Du Zhongxiao and Su Song stood in the courtyard, watching the blacksmith make farm tools. From the most common shovels and pickaxes, to sickles and axes, all kinds of tools for daily use can be made by these country blacksmiths. It was made of cheap wrought iron, of varying quality, and many old and decayed artifacts were collected and mixed together to make ironware. After the iron is made, the last furnace burns the pig iron.

In this era, iron tools have been popularized, but good iron is rare and expensive, and it is not practical to use it to make agricultural tools, and it is not affordable to use it for field work. If you don't use a lot of iron, whether you are planting or doing engineering, the efficiency will be much lower.

One of the characteristics of rotten iron is that it cannot be quenched and heated. Pig iron is too hard, brittle and easy to break, and wrought iron is too soft to use. The remedy is to pour pig iron on the cutting edge. This has two advantages, one is to increase the carbon content of the cutting edge, and after wear, it can be quenched and sharpened. Another poured pig iron is hard, which is not only durable, but also sharper and sharper, especially suitable for agricultural tools.

When he was in Yongcheng, Du Zhongxiao once promoted this practice, and after years of practice, the technology has matured.

The five battalions selected by Du Zhongxiao as a model village have a large blacksmith shop, and when it is time to farm and do work, some of the blacksmiths in the shop will be assigned to each battalion to make and repair farm tools. This is the place where the blacksmiths assigned to Sun to command this battalion work.

The recent road construction was the first major project of the camp field organization, and Du Zhongxiao and Su Song inspected various places to understand the situation under their rule.

When he was busy in the courtyard, Deputy Commander Qin came in and hesitated for a while before he crossed his hand in front of Du Zhongxiao and said, "Judgment, the commander is arguing with people outside again, and it is still the village of Pangdutou." The people who heard the newspaper said that Pang Dutou had stopped work with people and was frozen there. ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "It's been arguing for a few days, why is it endless!" The other villages are well repaired, but this village is difficult! When the other sections of the road are repaired and stuck in that village, don't blame me for deducting your money and food! ”

Deputy Commander Qin said helplessly: "The section of the road divided by that village has a large pool of water, and there are many big willow trees, which is indeed more difficult to repair than other road sections. They work the same and eat the same, and they naturally don't want to. ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "Let the people contribute, it is calculated according to work, and this dynasty has always been like this." The section of the road that was assigned to your camp, where there was water, where there were trees, and where there were mountains and rocks, had been calculated in front of the yamen, and it had already been folded into the mileage, and you should be assigned to each village as it was. Which village is assigned a lot that is not easy to repair, the mileage is short, what is there to dispute! ”

Deputy Commander Qin's face turned ugly, and he snorted: "Judgment, the sub-sections of the camp are calculated according to the mileage, and they are not converted-"

Du Zhongxiao turned his head and looked at Deputy Commander Qin curiously: "You don't follow the rules of the yamen, you make your own set, and it's up to you." Originally, the yamen only advised you to do that, and did not force it. However, if you don't follow the yamen's decision, you should do it faster and better, which means that you have a better way. Now the progress is lagging behind the other battalions, but it can't be said. ”

Deputy Commander Qin sighed: "Don't hide the judgment, it's not that we don't want to come according to the yamen's decision, but we really can't do it." In the past, I waited by the river to pull fiber, and I couldn't read big characters, so how much earth and stone would be moved to build the road, and how much work would be required——"

Du Zhongxiao said lightly: "I can't go to school, if I can't learn for a while, I'll ask someone to help me do it!" If you force yourself to do what you want, you will have to bear the consequences! I don't care what happens to you, the time limit is up, the roadblock is with you, I punish you two commanders! ”

Deputy Commander Qin was speechless for a moment, standing there not knowing what to say.

Du Zhongxiao arrived the day before yesterday, and he also went out to patrol twice, but he only watched and never interfered in the affairs of the villages. Commander Sun and Pang Dutou quarreled for several days, and Deputy Commander Qin reported to Du Zhongxiao several times, but Du Zhongxiao ignored him. This attitude is also the reason why Pang Du is full of confidence and the quarrel is becoming more and more intense. Who is to blame for the unfairness of the commander?

In the opinion of Deputy Commander Qin, the matter was very simple to solve. Du Zhongxiao brought a lot of people, sent two out at random, and helped to roughly calculate the labor, and redistribute it to the villages to solve the contradictions. I came to report it several times, hinting a few times, Du Zhongxiao just didn't want to do it. Even Deputy Commander Qin sometimes felt that Du Zhongxiao was deliberately trying to see them in trouble, and he would be punished when the time came.

After standing for a while, seeing that Du Zhongxiao had no intention of helping to resolve the dispute, Deputy Commander Qin had no choice but to sigh and turn to leave.

Su Song stepped forward and said in a low voice: "The officials below are arguing, and the court is disgraced. There is nothing to do left and right, why don't I go over and take a look and help them redistribute it, the villages are fair, and there are not so many disputes. ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "This time we happen to be here, we can help them, what about in the future?" With ten villages in charge, I don't know how many such daily disputes there are, how many times can we manage them? This time it's road construction, and in a few days there will be digging ditches, and there will be water to water the ground in the future, can you manage it? To be in this position, you have to learn these things. Fool once, can you fool for a lifetime? ”

Su Song said: "It's no wonder that the two commanders can't blame the two commanders, they used to be subordinate to the army to pull fiber, and now they come to farm, and it won't be normal." The official is sealed by the imperial court, and he can't help but do it. ”

Du Zhongxiao shook his head: "The imperial court was an official, and he didn't let them do it for a lifetime." A month ago, I ordered all the commanders and commanders to report to the camp and field affairs yamen in a timely manner, and arrange other ministries because they felt that they could not manage their subordinate villages. The official rank remains the same, and the rank remains the same. The result? Only one of the two deputy heads of the capital voluntarily changed their ministry, and now Qingtai Town is doing well. Hmph, the rest of this, I feel that this official is doing simple, and he manages so much land, so many people, so majestic, so big oil and water, but he refuses to leave! Since they don't leave, they have to do things well! ”

Su Song sighed, feeling that Du Zhongxiao was too anxious, and it was really inappropriate.

