With the Forbidden Army and the Wanzhou Army preparing for war on the front line of Songlin County, the situation in the entire northern border began to change from a cold war to a hot war.

Summer is approaching, and war is inevitable after the grain harvest.

After the capture of Song Lin County by the forbidden army, the capital of Anhui Prefecture began to continuously gather troops and gather into a line of defense.

And Gu Chong in Yuzhou was also not idle, because geopolitical factors began to expand the army, waiting for the war to start and send troops to Kyoto.

At the same time, Yangcheng County, where Xiao Jiu is located, has also ushered in an unprecedented period of development, and the Lingshui caravan has the backing of mainland factories to export foreign economy through sea routes.

The situation in the world is now in chaos, and without a strong regime that brings all the resources together, there is no way to blockade the coast and impose sanctions on the commercial activities of the Lingshui caravans.

As for the so-called commercial tax, the local government did not dare to ask the caravan too much.

After all, there are many coastal areas now, and as long as you can find a wharf and trade with you, you can build a new trading city in a short time.

In this regard, the local governments love and hate the Lingshui caravan, not only worried about the outflow of local silver, but also unwilling to let go of the low-hanging fruit.

With the passage of time, Xiao Jiu has become the most wealthy family in the entire Northland, maybe there are not too many soldiers, but he is definitely rich.

A large part of the profits obtained by the Lingshui caravan from doing business were collected into the treasury of Yangcheng Prefecture, which fed back to the people in the territory to a certain extent.

The living standards of all the people under the rule of Yangcheng County have also improved in all aspects, and they have more trust in Xiao Jiu and the regime he established.

The business in the territory is booming, and the first batch of talents in the school originally opened in Lingshui County has also ushered in the graduation season.

The students in the Yangcheng School, Lingshui School, and Yujun School run by Xiao Jiuxing are about to enter the officialdom and the army, injecting new vitality into them.

……

Yangcheng County, Yangcheng School.

Today is the day when the first batch of students of Yangcheng Academy graduated, and because of Xiao Jiu's attention, the entire Yangcheng County officialdom has also been regarded as a first-class event.

First of all, the entire school hall was covered in red and hung with colors, and there was a group of government soldiers outside the school to maintain order, so that there was no dispute at the originally impenetrable door.

Since the interior of the school is not very large, only the parents of the students are allowed to enter this sacred place.

And the irrelevant people outside the school did not disperse because of this, and they all waited for the graduation ceremony to see the students parade with red satin and admire the demeanor.

The parents of these students all washed their shabby clothes, just so as not to lose face for their children.

Although he was dressed shabby, the pride on his face could not be concealed, and other people who did not have school-age children at home could only look at it with envy.

When these parents walked into the school one by one, the first thing that caught their eyes was the neatly lined up students on the playground, wearing upright uniforms and looking bright.

As more and more people gathered in the snow hall, the inside gradually became noisy, and everyone talked about it.

It lasted for about an hour, and Xiao Jiu and a group of Yangcheng officials and generals began to enter the venue, which immediately caused the audience to boil.

Now Xiao Jiu's personal prestige among the people is extremely high, and even more so, Xiao Jiu's portrait is directly enshrined at home, and the personality cult is extremely serious.

Different from the discussions of these parents, the students standing in a line on the playground seemed extremely quiet and orderly, but the fanaticism in their eyes could not be concealed.

Now the students in the snow hall not only have to learn basic common sense knowledge and the art of war in their daily life, but also have ideological and political classes most importantly.

The ideological and political classes in the snow hall are not only to enlighten these students ideologically, but also to continuously instill the idea of loyalty to these young people.

Compared with those devastated people, these students are clean blank sheets of paper, and their ideals are simple and pure.

In their hearts, only by firmly supporting Xiao Jiu can Yangcheng County have a future.

This kind of collectivist thinking, while incorrect, can burst out with unexpected power in these turbulent times.

Xiao Jiu looked at the young students with firm eyes, his heart was slightly excited, and he slowly walked onto the much-anticipated podium, and for a while, the eyes of the audience converged on Xiao Jiu's body.

Feeling the heat of his gaze, Xiao Jiu lifted the megaphone and began to speak.

"Fellow villagers, students, colleagues, today is the graduation day of the first batch of students of Yangcheng Academy, and I am very honored to have the opportunity to preside over this ceremony.

After such a period of getting along, I think everyone knows my Xiao Jiu's character and experience, I have never been a natural official, and I also came out of you.

But at present, the situation is turbulent, the world is strife, my Yangcheng County does not want to be an enemy of anyone, I just want to hold this happy land and live with the people, but our enemies will not let us get our wish easily.

We will grow old one day, but before we grow old, we can also add a touch of color to this dim world.

I, Xiao Jiu, am just a mortal, not a god, and I don't have the ability to call the wind and rain, if I want to keep my Yangcheng side safe, I can really rely on you.

