It's late February, when the spring breeze is warm. In the water of the Yellow River in the north of Baima County, you can see less and less drift ice, and within three to five days at most, the traffic on both sides of the river can be restored.

Because of the thawing of the Yellow River, the 600,000 stone of grain that the daimyo Fu Wen Yanbo asked the imperial court for supplies could not be transported. During the period when the ice passage of the Yellow River was still open, only 150,000 stone of grain was in place. Then, as the ice of the Yellow River began to break, the process of replenishment came to a halt and has not been restored since.

Since the Daimyo Mansion could no longer support the daily consumption of nearly 100,000 displaced people, the displaced people had to start moving to the south with more food. Across the Yellow River, you can see Liyangjin on the opposite side during this time, and more and more displaced people are wandering on the embankment.

Now Han Gang is a little suspicious that Wen Yanbo asked the imperial court for 600,000 stone of grain in order to shirk responsibility. With Wen Yanbo's old age in political affairs, it is impossible not to know the time when the Yellow River was closed to traffic. He rushed to ask for money and grain when the Yellow River was about to thaw, and it was likely that he had calculated the timing, even if the grain was ready here in the capital, he couldn't transport it. Now, the food in the Daimyo Mansion has been eaten, don't say that the emperor in the capital can't blame him, even the hungry homeless people can't blame him Wen Kuanfu, but will only cast his resentment on the prime minister of the capital.

Hebei displaced people go south, and Baima County, which controls Jinjin, is the only way to go.

Old Huazhou is the gateway to Tokyo City on the south bank of the Yellow River, while Hakuba County is the gateway to Huazhou. As the seat of Huazhou Prefecture, Baima County is close to the Yellow River, and Baimadu is one of the two main ferry ports from Hebei to the capital. From the northeast of Huazhou, another important river crossing site, the official road from Kaide Mansion on the Hebei East Road, that is, Puyang, to the capital also passes through the southeast corner of Baima County.

Located on the main traffic road, the annual commercial tax revenue of Baima County is even higher than that of Tianfu, otherwise the number of households in Dukou Town will not exceed that of the county seat. It's just that when the displaced people go south, the convenience of transportation becomes a bad thing. Looking at the displaced people on the other side of the Yellow River, and thinking about how many days later, thousands of Hebei displaced people poured into the county, anyone would shudder.

The rushing waters of the Yellow River crashed against a reef in the middle of the river, making a thunderous sound. It is said that it is a reef, but in fact, it can be regarded as a mountain bag, and it can also be said to be a small island, and it is called a mountain by the people on both sides of the strait. Jushan is shaped like a turtle, almost 20 zhang up and down, blocked in the center of the river, but slightly biased to the side of Baima County. It is only a hundred steps away from Wenzi Mountain, where Han Gang and his staff are now standing.

Wenzi Mountain is actually only about 20 zhang, the size is not as good as Jushan, but it is also a rare scenery in Baima County. Han Gang stood in the small pavilion on the top of Wenzi Mountain, looking at the other side and groaning, while his three staff members were talking outside the pavilion.

If you look down from the mountain, you can see a windmill, which is as small as a toy. But in reality, the windmill is three feet high, and the water that comes out of the well is like a gushing spring.

In order to manufacture windmills in large quantities, Hangang adopted a subcontracting system. After two samples were created, one was displayed on a well, and the remaining one was disassembled and distributed to carpenters and blacksmiths in the prefecture to build them, each making a part according to the sample.

There is a lot of truth in the saying that people have a lot of strength, as long as they are well organized, they can create miracles. Focusing on a simple part, the craftsmen are quick to get started and produce faster. As for the preparation of raw materials, Han Gang is all distributed to all townships and villages, and whoever pays more will have priority.

The windmill not far below Wenzi Mountain was assembled by craftsmen in the county after sending parts and components. Since there is no standardized industry in later generations, there are all kinds of faults in the parts. But in general, it will not be too far behind, if the size of the parts is not suitable, the ones that can be transformed will be transformed on the spot, and the ones that cannot be transformed will be redone. When assembling, it is usually just polished, and after replacing a few parts, it can be assembled smoothly.

However, these windmills are not like the Dutch windmills in Han Gang's memory, with long fan blades sticking out of a hut on all sides. But it seems to be a side of the sails spelled out, the central axis is vertical, straight vertical, looking at the past from a distance, like a marquee, with the fan blades can be automatically adjusted with the wind direction, the breeze blows, and it gurgles and turns.

Han Gang didn't know much about machines, and seeing how easy it was to build a windmill for drawing water made him admire the craftsmanship of the craftsmen of this era. And with the windmill, a deep well has a real use.

At the beginning, it took more than ten days to dig the first deep well, but when Hangang began to promote it with the help of the hands of the displaced people, the local villagers who were responsible for sinking the wells worked hard one by one as if they had taken medicine, and now it is only a little more than a month, and there are more than 140 deep wells drilled in the county, and there are 31 water in them, and every township has at least one deep well. Such a high percentage is considered lucky.

