Since Li Xiao returned to Chifeng Fort, more than 20 days have passed quickly. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Before I knew it, it was early October, and at this time, the personnel of the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Department reported to Li Xiao that the barren land had been roughly cleared and developed, and a total of 160,000 mu of barren land had been cleared.

In the past 20 days, there have been too many things to do, from buying cattle and farm tools to organizing the on-site reclamation of displaced people returning from Xuanfu. These fields have been abandoned for nearly three years, overgrown with weeds and shrubs, and it is difficult to clean up.

After the land is cleared, the next step is naturally for Li Xiao to fulfill his promise and give priority to the land for the soldiers who have made meritorious contributions.

Li Xiao has always believed that giving priority to the families of meritorious soldiers will definitely greatly stimulate the enthusiasm of the soldiers to fight and their loyalty to themselves.

Li Xiao first agreed with Chen Zilong to divide the newly opened field area into six townships and townships, and in each township, a civil affairs office would be set up, and personnel would be recruited and dispatched by the Department of Civil Affairs to manage the townships and towns.

Then, the two discussed to see how many acres of land should be given to the families of each soldier.

What Li Xiao didn't expect was that Chen Zilong gave priority to making a request to him, that is, let the families of those soldiers with a small population first merge to form a new family, and then give him land.

Chen Zilong explained to Li Xiao: "Master Li, according to the students' understanding, if it is an ordinary family of five, it will take 20 acres of land to support the whole family. At present, the sergeants of our army are all members of the militia, and their families are very few, and there are no more than three or four people in a family, and after some soldiers have died, they are left with only one family member, and most of them are old and weak. Therefore, it is believed that before granting land, the family members of the small population should be combined so that they can reach the level of at least three family members in addition to the soldiers. It would be more appropriate to consider granting land according to households. ”

Li Xiao agreed with Chen Zilong's suggestion, and he added: "Wozi is very right, and the official will add one more point." In the opinion of this officer, since the establishment of our army, it has been in a state of instability, so there are many soldiers in our army who have never married a wife. Now with the Red Fengwei, plus the two sub-cities of Iron Dragon City and Jintang City, our army finally has a solid foundation. Now that there are conditions, let's give priority to letting the families of the soldiers marry each other. If there are still soldiers who fail to find a suitable spouse after the family is matched, they can be given priority to choose from the homeless women, in short, we must let every soldier really start a family and start a business, so that their family can truly become a solid cornerstone of our army. ”

Chen Zilong said with a smile: "Your Excellency's order is very timely. There is a way, only with a family can you start a business, and only with a wife can you have peace of mind. ”

In the next three days, the officials of the Civil Affairs Department of Chifeng City were very busy.

A large number of soldiers held a marriage ceremony, which was something they had never encountered, but fortunately in this era, it was all parents who were in charge, and did not pay attention to falling in love and personal wishes, so under the photography of some enthusiastic women, a couple of newlyweds successfully got married. Then go to the Civil Affairs Department together to get the marriage certificate.

This marriage certificate system is an important system that Li Xiao stipulates must be implemented in Chifengwei, and both men and women can formalize the marriage relationship between the two through the marriage certificate system.

Li Xiao also stipulates that if the husband and wife do not agree emotionally in the future, and there is a conflict and a divorce is required, the man cannot write a letter of divorce to divorce his wife, but must go to the civil affairs department to obtain a divorce certificate jointly before they can officially break up, and the family property must also be divided proportionally.

Originally, Li Xiao also considered monogamy in the future, but he considered that it may take a long time for the soldiers and people of Chifengwei to accept this marriage and divorce system, and Li Xiao did not plan to implement this system that people were accustomed to in later generations but deviant in the eyes of the Ming Dynasty.

Li Xiao's military order was issued to Tielong City and Jintang City at the same time. Li Xiao demanded that in Tielong City and Jintang City, too, for the families of soldiers and soldiers who have made military achievements, they should unite the population and become families in the true sense of the word through the way of marrying soldiers and soldiers.

After the formation of the new family, after several days of preparation, the field awarding ceremony that excited the soldiers and civilians of the whole fort finally began.

After selection, there are always 1,500 military and soldier families who have been selected for this land award.

Xu Xiuqing, the head of Chifeng City, stood on a high platform and loudly announced the relevant regulations of this land grant to the people who suppressed the people in the audience.

The main provisions are as follows:

1. Each family with military merits will be issued a field deed, 40 acres of land will be granted, and priority will be given to good quality land, and then the cattle will be divided into one cattle for every 5 households. Li Xiao specially presented these ploughing cattle to them in recognition of the merits of the soldiers and soldiers.

