At the end of July, a fleet of several awning boats connected bow and stern, sailed upstream from the turbid and mighty river through Yuxi River, and saw Ruxu Mountain from a distance. Qibao Mountain looked like a dragon lying dormant on both sides of the turbid river water.
side.
Although the valley between the two mountains is more than ten miles wide, from a distance, it appears narrow and narrow due to the squeeze of the mountains on both sides.
Although the Tangyi soldiers relied on strong and fast galleys to gain an absolute advantage in the deep and vast Chao Lake, before the Shanbei Naval Camp was built, the naval warships on the west wing had no patrol mission and were mainly stationed in Dongguan.
In the simple camp in the south of the village.
This is also to prevent the Lou Chuanjun from launching a surprise attack from the river on the north side of Chaohu Lake, so that they will not be caught off guard due to negligence.
For normal cargo ships, there is no need to worry about encountering enemy attacks when sailing in the southeastern lake area of Chao Lake, so they go directly through Ruxukou and go straight to the destination of their trip.
According to the geographical records mentioned by predecessors, in the past, when ships passed the west cliff of Ruxukou, it should be the vast bay in the southeast corner of Chaohu Lake. Especially at the end of July, when Chaohu Lake has the most abundant water, the foot of the northwest foothills of Ruxukou
The low-lying land outside the silt bank will probably be submerged as the water level of Chao Lake rises, forming a wider lake area.
However, when the fleet passed the West Cliff, Wang Jun was dressed as a man, wearing a green cloth shirt and a brocade handkerchief. She stood gracefully on the bow of the ship and looked at the new embankment six or seven miles away on the right.
It extends almost straight to the north.
The long embankment extends for fifteen or sixteen miles to the north, and further north it connects to the slopes of the southwest foot of Qingcang Mountain, blocking the low-lying land that is more than ten miles deep from north to south on the east side of the embankment from the lake.
"Sir, look at the place where the waves are shining. Tangyi soldiers dug a canal on the northern slope of Ruxu Mountain before the end of last month. The water outlet is slightly above the new embankment to the south."
The middle-aged man in a short coat stood at the bow of the boat, pointed to a place on the south side of the new embankment, and said to Wang Jun.
In order to obtain the refined iron, medicinal materials, armor, war equipment, and warships produced in Xuzhou, Yangzhou also tried its best to collect the materials that were in short supply in Tangyi and transported them to Tangyi, Donghu, Wanshou and other places for trade.
Firstly, Yangzhou lacked large ships for large-scale transportation, and secondly, Wang Wenqian also intended to break up the transaction with Tangyi into pieces so that he could keep abreast of the developments in the counties in Tangyi.
The middle-aged man Tang Shiyu was a scout leader affiliated with the Yangzhou Military and Horse Envoy Department. In the past six months, he was responsible for leading a fleet to and from Tangyi counties more than ten times, and kept track of the garrison situation of Tangyi soldiers and large-scale patrols.
I am more familiar with manufacturing matters than anyone else.
Tang Shiyu is also the only person in this fleet who knows her identity except Wang Jun's attendants and maids.
However, like everyone else, he thought that Wang Jun was bored and a talented woman disguised herself as a man and came to Tangyi to visit. He felt a little disgusted with the eldest lady for being too temperamental. He had no idea that Wang Jun was proposing to marry him on his behalf.
Already.
Han Qian started recruiting laborers last month to build water diversion canals along the slopes of Ruxu Mountain and Qingcang Mountain on the north and south sides of Xindi, which has attracted great attention in Yangzhou.
Dividing water into Pi Canal is nothing new. In his early years, Han Qian renovated Wuliu River in Xuzhou, which was a similar water conservancy project.
In addition to draining rainwater from the Ruxu Mountains directly to the new embankment and into Chaohu Lake in a timely manner during the rainy season, the diversion canal can reduce the waterlogging inside the new embankment. It can also ensure that there is sufficient irrigation water inside the new embankment in autumn and winter. It can be said that
It is a supporting project for the reclamation of fields inside the new embankment.