The windmill is erected at the well, and when there is wind, it uses windmills, and when there is no wind, it uses animal power, and draws water day and night. With 31 deep wells, it can at least cope with the drought in the past. Wei Pingzhen and Fang Xing even wrote poems for this, and when the deep wells in each township came out of the water, they also held a feast to celebrate, but the locust plague still inevitably gave people a headache.

At this time, the nymphs that crawl out of the ground are as small as ants, and they can crawl all over the ground in a bounce, and it is effortless to gnaw on the flowers, trees, and wheat seedlings in the field.

Standing on the mountain bag on the bank of the Yellow River, seeing the dense locust larvae under his feet, You Alcohol only felt that his scalp was numb. As soon as they hatched, they were already covered with the ground, and if they were allowed to grow into flying, it would be covering the sky and the sun, and this would be worth it?!

Fortunately, Han Gang's prestige in the county is high, and he has organized people to fight, and looking down from Wenzi Mountain, you can see thousands of people lining up along the river embankment, holding brooms and beating to the ground. It doesn't seem like it would take much effort to get rid of the locusts in this section.

However, the success of the locust eradication in Baima County will not help the locust areas of Hebei and Henan for hundreds of miles on both sides of the Yellow River. The locust plague in Hebei is already imminent, and it is very likely that a locust plague will break out in Gyeonggi.

Fang Xing kept stomping his feet, and the locusts that jumped on his boots made him sick to death.

You Alcohol is worried: "Spring wheat is the time to sprout, and at this time the locusts come out, and I don't know how much can be left." ”

Spring wheat was sown as early as the end of January, and it was relatively easy for Han Gang, as the prime minister's son-in-law, to get some seeds through Wang Anshi. The entire Gyeonggi county needs spring wheat seeds, and Baekba County relies on Hangang, which is not only the first to get it, but also the largest county in terms of proportion. Almost all the fields that have been determined to be out of harvest have been replanted.

Fang Xing stomped his feet and said, "We have a good word here, and we don't know what to do on the Hebei side." ”

Wei Pingzhen glanced at the tall figure in the pavilion. He shook his head: "The displaced people are just across the river, what else can Hebei do?" Let's think about what we're going to do first! ”

The three of them now know Han Gang's intentions, and they are almost certain that Wang Anshi arranged Han Gang to Baima County in order to block the Hebei refugees here.

"It's a pity that there is only one county." Fang Xing shook his head, a little unsympathetic to Wang Anshi's stinginess, "If you want to save everything, it's not something that Baima County can do."

"It would be nice if the power of the righteous speech was a little greater." After following Han Gang for a few months, You Yu saw Han Gang's actions in his eyes, although he didn't say it clearly because he was self-conscious. But he already admired Han Gang, who was thinking hard for the people under his rule. You Ol believes that after Han Gang has more power, he can do better.

"Jiefu is going to return to the state?!" Wei Pingzhen turned his head and asked in surprise.

"Fuhuazhou?" You Yu didn't know what Wei Pingzhen said about it, he just sighed casually, and he didn't mean it.

But Fang Xing listened to it, and after thinking about it carefully, he felt that the idea of reviving Huazhou was indeed beneficial, "Baima is a capital county, that is the order of general judgment. Now that the second general judgment is done, and then it is the order of Zhizhou. If Huazhou is restored, with the rank of the right word, even the prefix of the right to send is not wanted, and it is enough to directly know the right to Huazhou. White Horse is the original state of Huazhou, and today's county government is the old state government. Zhengyan was promoted to the governor of Huazhou, as long as he changed the plaque, he didn't even want to go out of the door. ”

You Yu thought for a while, and then became excited: "In this way, with the power of this state, it will be much easier to rescue the homeless." Not to mention that with the right words, it is easy to govern the state and county, and the people of the three counties of Huazhou can also avoid the suffering of locust drought and two plagues! ”

"But some people definitely don't want to......"

The opposition did not come from You You, Wei Pingzhen, and Fang Xing, but from behind them.

The three of them hurriedly turned around, but it was Han Gang who didn't know when he arrived behind him, smiling slightly. They hurriedly bowed down and pleaded guilty.

"It doesn't matter." Han Gang didn't care what they said behind their backs, let alone his own good words. But the proposal they said to restore Huazhou is not very likely to be allowed by the imperial court.

Although administrative divisions change very frequently today, it is much easier than in a thousand years. But after just over a year, shouting for recovery is tantamount to a slap in the face of the previous proponent of the annexation of the two states—well, in fact, Zeng Bu.

Moreover, the year before last, Huazhou and Zhengzhou were merged into Kaifeng Mansion, which was also begged by the squire fathers of the two states. Just like the capital in later generations, the cost of public transportation was much smaller than that of local cities, and the service of Kaifeng Prefecture in this era was far less than that of the outer prefectures and counties—this was the privilege of the people of the capital, and it was also the price paid by the imperial court in order to maintain stability—and at the same time, there were dozens of officials and hundreds of officials in the prefectures and counties, and the people of the two states had to pay many additional miscellaneous contributions.

"At the beginning, it was the joint wish of the people of the two states, but now they can still be allowed to sign together?" Han Gang shook his head, this is simply unrealistic.

But his self-confidence in his eyes is undiminished, and he wants to appease the displaced people who have entered Beijing, who else can I be?!