In Jingzhou, Huguang, on top of the broad and thick Jingzhou Dam, Zhong Fan, Zhang Sian and others were walking, looking at the mighty Yangtze River water rolling eastward, and then looking at the former Yunmengze place, which was extremely busy, with vehicles
Rice transplanters are very busy in the vast wilderness.
"The steam is steaming over the dreamy lake, and the waves are rocking Yueyang City. In order to help the boatless people, I sit in the shameful sage and sit back and watch the fishermen, with only the envy of fish!"
Looking at the scene in front of him, Zhong Fan also recalled Meng Haoran's classic poem.
I still vaguely remember that when I came here last year, this was still a Zeguo water town, with vast mist and mist, and the rolling Yangtze River water constantly sweeping and scouring the place, making this vast and fertile land just the hometown of birds.
Now, with the completion of the Jingzhou Dam, Baili Yunmengze has benefited from it and turned into a fertile field. At this time, it is the time of spring planting, and the fertile fields are busy. I believe that by autumn, this place will
There will be a golden harvest.
"Mr. Zhong~"
"With the Jingzhou Dam, our Huguang will now have three hundred miles of fertile fields. From now on, Huguang will become the second Jiangnan of the Ming Dynasty."
Zhang Sian, the chief envoy of Huguang, looked at the extremely busy spring planting scene in front of him and said excitedly to Zhong Fan.
The biggest problem in the Huguang area has always been that too much water is brought by the Yangtze River. The river network is dense and there are many lakes. The Yangtze River in Jingzhou often floods, making this vast area uncultivable.
Therefore, since ancient times, all dynasties have had the tradition of building river dams. Dams were gradually built here in Jingzhou, thereby turning a large number of swamps into fertile farmland.
"Haha, Jiangnan is nothing."
"The grain produced in the south of the Yangtze River is now less than one-tenth of that produced in Liaodong and the river."
"In the south, rice is mostly grown. The fields are not flat and are paddy fields, which is not conducive to the development of mechanization and farming."
"In the maps of Hezhong and Liaodong, wheat is mainly grown. The fields are very flat and open, which is very conducive to mechanized farming. Often a farmer can cultivate thousands of acres of fertile land."
"The land is vast and sparsely populated, and the land is abundant and very fertile. In autumn, as far as the eye can see, there is an endless golden ocean. When the wind blows, it rises and falls like the waves of the sea. It is very beautiful."
When Zhong Fan heard this, he immediately smiled and said.
He had served as chief envoy in Central Asia Province and had seen the developed mechanized agriculture in the river. To be honest, he really didn't like the agricultural planting in front of him.
The local agriculture of the Ming Dynasty was stronger in the north than in the south, because there were many plains in the north and wheat was mainly grown, while the south was hilly and rice was mainly grown, which was not conducive to mechanized farming.
“One person cultivates thousands of acres of fertile land!”
"No wonder Liaodong and Hezhong provinces are now the richest provinces in the Ming Dynasty."
When Zhang Sian heard this, he couldn't help but sigh.
This is something that is unthinkable in Huguang. How is it possible for a farmer to cultivate thousands of acres of land? Rice cultivation is much more troublesome than wheat, and it is impossible to say that there is so much land for farmers here.
Planting.
There are many people here but little land. Before large-scale immigration, the land here was even more scarce. The contradiction between people and land was acute. The landlords and gentry had a lot of land in their hands, but the farmers often had little land.
Every household has only a few acres of land that can be cultivated. These thousands of acres of land are owned by landlords and are not farmers at all.
"The development of agriculture lies in actively exploring development models suitable for the region, and in using more machinery to improve efficiency."
"Of course, for a place like Huguang, it does not have the advantages of provinces such as Liaodong, Hezhong, Central Asia, and Black Earth, and it cannot develop large-scale agriculture like these places."
"If you want to become rich and develop, you need to open more factories, workshops and businesses. Only in this way can you create employment, improve the economy and promote development."
"Jiangxi is doing very well now. They are vigorously building railways to connect the north and south and connecting the east and west. In addition, they are dredging the Yangtze River and building ports and docks. A large number of factories and workshops are also being established in Nanchang, Jiangxi."
"Now it has attracted a lot of businesses and factories to invest. Steel plants, cement plants, motorcycles, textile factories, etc. have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. Relying on increasingly convenient transportation and its own population advantages, in the future
Maybe it will develop very well.”
When it comes to agriculture, Zhong Fanke is very good at it. It is under his leadership and promotion that the large ranch economy in Central Asia has achieved great success.
