The salt industry in Hedong is an important pillar industry in its territory, so many people in its territory are also arranged around it.

Before the Northern Wei Dynasty court ensured that the salt produced in Hedong could be easily transported, and channeled the passenger water that flowed into the salt pond due to various accidents, it also specially built a canal in the territory, called Yongfeng Canal, from the salt pond to Puban.

Li Taiben started with water conservancy, and he also knew the importance of smooth logistics, so he chose to go to Yanchi through the Yongfeng Canal. Most of the villagers who came to meet him in Kasaka arranged to disperse and return home, leaving only those with official positions to accompany them.

The overall topography of the Yuncheng Basin, where Hedong is located, is relatively low-lying, so there are many Zetang ponds in the territory, and the Yongfeng Canal is built on these surface water sources. Because it is downstream and confluent with another important river in the east of the river, the water volume and navigation of the river are still relatively good.

However, after tracing up the river and passing through a lake called Wuxing Lake, the water condition of Yongfeng Canal became visibly worse to the naked eye. The river has narrowed, the amount of water has decreased, and in some places there has been a situation of congestion and siltation, not to mention navigable transportation, and even more basic flood drainage and discharge cannot be done.

The first reason for this situation is that the canal is obviously in disrepair, it must be known that even the naturally formed rivers must be regularly dredged to ensure the smooth flow of water, and the artificially excavated canals have higher requirements for related maintenance work, if the maintenance is not good, it will not take a few years to lose its water conservancy effect.

The second reason is that Li Tai saw that there was a lot of newly reclaimed land along the canal, and these lands were arbitrarily dug and drained along the canal for irrigation, and under the four forks, the water flow in the main road of the canal was naturally reduced.

"Although I have not been in this township, I also know the importance of Yongfeng Canal to the maintenance of Hedong Township. Now that the canal has become like this, can you and other prefectures and county shepherds take the blame?"

Li Tai rode his horse on the road next to the bank of the Yongfeng Canal, pointed to the river in a very bad state, looked at Cui Ji and other state and county officials and frowned.

Cui Ji and Pei Xia and other political officials in Hedong heard Tang Gong's reprimand, hurriedly turned over and dismounted, and tended to bow their heads and said, "It is indeed a crime for the ministers to fail to fulfill their duties and live up to their favors after entering the country. The formation of the siltation disaster of Yongfeng Canal is not a temporary problem, and it is not possible to solve it by dredging in a short time. In order to avoid harsh orders that may hurt the people's feelings, we can only work slowly, and ask the Lord to take a short vacation, and the ministers will definitely properly solve the problem here!"

These few of them are all cronies of the overlord to be appointed here, and there is such a situation in Hedong, and they must have communicated with each other for a long time. Now Li Tai reprimanded them for dereliction of duty in front of everyone in Hedong, which is also showing the importance that the overlord attaches to this matter.

"I'm not going to give you time? When you look back at the troubled villagers, once this calamity breaks out and affects the salt pond, you will have the face to look up to this heaven and earth!"

Li Tai waved his hand impatiently to interrupt these people's words, then frowned again and asked, "Why did the matter come to this, who can explain it clearly for me?"

"Enlighten the Lord, Yongfeng Canal is so far, it is indeed a reason, please let the Lord be careful!"

Pei Xia stepped forward and began to explain in detail the reasons for the disrepair of Yongfeng Canal.

First of all, the responsibility also lies in the original tyranny, Hedong as the front line of the war between the east and the west, the people's service is relatively heavy, and the manpower and material resources required to dredge such an artificial canal for hundreds of miles are also very considerable.

However, the overlord did not make any arrangements for this, not to mention the allocation of personnel and materials to dredge the canal, and even the compensatory reduction of part of the servitude, so the dredging and maintenance work of the Yongfeng Canal can only be carried out by the large clans on both sides of the river, and this is naturally carried out from time to time.

Li Tai also has a deep understanding of this, not to mention the canals here in Hedong, even if it is the same state where the overlord is located, he took the initiative to take on this task back then.

The Hedong clan itself has related interests, and the overlord does not care about it, but they can't turn a blind eye, after all, the Yongfeng Canal is maintained, and they are also the most direct beneficiaries. Moreover, the benefits from the salt ponds, combined with the harvest from the land along the river, were sufficient to sustain their inputs. It must be known that even if Li Tai put money into it purely by himself, he was willing to do it in order to be able to gather the countryside.

Before, the local clans in Hedong were also willing to invest in this, but it was just a turnaround

The implementation of the salt introduction system in Bafu has made relatively strict restrictions on the production and sales of salt, and has also caused certain damage to the interests of these large local households in Hedong.

