A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 899 Sea Garden

(Happy New Year everyone!)

Ludao had a good harvest, with one stalk of rice and several ears of rice. The governor of Quanzhou presented it to the Jiahe court and called it auspiciousness.

In recognition of the auspiciousness, the emperor specially gave Ludao Island the name Jiahe Island.

Originally, only two fishermen families lived on the island, but in the autumn of the seventh year of Zhenguan, more than 20,000 acres of rice fields were cultivated on the island. There were several farms and estates established by the Wu family on the island, as well as newly built wharf workshops, and a large number of slaves of all kinds. In the manor farming, there are also many hired laborers recruited from the Central Plains to work on the fields, or employed as long-term laborers.

The late rice harvest on the island is tens of thousands of dan.

When Wu Huaiyu arrived on the island, the autumn harvest was about to end.

On the pier, there are three characters "Jiaheyu" written by Yubi, the emperor's Feibai calligraphy.

Wu Huaiyu stepped onto the pier. This pier, which was desolate half a year ago, is now very lively. Palm trees have drooping branches and leaves, phoenix trees are blooming like fire, coconut trees have straight outlines, and banyan trees have long leaves and long beards, showing their warmth. vitality.

Asang looked at the island curiously.

“It feels like this is a paradise hidden at the mouth of the Kowloon River,” she marveled that it’s not cold here. “It’s almost snowing in Qingnipu at this time.”

Although Qingnipu is a rare ice-free port in the north, the winter below Besha City is still very cold. It will snow very early, and the snow will fall heavily, and even the snow will reach the knees after a night of heavy snow.

Longxi City has the greatest development potential.

"Many egrets fly here every year, hence the name Egret Island. Now there are several Jiahe Islands. Jiahe Island is indeed a good place. It has mountains, water, harbors, and many areas for development. cultivated land,"

Wu Huaiyu's words are well-founded. At this time, Ludao belonged to Quanzhou, and was between Zhangzhou and Quanzhou, but Quanzhou was far away from Ludao. Ludao belonged to Jinjiang County in Quanzhou, but to Jinjiang County More than two hundred miles.

Of course, if the Wu family wanted to develop Ludao instead of the imperial court's plan, then the imperial court would be more likely to develop and operate Longxi County in the upper reaches of the Jiulong River, or even move the Zhangzhou administrative office to Longxi. After all, Kowloon Jiang is the second largest river in Fujian after the Min River.

But for Wu Huaiyu, it was natural to start a new project and choose Ludao.

The nearest county town to Ludao is Longxi County in Zhangzhou, which is the urban area of ​​Zhangzhou in later generations. It is 120 miles away along the Jiulong River.

"I really like it here." Asang liked it here at first sight. Perhaps it's because she was born and raised in Qingnipu, near the sea, so she has a soft spot for the seaside.

Such a good place is now favored by the Wu family and is being developed on a large scale.

More than 10,000 acres of land have been cultivated, tea is grown in the mountains on the island, and ports and docks are built in the bay.

"Now there are about ten villages, big and small, on the island, and there is also a market town on the wharf. In ten years, or at most ten years, this place will become a very lively wharf market town, and even tens of thousands of acres of land can be reclaimed on the island. With fields and many tea plantations, many workshops have been built, and tens of thousands of people can gather on this island.”

Since the Six Dynasties, those who defended Fujian have stationed troops in Longxi, blocking the river as a boundary and planting willows as camps.

"We are just in time for a sunny day. If we encounter rainy days, it will actually be very wet and cold. In summer, hurricanes come from the sea and cause heavy rains, which is also very scary."

Therefore, Li Aochuan, where Zhangpu County is located, is about 200 miles away.

There is a natural harbor here and many tidal flats.

Wu Huaiyu's development of Ludao at the mouth of the Kowloon River is equivalent to building a new Lugang between the two ports of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou. The most important thing is that Wu Huaiyu wants to develop Penghu and Liuqiu, which makes Lugang a link between the two sides of the strait. Important land,

Whether it is shipping and trade between the north and south, cross-strait development, or radiating inland in the upper reaches of the Jiulong River, Lugang can be said to have unique conditions.

Jiahe Island is at the mouth of the Jiulong River, rippling in the waves.

