In the autumn of the 16th year of Qian Sheng, Donghu County in Nanhu Prefecture, this county located in the northwest of the empire, has never been too famous in the history of the Daheng Empire.
Even during the unification war more than ten years ago, this Donghu County had little reputation, and no large-scale war broke out here.
It was not until the Daheng Empire was unified that the empire's army entered the area for the first time. By that time, the empire had already captured the northwest state.
In the long history of the empire, this is a place that has been visited by people.
It's not that the geographical environment here is not good. In fact, there are flat plains here and a large amount of arable land suitable for development. Although the weather is a little colder, it is definitely not as cold as over in Ningwu Prefecture.
However, this place has always had a small population. This large county only has a population of more than 200,000 people, and the permanent population of the county town is only more than 20,000 people.
Even though the cities in the Daheng Empire are famous for their small number of people, such a number of people can be considered to be small. Some counties, towns and cities in developed and wealthy areas have more people than this.
For example, in Nanhai Prefecture, each county has a population of more than 100,000.
This is because the counties in Nanhai Prefecture generally have relatively large populations. For example, Luo'an County, where Lin Ziran started, conducted a census after unification, and the population reached more than 3.4 million.
Luohai County in the south had even more people. At that time, Luohai County had a population of more than five million, and one of its cities, Luohai City, had a population of more than 800,000.
Today, the population of Luohai County has reached more than six million, and its increased population mainly comes from the new population of Luohai City.
Today, the Luohaicheng area has more than 1.5 million citizens, and the population has nearly doubled in the past ten years.
This is also the most populous city in the Daheng Empire, with a population greater than one million in Jingzhou.
Of course, this is also related to the fact that Luo Hai County is the most important city and economic leader in the southern region of the Daheng Empire. Moreover, Luo Hai County has a pleasant climate, flat and fertile land, and there are many rivers running through the entire Luo Hai County. Through the river transportation network, you can go south to the sea. Entering Shayang Bay, you can connect to other counties, and you can also go north through Luohe River to connect Quyang Prefecture and even Nanhu Prefecture.
Luohai City, which had the right time and place, naturally became one of the most important cities in the Daheng Empire. This is not to say that it is like this now, but it has always been like this for hundreds of years.
However, densely populated places like Luo Hai County are actually rare in the Daheng Empire. In fact, in Daheng, although many counties are quite large in area, they generally have a small population.
Of course? It's rarely the same as Donghu County. There are only 20,000 people in the county.
There is no way, Donghu County is located in the north? The weather is relatively cold? Although there are large areas of plains suitable for development and farming, transportation is inconvenient? The food harvested from this farming is difficult to transport out of the country at a low price.
And how many farmers in Daheng grow food to eat themselves? This is hundreds or thousands of acres of land? They eat all the harvested food. Isn’t this nonsense!
Most of the grain produced will be sold, and the money gained from the sales is used to maintain life, and is also used to purchase grain seeds, plow horses, and various production tools for farming.
What if transportation is inconvenient and there is no way to transport food cheaply? Then if you farm in such a place, you will lose as much as you plant.
Under such circumstances, this place is like many other places with inconvenient transportation. Although it is also an imperial territory and there are many people living there, it is difficult to develop large-scale agriculture like other places with convenient transportation.
Even after the empire was reunified, support was given to restore people's livelihood across the country? Donghu County still failed to achieve much development.
The reason is simple: once the food is grown, it cannot be transported!
Although the national railway network plan was launched after the unification of the empire? But even so, the empire's railway network plan prioritized the construction of main line railways and important branch line railways.
The two most important railways to South Huzhou at that time were the Haihu North-South Main Line Railway and the Xining Main Line Railway. However, although these two railways formed a cross network in South Huzhou, unfortunately, Donghuzhou was located in Nanhuzhou.
In the northwest, there are still no railways passing through.
Although the local county government has called for the construction of railways several times, people from the Imperial Railway Corporation felt that there were only a dozen or two hundred thousand people in this poor place, and they had nothing to offer. Moreover, it was not a strategic artery and had no military value.
The railway company's funds are very tight and limited, and it needs to prioritize the construction of other key railways, especially those trunk railways and important branch railways. As for the railway in Donghu County, it must be built, but not now.
The people of Donghu County kept waiting and waiting. When there was no trace of the railway in the tenth year of Qian Sheng, the local officials and local people gritted their teeth. For the future, they simply raised funds to build the railway on their own.
Of course, in accordance with the principle of unified railway construction, unified management and operation, this railway still belongs to the Railway Corporation. These funds are regarded as loans to the railway company and are used specifically to repair the railways in Donghu County. They will be repaid in the future.
What about interest?
It was easy to get money, and soon the railway construction started. Then three years later, in the 13th year of Qian Sheng's reign, the branch railway connecting the east-west trunk line in Donghuzhou was successfully opened to traffic.
After the railway was opened to traffic, the next thing became much easier, and local people began to expand the planting area on a large scale.
The planting area of each household has rapidly increased from hundreds of acres to more than thousands of acres, and some powerful farmers have opened up tens of thousands of acres of land.
And how to cultivate so much land? Rely on draft horses?
Just kidding, how many people are needed to use a draft horse? Donghuzhou only has a small population, how can there be so many people to drive a draft horse to plow the land!
They use various types of machinery and equipment, such as tractors, so that they can cultivate more land with the least manpower!
They directly used bank loans to purchase agricultural machinery, and then expanded the cultivated land area several times or even dozens of times, and their agricultural output value skyrocketed in just a few years.
The income of local people has also increased significantly, and it has even become one of the counties with the fastest economic growth in the Daheng Empire in recent years.
In fact, this is not only the place with the fastest growth rate in the Daheng Empire, but also the place with the highest per capita income in the Daheng Empire. The per capita income directly beats the so-called big cities such as Jingzhou and Luohai City, and is even several times higher.
gap.
Donghu County’s economic boom in recent years has been called the East Lake Miracle by the media.
However, there are many places in the Daheng Empire that are suitable for farming, and there are also many places that are connected to railways, and there are countless grain-producing areas. However, there are few places that can take off as quickly as Donghu County after the railways are connected.
, why is this happening?
Because they decisively and even radically chose to fully mechanize farming.
Otherwise, how could it be possible for more than 200,000 people in Donghu County to cultivate such a huge amount of land and create such a huge agricultural output value!
And this is also the reason why Lin Ziran chose to come here to take a look during his inspection in autumn and winter this year. He wanted to make this place a model and tell people not to cling to horse farming. Machine farming is the future!