I hope you can not forget your original intention, and come from the people to the people.

Princes and generals, would you rather have a kind?

In my place, there is no natural wealth, everything is up to you to fight for, the future is only in your own hands, and the road ahead is only under your feet. ”

After Xiao Jiu finished speaking, he slowly walked off the podium, and a thunderous applause broke out at the scene, and there were even some people who hid their faces and sobbed excitedly.

This is their parents, their beliefs, and at this moment, the image of Xiao Jiu has become incomparably tall in their hearts, standing tall in the sky.

On the other hand, looking at the group of students, the fanaticism in their eyes also turned into firmness, especially Xiao Jiu's last sentence that the prince and the prince Xiangning had a kind of saying to their hearts.

Since ancient times, all the power to be officials and politicians has been in the hands of those elites at the top of the pyramid.

But here is Xiao Jiu, he doesn't look at your background, only your power.

It is foreseeable that when this group of students walks out of the school and enters the officialdom, it will inevitably cause a huge change.

In the future, it is no longer only the children of rich families who have the right to read and write, everyone will have the opportunity to become an official, and everyone will have the opportunity to change their lives with their own efforts.

Officialdom and politics are no longer a game of the gatekeeper elite, they will take root among the people and completely shatter the old power structure.

Xiao Jiu is very happy to see this, he has long been fed up with those rotten preaching, what he needs is young people who have really undergone ideological enlightenment, not a group of coffin boards.

When the graduation ceremony ended, Xiao Jiu personally awarded special medals to some outstanding students, and then this grand ceremony came to an end.

In the days that followed, these young people began to enter the political arena and army of Yangcheng County one after another, injecting a new force into it.

Although these young people were inexperienced and their overly idealistic style of acting also caused them to hit a wall repeatedly, Xiao Jiu gave them the opportunity to try and make mistakes and had high hopes for them.

The matter of graduating from the academy has come to an end, and the time has come to the harvest season, although Xiao Jiu has hoarded a lot of reserve grain, the cultivation and farming in the territory cannot be ignored.

And there is another thing that is not comparative, that is, Xiao Jiu actually found sweet potatoes from the goods traded by the Lingshui caravan from the south.

This news was undoubtedly equivalent to a thunderbolt on a sunny day that woke up Xiao Jiu, made him ecstatic and insomnia for a long time, and even made Li Luoyao wonder if her husband had fallen into an evil spirit.

Sweet potatoes, like the main grains and grains of Great Xia, can be grown in the north for two seasons, but their yield is incomparable to that of local grain crops.

In Xiao Jiu's previous life, he clearly remembered that the population of a certain last empire had skyrocketed several times to 40,000 just by relying on sweet potatoes.

If it can be popularized in the territory, not to mention how many people are fed, at least the problem of military rations in the army can be solved by relying only on the cultivated land in the Guanguan Village.

Sweet potatoes are not only produced in large quantities, but also very simple to store, which can be made into dried sweet potatoes, sweet potato powder, and even sweet potato seedlings can be boiled into soup and drunk.

Therefore, after getting Li Fu to get three sweet potato seedlings from Nanyang, Xiao Jiu sent the agronomists in the territory to study and cultivate them all night.

Now it is harvest time, and after the first grain is harvested, sweet potatoes can be planted.

In order not to have unnecessary disputes among the people, Xiao Jiu decided to plant sweet potatoes on all the cultivated land in the county government, except for those planted with cotton and linen.

When the first batch of sweet potatoes are harvested, the amazing yield will inevitably dispel the doubts from the people, so as to truly promote it among the people.

If sweet potatoes are planted as a staple food in a large area in the north, so that the people do not have to starve to death, it can be regarded as a good thing.

Subsequently, batches of newly cultivated sweet potato seedlings were planted in Guanzhuang, although they caused opposition from many people, but they were all suppressed by Xiao Jiu.

To this end, Xiao Jiu also set up a special department to study sweet potato planting, the Sweet Potato Division, which is responsible for the management of Guanzhuang farming and the research of sweet potato planting.

Xiao Jiu attaches so much importance to this foreign sweet potato, which also set off a shock in the officialdom of Yangcheng County, and many people think that Xiao Jiu does not love beautiful women and treasures, and likes some strange things.

So during this period of time, Xiao Jiu could always receive some fresh things from the Chamber of Commerce or his officials who didn't know where to go.

Among them, Li Fu of the Lingshui Chamber of Commerce was the most excessive, and he got a batch of fairy water from nowhere, saying that he could live forever and stay young forever if he drank it.

At first, Xiao Jiu was a little curious about what it was, but in the end, he found that it turned out to be special mercury, not to mention drinking, it would cause mercury poisoning if he touched it too much.

Xiao Jiu had no choice but to scold Li Fu, and strictly ordered his subordinates not to send some strange things to his house.