Ming Zuo

Chapter 206 Agricultural Reclamation Group
Why did Zuo Menggeng mention Zuozhuang's wheat yield per mu?

Of course it was to impress the big families.

In the hands of these families, all control a large amount of land.

He had already asked Zuo Fu to investigate, and the land owned by the Zhang family, the Lu family, the Geng family, and the Liu family accounted for [-]% of Linqing.

And these families, like the landlords all over the world, use the most primitive methods of farming.

Efficiency and output are naturally insufficient.

Since last year, one thing Zuo Menggeng has done the most in agriculture is to try and reform.

Although he knows that industrialization and large-scale agricultural production are a good way to increase production, he is not sure whether it will work in this era.

After all, there is no large-scale machinery in this era, and most of the farming is purely by manpower.

I tried it in Zuozhuang last year. As of harvesting this summer, the overall effect is very good.

Before the realization of mechanized and industrialized agricultural production, intensive methods are still very helpful for increasing production.

Zuozhuang's practice is actually the big farm route of later generations.

More than [-] workers have been assigned to all aspects of the farm, supplemented by the best farming technology of this era, to achieve a substantial increase in production.

Of course, a sufficient number of cattle and agricultural tools is also the basis for all this.

In short, the example of Zuozhuang proves that letting agriculture take the road of industrialization is definitely a good way to increase production.

"Today, disasters are still frequent, and there are occasional poor harvests in various places, leading to soaring food prices. For a long period of time in the future, food must be the top priority. Whoever controls the food will control the world. How to increase food production is up to us. issues that must be considered.”

Zuo Menggeng began to speak.

"Our Shandong is a good place. Although there are occasional disasters, it is much better than Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, and Gyeonggi. At least we have sufficient water sources, irrigation, and a moderate climate. As long as you put your heart into it, It is not difficult to increase production. As long as we have enough food, we can have enough power to do more things."

From a collaborator to an ally, the biggest change is that Zuo Menggeng can be more explicit when speaking to these people.

In fact, these families are not fools. They can see the changes in Zuozhuang, and the income of Fuyao Group is also there.Especially after the back battalion came back this time, so many people were expanded at once, and it was impossible to hide it from the eyes of those who cared.

If any of these families were loyal to the imperial court, Zuo Menggeng might have encountered a crisis.

However, even the Lu family, who was originally the most alienated from Zuo Menggeng, has now been dissociated.

Anyone can calculate.

More than [-] people in the rear battalion can defeat more than [-] Tartars. Now the number of troops is at least tens of thousands. Doesn't it mean that even if they encounter an army of [-] Tartars, they have a chance of winning?
If you can defeat [-] Tartars, how many can the Ming army have?
what is this?
This is a party of princes.

These families still don't know that what Zuo Menggeng is about to own is not an army of more than [-], but more than [-].

The second division is still an empty shell, and when the second division also forms an army, Zuo Menggeng will have the capital to wrestle with the court.

At that time, even if the imperial court wanted to deal with him, just hit him, and he had the confidence to win.

The most urgent task at the moment is to persuade the major families to change the traditional farming model, increase food production, and lay a solid foundation for the struggle for hegemony.

Chen Zhi stood up and explained Zuozhuang's farming model in detail.

Everyone listened carefully, and soon realized that they couldn't do it without cooperation with Zuo Menggeng.

Zuozhuang's increase in yield per mu is the result of a combination of models and science, and neither of these two aspects can be handled by each company.

At the very least, once this is done, a large number of tenants will inevitably lose their jobs.

If these tenants are not arranged properly, they will rebel.

However, the industries of each family are all in the traditional mode, and the personnel are already saturated, and there is nowhere to place them.

Only Zuo Menggeng, using large factories like the Fuyao Group, can absorb the excess off-farm population.

Do you want to cooperate with Zuo Menggeng?

Zhang Zonghuan knew Zuozhuang best, so he asked a practical question.

"Zhongheng, the increase in your Zuozhuang's yield per mu is mainly due to the proper irrigation. The farmland on your farm is next to the river, so it is easy to get water. But a lot of our land is far away from the river, so it is not easy to get water. Even if you adopt the model of your Zuozhuang, it may be difficult to improve. Yield."

Although Linqing is the confluence of Weihe River and Huitong River, the agricultural water use is very embarrassing.

Guarding two great rivers, but unable to draw water.

Because these two rivers are used for water transportation, the consent of the imperial court must be obtained to fetch water for irrigation, otherwise it is the same crime as treason.

Zuozhuang guards a small river, irrigating the family's more than [-] mu of land.However, for the hundreds of thousands of acres of fields of the major families, the water consumption for irrigation will be an astronomical figure.

