Although Shu Yan wants to work both increasing yield per mu and increasing land per mu, he has limited manpower. There is a saying that "it is better to work hard than to work hard in an acre", that is, it is better to cultivate a small number of fields intensively than to cultivate too many fields in a simple and extensive way. As the saying goes, you can't chew too much. We can only put aside the plan of expanding cultivated land for the first time and concentrate on increasing the yield per mu.

The most effective measure to increase the yield per mu is to build canals to ensure the irrigation of the fields.

On the desk is a map of Ruyin County, which shows the mountainous terrain and administrative counties and townships of the county.

Shu Yan and Du Jian, the chief bookkeeper, and other officials are studying and analyzing this matter. There was no disagreement with Shu Yan's proposal to build a canal.

Du Jian said: "The county's intention to persuade farmers to serve the people is really the great official. The construction of water canals is of course a good thing for the future, such as the Zhengguo Canal in the pre-Qin period. However, the amount of work involved in the excavation of the canal was huge, and although the national strength of the Qin State began to increase significantly after the Zheng State Canal, could Jun Cheng know the real purpose of this Korean Zheng Guo building the water canal for the Qin State? ”

Shu Yan nodded: "Of course I know." At that time, the Qin State was eyeing the eastern vassal states. Korea was very afraid, so they came up with a plan to send Zheng Guo, a good craftsman, to help Qin build a canal. In the name of promoting water conservancy, promoting irrigation, and ensuring a bumper harvest, in fact, it was to use this huge project to exhaust the national strength of the Qin State and drag down the Qin State. However, the fact is just the opposite, Zheng Guoqu Yicheng, although it cost Qin a lot of national strength, but it made the Qin State, which originally relied on the sky for food, become fertile for thousands of miles, and the national strength of Qin State was able to increase rapidly. The fact that the Qin State was able to finally complete the hegemony was directly related to this Zheng Guoqu. ”

"This is true, but everything is in between. The so-called success is also Xiao He, and defeat is also Xiao He. If the national strength of the Qin State was really exhausted because of this, it would be another result. ”

In the middle of the canal repair, the Korean conspiracy had been revealed, but the King of Qin continued to support Zheng Guo in repairing the canal until it was completed. Why? It was because King Qin had foresight and knew that the benefits of this matter outweighed the disadvantages. ”

"Building water conservancy is certainly a good thing for a long time, but it is also very costly. Even if a big vassal state like Qin can only barely support it, how can we afford it, we are small Ruyin, and the imperial court will not support it? Gong Cao Shi Sun Yi interjected.

"The Zhengguo Canal is 300 miles long, irrigating tens of thousands of hectares of fields, which is really a super project, and the Qin State can only complete it with the strength of the whole country. Although our Ruyin can't be compared with the national strength of Qin, we don't need such a huge canal. We have eight counties in the county, and each county has several rivers within its borders. ”

"What?" Hu Cao Shi Guo Tang was surprised, "What does the county mean, do you want to cover all the counties of Ruyin?" ”

"Of course. It is better to be happy alone than to be happy in all. If the whole county were to build a large canal in one place, the people of that place would be rich, but the rest of the country would not benefit at all. I mean, decentralize the construction of canals to the counties. The canal does not need to be built, but only excavates near the river, where the land is fertile and irrigated, and where the soil is dry. There are eight subordinate counties, and each county organizes digging one. Do what you can. If there are no conditions, a few miles can be counted; If there is a condition, twenty miles and thirty miles are better. The county selected eight people and assigned them to each county to supervise and see which county repaired well and quickly. The first canal was successful, and the counties were organized to build the second one later. What do you think? ”

Vulgarity, neglect of government, and inaction are the consistent shortcomings of officialdom. This is what Shu Yan is most opposed. Seeing that no one agreed with his words, he was silent and objected, so he said a little unhappily: "You are all county guards, and you are in charge of one side, which is not trivial. I urge everyone to be diligent and devote themselves to doing something practical for the people. I used to be able to do it, but it doesn't work with me! It has been two years since the rain in Ruyin was not very satisfactory, although it was not very serious, but most of the people had no surplus food in their hands, and if it went through another three years, I am afraid that some would die of starvation. ”

Jun Cheng criticized like this, and Zhu Cao seemed a little aggrieved, but he didn't refute it. After being silent for a while, Du Jian said: "It is true that we are not as loyal to the monarch and the people as Jun Cheng, but if this matter is said to be our negligence, it is too wronged." Although Juncheng said that the construction of the canal was based on the principle of doing what he could, even the amount of work of the ten-mile canal was not small. The county treasury is still not full enough, and the counties have enough financial resources to support it? ”

"There are no scarce materials used to build canals. Just chisel some stones and burn some lime from local materials. The rest is manual. ”

"Even if it's some stones and lime from local materials, it still needs money."

