open sea

Chapter 889 Goose Down
Not long after the New Year's Eve, the four county magistrates except Majiagang successively sent the situation in the county in the form of official documents to the military government office to report on their work.

In the first year, everything was left to be done.

It was the first time for several county magistrates to report on their work, and they wrote a thick stack of official documents, covering many topics from the registered people, reclaiming acres of land, collecting taxes, building canals and moats, building cities and villages, planning townships, industrial production, local specialties, and compiling county chronicles. A unified report was made.

From a few pages of paper, Chen Mu could feel how hard the county magistrates were trying to make the report look better.

The best-developed counties are undoubtedly Changsheng and Jincheng counties, which received the most immigrants. After the first three months of hardship, Changsheng County had enough food for food. In autumn and winter, it absorbed the aboriginal people like a whale. The registered population is nearly 20, ranking first among all counties.

However, it was not Zou Yuanbiao who reclaimed the most land. In addition to accepting the people and planning nearly a thousand villages at the beginning, the land increased dramatically. In the later days, Zou Yuanbiao was busy absorbing a large number of immigrants. Some villages had unsuitable land for living, and some villages The people were unwilling to farm, and by the end of the year there were only 840 villages left under the rule.

Even so, there are still some villages that have a lot of labor but little output, and the people are struggling to survive; some villages have little labor and insufficient land reclamation, and the people are also struggling.

Zou Yuanbiao wrote his plan for Changsheng County in the seventh year of Wanli in his work report. He hoped that the villages in the county could be reduced to three cities and 24 townships. Five hundred villages.

The extra people will either move east to Mexico City in the future, or move north to Xin County. It’s not that Changsheng County is not enough to support so many people, but that too many people and too large a region have a serious impact on the county’s resources. waste.

Because Changsheng's agricultural development is excellent, this land is suitable for growing wheat, corn, and various beans, but the road conditions are not good, and the market is not prosperous enough, not to mention the climate and the lack of livestock. It is not easy to store and trade.

They can guarantee food rations, but the rate of commercial food is extremely low.

The grain can be stored for several months in our own warehouse, but once we want to take it out and transport it to the Changsheng Market, a single rain can make most of the grain in the truck moldy.

Zou Yuanbiao went to great lengths to preserve the county's grain. Sugar mills, oil mills, and feed mills were all opened. He wished to turn all crops into cash crops to increase the enthusiasm of the people in the county.

In the end, they began to raise pigs, not only pigs, but also cattle, sheep, and turkeys. First, they made ale glutinous rice in the county, and then introduced several beer and rum craftsmen from Spain. The problem of industrial glass is also solved.

But what Zou Yuanbiao is doing is an investment that can only be seen in the long-term development. It is expected that Chang Sheng's income will increase sharply in a year or two, but now, in terms of political performance alone, Chang Sheng is not the best one.

Wu Zhongxing, the magistrate of Jincheng County, is even more powerful. This county magistrate with a literary background has opened his bows in Jincheng, gathering more than 13 registered residents, digging gold mines and cutting forests for wood, and collecting nitrate from the north and the east.

He refines 4000 taels of gold ingots a year, harvests [-] fine fir trees, and boils [-] catties of nitrate. He does not farm land, but relies on Magui's Mongolian cavalry to draw a vertical and horizontal plan. A map of [-] miles from north to south and [-] miles from east to west.

In fact, the problems faced by Changsheng Zou Yuanbiao are like Wu Zhonghang in Jincheng, but they can't stand the mines. The tax collected in a year is 300 taels of gold and [-] catties of copper ingots.

Precious metals and nitrate powder were sent to Changsheng, and the garrison’s salary was approved by the governor’s mansion from Changsheng. He only cared about rations. fight.

Wu Zhongxing's war against the Blackfoot had as much influence on this small editor of the Hanlin Academy who was born as a Jinshi, as the establishment of the Nanyang Military Mansion had on Daming.

Just like when the imperial court suddenly discovered that in addition to the defensive war against the north in this world, overseas wars can make money by changing the way of thinking.

The editorial magistrate also tasted this sweetness. He directly harvested thousands of returned slaves after the battle with the Blackfoot. After they became the people of Jincheng, Wu Zhixian found that he was invincible in this land, and all the tribes around him rushed to join , and then meet those tribes that are difficult for others to deal with, and everyone who sees him becomes hospitable.

Trading, negotiating, borrowing, and exploring are all extremely easy.

Said it was easy to solve, Wu Zhixian felt that this word was not appropriate enough, the rope opened by itself before the knife was handed out.

In Wu Zhongxing's work report, the editor's vision for next year is to try to move Magui to the east by [-] miles. In the future, according to the efficiency of fighting once a year, he will move [-] miles to the east every year to strive for an early date. Touch to the other end of the map.

"Look at Wu Zidao's determination to forge ahead, you can raise pigs here."

Zou Yuanbiao is the poorest among several county magistrates. Others just submit a report to the Dongyang Military Mansion. Sheng County, naturally had to come to the door to report on the work in person.

If you report your duties in person, you will inevitably be ridiculed by Chen Mu.

It has nothing to do with whether he does a good job or not, as long as he comes, Chen Mu will dispel the little pride in his heart.

"In the report, I didn't see the expedition teams sent to the north and south, as well as the previous battles that took place in Changsheng and the Silver Mountain in Taxco. I will write it when I go back and add all of these."

What do you mean I will raise pigs here?

Zou Yuanbiao is very wronged. He has been thinking so hard all day long that he is losing his hair. There are so many cash crops in the county, and various factories are open endlessly. In the end, this is the only evaluation?
"Marshal, even if there are mines in Jincheng, the people in my Changsheng are richer than the people in Jincheng. Not to mention, in two years, you can see that Changsheng's output will be several times larger than his in Jincheng. Say, doesn’t Jincheng also raise geese?”

It is true that Jincheng also raises geese, and the order was given by Chen Mu, not only to make roast geese, but also to provide feathers for the Majiagang garrison to make military uniforms.

This idea did not come from Chen Mu. It was Li Shizhen who proposed in "Compendium of Materia Medica" that goose down and duck down are warmer than other materials. Ye Mengxiong sent the news through the second phase of the flag army to support Qi Jiguang to stay on paper. During the Northern Expedition, Daming was also rushing to make duck down jackets and goose down jackets.

"Of course I know, but these work reports are not only for me to read, but also for the third phase of the Banner Army to take back to the emperor to see. Your Majesty is determined to forge ahead, and your approach to Chang Sheng is naturally right, but It is even more important to have the best of both worlds, so that His Majesty will be happy after seeing it."

"The expedition team should come up with the results as soon as possible. You have to know that this is the New World, not a certain county in Ming Dynasty. It is good to have a great governance in one place, but there are still so many lands that have not been developed, and we don't have the slightest understanding of so many lands. , this matter is more important now.”

(End of this chapter)