Seeing that it was almost noon, Du Zhongxiao and Han Yueniang said goodbye to their families, boarded the official ship, and went all the way down the river to Caizhou. There are many rivers in this area, and the water transportation is developed, no less than the Lianghuai area. However, the river is not connected to Tangzhou, so get off the boat from Caizhou, cross the watershed, and reach Tangzhou by land.

Tangzhou is located in Xijing, Henan Province to Dengzhou, Xiangzhou traffic artery, since ancient times for the communication of the north and south of the important place, Fangcheng Mountain has a large section of the Great Wall of Chu repair. It is also the nearest road from Jianghan area to the Central Plains, turning over Fangcheng Mountain, near Xuzhou, and having a smooth road to Liangjing. During the time of Taizong, he once opened the Xianghan Cao Canal here, intending to communicate the north and the south, but finally failed. In later generations, the south-to-north water diversion also took the pass here.

As a strategic location, the late Tang Dynasty fought too many wars here, and the population has not recovered so far, and there is a large amount of idle land. When the Great Song Dynasty was founded, there were less than 10,000 households, and after sixty or seventy years of development, there are now only more than 10,000 households.

The yamen where Du Zhongxiao made the camp was not in Tangzhou City, but in Qingtai Town, which was in the middle of Tangzhou and Fangcheng County in the north. Qingtai Town is adjacent to the east of the water blockage, guarding the north-south traffic artery, and it has been a battleground for soldiers since ancient times. The surrounding land is flat and fertile, and there is river irrigation, which is a good place to develop agriculture. Due to the large number of wars, the population here is small, and the surrounding area is a large area of idle land, which is suitable for cultivation.

Most of the more than 20,000 Bianhe slender men from the capital are settled here and have arrived in advance. Du Zhongxiao was on official business, so he didn't go to Tangzhou to meet the local officials first, and directly brought his entourage to Qingtai Town.

Qingtai Town is not big, there are only two or three hundred households, and after entering the city gate, there is still a large open space. I don't know what year this city was built, because it is located on a major transportation route, and it was destroyed and destroyed, and I don't know how many battles were fought. This is the gateway to Dengzhou in the south, and there is a patrol inspection department in the town, and fifty or sixty van troops.

After getting the news of Du Zhongxiao's arrival, the town inspector and the supervisor went to the outside of the city to greet them and entered the town in a cluster. There were only five houses in a row in the yamen of the prison town, which were cleaned out at this time and used as Du Zhongxiao's residence.

The slender men who arrived early stood on both sides of the street, most of them holding their hands and lazily looking at Du Zhongxiao who had entered the city. Most of them have been pulling fiber all their lives, they don't know anything about farming, and they are very confused about their future life. When they arrived at the place, the governors could not restrain themselves, and they poured into the city, and set up tents on both sides of the waiting road and in the open spaces in the city, making the small town restless.

Du Zhongxiao rode on a horse, looking at the situation in the city, and couldn't help frowning. These people were pulling and shouting trumpets by the river, and they were extremely disciplined as they walked forward step by step. But once there is a lack of control, it will be full of tricks, not much better than ordinary people. When pulling fiber, it is often divided into small organizations, and gangs are better than ordinary armies.

Seeing that it was not early, Du Zhongxiao was too lazy to restrain him, and entered the yamen with the prison town.

Please Du Zhongxiao take a seat, Niu Jian Zhen smiled with a smile on his face, stepped forward and saluted: "This is a small town, and the lower part is simple, and the fortune judgment will stop." ”

Du Zhongxiao looked left and right, this yamen was too small to arrange a group of personnel from his yamen, and said to the prison town: "I'll rest here for a few days, don't choose a place to build a yamen official office, you will go to the inspection village first in the next few days." ”

"It's okay, it's okay, the next official can do anything."

Niujian Town is just a petty official on loan from the third class, and the status of Du Zhongxiao is too far away, and he still wants the chief to help, and everything is easy to discuss.

After resting for a while and drinking a cup of tea, Du Zhongxiao returned to his residence to change into civilian clothes. Niu Jian Zhen and Yao Inspector set up a wine feast in the yamen courtyard to catch the wind for Du Zhongxiao and his party. This is the first time they have received someone of this status, and the two of them have divided their efforts.

