Han Qian accompanied Zhao Ting'er back to her parents' home with gifts the next day. In the afternoon, he took a boat upstream with a group of direct relatives and arrived at Linjiang County at dark.
Han Qian resigned as Prefecture Sima, and naturally no longer held the position of Linjiang County Magistrate. He finally recommended Xi Xunqiao to replace him as Linjiang County Magistrate.
On the one hand, Xi Xunqiao is much more open-minded than the other chiefs of the four surnamed clans. He also made great contributions in the process of surrendering Xiying and recruiting Fan Yong. On the other hand, using Xi Xunqiao is also beneficial to alleviating local tensions.
Conflicts and antagonistic emotions have pushed things like the integration of native and foreign residents into further progress.
The most critical point in the integration of native and foreign residents is to change customs. Regardless of native residents, the guests are required to abide by the etiquette established by the Dachu Law Office.
Therefore, Xiang Jianlong and Yang Zaili did not attend the banquet for Han Qianna to marry Zhao Ting'er. However, when Han Qian settled in Linjiang County at night and held a banquet to cleanse himself from the dust, they prepared another generous gift and rushed over to meet him.
There may be debates in the court about who should be the first to cut down the feudal vassal, but for Xiang Jianlong and Yang Zaili, the last trace of restlessness in their hearts has long since disappeared. Now they are more worried about Han Qian's original treatment of the three of them.
What will happen to the promise?
If that was the case, they really didn't dare to complain. Who would have thought that such a powerful Ma family could disappear so easily?
Compared to the Ma family, what do they mean?
The so-called magical power of the Fan soldiers who were brave and invincible had already been shattered in the battles in Laoyao and Yuanling City.
Now it seems that even if you can't become a local emperor who rules a place, you can become a wealthy local official, which is still a good choice.
The Linjiang County Town, which is more than 700 steps deep, has been built. Although it is not very majestic and cannot be compared with the big cities in the Jianghuai area, it is located on the north bank of the Yuanjiang River and the east bank of the Shahe River. It is a desolate place in the past.
Add a bit of prosperity to the world.
Who could have imagined that two years ago, this place was still a barren swamp where waterbirds inhabited?
The nearly 40-mile-long embankment on the north bank of the Yuanjiang River has also been built at this time. We also deliberately set back the embankment built three to four miles away, leaving such a wide beach outside the embankment, also thinking that it can be used during the spring and summer floods.
During the rising season, it can accommodate more upstream water and reduce the impact on the river embankment.
In order to prevent the wind from shaking the trees and shaking the embankment, tall trees are not allowed to be planted on the embankment, and only low shrubs are planted.
Together with the Wuliuxi Water Conservancy Comprehensive Project, it can almost ensure that the 30 to 40-mile-deep bay mouth area at the southern foot of Longya Mountain will no longer be affected by floods.
In addition to the 12,000 to 3,000 slaves and migrant people of the Feng clan, there are also more than 2,000 households of 13,000 to 13,000 to 4,000 village slaves of the four surnames, village soldiers and family members who have moved into this area in the past two years.
After the restructuring of native and guest registration and family division of property, Linjiang County finally had more than 6,000 households and more than 27,000 people, barely enough to meet the standards of Zhongxian County; in comparison, the newly established
The Chinese counties are still far behind.
The current main problems in Linjiang County are not enough cultivated land per capita, not enough irrigation canals have been built, and the proportion of irrigated fields has not reached the standard expected by Han Qian. In the future, it is necessary to continue to strengthen the intensive cultivation of coastal land to improve the production of grains, grains, and mulberries.
Hemp production.
In addition to exploring mineral veins and mining iron and coal, the cultivation of tea medicine, mulberry and hemp is also widely promoted in the mountains.
In addition, Han Qian no longer suppressed the three surnames Xiang, Xiang, and Yang who still controlled a large amount of resources. In addition to agreeing with them to dominate the trade with the counties in the upper reaches of the Yuanjiang River, Han Qian also agreed with them to spend money and food.
Together with other large companies, they are involved in the construction of dock warehouses and the development of weaving and dyeing, tanning, garment making, wine making, oil pressing, paper making, shipbuilding, ship repair, paint making, tea making, pharmaceuticals, bag making, flour processing and other industries.
Go in.
In addition to the commercial trade of agricultural products and special products from various places, Han Qian also hopes that Linjiang County will eventually produce large-scale primary industrial products to participate in the commercial trade of prefectures and counties upstream and downstream of the Yuanjiang River.
Only in this way can Linjiang County accommodate more migrant populations, create and retain more wealth on limited land.