"As long as the counties are willing to build canals, the county will bear 30% of the cost of materials for each county, so it shouldn't be a problem, right?"

"This ......," Du Jian paused, "what about the artificial?" In total, there are only a few thousand households in each county. Of course, the people who can cover their own fields with canals are willing to dig with their obligations, and who will be willing to dig people who can't be covered by canals? ”

"I have already planned this, and I will mainly focus on the people near the canal, and these people should not complain if they fully fulfill their obligations. If the rest of the people were willing to help with the repair, they were exempted from one year's conscription. ”

Shu Yan is worried about people's livelihood and wants to promote the construction of canals. Immediately a notice was issued to each county, and a county official was assigned to each county to supervise it.

The ideal is very plump, but the reality is always very skinny. Shu Yan's plan for repairing the canal was well formulated, but it was difficult to implement. The main thing is the question of money. When it comes to public works, it is no better than ordinary people building their own houses, and every place needs money. A rough estimate shows that even a small aqueduct will cost a budget of about one million dollars. How can the county have so much money? Even if the county promised to bear 30%, it would still cost 700,000 yuan, which is a huge expenditure that cannot be borne at all.

Shu Yan couldn't help but be secretly surprised, if it was calculated in this way, each county would give 300,000 yuan, and the eight counties would be 2.4 million, and he knew the family background of the government treasury very well, and he couldn't get it at all.

Regarding the cost of repairing the canal, Shu Yan has not budgeted, he just takes it for granted. I think this is for the common benefit of the people, everyone should not care about the gains and losses, everyone work together, open the foundation of the foundation, chisel the stone of the stone, build the canal, at most just buy a little lime, how much can it cost? But people are selfish, how many of them will have such a selfless spirit and open mind as him?

At the beginning, the common people were indeed very interested, after all, it was a good thing for themselves, and they all picked up the pickaxe to go to the slot. However, the canal repair is not completed in a day or two, and as time goes by, everyone's enthusiasm gradually becomes less and less high. In addition, the county could not come up with the money, and the stone could not be put in place for a long time, so it was even more unconfident, so that the work was stopped one after another. Not only was it in vain, but it also made the people complain. Fortunately, Shu Yan had done a lot of things to benefit the people before, so the prestige of the county would not be greatly damaged. It is difficult to gain good prestige by doing things that benefit the people for the common people, but it is very easy to gain bad prestige by doing things that benefit the people, and one thing that misleads the people can offset the good prestige accumulated by the previous ten things that benefit the people.

The canal repair incident was the biggest failure that Shu Yan encountered when he arrived in Ruyin and even in his entire career as an official. He was anxious and ashamed, and almost fell seriously ill.

If you don't do it well, you can't blame the people, after all, the people don't have a far-sighted vision, they only look at the real benefits in front of them.

Shu Yan has never done anything in his life. How can he be willing to build the canal if it is not completed? It's just that he has learned a lesson, and even if he is worried about floods and droughts, he can't be so anxious. This incident made him realize that if he wants to do practical things for the people, he needs financial support, and he can't do anything without money. The total value of all the household transfer taxes in the county is tens of millions, and although the county can get a share, most of them have to be handed over to the imperial court. No matter how anxious Shu Yan was, the taxes handed over to the treasury were also meticulously handed over.

In addition to the large taxes such as land taxes, sporadic miscellaneous taxes such as city taxes can be owned by the county. Don't look at this as just a scattered tax, if it is concentrated, it is also a considerable income.

The rate of the city tax is similar to that of the field tax, and it is basically one-tenth of the profit. It's just that the tax objects involved in the municipal tax are very scattered, and they are not as fixed as the land tax, so it is more likely to lead to tax evasion and tax evasion, and the phenomenon of tax collectors filling their own pockets.

Now is the season of lush vegetation, this year's spring ploughing has been completed, and it is not yet time to reclaim wasteland. Shu Yan's plan to improve people's livelihood was originally to take into account all the people of agriculture, industry and commerce. He has always only cared about agriculture as the main body of society, and has always lacked attention to industry and commerce. Just take advantage of this opportunity to inspect the situation of goods and trade.

When Shu Yan was a teenager, he often took advantage of the farm to cut some firewood in the mountains or take his own vegetables and eggs to Ruyin City to sell. I remember that back then, in the west city of Ruyin City, there were also many things, such as the labor army incident, getting acquainted with Tang Gonggong, etc. Now that he hadn't been to Xishi for more than ten years, he didn't know if anything had changed there.

For the sake of convenience and understanding the real situation, Shu Yan did not bring his entourage, but even changed into casual clothes to travel. Walking into the market, the scale of this place has not changed, but many of the small traders in the market are new faces, and a few of them who were familiar with each other have also changed their appearances, and there have been many vicissitudes of life. What made Shu Yan feel the most unjust was that the vendors here all reverted to wearing white shoes and black shoes, wearing headscarves with their names and the goods they were selling.

