Reclaiming Wasteland: Carefree Mountain Farmer

Chapter 249 Preventing Problems Before They Arise 1
Autumn of the twelfth year of the AD
Thirty-year-old Beijiwu looked at the newly assembled train.

The new train has made a breakthrough in speed, and can travel continuously at an average speed of 45 kilometers per hour.

Prefect Lin Luming of Luoyang respectfully replied, “Your Majesty, it now only takes two hours to travel from Luoyang to Zhengcheng and three hours to Kaifeng. If there is any emergency, we can make a round trip in half a day.”

Beijiwu paid little attention to Lin Luming's work report, but became interested when he saw the workers operating rickshaws to transport and maintain equipment in the distance.

There is a type of human-powered railcar on railway tracks. As the name suggests, it is a small railway vehicle that is not powered by itself but driven by human power. It is mainly used for railway inspection and maintenance.

This vehicle has an extremely simple structure: four steel wheels support a platform, and there are two seesaw-like cranks in the center of the vehicle. Two people stand on each side, holding the cranks with both hands and cranking them up and down alternately. Through levers, crank bearings, and gears, the driving force is transmitted to the wheels, and the vehicle is driven by human power to travel on the rails.

It's rather complicated and tiring to operate, but it's more convenient than a horse-drawn carriage.

The production of copper wire has been put on track, and the electromagnetic signal has been completed quietly and without fanfare.

Because there is no war, many technologies are kept secret, and the outside world has no idea how advanced the military technology of the Mountain Farming Kingdom has become.

Arctic Armed Forces has no plans to upgrade civilian technology.

Too much technological advancement is not a good thing.

If technology renders most people without value, even without the value to be exploited, then how these people should exist becomes a problem.

For example, people from Jiangnan. Beijiwu doesn't need people from Jiangnan to serve him now. People from Jiangnan only need to farm and support themselves.

If grain prices fall further, people in the Jiangnan region will lose all interest in farming.

When a group of people is not required to contribute value or pledge loyalty, but simply need to die, a more troublesome and cruel form of malicious oppression will emerge than any form of rule.

There was no slavery or exploitation, but some people's living space was taken away!
Beijiwu didn't want to leave a mess for his sons, so he wanted some people to honestly farm, provide a scientific research system for those who could rise above their circumstances, and offer assistance and disaster relief to the local area when needed.

Having too much territory means having to consider many things.

Trains are currently key to ruling vast territories. If, in conjunction with telegraph poles erected near the tracks, telegraphs could be established, then the situation across Eurasia would have been stabilized.

In the conference room at the train station, Bei Jiwu reviewed various railway route maps, as well as accident reports and maintenance reports.

Infrastructure projects, primarily railways and real estate, are now the main source of income for most rural residents.

They laid railways, built houses, quarried sand and stones, and sold new house furniture.

The government also offered loans with an interest rate of only 20%. Borrowing 100 taels of silver would require repaying 120 taels of silver over ten years.

The Mountain Farmer Kingdom also has banks, but they all offer zero interest.

You can save money if you want, or not if you don't. Banks mainly handle corporate and large-value transactions.

For ordinary people, as long as they earn money and spend it, they pay taxes; whether the money is there or not doesn't matter.

For Arctic Warriors, money is just a number. Nowadays, the coins of the Mountain Farming Kingdom have been designed in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 1 silver, and 100 silver.

Larger denominations are meaningless; a banknote of one silver coin is sufficient.

Paper money was popular among merchants and was also called commercial notes.

Coins were still popular among children and in small-scale street vendors, with the most common denominations being 1, 5, and 10 copper coins.

Although they are called copper coins, they are actually made of lighter aluminum.

After inspecting the Luoyang Railway, Beijiwu returned to the palace and began to take charge of the backward Huanghuai Province.

Plain Province did not lag behind. Although it did not develop combine harvesters, it did develop technologies such as steamships, steelmaking processes, chemical engineering, textile machinery, and railway manufacturing.

The Huanghuai Province not only developed crude versions of combine harvesters, but also cultivated high-yield wheat seeds and irrigation equipment suitable for the northern climate.

Tractors are not difficult to make, and they are even easier to make after trains are developed; three provinces were able to produce them.

The technology of combine harvesters is actually more advanced than that of airplanes. Arctic Martial doesn't know what kind of magic these people took to be able to create them.

Compared to the Huanghuai Province, Beijiwu actually wants to target the Shannong Province, which has the most public households.

I'll accept the consequences of my actions; since I've already made it happen, I'll take responsibility for it.