Such a water conservancy project usually requires years of accumulation before a place has enough energy to carry out one.
At this time, there were only ten people in Tangyi.
Even if the population doubled, there would still be enough land for farming on the north bank of the Chu River. Not to mention that there would be no urgent need to build such a complex and expensive water conservancy project, or even build a new embankment along the east bank of Chao Lake.
It's not that it can't be postponed for a few years.
However, from the perspective of maintaining a stable water flow to facilitate the operation of hydraulic equipment, it is extremely important to build reservoirs, diversion weirs, and canals along the north and south slopes of Ruxu Mountain and Qingcang Mountain.
Therefore, after Yangzhou noticed this sign, it also tended to believe that Han Qian had the intention to abandon Tangyi and focus on running the East Lake camp.
The villages abandoned by the villagers who fled their homes were used to build villages and house the generals and soldiers. The villages near Liyang City, especially the west side adjacent to the East Lake Camp, were much denser than other places.
Wang Jun wanted to bring the boat directly to the new embankment and go ashore to take a look at the newly built Pi Canal there. However, thinking that if she really brought it up, the people around her would make a fuss and dissuade her, so he had to endure it and look at the water along the coast curiously.
Everything, nothing was said.
The fleet continued to sail north level with the new embankment.
Outside the new embankment, there is a large shoal flooded by the lake water. It is uneven and uneven. If you enter rashly, there are several awning boats with a deep draft in the fleet that are very likely to be stranded. They will have to continue northward along the lake bay in the dry season.
Arrive at the mouth of a creek that was submerged by the lake at this time, turn east along the deeper creek channel, and approach the dock built outside the new embankment.
In several key locations, before the lake water rose, sentry towers were built with logs. Oil ointment was lit at night. If a ship entered Chaozhou after dark, they could follow the guidance of the giant oil lamp in the sentry tower and sail there at night.
destination instead of worrying about anchoring on a beach where enemy warships are more likely to attack you at night.
For more than an hour, the fleet docked at the designated pier outside the new embankment to unload its cargo. Wang Jun boarded the shore with his maid Xiangyun, who was also disguised as a man, as well as two guards and the captain of the fleet who were disguised as boatmen.
At this time, you can fully see the new embankment.
The new embankment is about six feet high from the ground inside, but it is as wide as one foot at the top. Looking at the slope, it is also two feet wide at the bottom.
Although the river embankment does not need to be as solid as the city wall, it is sixteen or seventeen miles long from north to south, which makes it difficult to imagine that after the war in March, the resettlement of the residents was not delayed. Here, only three
It took four months to build the embankment before the lake overflowed.
There are large cotton fields inside the new embankment.
By chance, two sailboats had just docked at the pier before they came over.
At this time, the two sailing ships were unloading a batch of equipment components that looked like spinning wheels. However, Wang Jun saw that these equipment components did not look like they were new. They seemed to have been disassembled from somewhere and then shipped to Tangyi Bing.
Came from East Lake Camp.
"In the past two months, Xuzhou has shipped a lot of used spinning wheel parts. I heard that Xuzhou built a water-powered spinning wheel as early as last year. It saves people and spins more yarn. Maybe it's because
In this way, some old spinning wheels can be eliminated and prepared for use here,"
Seeing Wang Jun staring at the two ships with doubtful eyes, Tang Shiyu explained,
"But it is a pity that the recruitment of workers in several new weaving factories under the jurisdiction of the Xuzhou Industrial and Manufacturing Bureau is very strict, and we still don't know what they are like. I thought that if the Marquis of Qianyang was also building a water-powered spinning wheel in Tangyi, I would be surprised to find out.
More convenient..."
At this time, the composition of the soldiers and civilians gathered in Tangyi was relatively complex. In addition to a small part of the old Zuo Guangde Army, they were mainly refugees who fled south from the Hongzepu coast when the Shouzhou Army encircled and annihilated the Right Shenwu Army in Zhongli.
These refugees not only have spies infiltrated by Huaidong, but also must have spies infiltrated by the Shouzhou Army. It will be difficult to eliminate them in a short time.