This is a typical manifestation of the discrimination against merchants in society at that time. When Shu Yan was doing literature, he felt very unfair for the small traders. Unfortunately, this discriminatory rule is common to the whole society, and it is not only implemented in Ruyin. So he suggested that the then Minister of State Qiu Shoutai relax the supervision of this rule, which was very effective at that time. However, this humane measure was only implemented for a short time, and after Shu Yan left Ruyin, the county reinstated discriminatory rules against vendors.

As Shu Yan walked, he inquired about the prices of various commodities. The people live on food. Of course, he is most concerned about the price of rice. He walked up to a rice stall, grabbed a handful of white rice and asked, "How do you sell this white rice?" ”

"Thirty-five dollars per bucket." The rice seller replied with his head bowed.

"Where's this corn?"

"Twenty-five dollars of corn. Which rice do you want? As he spoke, the rice seller raised his head and glanced at Shu Yan, and said strangely, "Are you sure you're here to buy rice?" Why don't you even have a pocket? ”

"I don't buy rice, I just ask."

"Don't buy rice, what do you ask!"

The rice seller complained, and then ignored Shu Yan anymore.

Shu Yan didn't leave, stared at this person's face for a while, then looked at the name on his headscarf, remembered this person, and said happily: "Bai Mi Zhang, you are still selling rice here!" ”

The man was stunned for a moment, and also looked at Shu Yan, "You are Shu-" He seemed to recognize it, but he didn't dare to be sure, let alone call him by name, "You are Shu Xiaolian, Shu Juncheng?" ”

"It's me."

Bai Mi Zhang saw that it was really Shu Yan, and he was surprised and delighted, "It's really you!" I heard that you returned to our Ruyin from Luoyang and became a county official, why are you dressed in casual clothes? ”

"I wanted to travel on the micro-service today to learn about the market situation, but who knew that you didn't pay attention to me." Shu Yan said with some helplessness.

Bai Mi Zhang smiled embarrassedly and said, "When we sold goods together in this market, you were only a teenager. I haven't seen each other for more than ten years, Shu Guanren is becoming more and more mature, stable and courageous, where do I dare to recognize each other? ”

"Haha, now that you know it's me, you won't ignore me, right?"

"How can it? We are old acquaintances, how can we ignore you? What's more, Shujun is diligent and loves the people, and the people of Ruyin know it, so we can't wait for you to understand the situation. ”

"That's good. I'm also trying to find out what is really going on with you merchants. Shu Yan smiled and asked bluntly, "Take you as an example, how much can you sell rice every day?" ”

"Where is the certainty? When there are few, there are more than a dozen buckets, and when there are more, there are more than a hundred. ”

"Oh? In this way, this rice seller is comparable to that of a mid-ranking official of our county office. ”

"Yikes! How much money is there? It's just a matter of making ends meet. ”

"Why not? Only 30 buckets of rice are sold every day, and the profit is 3 yuan per bucket, and at least about 100 yuan a day. Subtract one-tenth of the city tax of ten dollars, and make a steady profit of ninety dollars. That's almost double the salary of our lowest-ranking officials. ”

Bai Mi Zhang shook his head again and again: "This algorithm is not bad, but in fact this is not the case. ”

"Why, can't you make a profit of three yuan per bucket of rice?"

"It's three cents, and even more. If you are full, you can earn at least 100 dollars a day. ”

"Since you can make a hundred dollars, do you have any other expenses besides the city tax? Could it be that today's city tax is not very one, or that the sales volume approved by the city for you is too high? ”

"The city tax is still one out of ten. It's just that it pays more than ten dollars. ”

"How much did they charge you? Twenty money, thirty dollars? On what basis? ”

"On the contrary, only five cents."

"Only five dollars?" Shu Yan was a little puzzled, and then seemed to understand, "You must have some personal relationship with Si Shi, so you have this convenience, so why are you still complaining?" ”

Bai Mi Zhang couldn't help sighing when he heard this: "There is a private relationship, but it is not for my convenience, but for their convenience!" They only charge five dollars on the surface, but in fact, they secretly ask us for food and cards. ”

"Is there such a thing? Is it the same for everyone else besides you? ”

"Most of the small traders have almost been exploited by them. No matter what they buy, they either don't give money or they deliberately give less. ”

"Then why didn't you go to the county to sue them? There are also county officials in this city who come to inspect every day, and it is good to report to them? ”

"Sue? We merchants are born pariahs, and we can't even compare to ordinary peasants, who will call the shots for us? Not only did the servants refuse to help us, but they were even more greedy than Sishi. It's too late for us to stay away, who would dare to take the initiative to provoke them? ”

"How can such a thing happen?"

"Why not? If you don't believe it, you can watch it in secret. The city immediately came to collect taxes. ”