Lord of the House - v12 Chapter 39

In the past, except for Gu Junxun, who was awarded the title of Madam Chongguo with Lin Fu, Liu Miaozhen was awarded the title of “Mrs. Qiaoguo” because of his special merit in leading the Huaiyang Army. to the official seal.

Lin Fu was entrusted by Jiuxi and inherited the destiny, and opened the prelude to the government’s governance. Following Zhou’s ritual, Liu Yue’er, Sun Wenwan, Su Mei, and Xiaomei’s daughters were named “Mrs. Courtyard”; Zuo’s sisters and Linjiang Lingzhi also Because of her affair with Lin Fu, she was conferred the title of World Wife.

All the daughters lived in the residence of the Duke’s mansion and got along well. Only Liu Miaozhen had been in Xuzhou for a long time and could not get close to the daughters; only Liu Miaozhen’s unique career and experience, also called Xiaoman, was in awe of her.

When Lin Fu was in Haizhou in May, Liu Miaozhen became pregnant and began to show her pregnancy in September, unable to undertake the heavy daily military affairs.

Coincidentally, Lin Fu intends to set up the Northern Command Headquarters, and will send Huaiyang Army, Fengli Army, Jinghai Division, Denghai Town Division, Haidong Camp Army, Cavalry Second Town Division, and Jingjiang Naval Division’s second and second towns. The divisions are all included in the sequence of the Northern Corps for unified command.

The Northern Command Department set up the commander-in-chief, and Lin Fu personally led it. Liu Miaozhen was first transferred to Haizhou to serve as the deputy commander-in-chief of the Northern Command. In charge of coordinating affairs, veteran Wu Qi served as deputy to Gao Zongting.

After that, Lin Fu divided the entire northern army into two parts, east and west, according to the terrain of sending troops in Shandong.

Tiaoning Zechen left the town of Xuzhou and succeeded Liu Miaozhen as the commander of the Huaiyang Army.

In addition to the Huaiyang Army, Lin Fu also adjusted the second division of the cavalry battalion and the second division of the Jingjiang Navy to form the North Western Front Corps with Xuzhou and Huaiyang as the core. West Xinyang, east to Yishui defense zone. In addition to Ning Zechen as the main general, Tang Fuguan, who had outstanding military exploits, was also promoted to the deputy commander of the Huaiyang Army and led the first town division of the Huaiyang Army. ), Li Wei, who knew Xuzhou, and Li Liang, Chen Kuili, Geng Quanshan, the commander of the Second Town Division of the Cavalry Army, formed the army, and together they assisted Ning Zechen in presiding over the Army of the North West Front.

The Fengli Army gradually moved to the east, with Haizhou as the center, and formed a northern eastern line army with Fengli Army, Jinghai Division, and Denghai Town Division as the core. The battles of attacking the broken Chexianguan Road and attacking Shandong from the sea were all included in the Eastern Front Theater.

Liu Miaozhen was not suitable to preside over military affairs for the time being, while Lin Fu ordered Gao Zongting to temporarily lead Fengli’s commander, and promoted Zhang Gou, who had outstanding military exploits, to be the military staff officer. .

This is not a big change on the whole from the east-to-east strategy that Lin Fu had implemented from the very beginning.

The biggest change is that because of Liu Miaozhen’s pregnancy, Lin Fu had to adjust the main generals of the east and west fronts. He also had to come to Haizhou to sit in and directly command the military operations of the army on the north east front.

Liu Miaozhen was pregnant, and Lin Fu could only go to Haizhou to sit in person. After Xiaoman shouted that he was tired of sitting in the deep house in Jiangning for a long time, Lin Fu brought Su Mei and Xiaoman to Haizhou together.

Xiaoman was naturally very excited to be able to follow Lin Fu to the Haizhou governor, but he was somewhat uneasy, worried that others would accuse her sisters of obstructing military affairs; dissatisfied.

Lin Bie looked at the fields outside the car window and smiled at Xiaoman’s worries.

The implementation of the New Deal will take time to root deeper. Lin Fuwu had no intention of launching a large-scale northern expedition against Yanhu before the year after. He went to Haizhou to serve as a military governor in name, but in fact he wanted to steal a few. The sun is free; another, Lin Fu just wanted to see if the government meeting, the Privy Council, and the military staff could sustain Jiangning’s situation after he left Jiangning.

Furthermore, although Lin Fu escaped from Jiangning, he also left all normal military and political affairs to the Privy Council and the Military Staff Department for disposal, but the daily bundles of official documents and letters were constantly chased by fast boats and fast horses.

Lin Fu wanted to be lazy for a while, but he couldn’t. Even if he wrote “read” on these official letters and official documents, he always had to find someone to help him go through it roughly. This time is also the season of autumn grain harvesting and winter crops sowing. In the southern dynasties, most of the political affairs in the region still revolve around farming, and government affairs are obviously extraordinarily cumbersome.

