The sunshine is just right, although the weather is still very cold, but today's sunshine is very sufficient, Liu Yan, Chen Xun and his party of six people turned around along the Nanhe, the Nanhe River meandered to the northwest in front of them, along both sides of the river, some military households or civilian households sown wheat seedlings in the fields not long ago. It can be seen that there are still too few fields cultivated on both sides of the river, and not far from the river are large and bare areas of dry land.

The group crossed the river on foot from a small bridge made of dead wood to the opposite side of the South River, and the same was true on the opposite side.

Liu Yan estimated that from Dapandun to the Nanhe River, there are thousands of acres of wasteland on both sides of the bank that can be reclaimed.

In fact, the soil quality of these lands is good, but unfortunately the water conservancy is in disrepair, irrigation is inconvenient, and these originally excellent fields are barren. Nowadays, this is the case in all parts of the Ming Dynasty, drought and little rainfall, agriculture depends on irrigation, where there is water for fertile soil, where there is no water for desert, the dependence on the irrigation system is great.

As people walk along the South River, they can see some traces of the original canals and ponds next to the riverbank, but these canals have not been dredged for many years, and the water cannot flow, and most of them have been silted up and abandoned. This left the fields a little further from the river to be abandoned, after all, the kind of masonry wells that could be used for irrigation were not dug by casual people.

If the government and government offices re-dredge and repair these canals, they can completely turn this area into fertile land.

But this matter can only be thought about, the water conservancy in various places is in serious disrepair, it is the ordinary situation of the entire Ming Dynasty at present, the imperial court does not have the financial resources to take care of the maintenance of water conservancy, and some of the limited funds are embezzled by officials, Lingshanwei also does not have the financial resources, so he can only find his own way.

At this time, Liu Yan stood by the river and looked around, only to see that the terrain in front of him was open, what a good land this is, in the future, all parts of Shandong were large producers, and the vegetables in Shandong were famous, but now the land in front of Liu Yan can only be helplessly barren.

Liu Yan pondered, Chen Xun and several people are good at farming, Chen Xun even walked to Liu Yan's side and said: "Chief Jia, this piece is all good land, if you dig some ponds and repair some canals, and then recruit some soldiers and civilians to reclaim, this piece can become fertile land in the future." ”

Liu Yan nodded, in fact, the Ming Dynasty has preferential treatment for the military and civilians in various places to reclaim wasteland, not to mention that the reclaimed land belongs to the military and the people, after three years of maturity, a small amount of cattle and silver will be levied on each hectare of land, and even the taxable grain in many places will be exempted for more than ten years.

It's a pity that in the current world, there are really policies and countermeasures, the treasury is empty, and a large amount of tax grain needs to be collected.

If we continue to pursue money and grain, we will have to force the farmers to flee, and the fields will be barren, and this vicious circle will make the famine more and more serious in various places, and it will also cause the people to be unwilling to reclaim the wasteland. It can be seen from this that no matter how good the policy is, it cannot withstand the exploitation of corrupt officials and inferior gentry!

In fact, there is always no shortage of land at the end of a dynasty, after the famine and war, the whole village and the whole city are deserted in some places, and even thousands of miles of uninhabited, there is actually a lot of barren land in the Ming Dynasty, but there is no stable environment for the people to live, and hard work is in vain.

Liu Yan is thinking about how to recruit soldiers and civilians to come to farm, if these soldiers and civilians can be reassured, Tunpu still has a lot of hope, when Lu Xiang was promoted to the governor of Xuanda, he greatly prospered Tunzheng, accumulated 200,000 stones, and Emperor Chongzhen's edict was enshrined in the nine sides, in addition to many successful examples.

Liu Yan's initial plan is to use Tuntian to recruit displaced people to come over to farm, and then let all these people join the military households, ensuring the source of food, and at the same time ensuring the source of soldiers, and at the same time it is also a strong and cohesive collective, in the future, while farming and fighting, plus some of the workshops opened by Liu Yan himself, he can make his power grow like a snowball, and one day it will eventually sweep the Quartet!

Thinking of this, Liu Yan only felt that there was a lot of magnanimity in his chest, looking around at the land on both sides of the river, his heart was full of pride, and his future would start here.

Liu Yan and Chen Xun continued to march south, and before they knew it, they came to the seaside.

In fact, Dapandun is not very far from the seaside, if you go in a straight line, it is not far from the sea to cross the Henan River, and the time spent is only a little more than an hour.

Liu Yan looked around, and suddenly saw a deserted salt drying field in front of him. Although Liu Yan has not really seen the scene of drying salt on the beach, he has heard of it to some extent, and the salt pond used for drying salt can still be recognized.

So Liu Yan asked a few words, and Chen Xun on the side happened to know something. It turned out that this salt drying field was an industry opened by the previous Wangjiazhuang management officer, but then it was favored by Dai Baihu of the Qianqian Household in Xiahe Village, and several Shangguan of Lingshanwei were entangled and robbed.

Later, the Shangguan who were entangled by the thousands of households in Xiahe Village were also investigated for some reason, and Dai Baihu did not dare to maintain this place in order to protect himself, and this salt drying field was also abandoned.

"Dai Baihu?"

