When crossing Qingjiangpu, the weather was cold, the water was clear, Lin Lian, Zhou Pu, Sun Jingtang and others changed their fast horses first, crossed Huai to Huaiyang to supervise the war, Xiaoman, Su Mei and other female dependents went to Yandu, changed boats and went to Shanyang slowly on Qingjiangpu.

Thinking of the last time I went to Qingjiangpu, it has been six years-

Su Mei gazed at both sides of the river and Pudong through the window.

Song Jia asked: "When Miss Su crossed Qingjiangpu with the adults, was it also such a time and such a scene?" ”

"The seasons are similar, but the scenery is very different," Su Mei said, pointing to the remote embankment on the north bank, "At that time, both sides of the bank were beaches, and the reeds stretched from north to south for dozens or hundreds of miles, and the wind blew, and the reeds were like heavy snow." After the embankment was repaired on both sides, the water was a little deeper, but between the two banks, it was only twenty miles......

"The widest part is less than 20 miles, and if you look at the newly drawn topographic map, the Puzi mouth is as narrow as the neck of a bottle," Song Jia said, "There are only two narrow waterways that connect with the Yellow Water Ocean outside, but the terrain is still low and not easy to live in, and there are still a lot of reeds in the autumn." However, the salt fields on the north and south sides take grass from there, and after autumn, they are cut like Laizi's head, and there is really no beautiful scenery......"

Su Mei smiled, and Xiao Man said: "Sister Song said easily, we are trapped in a small place all day, and it is not easy to get out of the city, it is a messy barren mountain, and it is also a very beautiful scenery." ”

Xiaoman has been pampered for two years of marriage, and he is still straight-tempered; Su Mei took over the conversation and said: "People's livelihood is important, but it doesn't matter if it's good or not - I heard that after the embankments were built on both sides of Qingjiangpu, Yandu and Tinghu counties moved in 20,000 more households. It is said that 10,000 households are big counties, and there were more than 15,000 households in salt before that......"

"But no," Song Jia smiled lightly and said, "In the past, the eleven counties of Huaidong Prefecture were slightly more in Hailing, Huai'an, and Chongzhou, and the other counties could barely reach the appearance of big counties. In the dangerous land with many mountains and few fields, Wanhu is naturally a big county, but in the Jianghuai Plain, which is flat terrain, dense rivers and lakes, and known as the land of fish and rice, the county with just 10,000 households can only be regarded as a poor and remote land. The embankment on both sides of the Qingjiangpu originated before the Huaisi War, and the adults recruited brave soldiers from the Huaisi people, and tens of thousands of families wanted to resettle, so they could only build embankments on the north bank to fill in the beach; The construction of the embankment on the south bank is to build a new road connecting Huai'an and Shanyang in order to build a new road connecting Huai'an and Shanyang, and also conveniently enclose more than 100,000 acres of new fields on the south bank......"

Song Jia knew that among the daughters, Su Mei had the most profound and extensive knowledge, and she couldn't please her by discussing some parents, so she talked to her about political affairs to her liking.

Sun Wenwan said: "When I was a child, I passed Huai'an with my father and brother, and I often starved on the roadside, no matter how good the scenery was, my heart was also desolate and desolate......

"I'm the only one in the cage...... "Xiao Man pouted and said sullenly.

"Little lady is joking, among the few of us, which one has your fate," Song Jia asked with a smile, "It's not that we are willing to be displaced, and I haven't been able to escape from Huaidong for tens of millions?" ”

Song Jia said this, but it made all the women laugh, and the fire turned to Lin Bin.

Sun Wenwan still accompanied her north as a female official, but there were some things that she couldn't understand.

It was the three girls around Song Jia, who were originally given to Lin Jian by the Danluo Li family and the Jinxiang clan for fun, so they were naturally concubines. These three girls, even if Lin Jian does not enter the house, can only give them to middle and lower-ranking officers as wives; High-ranking officials will accept them as concubines, but they will not marry such women of unknown origin.

Sun Wenwan and Lin Jian had marriage entanglements in their early years, and they have spent many days together day and night over the years, even if her mind is not on Lin Bin, which person in Huaidong will welcome Sun Wenwan into the door?

With Gu Junxun in charge and letting Sun Wenwan accompany him to the north, the matter was vaguely settled. Regardless of whether Lin Jian has a heart or not, this responsibility must be accepted by him, in short, no man thinks that there are many women around him.

"By the way," Sun Wenwan asked Song Jia, "My lord has always relied on you to plan for him, why don't you take you with me when I go to Huaiyang this time, and I want to stay and go with us?" ”

"He probably thinks that I am in the way of going to Huaiyang," Song Jia said ambiguously to arrange Lin Liandao, "I don't want to think about his thin body, no matter where I pick this battlefield, he is not someone's opponent!" ”

Su Mei pursed her lips and smiled, Sun Wenwan's face was slightly red, knowing that Song Jia was talking about Liu Miaozhen, the girl in the red jacket, she was still a virgin, and she was not as presumptuous as Song Jia, so she stopped talking nonsense.

Xiao Man asked with interest, "Is the girl in the red jacket really as powerful as rumored?" Have I seen General Zhou gently throw up the stone grinding disc with the size of the cow's waist, and also knocked the red-jacketed girl off the horse? ”

"General Zhou didn't, I only heard that he was beaten off his horse and escaped in a panic. Afterwards, Qin Ye and they were furious, and General Zhou and General Ning, who went out with him, were reprimanded for being concerned, and later set a rule that he was no longer allowed to lead troops to meet the enemy," Song Jia said, "This legend of thousands of troops taking the lead is rare since ancient times, but the woman in the red jacket looks like a thin and weak beautiful woman, and people really can't look ......."

