dam now? How long did it take?"

Zhong Fan nodded slightly, and continued to ask.

"The manpower used was only tens of thousands of people, and it took a few months to complete the construction."

Zhang Si'an said quickly.

"Then why did it take hundreds of thousands of people to build a dam that took years to complete, but now it takes tens of thousands of people a few months to complete it?"

Zhong Fan smiled and continued.

"Because there are a lot of construction machinery."

Zhang Si'an seemed to understand something at once, and then said: "Manpower is limited, but wisdom is infinite. The mechanical power is much stronger than our human power."

"Right~"

"The reason why my Ming Dynasty is able to have today's prosperity and prosperity is to have today's prosperity."

"The reliance is actually nothing else, but the development and strength of machinery."

"If there is no machinery, even if I am from Daming can immigrate to Liaodong, the land that this person can cultivate is still limited. Even if he is exhausted on the land, it is already the limit for one person to cultivate dozens of acres of land."

"If there is no machinery, this woman can only spin less than 2 bolts of cloth in a month, but with machinery, a worker can spin hundreds of bolts of cloth in a day."

"In the past, even if you walked alone, you could only travel a hundred miles a day, but now, with cars and trains, it is easy to travel thousands of miles a day."

"This is the power of wisdom, the power of technology, and the power of machinery."

Zhong Fan nodded and said with a smile: "Only when you really understand these things, you will understand why my Ming Dynasty can undergo earth-shaking changes."

"And these are the ingenious tricks that those sour and rotten Confucians said. They said they were third-rate and heretical. What they advocated has been in operation on our land for thousands of years."

"However, in the past thousands of years, how has our Ming Dynasty been as prosperous as it is today, and how have our Ming people been as rich as they are today?"

Zhong Fan counts the enlightened elements among the traditional civil servants. He has seen the power of machinery and the power of technology, so he will actively understand and promote the development of this.

He is different from ordinary rotten Confucians and pedantic civil servants, so he has always been the official who supports and supports Liu Jin's New Deal. He has seen with his own eyes that the Ming Dynasty has changed from the original Ming Dynasty with internal and external troubles to the current prosperous and powerful empire. .

He also witnessed with his own eyes the earth-shaking changes brought about by mechanized agriculture in the Hezhong area. Many immigrants were single and poor when they moved there, but within a year or two, there were thousands of mu of fertile land and farming. On the market, the family bought several female slaves to be concubines, and the child gave birth to a big baby.

Why such a huge change?

Is all this brought about by the benevolence and morality advocated by those sour civil servants in the past?
No, what really brought earth-shaking changes to Daming was the technology and machinery that everyone looked down upon, didn't pay attention to, and considered heresy.

Without the power of science and technology and machinery, it would be impossible for the Ming Dynasty to be as rich and prosperous as it is today. Even if the Ming army is stronger and can expand its territory, the Ming Dynasty is just a new style of the Han and Tang Dynasties, but it still cannot defend these new lands. In the developed land, the common people still cannot really get rich.

Once the national strength weakens, history will repeat itself again.

(End of this chapter)