Five days later, Ouyang Xiu came back from Suizhou, first lived temporarily in Zaoyang, and prepared to return to Yexian Iron Prison with Du Zhongxiao.

In the post house, Du Zhongxiao asked Lou Zhixian: "Fangtian in the former secondary county, a few days have passed, I don't know how." ”

Lou Zhixian replied cautiously: "Return to the judgment, the lower official has obtained the Jun decree, and it has been arranged." However, there is no precedent for this matter, and no one in the yamen is proficient in this technique, and they are trying to find a way. This is a big deal, and it should be taken calmly. ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "In the past few days, I have looked at Zaoyang's geographical household registration, if my guess is right, the county officials are on duty, and in front of the Lizheng Ya, they should be those dozen or so large households. In addition to these middle- and upper-class households, there are only a few dozen middle-class households in the city, and the lower-class households outside the city are customers. Let them Fang Tian, in fact, not much different from letting each family check themselves. In this way, it is not difficult for the locality, you let the townspeople, together with the middle and upper class households, take out their own fields and report them to the yamen. One is one, two is two, and I feel lucky. Otherwise, there will be heavy penalties in the future. ”

Lou Zhixian breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly said yes.

All the people who do things in the county government, from the priest to the front of the ya, from the section level to the strong man, are all from those dozens of families. Without their support, the county would not have been able to accomplish anything. Let them go to Fangtian, how can it be done? It is to clear one's own land. Let each family check itself, it has nothing to do with the county government. As for how to deal with Du Zhongxiao in the future, what happened to Guan Louzhi County?

In the Song Dynasty, the local officials were weak and strong, and they were called the world of public officials. These old officials who control the affairs of one side do not rely on the power of the imperial court, but on their own forces. Just like Zaoyang, Lou Zhixian has a weak temperament and is unable to restrain his subordinates for one reason, and another reason is that he has no resources at all. The manpower and material resources of the county government are all in the hands of local large households, as long as the taxes are paid, Lou Zhi County has an explanation to the above, and he will be grateful. To do anything else, that's impossible.

Du Zhongxiao knew this, but it was difficult for a few officials in the county to be bored, so everything was still waiting for the people from the camp to come. With manpower and material resources, even Lou Zhixian's waist can stand up, and there is no need to entangle now.

After chatting about some county affairs, Du Zhongxiao took out a map and said to Lou Zhixian: "I have checked the place in the past few days and drawn this map." Although sketchy, it is not far from the truth. Take a look, is this the case in Zaoyang now? ”

Lou Zhixian stepped forward and looked at the picture in Du Zhongxiao's hand. This is a rough map of Zaoyang, focusing on the county seat, and outside the city are more than a dozen large Zhuangzi, dotted with some small families with famous surnames. These large households, dozens of small villagers, and hundreds of large villagers, include the vast majority of the county's population. Those small households, only one or two hundred households, can be ignored.

Lou Zhixian saw that the scope of each Zhuangzi was also roughly marked above, and he was a little nervous. After looking at it for a long time, he said: "Return to the judgment, this picture is basically the same as what the lower officials know." The county is sparsely populated, with fewer than 1,000 households outside the city, which is about the case. ”

Du Zhongxiao nodded and handed the map to Lou Zhixian: "Let each Zhuangzi square their own fields, you can compare it with this picture." ”

After speaking, he stood up and said, "It's not early, Ouyang Xianggong and I will leave today and go back to the iron prison." After the wheat harvest, the field workers will come here one after another. When you arrive, you must not make a mistake in assisting the officials of the camp to handle the affairs of the field! ”

Lou Zhixian said yes and sent Du Zhongxiao and Ouyang Xiu out of the post house.

After leaving the county seat and walking on the road, Ouyang Xiu said to Du Zhongxiao: "It's not very hot now, and it's the season to start construction." After the Tangzhou assembly, Deputy Envoy Li organized the manpower of several southern states and began to repair the road from Tangzhou to Xiangzhou. If you don't take this opportunity to let the people who are in charge of the field come, why do you have to wait for a few months? At that time, the weather was dry and inconvenient. ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "This year, there is a lot of wheat and cotton planted in the fields of Tangzhou. There is a shortage of manpower, and if the harvest is slow, there will be no hope for autumn grain. Newcomers, let them help harvest the season and see how the place works. After the wheat is harvested, come here and choose a place to cultivate the fields. It is impossible to plant anything this year, level the ground, and do not delay the next year's planting. ”

Zaoyang is different from Tangzhou, there are too many swamps, and infrastructure construction must be carried out before the fields can be cultivated. The rainy season has not yet arrived, and I don't know what the situation will be after the rain is too much, so it's not good to start rashly. It's still summer and autumn to familiarize yourself with the climate and geography, and then it's better to do it.