Of course, these losses will not make the big families in Hedong break their muscles and bones, but they are uncomfortable, and that is certain. Therefore, the original idea of being enthusiastic about rural affairs gradually changed, and the resentment began to rot, and the maintenance of the river canal became less concerned.

Although the Bafu government increased the management procedures, it was also unwilling to increase the input costs, and the dredging and maintenance of the Yongfeng Canal were also ignored as before, so the canal was silted up.

Another point is that with the implementation of the salt introduction system, the amount of salt that can be sold every year has also become a ration, and even if there is more production, it is difficult to export and sell, which will inevitably affect the scale of salt production. After all, the extra salt produced not only consumes labor, but also requires a certain amount of storage costs.

There are tens of thousands of salt households in Hedong around the salt pond, and with the compression of production capacity, a number of salt households will inevitably be eliminated from the production process. These people do not have unemployment benefits, and if they want to survive, they will have to switch to farming and clearing wasteland, and the water consumption will increase significantly, further increasing the pressure on the Yongfeng Canal.

Although Pei Xia has worked in Shannan Daoxingtai for the past few years, after all, he is a native of Hedong, and the reasons for this are also reasonable.

After listening to Pei Xia's explanation, Li Tai frowned and pondered, of course, this conversation and his expression were also made for the Hedong people who were present.

After pondering for a long time, he spoke: "In the past, the imperial court did not pay attention to the people's livelihood in Hedong, and there were not only things that were not covered by mercy, but also where the punishment order was not established! From this point of view, the blockage of the Yongfeng Canal at this time cannot be blamed on one party. However, if it can be repaired and dredged, the beneficiaries will also be the villagers of this village.

Hedong is now my feudal country, I really can't bear the people of the country to be trapped by sorrow, this year's tax collection in the country, and used to dredge this canal, even if it is not possible for a year, next year will be again this plan. In short, if this canal is not unobstructed for a day, no trace of the country can cross the river and enter the house!"

If the canal is not smooth, it will not only affect waterway shipping and agricultural watering, but the biggest danger is that if there is any flood in the upper reaches of the river and poured into the salt pond, it will greatly affect the yield of the salt pond in the east of the river, and even more serious may even cause a permanent reduction in production.

Of course, Li Tai couldn't let this happen, so he preferred to use the tax revenue from the feudal state to dredge the Yongfeng Canal.

Of course, there are some things that need to be explained clearly in advance, before the overlord was indeed not enough to take care of it, but at the same time, it also gave you a lot of extrajudicial favors to the big families in Hedong, and now since he spends money to govern, then everything from now on will naturally have to follow his rules. Not to mention anything else, these phenomena of arbitrarily digging ditches to extract water will be absolutely strictly prohibited in the future!

The people in Hedong may not be unaware of the importance of Yongfeng Canal, but they are still a little short-sighted in their hearts. As the so-called three monks have no water to drink, they only feel that the number of profits has increased, and they can't pay all the costs. Now that Tang Gong is willing to take on this matter, they are also happy to see it, so they all praise Tang Gong for his righteousness.

The salt pond in Hedong is mainly located on the southeast side of the Yuncheng Basin and the northern foot of Zhongtiao Mountain, which is a completely closed artesian basin. There are two main parts of the distribution of salt ponds, the southwest one is called the female salt pond, which has many impurities and poor quality of salt, and is usually only used as a backup production area.

Located on the northeast side, it is also known as Jiechi, which is the main production area of salt in Hedong. The salt pond is more than 80 miles long from east to west, and 10 miles wide from north to south, and is artificially divided into different salt-producing areas. The brine in the pond is introduced into a square pond furrow, which is naturally crystallized into salt at the bottom by evaporation in the sun, and then the salt is taken out by the salters to dry and dry, and can be used for sale.

In later generations, Li Tai also came to the salt pond to play, but he could no longer see the scene of salt making in full swing, and now he saw thousands of salt dices distributed in those salt furrows working hard, and the salt furrows were covered with crystallized salt, like a piece of snow, and the picture was extremely magnificent under the sunlight.

river

The production of East Salt Pond is participated by both the government and the people, while the share of direct production by the government is not large, and it is mainly used for the use and consumption of the overlord and the imperial court itself. As for the market-oriented sales, it is mainly carried out by local wealthy households. As for the transportation and sales to the outside world, they are under the control of the government. Through the division of different links, a benefit distribution plan for both public and private conveniences is reached.

Li Tai stayed in Yanchi for two more days, in addition to inspecting the production and sales of Yanchi, but also to wait for Shaozhou Thorn Shi Yang Yan to come here to meet.

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