I, the Ming Dynasty, can still save me

Chapter 622 Development of Liaohe County
In February of the third year of Tianqi, the county government of Liaohe County, Liaodong.

"County Lord, today Shangshu Xiong and Shangshu Yang have set off from Liaoyang to take up their posts in the capital. I did some calculations and found that according to the distance, they will pass through our county tomorrow. But you still have to go to the countryside today. The road is now muddy. In case What should I do if I can’t come back?”

Listening to the scribe's dissuasion, Lu Xiangsheng said nothing, but quietly waited for the servant to change into casual clothes, then he said indifferently:
"Because the Liao soil is thawing, it will soon become muddy, and the Liao River will soon overflow. If we don't take advantage of this period to repair the land and build embankments to protect the fields, it will be too late to regret it when the Liao River overflows. Don't worry, I will definitely come back tonight."

"Zhang Xiancheng has been keeping an eye on this matter during this period. Don't you worry about what he's doing? I'm just afraid that tomorrow, if Master Shangshu sees that you're not here and blames me, what should I do?"

"Repairing the land and building embankments to protect the fields are important matters in our county. Even if I can't come, how can Xiong Shangshu and others blame me for this? You don't need to persuade me. Last year, we managed to reclaim a thousand hectares of land. This year, we can cultivate tens of millions of hectares of land." To keep it, this is directly related to people's livelihood.

As long as we protect it now, more land can be reclaimed this year.The imperial court has granted our county a tax exemption for three years, so we must cultivate more land. The more land we cultivate, the more food we will have for the people, and their lives will be easier. "

The clerk on the side could only give up after hearing this. He was doing Lu Xiangsheng a favor by persuading him like this.

He followed Lu Xiangsheng last year. Since he was transferred from Haizhou Prefecture to Liaohe County last year, the entire Liaohe County was still in dire straits.The entire county was founded, with very few houses, population, or farmland.

But under the leadership of Magistrate Lu and Magistrate Zhang, they overcame obstacles and personally built houses, resettled the refugees, reclaimed farmland, and paved roads. There was little time for rest.

Coupled with the Liaodong Dusi's implementation of work-for-relief and sending a large number of civilians to Liaohe County to help, it took just over a year for Liaohe County to gain some scale and finally be regarded as a county.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Liaohe County was established by Magistrate Lu.All these things also made him admire Lu Xiangsheng.

And Magistrate Lu was not idle at this moment. After packing up, he left the county office, led everyone on their horses, and immediately headed to the east gate.

It is now February, winter has turned to spring, but Liaodong is still a little cold. The wind blowing from the north is howling down. Although it is not as biting as winter, it is still cold enough to make Lu Xiangsheng sober.

They all walked out of the east gate of the county town, and a road from south to north came into view. There were many carriages traveling north and south on the road. Further ahead was the Liao River flowing south, and two or three sailboats on the river were going upstream. .

Although they are traveling against the wind, trackers shouting slogans by the river are working hard to pull the ship north to Niuzhuangbao to unload the ship, and then transport the goods to Liaoyang and Guangning.When the time comes, it will undoubtedly be more convenient to load the goods onto the ship at Niuzhuangbao and go down the river.

However, due to cost issues, more ships do not choose trackers to pull the boats, but directly choose to unload at the Liaohe County pier next to the mouth of the Liaohe River.This has also turned Liaohe County Wharf into a rare prosperous place in Liaohe County.

Lu Xiangsheng stopped at the intersection and turned to look south. He could see the Liaohe Wharf in the distance with no less than thirty ships parked at the wharf, and countless other small boats.

Hundreds of people on the dock were carrying goods back and forth, and then they would be loaded onto horse-drawn carriages and transported by land to Liaohe County, or north to Niuzhuangpu, and then to other places.

When Lu Xiangsheng saw such a scene, he immediately sighed:
"Thanks to Governor Yang's keen eye last year, he sent people to build the road from Niuzhuangbao to our Liaohe County. This made the dock prosperous, otherwise it would not be possible to transport it out even if there were ships."

As soon as these words came out, everyone immediately nodded in agreement.It's thirty miles from Liaohe County to Niuzhuangpu. Without this road, it would be a lot of trouble even for people to walk, let alone trucks.

After Lu Xiangsheng finished speaking, he didn't know what he thought of, and then looked at a government official behind him.

"Master Kong, have all the immigrants sent by the imperial court been resettled?"

"Please rest assured, County Magistrate, I have arranged for all the people to be resettled in the county, a total of 350 and 310 people, 44 and [-] adults, and [-] young people. Now we are waiting to explore the area and resettle them."

Lu Xiangsheng nodded when he heard this. Liaohe County was founded in the early days and the population was sparse.When he first arrived the year before last, the population was only over a thousand people, and the houses were very simple.

If the emperor hadn't specifically asked the Liaodong Governor to take care of him and asked Governor Yang to allocate funds to recruit civilians to help him build county offices, build city walls, and pave roads, he would probably still be sleeping in the open air.

Later, Governor Yang sent [-] refugees over for him to resettle, and then the number of people in Liaohe County increased slightly.