Half of the staff in Huanghuai Province will definitely be laid off, and Beijiwu showed no mercy.

The army, bureaucrats, production teams, the imperial palace—there was no institution that the Arctic warriors dared not attack.

A group of parasites, unable to make a living on their own, were driven out of their master's house and began to contemplate suicide, kneeling and begging for mercy.

There may be pitiful people, but there are far more unproductive parasites.

Beijiwu had lost weight several times, been driven away by the women of the palace several times, and fought on the battlefield several times; he had never been a merciful person. Old Man Li soon had a group of neighbors.

Many incompetent commoners were exiled to Huaixi and Huainan to farm, while others were exiled to Jiangnan to grow rice or to Lingnan to do business.

Or they could submit to the allocation, changing from public households to private households, becoming self-employed farmers and small vendors.

go to sea.

Arctic Martial gave severance pay, sent some people to do business in Lingnan, and promised that their children would get extra points on the college entrance exam in the future.

Excellent people can continue to be lackeys.

The Lingnan region is rich in water resources, and its population has reached tens of millions after several years of migration.

Because they have been paying close attention to the development of the Lingnan region and have been using it to influence the entire Southeast Asia region, Arctic Martial gradually discovered the problems in Lingnan.

The ports of Anzhou and Qiongzhou in Lingnan were established to stabilize the Southeast Asian region.

The northern part serves as a gateway for people from Luoyang and other northern regions, making it a good place for people from Guangdong and Guangxi to work and do business.

The east is Guangzhou Port and Ryukyu Island, both of which are suitable places to develop population and industry.

The western part is the Indochina Peninsula, a large population area and a major grain-producing area, which can easily support the food and water problems caused by the large population.

The south is the strait between the Malay Archipelago and the South Pacific Islands, a vital passage for maritime trade.

Without establishing a city-state in Anzhou, it would be impossible to control a large number of fragmented island nations and forces.

Anzhou was a commercial area, while Qiongzhou was a military and political area, and was King Wu's private territory.

Many problems don't exist at the beginning, but arise during development.

Looking at this year's population statistics report, Beijiwu noted that before the autumn harvest log was released, various regions would report their data to the secretariat for statistical analysis.

The Arctic Army no longer directly commands the Six Ministries.

Different periods have different management systems; use the appropriate system for the appropriate situation.

The Military Affairs Department is responsible for military appointments and war research, as well as special campaigns to address issues related to military weapons and equipment and corruption.

The Secretariat was responsible for matters concerning the governors of the twenty-one provinces, including internal affairs of the capital. Secretaries were usually assigned to various provinces and would rise from prefect to governor, or prefects would become secretaries and then governors. They were responsible for discussing domestic affairs with the emperor.

The Supervisory Office was where the Censor-in-Chief could submit opinions and report wrongdoings.

The Procuratorate is specifically responsible for investigations and is tasked with reviewing specific matters, and is appointed by imperial envoys.

The court has never been used. The Arctic Army set it up, but it doesn't even have the right to attend meetings in North Korea.

The secretariat, which included eunuchs and scholars, was mainly responsible for organizing official documents and handling communication between the emperor and various departments.

The Imperial Household Department mainly handled matters of the palace, and the ministers of the inner court managed the private treasury and funds of the Northern Army.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is responsible for the resettlement of diplomatic envoys.

Public Servants: The real Ministry of External Affairs, managing King Wu's public fields, forests, pastures, fish farms, palaces and other external assets. It had subordinate teams all over the country and was also the aforementioned institution of hereditary nobles. At the same time, because the production team leaders were not hereditary, they were basically appointed as officials from the Public Servants.

The Public Servants were essentially a small court, but they did not participate in the central government or parliament, and were also subject to the supervision of local governors.

When the governor was in power, the public servants were busy with their own affairs; neither side interfered with the other, but rather supervised each other.

Arctic Martial Arts is not worried about the public servant team becoming too powerful, because many of the public servants are playmates of the Arctic family's children.

If problems arise in a few years, we can just fix them.

Arctic Wu himself is relatively good at keeping his word, and he is also a person who hasn't changed much.

However, in terms of governance and planning, he has always been someone who adapts to changing circumstances.

The problems in Lingnan need to be changed.

"The proportion of Han Chinese is too small."

Of the 11 million people, more than 5 million are from Europe, Africa and Central Asia.

After thinking for a minute, Beijiwu still felt that the problem was not serious.

These were considered third-class citizens, slaves who had come as prisoners to work.

(End of this chapter)