After stacking bundles of official documents on Song Jia’s head, Lin Fu was still a little reluctant. Xiaoman’s mind couldn’t calm down, but Su Mei was good at trivial matters – even if Xiaoman didn’t come out this time, Lin Fu wanted Su. Mei accompanied him to Haizhou to share some official duties.

At dusk, the guard horse team entered Guanyun City in the southwest of Haizhou. All things are kept simple, and Lin Fu has already ordered that Gao Zongting and others are not allowed to leave the station to come to greet him. He just asked the staff of Neiweisi to be responsible for daily living, food and lodging along the way.

After entering Guanyun City, Lin Fu just occupied the entire post house for a temporary stay, and summoned Zhou Wenyun, the magistrate of Guanyun County, to ask about the matter.

Lin Fuben didn’t want to stop and play in Guanyun City, but when he saw that the autumn harvest in Guanyun was over, and the local government did not organize people to build roads and canals after the autumn harvest, he stopped to ask about the politics of Guanyun County.

Zhou Wenyun was a jinshi in the Chongguan period.

“At this time, the output of Guanyun Tianmu is enough to feed the mouth and pay taxes; and no matter how much grain, the cheapness of grain will hurt the farmers, which is not a good thing. Furthermore, according to the text of the Privy Council, after autumn and winter, the weather will be cold and the ground will freeze. Forced expropriation of peasant households to go to the river to repair the embankment, labor and loss of money, civilian households are unwilling, and lower officials dare not force it…”

Lin Bie had a sullen face, put his hand on the desk, and listened to Zhou Wenyun sitting next to him and talking eloquently.

Lin Fu had expected the outdated thinking of officials, and the New Deal is still being promoted by the Privy Council, which is effective, but there are also some complex and serious problems in the prefectures and counties.

It’s not that Lin Fu has never encountered an elm-brained official like Zhou Wenyun before, and it’s not the first day he heard the statement that “sufficient food hurts farmers”. Such officials cannot be beaten, and it is useless to scold them.

In the eyes of these officials, farmers are only worthy of eating coarse grains and omnivores, and only worthy of wearing coarse hemp.

We can’t blame these elm lumps. Except for Lin Bing, who can clearly realize that in order to form a preliminary industrial system and a higher-level material production system in the whole society, we must first ensure an adequate supply of food and ensure The efficiency of food production has been improved to a certain height.

In fact, the current level of farming, at least in the Jianghuai region, is sufficient to ensure the development of emerging industries such as industry and mining.

A young and strong farmer can easily cultivate ten acres of land even without the help of cattle. Based on ten acres of land with two crops a year, the annual harvest is 30 stone grains, and one person farming can feed six or seven people for a year.

In fact, in the pre-Qin period, bronze wares were still the mainstay. Under the slash-and-burn mode, one husband was granted 100 mu of land (100 mu in pre-Qin counted as 30 mu at this time). In today’s world, with the help of more sophisticated iron farm tools and more sufficient animal power, in Xusi and other villages with abundant land, a young and strong laborer can generally complete the task of cultivating 30 acres of land per capita, and can still be used in the slack season. To build roads and dig ditches and other construction affairs.

At present, most of the Central Plains controlled by Jiangning has a population of only about 50 million, and the per capita occupied land is relatively sufficient.

In other words, there is no need to introduce high-yielding crops such as corn and potatoes from the Americas. As long as the multi-cropping farming method of two or even three crops a year is honestly popularized in plain areas such as Jianghuai, Zhejiang and Fujian, the surplus grain produced will be enough for a huge primary industrial system to consume.

Although the multi-cropping tradition of winter wheat and summer rice or winter cotton and summer rice, two crops a year or even three crops a year has existed for a long time in Jianghuai, Zhejiang and Fujian, it is limited by the fact that cotton and wheat should not be grown in flooded fields, and rice should not be grown in dry land. The ability of traditional farmers to transform their fields is very limited. In fact, the proportion of multi-cropping fertile fields that can actually produce two or even three crops a year is still very small in the Jianghuai region.

In plain areas, it is not as difficult as imagined to promote double cropping or even triple-cropping fertile fields a year, but it is not as easy as imagined – the key is to have a complete irrigation and drainage canal system.

This work has to be presided over by the local government, and the scattered farmers have absolutely no ability to complete it.

Therefore, among many new policies, one of the core items is to ask the local government to organize local farmers to build roads and improve transportation in various forms such as food-for-work, tax-for-work, and tax-for-work during the slack season. , build water conservancy facilities, and transform more fertile fields that are not affected by droughts and floods.

The benefits of this work can be seen from the effects of Lin Fu’s overhaul of water conservancy in Chongzhou in his early years and the expansion of the replanting method.

