Go back to the Ming Dynasty to be a thousand households

Chapter 164 Reclamation Farm
March 1592, 3 AD.

On this day, the old camp is still cold in spring, and the wind from Mobei is extremely cold, but at this time, there are many merchants in the castle, most of them are Wuzhaibao merchants who speak Northwest Shanxi accent, especially those merchants with status They are all gathered in the deputy commander's mansion in the fort right now.

"Everyone, that's the way it is, what do you guys think?"

After talking a lot, Huang Laifu picked up the teacup beside him and took a sip gently.

Just now, Huang Laifu was talking about the issue of running land and farms outside the Great Wall. The most important first step was to manage the Qingshui River and Zhungeer Banner not far outside the fort. Finally, according to the geography of later generations, one county by one was merged and promoted.

In Huang Laifu's plan, he decided to build a large-scale reclamation farm outside the mouth in the future, planting food and raising livestock. He provided military protection, while those merchants tried their best to farm and manage the farmland.In this way, not only can avoid the danger of being impeached to stir up the border, but also can get real income from farming, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.Of course, this is only a stopgap measure. The best way is that Huang Laifu can have an excuse to annex these places openly and run the farms by himself, especially the Baotou Hetao area.

After hearing Huang Laifu's words, all the merchants were moved. In the past few years, in the cooperation with Huang Laifu, all of these merchants have made a lot of money.However, the desires of merchants will never be satisfied. Right now, Daming’s food demand is extremely strong, and the income from farmland in Wuzhaibao is far from meeting the needs of all parties. This requires a larger food source.

In fact, it’s not that the merchants have never thought about farming outside the Great Wall, but it’s just that the Mongol territory there is too dangerous to restrain their actions, and in the current Ming Dynasty, there is no suitable land for management.

In fact, all the merchants here have more or less experience in farming in their families.During the Yingzong period of the Ming Dynasty, due to the dismantling of military settlements, the envoys of the Ming Dynasty opened China and France, and exchanged grain for salt, so that the commercial settlements in the Jiubian area had a great development, especially Datong Town, Xuanfu Town and Shanxi Town. In several towns, merchants once fought for financial resources, recruited people to cultivate fields, and made grain and rice abundant.In the year of Chenghua, in the Jiubian area, one tael of silver could buy 4.5 shi of rice. Compared with the current one tael of silver, you can’t buy one shi of grain, let alone five taels of silver after Chongzhen. worlds apart.

Shangtun declined after Ye Qi’s political reform in the mid-Hongzhi period. The merchants withdrew, and the frontiers became ruins. Rice and stone were worth five taels of silver.

But even so, for many grain merchants, Jiubian is still a huge grain and rice market, not to mention there is a huge market in the north of the Ming Dynasty with a population of tens of millions.In the current Ming Dynasty, being a grain merchant is definitely a matter of huge profits, but this also requires a source of grain.

Huang Laifu's proposal is very feasible.Thinking of the large amount of arable land and grassland outside the mouth, and the large amount of grain, cattle and sheep in the future, all the merchants became jealous. Headed by Qu Yuanrui, everyone was chattering and discussing repeatedly.

The Kang family in Linfen is also a big grain merchant in the north of Ming Dynasty. The Kang family is in other places, but in Wuzhaibao, it is suppressed by the Qu family. Seeing the past two years, the power of the Qu family is like a blow. It inflated like a balloon, and there was a tendency to fight against the Kang family, because the result of the cooperation with Huang Laifu back then made them jealous.

In the past two years, the Kang family has also set up a grain and rice branch in Wuzhaibao. The third son of the Kang family, Kang Youyu, is in charge. He will go through fire and water, and he will do whatever he wants."

Huang Laifu smiled and nodded.However, there are also people who have doubts. The shopkeeper of Jiexiu's Hou family said: "Although there is a lot of land in the operation outside the Great Wall, it is all Mongol terrain. For example, after we entered the operation, those Mongols harassed us. Combat strength, of course, I am not afraid, but if Ming's army enters outside the Great Wall, will someone in the court impeach you and provoke you?"

Huang Laifu smiled and said: "If there is harassment from the Mongols, my sons and daughters will definitely rescue them. As for the rescue at that time, they will definitely not wear the armor of my Ming soldiers. You can use farm guards or caravan guards In the name of the team, even in the name of being a horse thief, it is not impossible, can a living person be suffocated to death by urine?"

All the merchants laughed, saying that what your lord said was very interesting.

Huang Laifu said: "In short, it is impossible for the timid to starve to death and the bold to die if they want to get rich without taking any risks."

Everyone laughed and said, "My lord can say so."

These merchants have been dealing with Huang Laifu for a long time, and they all understand Huang Laifu's character. In short, Huang Laifu is different from other vulgar soldiers. Pass.

"Okay, let's talk about the farm operations in these two places outside the mouth."

Huang Laifu cut to the chase. He ordered two servants to fetch a rough and huge map and hang it in the center of the hall. It was the map of Zhungeer Banner of Ordos City in later generations, and the map of Qingshuihe County in Hushi City.It was drawn based on the satellite map of the two places in the later generations in his computer, and he consulted some people who had been to the two places in the Daming border area to make corrections.The map is a bit thicker, but it's enough.

