Lu Ming

Chapter 282 Longyan Battle ([-])

At noon the next day, the string of small boats arrived at the South Gate Wharf of Longyan from Jinshan Town downstream.

More than 30 infrastructure personnel assigned by the senior officials got off the ship, and the core of this team was two traversers engaged in engineering.

The two of them have a division of labor.

One of them will lead his men and migrant workers to build a pier outside the south gate.Considering that a large number of machinery, personnel and bulk cargo will be loaded and unloaded from here in the future, the terminal will be greatly expanded: not only a wooden pile passenger terminal, but also at least one rock and steel cargo terminal.

And another man who had dug river sand was in charge of leading the migrant workers to dredge the river. At the same time they boarded the Longyan Wharf, Haidilao had already started operations on the downstream Jiulong River.

Water conservancy is a big subject.

In a corner like Longyan, if the water conservancy could not be done well in the 17th century, there was no need to dig any mines.In this era, there are no national roads or expressways to transport ore, and everything must be transported by water.

The waterways in the Middle Ages have a characteristic: they have a large amount of water, but the navigation conditions are poor.Whenever there are some bends where the flow rate slows down, whether it is a river or a stream, there will always be some disgusting terrain such as shoals and sandbars.

In addition, the nail household reefs in some rivers are also the enemy of boats.

In later generations, this situation is rare.The waterways of a certain infrastructure-mad country are filled with all kinds of sand mining ships. The waterways have been dug to bottomless depths, and the government is cracking down on private excavation and excessive mining every day.

But Longyan in the 17th century was not so lucky.It will take a lot of time for Haidilao to dig all the way up from the Jiulong River, so the upstream Longyan also needs to start working at the same time to remove obstacles by manpower.

This project is still very urgent. The larger ships can only stop at Jinshan Town downstream. All materials have to be transported to Longyan by small ships, and the transportation efficiency is too low.

Dredging the waterway is only a preliminary task, and then there is a more difficult task: the reservoir.

In this place in Fujian, there is constant rain all year round, so there is no time to rest.This is especially true in the mountainous areas of western Fujian, where rainfall is quite heavy.

Under such climatic conditions, the original intermountain waterways are naturally plagued by disasters and torrents and mudslides.Therefore, it is necessary to build reservoirs, even if it is purely for the purpose of regulating water volume, reducing disasters, and ensuring the transportation of ore ships throughout the year.

Subsequent reservoir works will begin after the wharf and dredging works are completed.At that time, a large number of migrant workers who have been trained in the early stage can come in handy.

Later generations have Bingxi Reservoir in Longyan, and no one knows how much the terrain of the mountains and rivers has changed in the 17th century, so the exploration work will be carried out after the work of suppressing bandits is completed-there are no way for the bandits to repair the reservoir.

In short, the coming year 1629 is the "Year of Reservoir Construction" across the country.The time-travelers with infrastructure madness genes in their bones not only want to build reservoirs in the foothills of western Fujian, but also build reservoirs in the upper reaches of the Tainan Plain.

The former guarantees industry, the latter agriculture.

There were also many camphorwood boxes and sacks on the same boat.The box contained the original handicraft mahogany Erba cover that Cao Chuan brought from later generations, and the sack contained rice and salt.

The camphor wood box was quickly sent to the Tianhou Temple, while the sack was left at the pier.Today there will be a row of sheds erected on the pier, and these goods will soon be paid as wages in the future.

After getting the firearms they were familiar with, the soldiers quickly picked up the old buddies.Of course, according to the plan, these guns cannot be revealed in front of Ming people.And wait until the day they appear, that is, the day the bandit dog leads.

Lin Dajin squatted under a tree not far from the gate of Tianhou Palace, scratching the lice on his head while staring at the gate of Tianhou Palace intently.

At the gate, there were 4 soldiers holding swords, spears and blunderbusses. They were upright, powerful and murderous.

This group of officers and soldiers who came suddenly yesterday brought endless talk to the ancient and peaceful Longyan County.In fact, many people don't think they are officers and soldiers: green double-breasted short coats, trousers, and big-toed leather boots. This strange attire does not look like Ming officers and soldiers wearing fat jackets.

It wasn't until after the county yamen's servants and petty officials were released from the yamen that people knew through their mouths that this group of people was under the command of a general Zhao'an in Shanghai and was sent to Longyan to suppress the bandits.

That night, the story of "Water Margin" began to spread in the mouths of the old masters, and the storytellers in the county naturally kept up with the market trend, and each of them began to urgently review the jokes between Fang La and Song Jiang.

Lin Dajin came to the gate of Tianhou Temple today, aiming at the old hen beside him.

In the basket woven with thin bamboo strips, a fat old hen was resting in it with its eyes closed.After Lin Dajin stared under the tree for half an hour, he gritted his teeth and stood up, carrying the bamboo basket, and walked towards the gate step by step.

The sentry guarding the gate quickly noticed this tattered, short, dark and thin man with a simple and honest face.

"What are you doing!?"