If this problem is not solved, Zuo Menggeng's idea is empty talk.

Does Zuo Menggeng have a solution?
It really does.

"I rely on the canal for agricultural water in Linqing, except groundwater. But the canal is related to water transportation, and the imperial court refuses to allow it. What should we do? However, the water transportation of the canal depends entirely on the weather, but there is an opportunity for us to take advantage of it."

What is Zuo Menggeng thinking?

Seize the off-season of canal water transportation, divert the canal water to save it, and use it for farming in the spring and summer of the next year.

"There is a piece of wasteland near Taotun Village to the east of the Huitong River, which can be used to build a water storage lake. In winter, the capital is frozen and the water transportation is cut off. I will put water into the pond at this time, save it for months, and supplement it with underground water. For irrigation."

Zuo Menggeng observed that although it was the Little Ice Age, the temperature was not always cold.

For example, in the winter of the first year of Chongzhen, the canal froze in the Linqing section.

In the second year of Chongzhen, there was no ice in the Linqing section, which is also one of the reasons for the good growth of winter wheat.

However, the vicinity of Gyeonggi is still frozen, and it freezes every year, which makes winter the off-season for water transportation.

Zuo Menggeng intends to seize this opportunity to divert water from the river to the reservoir to supply irrigation water in summer.

The water of the canal is drawn and will soon be replenished.

Because the canal is an artificial river, it passes through many river basins.Many rivers such as the Yangtze River, Huaihe River, and Yellow River will inject water into the canal.

With a steady stream of water, there is no fear that the water level of the canal will drop and affect water transportation.

The key point is that the excavation of the reservoir and the supporting ditches are not small, and it is difficult for all the major families to contribute money and effort.

Not only money and food, but even manpower is not enough.

However, for Zuo Menggeng, these are not problems.

"Everyone should know that when our army returned to the division not long ago, we defeated the Bailian thieves who caused trouble in Dongchang Mansion. There were more than ten thousand prisoners alone. The screening of these prisoners has been completed a few days ago, and the heinous ones have been dealt with. The rest The captives, of course, must be redeemed for their crimes."

Zuo Menggeng looked at the crowd quietly.

"With more than [-] laborers, I wonder if it is possible to build reservoirs and ditches?"

Everyone didn't expect him to even calculate this, but after thinking about it carefully, if he did this, it was really feasible.

Using captives to work does not need to waste people and money, and can save a lot of money and food.

Are these captives considered human?
Not to mention being exhausted from work, as long as you don't starve to death, it is considered kind.

Of course Zuo Menggeng did not tell them that the labor intensity of these captives was actually not high.

It is only June now, and there is still a long time before the water storage in winter.The captives worked slowly, and it was enough to finish the job.

Zuo Menggeng's purpose is to let these prisoners complete the initial transformation through labor, and then they can be enriched into the army.

I'm exhausted, where can the second division go to replenish the source of troops?
However, the most difficult irrigation project problem was solved smoothly, so that the families no longer have any worries.

On the same day, each family signed a cooperation agreement in the Xinsheng Hotel.

Zuozhuang and various companies jointly controlled and established the Linqing Agricultural Reclamation Group, which is fully responsible for grain cultivation.Each family buys shares with land, owns a certain amount of shares, and enjoys dividends.

At the same time, each company sent people into the group respectively to take up leadership positions and be responsible for the daily operations of the group.

The general manager of the Nongken Group, after Zuo Menggeng's research, asked Chen Zhi to take the concurrent role.

This is the manager under him who knows the most about agriculture, and he manages Zuozhuang in an orderly manner.Now there is really no one available, so he has to do more work for those who can.

However, Chen Zhi didn't feel that she had become an animal. Instead, she was able to show her strengths to the fullest. She was very happy and immediately ran around for the Agricultural Reclamation Group.

The first step is for each family to take back all the land, and then after the survey, select a suitable plot for reorganization.

There are quite a lot of land in each family, but they are not all connected.Moreover, the land in some places is not suitable and must be eliminated.

The difficulty of this step lies in the tenants of each family.

Because they have lost the opportunity to cultivate, they must arrange it well, otherwise there will be big troubles.

In addition, among the land of each family, there will also be farmland of some small landlords and self-cultivating farmers.It is also necessary to persuade these people to join the agricultural reclamation group to connect the cultivated land.

Zuo Menggeng taught Chen Zhi, Lu Hao, and Liu Ji the work of Yiying.

He also didn't explain what must be done fairly.

In fact, in the process of capital expansion, there will be absolutely no tenderness.

If those small landlords and self-cultivating farmers are really stubborn and stick to the land, they will still use some means to force them to submit.

(End of this chapter)