The Songjiang Mansion of the Ming Dynasty was governed in Guhuating County, which consists of Huating, Shanghai, Jiading, Qingpu and other counties, with a considerable jurisdiction area, almost including the right half of the entire Yangtze River Delta.

At this time, although Shanghai County was very prosperous, the area was very small, and there was only a circle around the 16 shops. Therefore, most of the later generations of Shanghai aborigines, if they are from their ancestral hometown, they are actually from Jiading, Qingpu, or Songjiang, in short, they are all mud-legged little red guys in the countryside, but they are not Shanghainese.

Located on the site of the former Songjiang No. 2 Plain, the Songjiang Mansion was a large building complex in the 17th century. After all, in terms of regulation, the government is two circles larger than the county government.

On the second day after the land deed alliance held a tea tasting meeting, an envoy sat in the warm pavilion of the back house of the Songjiang Mansion and tasted tea with the prefect Fang Yuegong.

This envoy's surname is Lü, and the reason why he was sent to the prefect is because Lü Jinshen and Fang Governor are both Jinshi in the second year of the Apocalypse; The two sides are both in the same year, and they have correspondings on weekdays, so they can be regarded as qualified lobbyists.

The prefect Fang Yuegong is a native of Gucheng, Hubei, with four long characters. This person is mediocre in appearance, not tall, slightly rich, and is thirty-eight or nineteen years old, which is relatively young among middle-aged cadres.

At this moment, the prefect of Fang was personally lifting the copper teapot from a charcoal-burning tandoor under his feet and adding tea to the old friend next door.

"Fourth eldest brother, it's too simple, and it's not so honest and honest. Tomorrow, my brother will send someone to send a stove of fire oil, which is wet and cold in winter, so I can use it. ”

The intrusion of certain people has affected this plane more and more deeply.

Take the furnace carbon for heating in winter, the largest households that are not bad for money now use kerosene stoves that can adjust the fire head and are convenient and clean. The second-class rich families will use the traditional silver silk white charcoal, and the second-class ones will use ordinary charcoal like the prefect of Fang.

"The minister's fee in the yamen is so much, what can I do?" After Fang Yuegong finished adding tea to his old friend, his face became a little meaningless, "You don't have to send me fire oil, I can't afford to use it as a poor official." ”

"Where do you come from, can my brother still care about my brother's silver?!" Lu Jinshen feigned anger.

"Even those who don't need silver are expensive." When Governor Fang said this, he put away his joking face and asked, "You silverfish have always been on the Three Treasures Hall for nothing, what the hell is going on, and to be honest!" ”

Lu Jinshen laughed when he heard this: "Brother Fang still knows me." ”

The next moment, Lu Jinshen also put away his smiling face, "Recently, some people have been unruly, acting in a way that does not follow the rules, and it is difficult to control, and I hope that my brother will suppress it a little, and my brother will feel warm!" ”

"Hmph." When Fang Yuegong heard this, he shook his head, "You don't want to look for me for the business of seizing people's industry." ”

"Oh, Brother Fang already knows?"

"Joke, you guys have been making a lot of trouble these days, killing people and setting fire to people every night, are I a dead man in this prefect?"

"Hehe, since the elder brother already knows, the younger brother will open the skylight and speak brightly." Lu Jinshen was not ashamed at this time, stared at the prefect's brother Tai and said, "This matter has already made you gentlemen unable to get off the stage. Now that I am waiting for the momentum to become a tiger, I hope that my brother will make a move and slightly suppress that group of Qiu Ba for a few days, and you gentlemen will have a good reward afterwards! ”

When Fang Yuegong heard this, he had an expression that was not what I expected, raised his head and looked out the window, and stretched out his hand to knock on the table, "Thick newspaper?" What kind of reward? ”

"But if the elder brother speaks, the younger brother will obey everything!"

Before Lu Jinshen's words fell, the prefect of Fang seemed to have waited for 10,000 years, and hurriedly came out of his mouth, "I want to repair the pond." ”

Immediately afterwards, he added expressionlessly, "Shitang." ”

Fang Yuegong in history, in fact, is the same type of person as Hai Rui and Wang Zunde, who only seek fame and fame, not wealth, and are shy of officials.

When Zhang Xianzhong occupied Gucheng in the tenth year of Chongzhen, he heard that the resident Fang Yuezong was Fang Yuegong's younger brother, so he occupied the house of Yuezong below, detained him under the pretext, and asked him to pay for his salary.

However, when Zhang Xianzhong went to Fang Yuezong's house to take a look, he found that the other party was indeed a civilian, so he immediately respected him and released him.

The official careers of these honest and honest celebrities all have one thing in common: they are officials and officials, they are not afraid of the powerful, and their families have no money to spare. They are different from most officials - "winning fame before and after" is what they are really after.

But in terms of the means of being an official, Fang Yuegong, the last university scholar appointed by Chongzhen at the end, is undoubtedly much stronger than the above two.

Fang Yuegong was appointed as the prefect of Songjiang last year. After he took office, he chose a project that won the hearts of the people and went down in history.

As mentioned earlier, since the early years of Chongzhen, the tide and wind disasters in the south of the Yangtze River have not stopped. The resulting breach of the levee caused a large number of deaths and caused a large number of people to be affected everywhere.

Fang Yuegong was at this juncture and began to plan to repair the embankment.

So why did he go down in history? Because it was built as a stone pond. Yes, before Fang Yuegong, for thousands of years, all the seawalls in the south of the Yangtze River were mud embankments, which are called dry bases and plywood walls as the saying goes.