Its main stream, the North River, is six hundred miles long, and its tributaries, the Xixi River and the Nanxi River, join together. The Zhangzhou Plain downstream is also one of the four major plains in Fujian. The upper reaches are rapid, while the lower reaches are gentle and navigable.

During the Sui Dynasty, only four counties were established in Fujian, and the number of households controlled by the imperial court was only more than 12,000. Yang Guang sent generals to conquer Liuqiu, but they captured 17,000 Liuqiu barbarians and placed more than 5,000 households at the foot of Fulu Mountain, two miles north and south.

Due to inconvenient transportation, the entire Fujian area is very short of people.

The Tang Dynasty unified the world, pacified Lingnan, and also brought Fujian under its rule. However, although Zhangquan, Fujian and Tingwu Prefectures were established, during the Wude Dynasty, this area only paid tribute such as shark skin and ginger.

But after all, Longxi is just a county town in Zhangzhou. At this time, the entire Fujian region is relatively closed and backward, and has not yet reaped the benefits of Shanghai Trade.

"No matter how high the mountain is, water flows everywhere, the trees bloom all their flowers regardless of autumn or winter, there is no snow for ten thousand years, and flowers bloom all year round. This is a garden on the sea."

It was precisely because the imperial court was so lenient with almost no taxes in this area that many Xidian tyrants led the barbarians to surrender to the Tang Dynasty. Counties such as Gutian and Longxi were established in this way, and county magistrates also used the idea of ​​​​submitting to Xidian. Appointed by powerful chiefs.

During the Southern Dynasties, Fujian had three counties: Jian'an, Jin'an, and Nan'an. In the Sui Dynasty, they were combined into one county, Jian'an. Although there are five prefectures today, there are basically two or three counties in each prefecture. Set up by the chief.

The registered population under the jurisdiction of the imperial court is still more than 10,000 households, and the situation is similar to that in western Guangdong.

There are many Xidong barbarians who are not naturalized and do not pay taxes, but less than one in ten are naturalized. Longxi County, which is only 120 miles away from the sea, was established to be attached to the mountains. The county magistrate and others are all the lords of the mountains, and the county seat is the village.

It can be seen that the situation in Fujian at this time is

If Wu Huaiyu wants to develop Liuqiu, he must rely on Fujian, but he cannot trust Xidong at this time, so he would rather develop on Ludao at the mouth of the Jiulong River by the sea.

Historically, during the Kaiyuan era when the Tang Dynasty was the most prosperous, the number of registered households in the five states of Fujian was only 109,000, which was not as large as the population of the five counties in the Central Plains.

During the Anti-Japanese War, the Japanese almost occupied the coast of China, but they failed to occupy Fujian.

Not only is transportation inconvenient here, it is also a self-enclosed area with hills everywhere. At this time, Fujian's coastal plains were still full of swamps and moisture.

No roads, no people, no land, no development.

Throughout the ages, that has been a place of neglect.

Only in the Song Dynasty did it begin to develop and take off on a large scale, mainly accounting for maritime trade.

For Wu Huaiyu, this is the time for him to buy the bottom.

He can definitely follow the path of Zhu Chenggong, the country's surnamed Ye, and use Xiamen as the base camp for developing Liuqiu and Penghu as a transit supply station.

What is most needed for the development of Fujian is the inflow of people from the Central Plains, the advanced farming technology brought by the Central Plains, as well as water conservancy construction, farmland development, and of course the more important sea routes and trade.

Nowadays, in the five states of Fujian, apart from ginger and shark skin, what the Central Plains people know about is the human trafficking and castration.

There are many mountains here but little land. The local natives are all barbarians in the eyes of the Central Plains people. Like the raccoons in Lingnan, there is a serious phenomenon of human trafficking.

In fact, in the final analysis, there is no harm if there is no transaction.

Because they were backward and many people from the Central Plains came to buy slaves, trading slaves and robbing people was a hugely profitable business for the natives, so many tribes robbed, kidnapped and sold people, forming a famous human market.

Tribes aggravated conflicts and attacked each other due to kidnapping. On the one hand, there were population losses caused by human trafficking, and on the other hand, there were casualties caused by tribal conflicts and wars. These made it difficult for the local natives to develop and grow.