Compared with Qianyang, which has been a prefecture for hundreds of years, it has a relatively good foundation for handicraft industry. After several years of catalysis, Baigong has become more large-scale. The reason why Linjiang County can develop Baigong is mainly due to Feng's westward migration.
Among the four to five thousand slaves, there are a large number of managers of farms, warehouses and other shops, as well as a large number of handicraftsmen.
After the huge amount of wealth accumulated by Feng over the past century was confiscated, these people are actually another form of wealth accumulated by Feng over the past century.
It's a pity that except for Feng Liao who has realized this, the rest of the Feng family, including Feng Yi, are still somewhat confused.
These people cannot endure too much hard work, cannot be considered as a qualified source of recruits, and cannot adapt to the hard and boring farming production, but Han Qian will not force them to be attached to the fields, nor does he force them to be incorporated into Dragon Tooth City.
Or the Craftsman Camp in Wufeng Mountain.
After all, in addition to mining coal and iron, large-scale refining of fine iron and large-scale iron castings, Longya City mainly focuses on the casting of sophisticated armor; the side of Wufeng Mountain mainly focuses on shipbuilding yards, weaving yards and plantations.
At the end of last year, seeing that there was no shortage of grain production in Xuzhou and resuming trade with the upper reaches of the Yuanjiang River through the three surnames, Han Qian set up a money shop to lend them money and grain, and encouraged and supported the Feng family slaves in Linjiang City and several places in Linjiang City.
Various handicraft workshops and even warehouses and shops have been built in villages with strategic transportation links, giving them the opportunity to resume their old business.
The Wuling Army was downsized. Only 3,000 soldiers and horses were retained in the state camp. Less than 1,500 workers were retained in the workshops of Longya City and Wufeng Mountain. Some of the generals who were downsized and dismissed returned to their hometowns to cultivate land, and a considerable number of them stayed in Qianyang.
Work in Linjiang and other places.
When Han Qian saw Xi Xunqiao, Xiang Jianlong and Yang Zaili, he hoped that each family's fleet could continue to import more immigrants to Qianyang, Linjiang, Zhongfang and other cities. He also hoped that Xiang and the Yang family would participate in the Dragon Boat Festival.
Operate the money shop and expand the capital of the money shop.
Although the interest rate on the money loaned out by Longya Money Shop is very low, and it is difficult to even make any profit, in addition to Han Qian's personal request, Yang Zaili, Xiang Jianlong and others also saw that Longya Money Shop was in Qianyang, China.
The industries supported by the three counties of Linjiang are providing more and more abundant products, which are more and more high-quality and cheap. This will also directly promote the growing scale of their trade with the prefectures and counties upstream and downstream of the Yuanjiang River, and they are very happy to do so.
Get involved.
Han Qian also wanted to raise money this time to formally set up junior schools in Linjiang, China and Qianyang to teach literacy, arithmetic and other basics. In addition to teaching elementary schools to children in the three counties, other men and women working in craft workshops
Workers, and even generals and soldiers in the state camp, could go to school to become illiterate.
Considering that the supplementary recruitment of people in the three places may exceed 1,000 people, in addition to the 6,000 yuan required to set up a school, the subsequent hiring of teachers and the establishment of night schools, there are also expenses of 3,000 to 4,000 yuan per year. All three places have temporarily taken
If the money and food are not available, Han Qian will contribute part of it, but each family will also need to donate part of it.
In addition, Han Qian, who is searching for woodcutters this time, also hopes that Linjiang County can continue to expand the cotton planting area after next spring.
Cotton was grown in the Western Regions and Lingnan during the Qin and Han Dynasties, but cotton ginning, cotton spinning and other processes have not been developed. The processing of cotton is extremely labor-intensive and material, making the woven cotton cloth extremely expensive.
In today's world, cotton is even more precious than silk, rarer, and rarely worn. This has also resulted in the extremely limited cotton planting area in the Central Plains for nearly a thousand years, and people's clothes are mainly silk and linen.
After winter, in addition to fur coats, the jackets worn by wealthy people are mainly filled with silk wadding.
In order to weave tarpaulins and canvases for ships in the early days, Han Qian ordered the Weaving Institute to collect existing fiber materials for comparison.
In addition to being expensive and having a sparse planting area, medium-long staple cotton is far superior to hemp fiber in every aspect.
However, at that time, the processing of cotton seeds in the Xuzhou area was still at the backward stage of peeling the seeds to extract cotton. One person could not get a pound of cotton after peeling the cotton seeds for a day, let alone the subsequent loosening, spinning, weaving and dyeing, etc.
A series of processes are extremely backward.
No wonder cotton cultivation has not been promoted, and no wonder cotton cloth is more expensive and rare than silk.
When Han Qian first entered Xuzhou with his father, the cotton planting area near Qianyang City was only about a thousand acres.