For the low-productivity ancients, a large stone was quarried, trimmed and polished, and finally transported to the seashore, which was extremely expensive for pure labor. Coupled with glutinous rice, egg whites and other consumables used as binders, and a real stone pond built with thousands of large stones, this cost is really difficult for the local government.

Therefore, it was not until the end of the Ming Dynasty that Fang Yuegong successfully built the first stone pond in the south of the Yangtze River. From this point, it can be seen that Fang Yuegong's official and organizational ability is completely superior to those other honest ministers - the Jiangnan region has always been rich, why did no one be able to handle it before?

To put it bluntly, it's a matter of competence and determination.

You must know that at the beginning, when Fang Yuegong summoned the gentry to raise funds, he also encountered many obstacles.

The gentry were afraid of increasing the financial burden, emphasizing that there were three difficulties in building stone ponds: first, it was expensive; Second, the stone pond is technically more demanding than the earth pond; The third is that "the sea is indisputable", advocating internal migration and retreat to build earthen ponds.

However, Fang Yuegong insisted that internal migration was tantamount to giving up land to the sea, so he decided to build a stone pond despite public opinion.

After that, the prefect of Fang drove a small boat every day, solicited money everywhere, and promulgated the policy of repairing embankments and soil in Songjiang Prefecture: "Rich households with 100 acres of land will be advised to lose 8 cents of silver per mu."

All of the above reflects Fang Yuegong's clever governance ability, the silver is not so easy to collect, if the skill is not high, just by boating to raise donations for a show, where can the gentry obey?

After that, there is project management, and Fang Yuegong is also very strong in this aspect, even much stronger than many projects in later generations.

He not only searched for skilled craftsmen, but then eliminated the defects after the construction of the project, did not allow the yamen and tolerance to be deducted layer by layer, and visited the supervisors at any time to check whether all the silver taels issued were in place, and finally the stone pond project was successfully completed.

After the completion of the stone pond, the people specially built the "Meritorious Shrine" in order to thank Fang Yuegong, and until later generations, there are villagers to worship.

The above facts prove that although Fang Yuegong is a clean official, he is a very scheming and proficient Qing official.

So today, the lobbyist Lu Jinshen, after visiting the Fang Governor's Mansion, hurriedly said goodbye - he took away the fundraising conditions proposed by the Fang Governor's Mansion. This condition is too harsh, and the lobbyist has no right to call the shots, so he has to go back and consult with everyone.

After sending away this person who had been plotting to seize people's property all day long, the prefect of Fang Dazhi shook his head, sighed, left the warm pavilion, and walked to another side courtyard in the back house.

In history, Fang Yuegong really got all parties done a few years later, and began to officially build the stone pond. But this matter has been planned since he took office last year, and such a huge project has been planned, and with the social conditions of the Middle Ages, it is normal for several years to prepare in advance.

So after he saw Lu Tongtong just now, he unceremoniously threw a big problem to the other party, anyway, he didn't want to care about those things, and the lion opened his mouth.

While thinking about the aftermath, the prefect of Fang walked quickly, and soon he entered an inconspicuous room in the side courtyard.

After pushing open the door, Fang Zhifu stepped into the room, hurriedly came to the desk, his hands on the desk, his eyes looked at the picture scroll on the table, and he turned his head to the person next to him and said, "What did you just say?" ”

The man next to him smiled and said, "Speaking of cement." ”

"Oh yes, cement!"

Standing next to Fang Zhifu was a middle-aged man named Luo Shizhi.

This person is one of the earliest selected dealers of Xiongdao in Jiading County. Since Luo Shizhi's brother is the current Ministry of Works, the goods that the Luo family represents here in Xiongdao are mainly some building materials cement, wood, and glass.

Today, in fact, before Lu Jinshen came to the door, Luo Shizhi had already communicated with Governor Fang in this side courtyard for a morning.

And what was in front of Fang Yuegong at this moment was exactly the watercolor dam map he was thinking about.

In fact, the things on this picture have far exceeded what Fang Yuegong had imagined in his dreams. Because it's a large-format color map of a dam that looks so majestic tomorrow that it looks like in the future.

Looking at the lifelike scenery of the Tainan Plain on the color map, as well as the magnificent and long dam, the jasper-like reservoir, and the white dragon-like flood gate, although Fang Yuegong had looked at this picture for a long time before, he still couldn't extricate himself, rubbing his fingers on the map, and chanting words in his mouth.

"Fourth eldest brother, the material used for this dam is the cement." At this time, Luo Shizhi began to explain the benefits of cement dams to the people of Futai.

After listening quietly to Luo Shizhi's introduction, Fang Yuegong nodded and said, "If this cement dam can really block the high weir lake like the one in the picture, then it is enough to build my Zhangxu Sea Pond." ”

"Hehe, it seems that the fourth eldest brother still has to see is believing." Luo Shizhi sat down at this time, poured a cup of tea on the same charcoal stove, and after taking a sip, he said confidently, "This matter is easy." Tomorrow, the four eldest brothers can choose a boundary in the mansion and ask master craftsmen to build a section of the sea pond in the old way. ”

"On my side, I also sent craftsmen to build a pond with cement and large stones, both of which are equally long and wide."

When Fang Yuegong heard this, he instantly understood what Luo Shizhi meant, "This is a good way, after the incident, I will order someone to destroy the wall and see which one is more reliable." ”