In a hurry? Of course urgently. Bringing 20,000 households to Tangzhou to camp the fields is to set an example and explore experience. In a few months, more people will come, and the camp will be expanded to other state troops. Du Zhongxiao's selection of these five battalions as model villages is to find out the experience, form a system, and spread it to other places in the future. In winter, all prefectures and counties in the world will compile regulations, which will be compiled into a book by the imperial court, and the camp and field affairs are no exception. With institutional constraints, things will go much smoother in the future.

In the past, I had the impression that all ancient societies were ruled by man, and the officials had the final say in everything, but in fact this was far from the case. In the present, the Zhongshu has the Zhongshu Regulations, the Privy Council has the Privy Council Regulations, the Three Divisions have the Three Divisions Regulations, and each state and county has its own regulations, which are called state and county regulations in the imperial court, which are actually local regulations. A bunch of officials under his command are illiterate, how can they compile their own regulations.

In the barracks, the clerk is responsible for the clerical work, and the commander only needs to be able to sign and draw the seal. The position of the imperial court for officials is to be able to lead troops to fight. Even some of the handsome people all the way can't read big characters. Just like the famous Yang Yanzhao in later generations, the legendary figure of the Yang family general, it is said that he is illiterate. The consequence is that a lot of power in his hands is handed over to his cronies, and of course, he is inevitably pitted by them.

Now in the locality, do you still have to serve the village chief and the chief? In that way, a lot of the work of running the field could not be carried out. Since the work is done by the officials, why not just let the officials take care of it? Why do you want to stack the bed frame house? As everything gets on the right track, there will be a large number of grassroots officials to be replaced, which is something that has to be done. Du Zhongxiao wanted these people to leave by themselves, give up their official positions, and turn positions such as township security into officials. But there are many officials at the battalion and capital levels, who are reluctant to have the power in their hands and refuse to leave, how can Du Zhongxiao help them and the mud.

How can superiors seize the power of subordinates? Directly using power and financial power to force up tension is too low-level and not good for oneself. The easiest way to do this is to let the next level drive people away. This is a power technique, Du Zhongxiao doesn't like to use it, but now he has to use it.

Pang Dutou became confident and developed to resist his boss, which was what Du Zhongxiao wanted to see. My own people are here, and not speaking is an attitude. Commander Sun and Deputy Commander Qin made these people unable to do this ministry and could not get this money and food, so they hurriedly left to replace them.

Using middle and lower-level officials to seize power over the upper level officials was a means to control the military power of the forbidden army during the Taizong period, that is, the so-called upper and lower phase system. Decades passed, the promotion of officers in the forbidden army, down to the command of such grass-roots officers, was directly decided by the emperor himself. The imperial power of the Great Song Dynasty controlled the military power, not by relying on the Privy Council and the Sanya, but directly controlling the officers. This model is somewhat similar to that of a later generation of military power who used the status of a principal, starting from the junior officers, to be directly promoted by the supreme ruler, and always retained a communication channel.

Jinshi is a protégé of the Son of Heaven, but in fact, it is only in name, and the real protégé of the Son of Heaven is an officer at all levels of the forbidden army. They were selected into the forbidden army, and then selected step by step, to the upper four armies, to the Zhubanzhi, and finally around the emperor. In the end, he was selected to be a grassroots officer and sent outside to lead troops to fight. If they have made military achievements, they will have the emperor himself as their backing, and they will be promoted rapidly. The highest-level general of the unified army in the Great Song Dynasty is such two types of people, one is a family of relatives and military generals, and the other is a small soldier who was selected by the emperor and personally lifted step by step.

This practice is very harmful to the army, and will directly erode the combat effectiveness of the army, and the typical result is that the victors are not rewarded, the losers are not punished, and the rewards and punishments are uneven. The front-line military orders are not good, they will grab the merits, and they will retreat if they are in difficulty, and it is not easy for the front-line commanders to command.

Du Zhongxiao is familiar with two people, Zhang Yu is from a local background, he has risen by virtue of his brave military exploits, and now he is under the jurisdiction of the Emperor. Di Qing is similar to him, the military exploits in the northwest are actually not comparable to Zhang Qi, and now he is a handsome minister all the way, and it is estimated that he is about to become a privy envoy. Wang Kai is located between the two, born as a general, but rose from the local system to become a general in the army.

Di Qing later proved that he could fight, and there were a lot of similar ones who couldn't fight.

Du Zhongxiao is very clear about the harm of the upper and lower phase system, and he doesn't want to use this method to manage the camp and field affairs, but now is an extraordinary period and uses extraordinary means. Therefore, now that Pang Dutou and Commander Sun are in conflict, Du Zhongxiao is silent, and he is not allowed to command the persecution of Dutou, which is to let the officials at the grassroots level fight for fairness and force the incompetent officials away. Of course, he can't directly participate in it, let alone come forward to support Pang Dutou. Then it is guilty of winning over the middle-level officers at the grassroots level, and it becomes a seizure of power instead of building a contingent.