Also after the establishment of the Weaving Institute, after more than two years of continuous testing and improvement, manual stripping of cotton was changed to roller ginning and seed removal. In the loosening process, the small bamboo bow was changed to a large sandalwood bow, and the wooden stretcher was used to vibrate cotton.
The spinning wheel also changed the traditional single-split hand-operated spinning wheel for processing hemp money into a five-spun pedal spinning wheel, step by step, significantly reducing the cost of cotton spinning to a level similar to that of hemp thread.
However, comparing the texture and comfort level of cotton and linen, it can be said that they are very different.
In the past, for wealthy families, the texture of cotton cloth was no better than silk silk, but the price was twice that of silk silk. Let alone ordinary families, the rich and powerful would not accept it.
However, the Qianyang cloth produced by Xuzhou Ship Gang has a fine texture, and its price has dropped by nearly 60% in the past two years. Naturally, demand exceeds supply when sold to various places.
On the one hand, the supply of cotton cloth exceeds demand, and on the other hand, the efficiency of cotton ginning and spinning has been greatly improved. The more than 1,000 acres of cotton planted in Qianyang in the early days only required ten or twenty female workers to produce 70,000 to 80,000 kilograms of cotton in a year.
Cotton seeds turned into 30,000 to 40,000 kilograms of cotton thread and 3,000 to 4,000 pieces of cotton cloth.
The local raw materials were not enough, so in the early days Han Qian mainly harvested cotton seeds directly from other places at high prices and concentrated them for processing. The problem was that the combined cotton planting area in the prefectures and counties on both sides of the Yuanjiang River was only 20,000 to 30,000 acres.
Although after Han Qian completely controlled the situation in Xuzhou, Wufengshan Plantation alone currently has tens of thousands of acres of cotton fields, and Linjiang County and Zhongfang County increased the total cotton planting area in Xuzhou last year to an increase of three years.
It has been expanded hundreds of times before, but it still may not be able to meet the needs of the weaving institute. What's more, China and Linjiang County want to build a special weaving institute?
Subsequent weaving, dyeing and printing technology will inevitably spread to the private sector step by step, and by then the demand for cotton seeds and cotton raw materials will become higher.
In order to develop a large-scale primary industrial system in an agricultural society, there are only three commodities that are most suitable. Besides salt and iron, they are cloth.
Currently, Wufengshan Weaving Institute is expected to produce 50,000 pieces of cotton cloth this year, with a value of 90,000 yuan. After deducting cotton seed procurement and labor costs, the net profit will be as high as 40,000 yuan. This is based on the 60% drop in the price of cotton cloth.
In comparison, the Longya City iron smelting yard produced one million jins of crude iron and 100,000 jins of refined iron in the past year, with a value of less than 40,000 yuan.
More importantly, as the price of cotton cloth drops further, the market that no other competitors have entered yet is much broader than imagined.
Xuzhou is estimated to be able to produce 50,000 pieces of cotton cloth this year. With the huge increase in cotton seed harvest after this autumn, the cotton cloth output next year is estimated to increase to 150,000 to 160,000 pieces. Even if the annual output is 400,000 to 500,000 pieces of cotton cloth,
It may not be able to cover the market in the eight states of Hunan.
Han Qian is now mainly continuing to expand the cotton planting area in Xuzhou, gradually converting mulberry fields in various counties to cotton planting, and constantly guiding nearby states and counties to expand cotton planting areas.
In addition to discussing the development of Linjiang County with Xi Xunqiao and the others, 300 soldiers, led by Zhao Qi, Zhou Chu, and Kong Xirong, have also assembled in Linjiang County these days to complete their initial training.
However, more than 200 people were selected from Huaxi Village, and only about 140 were retained in the end. After all, not everyone has a strong enough will and body to withstand the arduous training to become an elite.
Nearly seventy people have been eliminated and will be ruthlessly sent back to Huaxi Village.
For these people, they have now lost the only way to escape their fate. They may be branded as slaves for the rest of their lives, feeling lost, depressed and even crying. This also makes those who can stay secretly encourage themselves,
No matter what, I have to endure the hard training ahead.
However, the next day, when Han Qian was about to rush to Longya City with three hundred new songs, a letter arrived from Tanzhou via Shaozhou Kuaima, disrupting his plan:
The Marquis of Changxiang wrote a letter on behalf of Wang Jian, the Lord of Shu, requesting that Princess Qingyang be married to the third prince Yang Yuanpu in order to maintain the good relationship between the two countries, Qin and Jin Dynasties. Emperor Tianyou specially ordered Han Qian and Guo Rong to be the chief and deputy envoys to welcome Qingyang in Shu.
The princess entered Tanzhou and married the third prince!