After the road was repaired, the Daming Trading Company could help, and the convenient port in Liaohe County brought more and more people to Liaohe County to make a living.

In addition, from last year to this year, the imperial court allocated a total of more than [-] refugees, and the population of Liaohe County finally exceeded the [-] mark, which can be considered to be beginning to take shape.

"That's good. These people come from the pass and are not used to the Liaodong climate. They need to take more care of them. In addition, all the materials that should be given must be prepared. The fields and utensils promised by the court must be available. Nothing should happen. It's wrong, otherwise you are the only one asking." Seeing Lu Xiangsheng's harsh words, Master Kong suddenly felt nervous.

He knew that Lu Xiangsheng's words were true. Last year, someone stole money and clothes distributed to immigrants. When Lu Xiangsheng found out, he personally arrested him with a knife.At that time, everyone watched Lu Xiangsheng lift the man in his hands like a chicken and threw him into the prison. No one dared to commit such a thing again.

"Please rest assured, Lord Magistrate, everything has been prepared. I originally wanted to resettle them after the land was reclaimed. But these people are more anxious than us, and they have asked to go to the land first and divide it. As for the land, they It can assist with reclamation and speed it up.”

As soon as these words came out, everyone present laughed.

"Alas, there are still too few people cultivating land in our county. If I had known, I would have asked Liaodong Dusi to send more people last year. Now Liaodong Dusi Yamen has also focused on Kaitie, Fushun, Sarhu and other places. It would be a bit difficult to ask for more people. Difficult."

Lu Xiangsheng was immediately relieved when he heard Kong Zhubo's words.

Land is the lifeblood of the people. They are afraid of having less, but they are definitely not afraid of having too much.Otherwise, why would so many people leave their homes and come to Liaodong? Thinking of this, Lu Xiangsheng couldn't help but regret that more land was not reclaimed last year.

"That's right, I heard that the north of Shenyang is now well built. The Ming Dynasty captured a total of 7 Jianlu prisoners of war. Excluding women and children, more than 3 people were used to build roads and level the land. I heard that by the end of this year , the road from Liaoyang to Kaiyuan will be repaired, and it will be smooth and convenient for transporting all kinds of supplies."

"We don't need these Jianlu prisoners. It's very troublesome to discipline them. I just hope that the Dusi Yamen will do well. Seeing that there are so many bachelors in our county, we can send more Jianlu women here to help these people settle down."

"Hahaha~"

Kong Zhubo originally wanted to be envious of the abundant labor force in Kaitie.Now when they heard the official saying this, everyone smiled knowingly.

Lu Xiangsheng also laughed when he heard this, then ignored them, immediately turned his horse's head and led everyone into the avenue, heading north.

After everyone rode north for a while, they rode to the right into a small road. After a while, they saw wisps of green smoke floating out from the distance.Under the green smoke, dozens of houses were spread out on the ground like dots, and on the plain beside the houses, some figures could be vaguely seen working, making the originally seemingly desolate land look somewhat alive.

It can be said that Liaohe County was established by Lu Xiangsheng single-handedly. He knows the location and situation of each village best.He vaguely remembered clearly that the people in this village moved here from Shandong, but what was the situation now?

Thinking of this, he immediately turned his horse's head and headed towards the village, preparing to ask about the situation in the village in detail.So he kept walking and stopping all the way, and by the time he arrived at Zhang Guowei's place, it was already afternoon.

At this time, Zhang Guowei was still recruiting civilians to dredge the river.

The Liaohe River is not the only river flowing down from Liaoze, but it is the largest.There are as many as three or four other rivers running along Niuzhuangbao to Liaohe County.

Although this brings sufficient water sources to Liaohe County, it will also bring ruthless floods when Liaoze floods in summer.Lu Xiangsheng and Zhang Guowei have been worried about this since they came here, and they have always wanted to dredge the river and build embankments to protect the fields.

Fortunately, Zhang Guowei has been very interested in water conservancy since he was a child, and he is also familiar with water conservancy books.

Therefore, since arriving last year, Zhang Weixin has taken on the important task of sorting out the river. He first took people to visit the entire Liaohe County, explored the direction of the river, measured the land personally, and then discussed construction matters with Lu Xiangsheng.

Finally, it was decided to build a 55-foot-long dyke with a half-collapsed 86-foot-long dam on the northern beach of Liaohe County in batches to prevent the river from flooding in summer.At the same time, the rivers should be merged into the Liaohe River.

And in order to prevent problems such as lack of farmland irrigation and water supply.Five additional inner and outer ponds, each measuring 760 feet, will be built as backup water sources.

This project is vast and complex. According to preliminary estimates, based on the progress of Liaohe County, it will take at least three years to complete.

But Lu and Zhang felt that this kind of thing would be beneficial in the future. Once it was repaired, all tens of thousands of land south of the dam would be turned into fertile farmland.With fertile land and convenient seaport conditions, Liaohe County will undergo earth-shaking changes.

Therefore, the two applied to the Liaodong Dusi for this matter at the beginning of last year. Yang Lian also reported to the court and directly approved 30 taels for the construction of the matter, allowing them to start construction as soon as possible.

It has been more than half a year since the start of construction.

(End of this chapter)