It successfully promoted the emergence of a new large-scale ranch economic model, allowing the Han people to raise cattle, sheep and horses on a large scale. Central Asia became an important meat warehouse, and the cattle, sheep and horses produced every year were continuously sold to the Ming Dynasty.
Everywhere.
"Please also ask Mr. Zhong to give me some advice~"
When Zhang Sian heard this, he quickly said respectfully again.
"Look, if we built this dam in the past, how many people and how many days would it take to successfully build this dam?"
Zhong Fan asked, pointing to the dam at his feet.
"At least hundreds of thousands of farmers must be recruited, and it will take at least several years to complete the construction of a dam."
Zhang Sian thought for a while and said.
He had wanted to build the Jingzhou Dam a long time ago, but he just had to recruit hundreds of thousands of farmers to build it for a long time, so he didn't dare to do it.
Since ancient times, it is easy to have problems when doing corvee work. Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rebelled by killing officials while doing corvee work. When doing corvée work, you have to bring your own food. You are exhausted from work. If it is windy or rainy, you may
There is not even a place to take shelter from the rain, and it would be even more miserable to do corvee labor in the winter.
I don't know how many people died in corvee service, so he didn't dare to recruit hundreds of thousands of people to build the Jingzhou Dam at once, for fear that if something went wrong, he would not be able to keep his own black gauze hat.
The dams here in Jingzhou were also built little by little in history, a little this year and a little next year. Sometimes when a certain dynasty is strong, it can be well built.
But if there is a year of famine or war, there is no way to repair it. Therefore, throughout the long history, the dam here has not been repaired.
Only now has the Jingzhou Dam been finally built.
"So how many people did we use to build this dam? How long did it take?"
Zhong Fan nodded slightly and continued to ask.
"Only tens of thousands of manpower were used, and it took several months to complete the construction."
Zhang Sian said quickly.
"Then why did it take hundreds of thousands of people many years to build a dam, but now it takes tens of thousands of people just a few months to complete it?"
Zhong Fan smiled and continued.
"Because there are a lot of construction machinery."
Zhang Sian seemed to understand something all of a sudden, and then said: "Human power is limited, but wisdom is infinite. The power of this machine is much stronger than our human power."
"That's right~"
"The reason why our Ming Dynasty is able to achieve today's prosperity and prosperous age is today."
"In fact, it depends on nothing else, but the development and power of machinery."
"Without machinery, even if I, the Ming Dynasty, can immigrate to Liaodong, the land that one person can cultivate is still limited. Even if one person dies from exhaustion, cultivating dozens of acres of land alone is already the limit."
"Without machinery, this woman could only weave less than two pieces of cloth a month, but with machinery, a worker could weave hundreds of pieces of cloth a day."
"In the past, no matter how fast a person walked alone, he could only cover a hundred miles a day. But now, with cars and trains, it is very easy to travel a thousand miles a day."
"This is the power of wisdom, the power of technology, and the power of machinery."
Zhong Fan nodded and said with a smile: "Only when you truly understand these, will you understand why our Ming Dynasty has undergone earth-shaking changes."
"And these are all the clever tricks that those sour and rotten scholars call them. They are third-rate and heresy. What they advocate has been operating in our land for thousands of years."
"But in the past thousands of years, how could our country, the Ming Dynasty, have been as prosperous as it is today, and how could our people, the people of the Ming Dynasty, have been as wealthy as they are today?"
Zhong Fan is an enlightened element among traditional civil servants. He sees the power of machinery and the power of technology, so he will actively understand and promote this development.
He is different from the ordinary rotten scholars and pedantic civil servants, so he has always been the official who supports Liu Jin's New Deal the most. He has witnessed with his own eyes the transformation of the Ming Dynasty from the original internal and external troubles to the prosperous empire with a prosperous country and a strong people.
.
He also witnessed with his own eyes the earth-shaking changes that mechanized agriculture has brought to the farmers in the Hezhong area. Many immigrants were still bachelors and paupers when they arrived, but in just one or two years, they had thousands of acres of fertile farmland and breeding facilities.
On the market, the family bought several female slaves as concubines and gave birth to a large number of children.
Why such a huge change?
Could all this be caused by the benevolence and morality advocated by those sour civil servants in the past?
No, what really brought about earth-shaking changes to the Ming Dynasty was the technology and machinery that everyone looked down upon, didn't pay attention to, and thought were heresy.
Without the power of science and technology and machinery, the Ming Dynasty would not have been as rich and prosperous as it is today. Even if the Ming army was stronger and could expand its territory, the Ming Dynasty would only be reviving the styles of the Han and Tang Dynasties, but it still could not hold on to these new developments.
Although the land has been developed, the people still cannot truly become rich.
Once the national power weakens, history will repeat itself again.