Most of the five counties in Chongzhou belonged to Chongzhou in the past, and the population of the entire region has nearly doubled in the past ten years. Within the five counties of Chongzhou, there is no farming, but the population engaged in emerging industries such as mining and sea trade has reached 250,000.

Even under this circumstance, the grain produced in Chongzhou, in addition to domestic consumption, has the ability to export nearly 2 million shi of grain every year.

If the entire Jianghuai region, as well as eastern Zhejiang and eastern Fujian, can reach a level comparable to that of Chongzhou, only the eastern coastal area can maintain the existing primary system of industry, mining and commerce, and it should be able to export more than 20 million stone every year. surplus food.

This was supposed to be a new and good governance that all parties must vigorously promote, but in Zhou Wenyun’s case, it became “sufficient food to support the mouth and enough tax to be paid. Food shortages hurt farmers.”

Local officials have levied land tax and oral tax on farmers, and silver has been implemented as a substitute for grain. Therefore, every time the land tax is collected, rice grains are concentrated on the market, resulting in a sharp drop in grain prices.

It’s just that this reasoning is just superficial, but it represents the mainstream cognition level of contemporary Confucian scholars.

Of course, the grain produced by the farmers, except for the food rations, must be used to pay rent and taxes, which will naturally create the illusion of “sufficient grain hurting farmers” – but in fact, this “sufficient grain”, It is thousands of miles away from the adequate supply of food that Lin Fu expected.

After the new land tax, the basic land tax is classified as a source of local government finance, so there is no problem of centrally extracting tax and silver from the agriculture of prefectures and counties. The local government levies the basic land tax, which can avoid the harvest period, and the “grain foot injury to farmers” caused by the centralized listing of grain will be greatly alleviated. Even in some areas, it is possible to build a market warehouse and collect grain taxes from farmers at the official price, so as to avoid damage to the interests of farmers, and at the same time to ensure that the local area can have sufficient surplus grain reserves.

For stable and high-yield farming, in addition to paying taxes, farmers will have enough grain to exchange for new cloth, iron porcelain, paper and pen and other items; Livestock, to supplement the lack of meat…

Traditionally, people eat more mutton and less pork, because the sheep can be fed completely with grass and do not compete with people for food. Although pigs also eat pig grass and river algae in spring and summer, they cannot be completely without feed.

Lin Bie promotes pig raising in Chongzhou, mainly because the captive breeding method can accumulate fat, and the increased grain production can eliminate part of the consumption of feed. In fact, the wheat bran and bean dregs cakes used as feed for pigs in Huaidong are basically the staple food of the poor people in other places.

In the Jianghuai Plain, where farming is developed, pigs are not raised, and sheep that are purely grass-fed are the main source of meat~www.mtlnovel.com~ How much meat can be provided? To raise pigs for meat on a large scale requires an adequate and stable supply of surplus grain in the region.

The proportion of large livestock such as cattle, mules and horses raised in the Jianghuai region is actually directly related to the surplus of food supply. Without a large area of ​​pasture, if a large number of horses need to be raised, there is a problem of competing with people for food.

When the surplus of food supply in a region is insufficient, it is natural that horses cannot be raised; if the surplus of food supply is sufficient, there is no need to force the promotion of the central horse administration, and the number of horses in the private sector will increase greatly.

For these reasons, Lin Fu called Chen Huazhang to organize a pen and use the restructured post to repeatedly publicize it. He went to Guanyun County, and blocked it with a light-hearted sentence “Food enough to hurt farmers”. It made Lin Fu so depressed that he lost all the good mood of the past few days.

Guanyun County used to belong to Huai’an, and it was recently included in Haizhou. I didn’t expect that in Huaidong, where the New Deal is the most extensive and in-depth, there is still an elm lump like Zhou Wenyun, who makes Lin Fu laugh and cry. It is not easy to implement the New Deal.

There was no way. At this time, there were more than 700 counties under Jiangning’s rule, all under the jurisdiction of more than 100 prefectures. There were nearly 900 chief seal officers at the prefect and magistrate level alone. Coupled with the auxiliary officials of the yamen and the various divisions of the prefecture and county, and Lin Fu Youxin to set up the township department and the inspection department below the prefecture and county to strengthen the control of the rural society, Lin Fu plans to expand the bureaucratic team of the new empire. About 80,000 or even 100,000 people are enough.

Although Lin Fu has been vigorously strengthening the training scale of officials in the New Deal, the number is still far from enough to carry out all the replacements of the bureaucracy in the whole country.

In addition to the core prefectures and counties, in a large number of ordinary prefectures, Lin Fu had to use the old officials to govern. That is to say, in these places, the New Deal received the greatest resistance. My QT room is open! More vulgar official QT room number [9167] Click to enter