After hearing the question, Lin Dajin stopped instinctively, and after a fierce ideological struggle, he timidly took a few steps forward, then stretched out the bamboo basket in his hand, and pointed to the old hen.

"Huh? Supporting the army?"

Lin Dajin continued to stand there hesitantly.

"A chicken seller?"

Lin Dajin nodded.

"Not bad, it seems that the people in Longyan still have discernment." After joking with a smile, the monitor on duty ordered a sentry to take Lin Dajin to the side gate.

Lin Dajin, a member of Tianhou Palace, naturally knew about it: all the residents of Longyan County, regardless of gender, old or young, had been to Tianhou Palace, and the terrain was familiar to them.

There are also sentries at the side gate.After entering the side door, there is a row of wing rooms opposite the aisle.Now this row of wing rooms has been transformed into a kitchen and dining hall. When Lin Dajin came to the door of the kitchen, several people came out after hearing the sound.

These people include a cook wearing a white apron with a kitchen knife in his hand, and Wei Yuan who is holding a chicken leg and eating it deliciously.

Although Wei Yuan had already been seen on the pier yesterday, Lin Dajin, who was only 1 meters tall, was terrified when he came into close contact with this giant spirit god.

"Don't be afraid, you are here to sell chickens? Hehe, this is the first one, fellow, what's your name?"

"Master, my name is Lin Dajin."

"Well, the name is good, and it's real. Don't be afraid, we buy things here for money."

After Wei Yuan finished speaking, he signaled to the cook to take the chicken, and then sent someone to call the chief steward to come over and give the money.

After taking a look at the "Price Guide for Various Regions of the Ming Dynasty" issued by the logistics department, Wei Yuan instructed the Chief Secretary who came to give Lin Dajin 5 cents of silver.

The "Guide" is used as a reference for troops like Wei Yuan who go deep into the enemy's rear and have no local price information.The above benchmark price is written with reference to some historical materials, such as old hens, it is recorded in the "Wanshu Miscellaneous Notes" in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty: the price of live fat chickens is 4 cents in silver.

Considering that Longyan is a mountainous area, the price of an old hen will definitely not be higher than the 4 cents in the city, so Wei Yuan counted 5 cents for this chicken.

Facts have proved that 5 cents of silver must be higher than the price of local old hens, because when Lin Dajin took a bite of the piece of pure white broken silver, he suddenly turned around and ran away.
But Wei Yuan and the others looked at Lin Dajin running out of the door in astonishment, and couldn't help laughing out loud.

It's not over yet.

Not long after, Lin Dajin came back out of breath again—this time he was carrying a basket with five old hens inside.

"Look, look, what kind of situation this society has forced farmers into. To sell a chicken, you have to try it out first." Wei Yuan watched with relief as the chief secretary settled Lin Dajin's account, and at the same time, he did not forget to watch the excitement Doing ideological work with his subordinates: "You said, are ordinary people so afraid of soldiers?"

"No one is afraid, but there are quite a few who cheat us of money." Upon hearing this topic, the soldiers immediately began to complain.

"That's right, at noon every month, the screwdriver shop on Chikan Avenue will have a discount again."

"Is it better to increase the price first and then discount it? Boss Shuma's shop is the worst. It seems that there are many activities, but there are actually no discounts."

"One pass operation is as fierce as a tiger, and the discount is [-] cents in the end."

Lin Dajin happily got the money for 5 chickens while listening to these deputy masters saying things he couldn't understand.After getting the money this time, not only did he not run away, he even knelt down and kowtowed to Wei Yuan.

Wei Yuan looked at this honest farmer with a simple and honest face who couldn't even speak, and couldn't help but let out a long sigh.Then he told Lin Dajin that in the future, he could go to nearby villages to collect more vegetables and live poultry, and then sell them here.

Lin Dajin gratefully carried the bamboo basket and left.

And after that day, Lin Dajin really started the way of a vegetable dealer—collecting some chickens, ducks, live poultry and vegetables from the surrounding villages every day, and then sold them all to Tianhou Palace.

Lin Dajin's fate is just a small wave, not many people pay attention to it.But with the arrival of the Red Gun Camp, Longyan, a peaceful small county, can no longer return to its former tranquility: a series of unprecedented incidents have continuously expanded the minds of Ming people, and the ancient city on the road to industrialization, It is also getting busier and busier day by day.

On the fifth day when Wei Yuan and his group came to Longyan, hundreds of migrant workers from Jinshan Town opened the eyes of the locals again.

A boiler was carried from Jinshan to Longyan by these migrant workers.

The migrant workers used wooden piles as pads and manpower to lift and pull it. It took hundreds of people three days to carry the "big iron box" to Longyan County on a mountain road less than [-] miles away.

The moment the boiler was brought to the gate of Tianhou Palace, most of the people in the county rushed out to watch the excitement. For a while, there was a huge crowd of people in front of the gate of Tianhou Palace. In the end, Wei Yuan had to send a large number of soldiers with knives and guns to maintain order.
(End of this chapter)