However, Wang Jun was also very curious about Xuzhou
What does a new hydraulic spinning wheel look like?
Of course she knew in her heart that Han Qian could not give up building this new type of spinning wheel in Tangyi that could use water power on a large scale just because he wanted to guard against spies who might infiltrate. She thought that maybe somewhere in Tangyi, related construction was already underway.
factory, it’s just that Huaidong’s spy hasn’t noticed it yet.
Looking at the cotton fields on the inner side of the new embankment, it is clear how passionate and passionate Han Qian is about planting cotton fields.
The Battle of Puyang Valley had just ended, and Tingzi Mountain had not been captured, let alone Liyang City. Han Qian could not wait to organize women, teenagers, and even children to cultivate cotton fields on the south bank of the Chu River.
By mid-March, the number of newly cultivated cotton fields in Tangyi reached 300,000 acres.
Of course, this is directly related to the large-scale cotton planting industry in Xuzhou.
Otherwise, if such a large-scale cotton field is planted at once, where will the seedlings come from?
Although cotton, commonly known as "Baidiezi", has been introduced to the Central Plains since the Qin and Han Dynasties, its planting scale is extremely limited. Now it is regarded as an ornamental flower and tree in many Central Plains areas.
Even though the Chenxu Prefectures had a tradition of growing cotton weaving and even paying tribute to the Central Plains Dynasty for a long time, in fact, at the time of Han Qian, the cotton fields planted in Xuzhou were only scattered three to four thousand acres.
The total cultivated land area is only 23/1000.
After Han Daoxun came to power in Xuzhou, the cotton fields in Xuzhou and surrounding counties expanded rapidly from several thousand acres to three to four hundred thousand acres in the past few years. When Han Qian came to rule Xuzhou, counties and townships even regarded expanding the cotton planting area as a priority.
An important performance evaluation criterion.
Without this foundation, Han Qian would not have been able to transfer 200 veteran farmers and agriculturists from Xuzhou to Tangyi to teach the generals step by step in cotton cultivation.
This is because even if other companies know all the methods of cotton planting and spinning, if they want to expand the scale of cotton planting, they will have to go through the same path that Han Qian has walked before, and it will take only three to five years to compete for success.
Han Qian's large-scale reclamation of cotton fields in Tangyi was even more convenient than cultivating grain fields. The scale of newly reclaimed cotton fields was indeed larger than the newly reclaimed grain fields in April and May.
In one month, 300,000 acres of cotton fields will enter the harvest period. After that, seed removal, spinning, weaving and dyeing, etc. must be completed in time.
And even if Tangyi shipped thousands of handmade spinning wheels from Xuzhou, they would still not be enough.
The vast majority of women in Tangyi have no experience in spinning cotton and weaving yarn. Even if there are a group of farmers transferred from Xuzhou who are familiar with the guidance of weavers, they will be extremely slow and have not actually handled such a large output.
Cotton seeds, the ability to weave into cloth.
Although Han Qian could also transport the harvested cotton seeds to Xuzhou for processing, this would not make full use of the leisure labor in Tangyi.
Based on Han Qian's careful calculation, Wang Jun guessed that he would probably build a few hydraulic weaving workshops before winter.
Although the "Weaving Chapter" that Han Qian left for her when he left Fanchang did not contain the drawings and manufacturing methods of a water-powered spinning machine, it is almost certain that Xuzhou has built such a water-powered machine that saves effort. Wang
Jun just regrets not having seen it with his own eyes.
In the past two years, Wang Jun has experimented with planting five to six hundred acres of cotton in the farm at the foot of Shugang Mountain. Although she still followed the patterns in "Weaving Chapter", she built handmade spinning wheels. The looms were used by slaves to weave cotton cloth.
After selling, she found that even if the price of cotton cloth dropped to the same price as linen cloth, the output of one acre of cotton field would still be much higher than that of grain field.
She thought to herself, if Han Qian's newly cultivated nearly 300,000 cotton fields in Tangyi could produce twice as much as the grain fields, the gap in funding for the army would be made up by the end of this year, right?