From a distance, you can see a city wall that is slightly more towering than Fangxian County, and a river with a lot of boats.
Zhushan County has an official population of more than 3,000. The brick wall of the county seat was built 12 years after Chenghua. At this time, it still gives people a sense of security.
There is a blocked river here that flows through the county and finally merges into the Han River in Yun County.
Therefore, supplies and transportation to Yun County are very convenient.
If Fangxian County is convenient to the west side of Xiangyang outside Yunyang, that is, Wudang, Junzhou and Gucheng, then Zhushan has a very close relationship with Yunyang counties, especially Hefuzhi Yunxian County.
This creates dislocation and complementarity.
The bamboo produced in Zhushan is of high quality. Currently, it only produces raw materials with limited profits, but it can be processed and upgraded. Therefore, Zhushan will become a center in the south of Yunyang and one of the places Wang Hongyu values most.
Before Zhou Yijie took him into the city, he first took a look at Qiujiang Academy outside the county town. He saw that there were very few students here and the large hall was half empty. It seemed that there was an urgent need to tap its potential again.
"Would you like to go to the city? Inspect and visit the family head's hometown?"
Zhou Yijie knew that Wang Hongyu would definitely come. Although Zhou Dunji's body was still in Yun County, it was very reasonable to visit him in advance.
Wang Hongyu thought for a while and realized that he was on patrol in casual clothes this time. If he were to visit his eldest brother's family, he would definitely have to be more formal and exchange details about what happened in Liaodong and his eldest brother's confession and legacy.
My eldest brother's family members will definitely have to introduce a lot of things to him, and both parties will definitely have endless things to talk about for ten days and nights.
Once the time is delayed, the secret inspection will no longer be effective.
So he entered Zhushan County and explained the situation carefully to his eldest brother, friends and family members who greeted him, and expressed his utmost respect and apology.
Everyone praised him for his sense of responsibility, which was similar to that of Dayu who "passed through the house three times without entering". He was worthy of being a person similar to Zhou Dunji.
In fact, when Zhou Dunji was recruiting and training troops, he passed through Zhushan County many times but failed to enter.
This is one of the reasons why they can come together.
Although he did not visit the city, he still wrote a personal letter to express his respect to his eldest brother and his family.
There are more than a dozen servants and friends of the Zhou family, led by Zhou Dunji's nephew Zhou Gui, who is relatively familiar with this area.
I also decided to follow Wang Hongyu and go to Zhuxi, which is further away.
The roads there are far away, and although there are fewer refugees than in Zhushan, there are Miao and Tujia villages, and there are more locals for better communication.
There are two ways to get from Zhushan to Zhuxi: water and land.
The waterway is dozens of miles upstream along the blocked river that passes through the county, to where the water of Zhuxi River merges with the blocked water, and then 40 miles northwest. We will set off today and rest one night in a village along the way, and we will arrive tomorrow.
By land, we need to walk 100 miles on a mountain road, and it will take us the day after tomorrow to reach Zhuxi County.
Considering that the water route is much more convenient, and the number of people is not very large, a few bamboo rafts can carry many people, so we chose the water route.
The scenery along the river is very beautiful.
The peaks and peaks surround the clear and winding Duhe River. The surging Duhe River is like a silver-white ribbon. Sitting on the bamboo raft, you can watch the many streams flowing into the Duhe River, forming a variety of scenes.
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While looking at the dozens of hills and endless green forests on both sides of the river, I listened to their explanation of the human geography of Zhuxi County.
As the name suggests, Zhuxi County, like Zhushan County, is also rich in bamboo, mainly tall moso bamboo, so there are many bamboo products in the two counties. Dried bamboo shoots can be sold everywhere, and there are naturally more mountain products.
Zhuxi County is located on the southern edge of the eastern section of the Dongcao District of the Qinling Mountains and on the northern slope of the eastern section of the Daba Mountains. Valleys are spread throughout, and canyons alternate with intermountain basins, forming a variety of landforms such as hills, basins, low mountains, middle mountains, and high mountains.
Less than 10% of the land is cultivated, and 80% is forested.
The forest here is covered, and the water mist naturally forms a circulation system.
There are a large number of mountain springs and waterfalls. The water of the largest river, Zhuxi, can be merged into the Duhe River through bamboo rafts and boats, and then flows into the Han River.
Now there are only 2,000 registered residents in the county, and the number of refugees is less than 4,000. In later generations, Zhuxi County had a population of nearly 400,000, and there has never been a food shortage.
Zhou Gui took everyone off the boat to have a rest. He pointed to the woods on the hillside and said, "There are mushrooms everywhere in the woods. The bark of big trees and the stems of dead trees are covered with fungus. You can catch wild boars and antelopes by just digging a hole and setting a trap."
, pigs, badgers, and hares are covered with condoms.
There are a lot of wild game and delicacies, and people in Zhuxi County cannot starve to death. However, there is not much food, and there are no good agricultural tools. Most of the delicacies are eaten and cannot be saved, so businessmen come infrequently."
This is a typical self-sufficient mountain village.
He is a treasure but cannot develop it.
Zhou Dunji, a friend surnamed Liu from Zhuxi County, said: "There are actually no refugees in Zhuxi County anymore. Those people have settled in places where farming is easy in the mountains and river bends. They are better at farming than the locals, and their lives are better than those of most city people."
We live well and are basically self-sufficient, but it is difficult to produce more for trade.”
"Why?"
"When the crops they planted were about to mature, they were either eaten by hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of flying birds, or they were destroyed by wild boars. People in the mountains became poor overnight, and a group of wild boars could destroy several acres of crops in one night.
"A few families raised more than a dozen goats. At night, leopards entered the sheepfold and bit them all to death. They were still piled in a pile and watched. When the family discovered that the leopards were grinning at people, they finally drove the leopards away.
, several strong laborers were injured," Lao Liu added.
Wang Hongyu said: "It seems that individuals cannot live in mountainous areas without leaving the group. The problem in Zhuxi County is that there are few people and no one organizes collective actions. If there is some food and tool support, the mountain treasures and special products can be saved and traded outside.
There is an opportunity to develop immediately.”
"Yes!"
When everyone came to the county town, they saw that it was indeed a beautiful place. The steeper hills were covered with bamboo forests, while the gentler hills were developed into terraced fields.
I saw that some hillside vegetation had been cut down to make way for growing vegetables.
But more hills are steep and full of vegetation, and cannot be developed without enough manpower.
Zhuxi is naturally beautiful and rich in bamboo, hardwood and minerals, but transportation is not convenient.
There are also Miao and native villages and towns where there are not many people. In fact, they often do business with the Han people in some herbal medicines and handicrafts.
These Miao and Tujia villages all know Zhou Dunji's name and respect Wang Hongyu and his party. They are willing to have more cooperation opportunities.
They presented some handicrafts such as patterned socks soles.
The flower-tie socks that became famous throughout China in later generations originated from the hands of Aunt Liang's daughter-in-law in Zhuxi County. This technique has been passed down for a long time and has long been popular in China.
Zhuxi embroidered insoles have a wide variety of embroidered samples, mainly including traditional hibiscus, peony, peony, chrysanthemum, lotus, orchid and other flowers and plants, which are suitable for general use by the public.
After staying in Zhuxi for a day, I had to quickly return to Yun County.
If you take the land route, it will take 3 days to get there because it is all winding around inside the mountains.
We took the waterway this morning and can reach it tomorrow evening because we go downstream.
First, the water from Zhuxi River flows into Duhe River, and then Duhe River flows to Yun County next to Han River.