plumnovel Chapter 23 Major Water Conservancy Projects Underway, Spring Planting Imminent
Chapter 23 Major Water Conservancy Projects Underway, Spring Planting Imminent
"Governor Lu is truly a local official. Without Governor Lu, the clearing of fields in northern Beijing would probably have been delayed for quite some time. Now that the clearing of fields is a great success, we are just waiting for the completion of the water conservancy project in preparation for spring planting."
Inside the warm pavilion of the Qianqing Palace, Yang Sichang looked at the report from Jizhou Town, stroking his beard and nodding repeatedly, praising Lu Xiang-sheng highly.
Emperor Chongzhen, who was drinking tea at the head of the table, smiled, put down his teacup, and spoke.
"Didn't you foresee this scene, Minister Yang? It was you who recommended Lu Xiangshan to me to handle the land clearing at the Jingbei Main Garrison. Now it seems that Minister Yang's vision was truly exceptional."
Yang Sichang hurriedly said he dared not, but then he suppressed the joy on his face and solemnly offered his advice to Emperor Chongzhen.
"However, Your Majesty, the completion of this water conservancy project is of utmost urgency. Although I have not personally gone to various places north of the capital to investigate the military settlements and garrisons, I have heard about the abandoned farmland along the border."
But time waits for no one; spring plowing is imminent. Even if all 100,000 military households were mobilized to build irrigation systems, it would probably be too late.
Upon hearing this, Chongzhen nodded slightly. In his previous life, he had also worked in the fields with his elders and dug ditches when he was young. He naturally knew that with the current level of productivity, it would be difficult to carry out large-scale water conservancy projects on millions of acres of land in a short period of time.
Not to mention that there is still a lot of wasteland that needs to be cleared and leveled.
Therefore, based on reality, the most important thing at present is to protect the military farmland along the river in various parts of northern Beijing and focus on repairing and dredging the irrigation system with traces of canal construction.
As for the large sums of money and grain that were destined to be spent, Chongzhen was not worried about it.
Silver is ultimately an inanimate object; the key and the source of his confidence lies in how to quickly transform it into productive forces that he can utilize.
Those more than 100,000 military households are now nominally his tenants. He can only collect rent next year if there is output, and then use that to support the soldiers and civilians, thus entering a virtuous cycle.
Otherwise, any construction efforts that don't invest in your own base will ultimately benefit others.
The clear-headed Emperor Chongzhen immediately ordered Yang Sichang and the other cabinet ministers to come up with a plan for water conservancy construction in northern Beijing as soon as possible.
At the same time, he also dispatched an urgent messenger to Jizhou Town to deliver an imperial edict, ordering Lu Xiang-sheng to first mobilize the original garrison households to dredge and manage the military settlements along the Luan River and Qinglong River in Jizhou Town, based on the actual local conditions.
The arrival of a new imperial edict and a large amount of supplies greatly excited Lu Xiang-sheng.
This time, without the constraints of local authorities or the central government, and with ample provisions and funds at hand, he was full of energy. On the very day he received the imperial decree, he personally led his men to survey the nearby military farms.
As Yang Sichang and Chongzhen had feared, years of abnormal weather and border wars had caused too many military farms that should have been producing grain to be abandoned.
Today, along the Luan River in the eastern part of Jizhou Town, most of the land has been cultivated by local gentry and local bullies who have selected the most fertile fields that are easy to irrigate.
Ordinary families simply don't have the financial resources to dredge channels and divert water to irrigate their new fields.
Even those who have the financial resources and time are often afraid that all their hard work will ultimately be taken advantage of by the local bullies.
However, this kind of problem is not even a trouble for Lu Xiang-sheng.
The local tyrants and their estate managers, who had established themselves along the banks of the Luan River, became as docile as quails the moment they saw the banner of the Tianxiong Army appear, not daring to utter a single word.
The rise of large-scale water conservancy projects in northern Beijing began along the banks of the Luan River.
The Xuanfu Town area also took the lead in carrying out large-scale dredging and renovation of the irrigation canals for military farmland along the Sanggan River and Yanghe River after receiving the imperial edict.