Sun Wenwan nodded thoughtfully, when Liu Miaozhen went to Chongzhou to have a secret meeting with Lin Lian, Sun Wenwan was in charge of living in Chongzhou, and Su Mei and Xiaoman never saw it.

The girls were wandering around in the cabin to pass the time, but Su Mei was quite attentive to ask Song Jia for advice on political affairs.

Su Mei also knew very well in her heart that Huaidong and Jiang Ning wanted to maintain a situation that seemed peaceful and united on the surface, and there was no chance for Zhaoxue in the Sumen case in recent years, she wanted to stay by Lin Lian's side, and if she had the identity of a female official, she would not be unpopular. As for the future, she doesn't care about what is not famous.

Qingjiangpu is shallow, and it is not fast to sail, and discussing political affairs can also pass the time, but Song Jia tried his best to tell Su Mei about the differences between Huaidong and Jiangning.

Based on the old territory, Jiangdong County's 10 prefectures and 78 counties, in real terms, will not be less than 2 million households, and the average is about 25,000 households in each county. In the past two hundred years, the land of Jianghuai has been known as "the land of rich people in the world and fish and rice", not just talking. It's just that it is located in the same Jianghuai Plain, and it is also divided into three, six, nine and so on.

The development of Jiangnan is relatively sufficient, Pingjiang, Danyang, and Jiangning, there is no county with less than 30,000 Dingkou, and Weiyang is the richest in Jiangbei, and there are 140,000 Dingkou in the five counties of Weiyang, which is slightly worse than Pingjiang, Danyang, and Jiangning. Along Hongzepu and the coastal Haosi, Huai'an and other places, it is much poorer, in the early years of Yandu and other counties, Dingkou has just exceeded 10,000 households.

The differences between the counties and households are quite intuitive reflections of the gap between the rich and the poor.

After accommodating a large number of southbound migrants, the two prefectures barely reached the level of 30,000 households per county until last year.

However, a rich place does not mean that it is strong.

In the past 200 years, the development of Pingjiang, Danyang, Jiangning, and other prefectures and counties has almost always been dominated by local clan forces, surrounding lakes and building polders, repairing canals and embankments, and the newly added acres of land are naturally in the hands of local clans, large landowners, and large landlords.

Over the past 200 years since the founding of the Yuan Dynasty, the population of Pingjiang Prefecture alone has increased by more than two times, and a large number of lakes and marshes along the Taihu Lake and a large area of coastal beach land have been reclaimed into grain fields.

However, in the past 200 years, whenever there has been talk in the DPRK and China about re-measuring the acres of land and checking the land endowment, some people have jumped out and said that this matter violates the ancestral system, including the collection of industrial and mining taxes and municipal taxes, and has also put on the hat of "competing with the people for profit."

It was only in the past four or five years that the two prefectures of Huaidong were developed on a large scale, with the military department as the leading factor.

First of all, the dredging of the Salt River, then the construction of the embankment of Hanhai, and then the construction of the embankment on both sides of the Qingjiangpu, and now the construction of the embankment in the territory of Huai'an Prefecture and the east side of Hongze Pudong has begun.

This also makes a large area of new land always under the control of the military department.

In order not to break through the line of 800,000 stone grains originally agreed with Jiangning, Lin Jian decided to reduce the part of the land tax handed over by Hailing and Huai'an to 40%, which means that the counties can intercept 1.2 million stone grain for next year's local expenditure.

It is said that it is local expenditure, but in fact it is also under the overall planning of the military department.

First, the local water conservancy and road construction projects in which the workers and soldiers are involved are more borne by the localities, and this part of the expenditure is the largest, and this year it is estimated that it will exceed 600,000 stone grains, which actually shares the financial pressure on the reserve soldiers for the military department. In addition, the various schools under the jurisdiction of the military department recruit outstanding children from the local government, and the local government also bears the expenses for their food and lodging quotas.

In addition to the expropriation of land endowments, from the county to the inspection department to the village community, the organization and mobilization ability of personnel in Huaidong is far from being comparable to Pingjiang, which seems to be rich.

In addition to the soldiers, Huaidong also has 120,000 soldiers, even if these 120,000 soldiers are equipped with armor, they will definitely be better than those old soldiers in the imperial camp army.

"Don't look at the area controlled by Jiangning, it is several times larger than Huaidong, but in terms of comparison in all aspects, there are not many Huaidong inferior to Jiangning," Song Jia said, "It's just that those people in Jiangning are still in the clouds." According to his words, at this time, it is even more necessary to calm down and not make too much limelight. Perhaps after next year, we can barely put all the 50,000 troops deployed on the northern front into active service, but after the final discussion, it was decided to press it again, and wait for the foundation to be more stable, and then consider the matter of counterattack. ”

"Oh......" Su Mei nodded thoughtfully, and at this time, cheers came from outside the cabin, and when he looked over, he could already see the Huai'an City Tower. They had already left Qingjiangpu and entered the Baitang River. In addition to the Huai River in the north, the Baitang River is also an important waterway connecting Huai'an and Shanyang, at this time, the river is full of boats and horizontals, and the sunset is paved on the river surface, the golden waves are sparkling, very magnificent.

Lin Jian had obtained permission from Jiangning to move the Huai'an Mansion to Shanyang County, so as to better organize personnel and raise materials in Shanyang for the war on the northern front.

Just like the decline of Hailing and the rise of Chongzhou, Huai'an County is destined to decline from then on, and Shanyang County will rise to become a famous city in Huaizuo.