Liu Yan vaguely remembered that Mrs. Xu was not familiar with this Dai Baihu? It's really a narrow road, so I surveyed the wasteland by myself and found the property abandoned by Dai Baihu.

Liu Yan thought about it in his heart, then smiled at the corner of his mouth, and said, "Okay, that's all for today, let's go back." Liu Yan and the others excitedly returned to Dapandun to discuss the affairs of Tunpu.

However, Tuntian's affairs were complicated, and Liu Yan, Chen Xun, and Wang Yue gathered in the house to just sort out. Although Wang Yue is not very good, there is really no one under Liu Yan's hands now, so he can only call him to consult together.

After a while, Liu Yan and the others felt that there were many things to do in Tuntian, first of all, Tuntian needed a large number of young and strong people, and there was also a lot of preparation work to be done, such as the future cultivation of wasteland needs to be cultivated with cattle and farm tools, the construction of forts needs wood and bluestone, and the rations needed by the reclamation people, etc.

If we can dredge and build some canals this year, we will have to rush to sow winter wheat this year, and we can plant some sorghum, millet, beans, etc. in the spring of next year, all of which require the purchase of seeds and agricultural tools.

Liu Yan and the three of them said for a while, although things are complicated, but the first thing is to need population, which is also the most difficult problem to solve at the beginning of Tunpu, no one and everything is empty talk.

Lingshanwei is a huge place, since the establishment of Lingshanwei in history, there are no more than 1,000 households in Lingshanwei, and the population has been around five or six thousand. As for the military households, since the establishment of the guard, there have been more than 8,000 military households in history, with a population of tens of thousands. By the time of the Wanli year, it had dropped to more than 1,000 households, and now I don't know how many. At present, the military households and people of Lingshanwei have fled one after another, coupled with military disasters, natural disasters and other disasters, the population of various places is getting smaller and smaller, especially the young and strong population is constantly losing.

It is precisely because of this that Liu Yan put his idea on recruiting homeless people, but recruiting homeless people depends on luck, and the flow of homeless people is uncertain, sometimes a large number of homeless people pour into a certain place, and sometimes there is no one for a hundred miles. For the time being, I don't have the financial resources to go to various places for large-scale publicity.

However, when Liu Yan was in Wangjiazhuang, he heard Wang Weizhen, the officer of the management team, mention that now that all parts of Shandong are generally affected, there are many displaced people in Lingshanwei, and they may be recruited from them.

In addition, the locals can also think of a way, after all, each person is granted dozens of acres of land, even if some local military households, as long as there are many families, they can also divide some men to come to teach the land, the key is to make them believe in the future prospects of Tunpu.

So a few people discussed, Liu Yan remembered the official document given by Wang Weizhen, so he decided to go to the Qianhu Office in front of Xiahe Village the day after tomorrow, and went to ask the Guantun official of the Qianhu Office for some more people and cattle and other things, but with the previous example, Liu Yan has no hope for the trip after tomorrow, but it is better to try it, and it can be counted a little.

At the same time, Liu Yan asked Chen Xun to take people to the Lingshan Acropolis the day after tomorrow to buy as much rice and noodles as possible for backup, if he could buy some farming cattle and farm tools at a low price, it would be the most suitable.

Chen Xun was naturally full of joy and agreed.

Liu Yan planned to give Chen Xun and the others one hundred and fifty taels of silver, and let them buy ten stone rice and sell a few ploughing oxen.

However, Liu Yan estimated that the purchase of these materials was still tense for hundreds of taels of silver, and although the price of rice and noodles had dropped compared with the previous two months, it was still expensive. Cattle and farm tools are also expensive.

Now Liu Yan only has two hundred and eighty taels of silver on his body, and he took out one hundred and fifty taels of silver at once, and he sighed in his heart that it was really like flowing money, and these expenses were still far from enough. Not to mention the cattle farming tools, the ten stone rice bought at that time must not be able to support it for long.

Liu Yan's plan for the fort was to recruit fifty families first, presumably those people would be like the military households outside, most of them had no surplus rations, and they had to eat their own. Before the harvest in Tuntian, these people will be Liu Yan's heavy burden.

At the moment, it's okay, you can let everyone drink some porridge, but when the next heavy work such as building forts and opening up wasteland, then everyone will eat more. The old and weak, women and children can eat less, but the strong man eats rice, at least five stones and five buckets a year, and under the heavy physical labor, everyone has to eat some oil and meat every few days, otherwise it is easy to vomit blood. To supplement the oil meat, it is best to eat some fatty meat, but it is not better than later generations, in this Ming Dynasty, fat meat is much more expensive than lean meat, and pork is really expensive at the moment, and it is also a huge expense here.

Liu Yan had a calm expression on his face, looking like he was holding a wisdom bead, but he still quickly calculated in his heart, now that he still has one hundred and thirty taels of silver left in his hand, he must stick to it until the soap is sold this month, otherwise his capital chain will be broken.

As for Wang Yue, Liu Yan gave him the task of guarding the pier, plus directing those new residents to continue to cover the ground in the past two days, accepting this task, Wang Yue was also very happy, it seems that Liu Yan has regarded himself as a subordinate, this is a great thing.

Early the next morning, Liu Yan gathered all the dun troops and military households in Dapandun, and before going to the Qianqian Household Office in Xiahe Village, Liu Yan still had one more thing to do.