Anyway, in the eyes of the Central Plains imperial court, if they were not settled into households, then they were not ordinary people of the Tang Dynasty. They were just barbarians. Whether they stole, abducted, sold, and robbed themselves, or others bought and sold, the imperial court would not care.

The mountains are remote and backward, and some products are difficult to transport and sell, but human trafficking is very profitable, so everyone does it.

Some tribes also used their strong fighting skills to make a fortune by robbing and selling human beings from other tribes. The money they earned was exchanged for various Central Plains goods brought by slave merchants, and even smuggled weapons, etc., allowing them to take an even greater share of the slave-robbing war. advantage,

But the strength of these tribes is based on the decline of other tribes. The population of other tribes cannot keep up with the number of people they attack, kill and kidnap.

The Xitong barbarians themselves have a tradition of drowning female infants. Their living environment is poor, so they are unwilling to raise more girls. Girls are easily abandoned at birth.

Many human traffickers also developed a special product called castration. They selected some castrations from the young boys they bought, and then sold them to the Fujian government to serve as special tribute and send them to the palace.

Such a vast place, but still has a small population for thousands of years, is inseparable from these.

When Wu Huaiyu developed Ludao, he mainly recruited workers from the Central Plains to come to the commercial settlement, and also recruited people to settle there. Of course, he also recruited Shanyi from the interior of Fujian to work, farm, etc.

Brand-new technology, brand-new policies, instead of killing and robbing each other, we opened farmland to build dikes for water conservancy, and opened ports to promote industry and commerce. In ten years, the number of people on Ludao Island was actually at a lower level, or after the Wu family. There will definitely be many new settlements in the interior, and tens of thousands of people will go to these towns.

The successive dynasties of the Central Plains all had surprisingly consistent opinions on the indigenous people of Fujian, who were fond of chaos and war.

Although it is true that there have been constant rebellions in Fujian in the past dynasties, in the final analysis, it is because these mountains have become more and more difficult to live, and they have no choice but to do so. Who would not want to live a good life if they really have enough food and clothing.

In fact, since the Han Dynasty and the Six Dynasties, the Fujian people have gradually become sinicized, but the Central Plains still discriminates against them. For example, among the people who founded Fuzhou, the second surname Lin and Huang, which is also considered a common surname, was called a snake species by the Central Plains, which was full of contempt for the Minyue people. discriminate.

Since the Han Dynasty, Han people from the Central Plains have continued to enter Fujian. From the confrontation and struggle between Han and Yue, to coexistence and coexistence, to marriage and intermarriage, this general trend remains unchanged.

But the discriminatory gaze is still there,

Nowadays, those powerful people in Fujian with powerful surnames almost all say that their ancestors came from the Central Plains. They even have genealogies and family histories. They are called the queen of a certain county, but the Central Plains gentry do not admit it.

But from Wu Huaiyu's point of view, no matter whether these powerful families are called Qushuai or Barbarian chiefs in the Central Plains, in fact, most of them have now studied Confucian classics and Han culture.

Since they write Chinese characters and consider themselves to be descendants of the Han people in the Central Plains, they culturally belong to the Han people. After all, China is not entirely based on blood.

From this point of view, the imperial court needed to crack down on human trafficking in Fujian, and also increase water conservancy development in Zhangquan and other major plain areas, block streams and build ridges, and turn swamps into granaries. Only in this way can Fujian benefit. Provide motivation for development.

He, Wu Huaiyu, was undoubtedly the first to eat crabs.

After arriving on the island, we had lunch at Wujia Manor. The manor chef prepared local specialties such as bamboo shoot jelly and fried conch.

The bamboo shoot jelly, which has a crisp, chewy texture and a hint of sweetness and fragrance, is actually made from sandworms, boiled and solidified.

Fried conch is made with fresh conch as the main ingredient, with onion, ginger, garlic and other seasonings, and is fried until crispy and golden. Crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, the meat is delicious and mouth-watering.

Asang sighed, “This journey south, I saw all kinds of beautiful scenery along the way, and also tasted all kinds of local specialties. It’s great!”

There is still one thing left unsaid in my heart, that is, I can accompany my beloved Erlang on the same boat and experience these wonderful things together. I will never forget this journey in my life.

(End of this chapter)