2. After the families of the soldiers are divided, they are divided by the families of the displaced people, and these families of the displaced people are granted 20 acres of land per household, and each family of displaced people is required to have at least 4 people to ensure that the labor force for farming is sufficient. The cattle used by the displaced people are based on one ploughing ox per 10 households, and they need to pay their own expenses, which will be deducted from the grain tax at that time.

3. As for the farm tools and wheat seeds, Li Xiao bought them from Laizhou Huangxian and other places, and then sold them to every family at a low price.

4. For every ten households, there is a lieutenant chief, who is an elderly and virtuous person, and the lieutenant chief is responsible for keeping the ploughing cattle, distributing agricultural tools and seeds, and coordinating the daily conflicts between the ten households, conveying the orders of the officials, and urging the payment of taxes. At the same time, a village chief is elected from among these chiefs according to the location of different villages. These village chiefs are all semi-official managers of Chi Fengwei, and they are usually supervised by the civil affairs offices of the local townships.

5. Each household, starting from next year, will receive a bucket of grain per acre, and harvest it twice a year in summer and autumn, and pay it in kind, without having to fold it into silver, and in the year after that, it will collect two buckets of grain per acre of land, and collect it twice a year. From then on, it will always be a law, and there will be no increase in the grain tax.

After Xu Xiuqing finished speaking, it immediately aroused the enthusiastic cheers of the people in the audience, and the slogans of long live Master Li were endless.

Every family member in the audience looked at Li Xiao who was sitting on the stage with a smile with warm and happy eyes.

Li Xiao's many preferential treatment to military soldiers made the families of these soldiers and soldiers, and everyone in their hearts, more determined to follow Li Xiao's wishes.

The other homeless family members who have newly joined Chifeng Castle are envious, and they all swear in their hearts that in the future, they will also let their children work hard, become soldiers, serve Lord Li, win glory for their families, and make their own families become military families who are treated and respected preferentially and respected.

Li Xiao smiled and waved to the people in the audience, seeing that his own policies could be supported by the people, he was also inexplicably happy in his heart.

The traditional governance of the village and town gentry in the Chinese dynasties was changed by Li Xiao in this way into a township system similar to that of later generations. Li Xiao is convinced that through such means, it should be possible to achieve strong control over rural governance.

And this figure of paying grain tax was carefully calculated by Li Xiao.

In the Tenglai area, winter wheat can be planted after the autumn equinox every year and mature until May of the following year. Later, between the grain rain or miscanthus seeds, sweet sorghum that is more tolerant to salinity and alkali can be planted, and it can be ripe and harvested before replanting wheat. In this way, each peasant household can harvest two crops a year, which is the basis for Li Xiao's decision to harvest grain twice a year.

According to the planting level of the Ming Dynasty, if it is a high-quality fertile land, one mu of land can produce 8 to 10 buckets of wheat, and the yield of sorghum is slightly larger, which can produce about 10 to 12 buckets. According to the middle and lower quality fields of Chifengwei, on average, one acre of field is estimated to produce about 5 to 6 buckets of wheat and 7 to 8 buckets of sorghum.

In this way, according to the minimum output, each military family can produce 200 buckets of wheat and 280 buckets of sorghum a year, and the total amount of grain is 480 buckets. In this way, the grain handed over by each household only accounted for one-third of the output value of each household, which was too preferential compared with the general more than half of the grain handed over in the Ming Dynasty.

In this way, ordinary homeless families, because each household has only 20 acres of land, only pay 80 buckets of grain per year.

Moreover, if peasant households work hard to improve the quality of their land and vigorously apply fertilizer and intensively cultivate their land, the total grain output in a year will definitely increase substantially. In this way, the burden of food taxes will be lighter.

And the division of these fields is also of great significance to Li Xiaojun. It can be said that it provides an effective and feasible template for Li Xiaojun to rule and manage in other places in the future.

It can be easily calculated that after the normalization of grain production in the following year, Chifengwei can provide Li Xiao with 64,000 stone of grain every year, and because there is now a large amount of fish and meat supplements, the daily food consumption per person has been reduced to one pound per person, which is enough to supply the food expenses of more than 20,000 people in Chifengwei and Tielong City for more than a year.

Of course, such an algorithm doesn't make much sense, after all, the soldiers and people of Jintangcheng in Xuanfu Town have not been counted, and if Li Xiao wants to recruit more soldiers and displaced people in the future, these grains will still be insufficient soon.

The road in front of Li Xiao is still tortuous and full of unknowns.

Xu Xiuqing looked at the excited new farmers below with a smile on his face, and continued to say loudly: "Everyone, the land that is now distributed is our army's public land. If there are family members who are unwilling or unable to farm, they can return the title deed to the Department of Civil Affairs, and the Department of Civil Affairs will rearrange the cultivation of new households. Do you understand? ”

"Understood!" There was another shout of joy below.