Fortunately, these riverside lands haven't been truly abandoned for very long.
Even though it is now overgrown with weeds, traces of the canal's construction and use in the past can still be seen.
The former military households, who were receiving government relief grain, only needed to make construction easier by utilizing the traces of these old channels.
Moreover, since it concerned their share of the land after spring planting, everyone worked hard and with great enthusiasm, without any perfunctory attitude.
The able-bodied men of the military households who had already been initially organized into the army were not idle either. Lu Xiang-sheng, Zhou Yu-ji, Yang Guo-zhu and several others who were temporarily working under Lu Xiang-sheng directly put these able-bodied men into the project of clearing wasteland and digging wells in the dry land.
There are approximately 1.4 million mu of military farmland that are far from rivers and are dry land that is difficult to irrigate.
Logically speaking, these lands have low utilization value and are often at the mercy of the weather, so local gentry and local tyrants are unwilling to invest too much in these arid lands.
However, Emperor Chongzhen still allocated a large amount of silver to Lu Xiang-sheng to dig many wells in these arid lands.
Where conditions permit, bricks and stones are used to pave the ground for digging deep wells. Although such a deep well costs a lot of money, even with the reduction of labor costs, it still costs ten taels of silver to hire a master craftsman for construction and to purchase materials.
However, considering that such a deep well could irrigate 20 acres of land at a critical moment, Emperor Chongzhen felt it was worthwhile and told Lu Xiang-sheng not to worry about the money and to go ahead with it.
Some dry lands with unfavorable terrain and fragmented plots cannot be irrigated with deep wells, so earthen wells are dug, costing two taels of silver, which can irrigate three to four acres of dry land.
In order to motivate the young and able-bodied soldiers in the military households to participate in the construction, Emperor Chongzhen even ordered Lu Xiang-sheng to distribute their monthly salaries in advance.
The monthly salary of the local standing army, as set by Emperor Chongzhen, is half a tael, which is far lower than the three taels monthly salary of the new army and the newly set two taels monthly salary of the border troops.
However, as a standing army, these able-bodied men did not need to rush to the battlefield to fight the enemy immediately, thus avoiding a great risk of casualties.
Moreover, they don't have to undergo the same arduous daily training as the current new army.
Emperor Chongzhen set a schedule for them to exercise once every six days, and during farming season they could return home to help their families with farming.
As for their meals, they usually have two meals a day, one soupy and one dry, but they are made sure to eat their fill as much as possible.
They are given a meat meal every three days, and an extra meal on days when they are on duty, so there is meat in both meals.
This is also incomparable to the new army units that eat three meals a day and have two meat meals every day.
But for the young and strong soldiers who had been starving for years and rarely saw meat, such treatment made them feel like they were in paradise.
So when their monthly salary was paid in advance, and the higher-ups were "thoughtful" enough to give them meat every day while they worked hard digging wells and clearing wasteland, these able-bodied soldiers suddenly displayed astonishing work efficiency.
The progress reports on the water conservancy projects, which were sent from Xuanfu and Jizhou Town to the capital every three days, changed at an astonishingly rapid pace.
Emperor Chongzhen was naturally very satisfied with this, and with a wave of his hand, he allocated another sum of money for extra meals.
The transportation of grain was extremely costly, so Emperor Chongzhen changed his approach and ordered Lu Xiang-sheng and Yang Guo-zhu to buy grain and meat from local gentry and wealthy households.
While it may seem like a significant expenditure of silver, it actually saved Emperor Chongzhen a considerable amount of precious grain from his imperial treasury.
The military farmland from Xuanfu Town to Jizhou Town is changing its appearance every day, and is recovering its vitality thanks to the efforts of more than 100,000 military households and civilians.
And those wells standing on various dry plots of land have become life-saving artifacts in the eyes of many military households.
Thus, the hard work of the military households and common people in seizing the opportune moment in the second month of Chongzhen's reign quickly came to an end.
The third month of Chongzhen's reign, which was about to begin plowing, arrived as scheduled.