Qingshui River is right in front of Laoyingbao. According to Huang Laifu's later computer data, the total area of ​​Qingshuihe County is 2859 square kilometers, and the cultivated land area is 63 mu.There are several larger rivers such as Qingshui River, Hun River and Guli Banji River in the territory.Due to geographical reasons, almost all the valleys have water.

In addition, there are many mineral resources in Qingshuihe, especially coal and iron ore, especially the reserves of coal are 18 billion tons.In addition, there is a large amount of limestone, the amount of germanium is more than 20 billion tons, which is suitable for open-pit mining and fully meets the conditions for building a large cement plant.There are also refractory clay reserves of 6 million tons with excellent quality.Of course, these minerals are temporarily unusable for Huang Laifu, only the cultivated land is useful.

Since Qingshui River is located at the junction of the Mongolian Plateau and the Loess Plateau, the loess is covered thickly, and the winter is long and the summer is short, cold and dry, so here, in the future, the cold-resistant and drought-resistant naked oats will be mainly planted.In addition, there are 128 million mu of natural grassland here, which can be used to develop livestock farms.

As for Zhungeer Banner, the total land area of ​​the whole banner in later generations is 7539 square kilometers, with 178 million mu of cultivated land and 800 million mu of suitable forest and grass. how many times.In particular, its territory is very rich in mineral resources, with coal reserves of 248 billion tons, limestone reserves of 544 billion tons, and total reserves of bauxite of 50 million tons.

These lands are very precious to Huang Laifu. If he is allowed to manage them, these two lands alone can feed a large population. Tens of thousands of people can't support themselves, and they have to go into Daming territory to rob frequently, even robbing Huang Laifu. In the end, he was chopped off instead of robbing. Just thinking about it makes Huang Laifu speechless.

He coughed, pointed to the maps of the two places and said, "Everyone, here is the Qingshui River, and further ahead is the Tumaochuan River. In the past, there were Zhenluwei and Yulinwei of the Ming Dynasty, but after Chenghua, this place It is occupied by captive thieves. At present, in the area of ​​Tumaochuan River, the heads of the chieftains of the captive king San Niangzi are evil words, begging Qingcha, harvesting grains and Taishi. The Tumaochuan River is a little far away from the old camp. For the time being Ignore it. And there are no Mongolian tribes in the Qingshui River area, and it is only a hundred miles away from Laoyingbao, so it is completely possible to cultivate farms."

"According to my research, Qingshui River has a radius of more than 60 mu of arable land and more than one million mu of good grassland, which can raise a lot of cattle and sheep."

All the merchants listened attentively, and Huang Laifu continued loudly: "On the west side of Pianguan is the Huangpuchuan River area (the old name of Zhungeer Banner in the Ming Dynasty), and there are more than 170 million arable land here. There are millions of acres of good pastures. It was originally the place where the Tumei tribe of the captives stationed pastures, but after the war last year, they must not dare to mess with our people who went to Wuzhaibao again."

All the merchants were delighted to hear this, whispering to each other, if so much land is developed, then they will make a fortune. As for the local area, it is mostly wasteland, and it has been thirsty and rainless these years, but it doesn’t matter, as long as you learn from Wuzhai Fort All farms can solve the problem by building large-scale water conservancy projects, building dams and opening ditches along the river.In the past, they were most worried about safety issues, but now that Huang Laifu is here, this problem no longer exists.

Qu Yuanrui was the first to respond, willing to invest tens of thousands of taels of silver to recruit manpower and go to the second place to settle down. Then Kang Youyu and others responded, and then all the merchants responded one after another, and the hall was full of excitement.

Huang Laifu also promised them that he could provide them with armaments. Except for large weapons such as bows and arrows and firecrackers, which are temporarily difficult to handle, some knives and guns can be provided for them and sold to them at a low price.And if they encounter any troubles after building the fort in the local area, the soldiers of his old camp will definitely be there on call.

As for the manpower for farming, Huang Laifu will fully cooperate with their propaganda and recruit the refugees from Daming to Saibei to farm. It is estimated that by the Wanli year, the refugees in the entire Ming Dynasty, counting the north and the south, will number nearly ten million, and it will be enough to send two million to the outside of the Great Wall.

In order to better attract the people of Ming Dynasty to go beyond the Great Wall and better develop the Hetao land in the future, Huang Laifu plans to implement a Ming version of the "Household Law" in the Hetao area in the future. Receive 20 mu of land, and women receive 200 mu of land. The fee only needs to pay one coin per mu of land, and you can own it for life, and you can also enjoy tax exemption for the first three years.The desire for land is deeply rooted, and for the people in the Central Plains who have no land but little land, this measure must be very attractive.

This meeting was very successful. After the meeting, Huang Laifu and the merchants sent people to these two places to investigate, to determine some places suitable for camping and repairing forts, so as to prepare for the reclamation of the two places after spring and the big work in the coming year.

On March 1592, 3, on February 31th of the lunar calendar in Ming Dynasty, Huang Laifu returned to Wuzhai Fort. This day was Huang Laifu's birthday. On this day, Huang Laifu would be 2 years old.Although his son has been several months old, according to the etiquette system in the Ming Dynasty, a man will be an adult when he reaches 18 and a woman reaches 20.So on this day, Huang Laifu held an adult crowning ceremony, and he also took a name for himself: Zhongming.

On this day, in the distant town of Ningxia, a violent rebellion that occupies an important place in the history of the Ming Dynasty is kicking off...

(End of this chapter)