"Okay, let's start issuing the title deed, please hear the name, come up to the stage to receive the title deed. Everyone, please note that this is an important certificate of owning the land, which needs to be kept well, and if it is lost, it needs to be reissued immediately at the Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. Xu Xiuqing said loudly.

"My lord, we know." There was another enthusiastic shout from the audience.

Subsequently, the head of the 1,500 family members walked up to the stage diligently, and from the hands of the personnel of the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Division, they took over the six-kai size that had already been made, and wrote the land boundary and the name of the head of the household on thick kraft paper. The heads of each family carefully carried the title deed into their arms.

Li Xiao saw that after the deed was issued, everyone's faces were filled with joyful smiles.

In China, an ancient farming country, it is the eternal dream of the people on this land to have their own land and let the family have a place to settle down.

Another five days have passed, and all kinds of preparations for the farmers' spring plowing have been completed, and Xu Xiuqing, the director of Chifengwei, personally invited Li Xiao to participate in the autumn plowing ceremony of the new farmers.

Hearing that there was also an autumn ploughing ceremony, Zu Wan'er looked novel and excited, and shouted to go with Li Xiao. Li Xiao couldn't resist her, so he had to take her with him.

Li Xiao changed into brand new clothes, took Zu Wan'er, and a group of guards to the village where the autumn ploughing ceremony was held.

Lively firecrackers and noisy gongs and drums sounded together, the smell of gunpowder smoke wafted away, and the little sunlight shining through the faint clouds reflected the happy and energetic faces of the farmers in new clothes.

Zu Wan'er looked around, the customs of these farmers, every place surprised her, the daughter who grew up in Jiangmen's house. Especially the joyful and cheerful eyes of those farmers, Zu Wan'er had never seen them in the countryside of Liaodong before.

Xu Xiuqing first set up a table and asked Li Xiao to name the newly established village.

Li Xiao thought about it, and on the unfolded rice paper, he splashed ink and wrote the words "Xinghe Village" in the dragon flying and phoenix dance.

Looking at Li Xiaotie's handwriting with silver hooks, Zu Wan'er's eyes were full of admiration when she looked at him.

A village chief in the village with white hair smiled and said: "Li Qianhu has good penmanship, Xinghe Village, prosperity and harmony, it is really a good meaning." The little old man will go to Laizhou City tomorrow to carve a stone plaque and stand in front of the village to commemorate it forever. ”

Everyone laughed, and Xu Xiuqing immediately announced that the autumn ploughing ceremony had begun.

The gongs, drums and firecrackers immediately rang out, and the thick smoke of gunpowder made it almost difficult for Zu Wan'er to breathe, looking at the crowded crowd around her, she subconsciously grabbed the hem of Li Xiao's clothes.

Li Xiao saw that in the deafening sound of firecrackers and gongs and drums, the farmers carried out a huge paper-paste ploughing cow, and then threw a few handfuls of rice, soybeans and other grains to the paper cow, indicating that the wind and rain in the new year will be harmonious and the five grains will be abundant.

According to the ritual requirements that Xu Xiuqing quietly said to Li Xiao, Li Xiao led everyone to the field, burned incense and prayed, and worshiped the emperor's earth.

Li Xiao looked at the sky, and the sun hanging high had a kind smile to look at him.

After paying tribute to the emperor's thick soil, Li Xiao led the crowd to bow three times and worship the gods of the land in the southeast, northwest and northwest, and then Li Xiao personally helped the plow, put on the ploughing ox to plow the field, after a pleasant whip, the ploughing ox moved forward, and the dark brown mud was lifted in large groups, and a deep mud ditch was plowed.

Li Xiao's action symbolizes the official start of autumn ploughing.

Li Xiao unloaded the plough and watched as the farmer carried the paper oxen around the field a few times, and then placed it in the center of the field and set it on fire. At this point, the spring ploughing ceremony officially ended.

When Li Xiao left with Zu Wan'er, he could still hear the happy farmers singing loudly: "Autumn ploughing is deep, spring ploughing is shallow." Spring ploughing is like turning cakes, and autumn ploughing is like digging a well. Ploughing is one inch deeper, and it can be topped with manure. Spring ploughing and autumn ploughing are unwilling to be busy, and the face is hungry and yellow after autumn. Plough well and rake well, and grow crops without grass. The crops do not recognize their father and mother, and they work intensively and produce more grain。。。。。。 ”

Li Xiao quietly looked at Zu Wan'er behind him, and found that this big young lady was also listening to the farmer's song with her ears pricked up, and there seemed to be an inexplicable look of intoxication and yearning on her face.

A faint smile appeared on Li Xiao's face.

He secretly thought in his heart, Wan'er, do you know that these farming folk songs sung for thousands of years are the eternal and immortal spiritual soul of our Han nation from generation to generation。。。。。。 (To be continued.) )