From Zaoyang to the north, through Huyang County, to Tangzhou. At this time, the transshipment envoy was organizing the people of several states to build a railway from Tangzhou to Xiangzhou.

To the south of Tangzhou, Huyang County and Xinye Town face each other from the east and west of the Tangbai River. At this time, Huyang is surrounded by Daze, the area is active and wide, and the road has to pass from the top of the mountain, and it is inconvenient to build the road. Therefore, go to Xinye, where the terrain is flat, and you can go straight to Xiangzhou. Moreover, Xinye is located on the bank of the White River, which is conducive to the materials in the interior of Dengzhou to go down the river, and the transportation is much more convenient.

Who hasn't watched the Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Shinno is a very famous place. However, after years of war, this place has been decayed by the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the county has been abandoned as a town in the early Tang Dynasty. At this time, the administrative level directly reflects the population density, and the area around Xinye is also a vast and sparsely populated place.

Now the construction of the railway is organized by the transshipment envoy, assisted by the local government, and provided by the railway superintendent, and Du Zhongxiao is no longer directly involved. He Ouyang Xiu did not stop in Tangzhou, and directly took the train back to Tiejian.

Looking at the scenery outside the window speeding backwards, Ouyang Xiu said: "The train is really a divine thing, and it doesn't need forage, and it can run like a fly." In the future, the world will be all over the world, and I don't know how convenient it is. Although it is difficult to pave, as long as the local community works together, it can be paved for hundreds of miles a year. ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "It's not just a few hundred miles, if you really want to pave it, it can be much faster, as long as there is iron." Nowadays, trains don't run fast and don't pull much cargo, but in fact, the rails can be used. However, the train is too difficult to build, and even if the road is paved, it is useless to run without a car. Longtu, this kind of thing is difficult when it first comes out, as long as you get used to it, there are more places to make things for the railway, and it will be spread faster and faster. ”

Now the rails are laid, with the current level of technology, in fact, it is not necessary, it is completely possible to use cast iron. Of course, the rails have a longer life and run more smoothly. The most important reason is that the supporting machinery and tools have limited production capacity, and there is too much steel backlogged in the iron supervisor, and it is useless to pave quickly.

At this time, the production capacity of the iron supervisor has basically reached its peak, and the speed of paving in the future is roughly the same. Unless the iron prison is opened elsewhere, there will be no major improvement. The coal and iron resources around Yexian County are abundant, and there is still room for improvement in output, but human resources have been exhausted. In fact, the main force of the iron prison is not Xiang Jun, but young scholars recruited from more than a dozen states on Jingxi Road. With them as the backbone, the young people with the van army have learned and done to get to where they are today. In fact, there are not many people with this qualification, and even if the education system is complete, more people cannot be trained in a short period of time. Unless a decade or two passes, in a generation, there will be a fundamental difference.

Since the beginning of the year, the reputation of the good treatment of the iron supervisor has spread throughout the states of Jingxi Road, but the increase in talent is very small, which can be ignored. It's hard enough to go further. If the imperial court wanted to expand the steel industry, it could only find other ways.

This era is not only a problem of low literacy rate of the population, but also accompanied by restrictions on ideas, vision, etc., and there are only so many people suitable for industry in a certain population. Vigorously developing education cannot be improved in a short period of time. It will have to wait until one or two generations grow up before the industrial explosion will be ushered in. An industrial center like Tiejian can't support a few in the world at this time. According to Du Zhongxiao's estimate, even with the full assistance of the Baiting Supervisor, only three or five more can be built. Xiangzhou relies on the area of Kaifeng Mansion and Yingtianfu, plus Hedong Road, and can build another one. Laiwu relies on Jingdong Road and can also be built. Xuzhou relies on Jianghuai and has no problem. These places are densely populated, well-educated, and literate people, and the people have different visions.

Other areas with manpower conditions are the Liangzhejiang, Jiangnan and Sichuan-Shu regions, but they have no iron ore and coal mines, and can only start to develop when several other places are developed and the transportation of raw materials is convenient. As for the Shaanxi and Hebei roads, although rich in resources, the population and social conditions cannot support such industrial centers.

Human resources cannot be seen or touched, but they are crucial, and development is not easy, and it is by no means possible to build a few schools and hire a few teachers. is like an iron prison, relying on a group of young people to explore by themselves, and develop step by step, Du Zhongxiao is just pointing in one direction and starting up. Such people are not caught on the streets, they do not account for a large proportion of the population, and the iron prison has exhausted the resources of more than a dozen states.