The guests and hosts sat down, full of wine, and Niu Jian Zhen and Yao Inspector raised their glasses together: "Coming to the town, it is really full of brilliance, and the lower officials are extremely glorious." And please drink this cup to the fullest, for the luck of the wind! ”

Du Zhongxiao drank wine, and the two pointed to the dishes on the table and said, "Small place, there are no good things to entertain, so it's no wonder that the judgment is good." This good mutton will be used by the fortune judge. There is also a newly dug lotus root, which is crisp and delicious, and you can try it. ”

After eating for a while and drinking a few glasses of wine, Niu Jian Zhen ordered someone to bring a plate of slender things, and said to Du Zhongxiao: "Yun Ju, the locally produced sugar cane is exceptionally sweet, and Yun Juan uses understanding to relieve hangover." ”

Du Zhongxiao almost squirted out a sip of wine, looked at the sugarcane on the plate and said, "You still produce sugarcane here?" ”

"What is produced, what is produced, has been there since ancient times. It's just that this thing is not cold-tolerant, and there are not many plants. ”

It belongs to the Hanjiang River basin, and in principle, it belongs to the south of the Huai River in the Qinling Mountains, which is considered to be the south in a broad sense, but Du Zhongxiao never thought that it could still produce sugarcane. The climate of this era is estimated to be warmer than that of later generations, and the sugarcane planting area is relatively northern, and now the largest production area is not the Liangguang region of the later generations, but Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Sichuan.

I picked up a section and chewed it twice, it was really sweet, and it was not easy to eat this kind of thing in this season.

Putting down the sugarcane in his hand, Du Zhongxiao said: "At this time, sugar is expensive, since you produce sugarcane here, why haven't you heard of sugar?" ”

Niu Jian Zhen said with a smile: "Don't hide the judgment, we also heard that squeezing sugar can make a lot of money." A few years ago, someone invited an artist from Jiangsu and Zhejiang to try to squeeze sugar, but it couldn't be done. I have heard that we are too far north here, the land is cold, and although we produce sugar cane, it does not contain sugar. ”

Du Zhongxiao nodded, knowing in his heart that it should be the wrong variety. Sugar cane can be squeezed for sugar, but not all sugar cane is suitable. Some varieties are only suitable for chewing and eating, similar to fruits.

But then again, as long as it's sugar cane, if you bite into the sweetness, you can squeeze out the sugar, but it's not cost-effective. When he saw sugarcane, Du Zhongxiao thought that he could open a sugarcane plantation here, but it seemed that he was thinking too much. However, if you can produce sugarcane, you should have a lot of southern crops here. The transportation from this place to Liangjing is convenient, and it can produce crops from the south, and you can sell them to the capital to make a lot of money.

After drinking for a while, Du Zhongxiao asked about the local agricultural conditions. Niujian Town said: "From this place to the north, all the way to Fangcheng County, there are mostly low mountains and soil slopes, no less than tens of thousands of hectares. Since ancient times, it has been a place of population divergence. It's just that the late Tang Dynasty was in turmoil, and people fled, and now it is mostly idle land. There is a lot of rain here, which is different from the north of Fangcheng Mountain, and the slopes are also well planted with crops. If it is flat land, rice and wheat have been grown since ancient times. ”

There is another reason why Niujian Town did not say that the dam collapsed during the construction of the Xianghan Cao Canal during the Taizong period, and it was this area that was rushed, and the current population has not recovered.

At this time, the highest yield of grain crops is rice, especially when harvesting rice, you can plant another season of wheat, and the yield is double that of other crops in the same area. At this time, the land was vast and sparsely populated, and the taxes of the government, and even the rent collected by the landlords in most areas, came on a quarterly basis. If you can grow two crops of grain a year, you will be richer than other places.

Seeing Du Zhongxiao's happy face when he heard this, Yao Inspector added: "The only bad place is that due to many wars, people have fled, and water conservancy has not been repaired for many years, and most of the original dams and canals have been destroyed. If you want to grow crops well, you must first build water conservancy. ”

For the field work, there are manpower, and water conservancy is nothing. Du Zhongxiao not only repaired the canal, but also wanted to build the road. From here, there is a pass to Ruzhou, which just crosses the watershed between the Yellow River and the Han River, and communicates the north and south. When the road is built, it will be convenient to get to the Central Plains. The terrain of that pass is not high, and of course the Xianghan Cao Canal is to pass through there.