On Jiangmen Island or the north shore of the river, except for the miscellaneous reeds and shrubs and a trail leading to the river beach, you can't see anything else, if it weren't for a few dilapidated grass boats towed to the river beach, ordinary people take a boat to pass here, just think that this is a common barren beach in Hecheng Caocheng.

Lin Jian climbed up the sand bank that washed away the rain, only to see that there were more than a dozen thatched huts behind the bushes, which were the residences of the pasture households here. Many of the pasture households are destitute, their families are surrounded by walls, and the households have no money to spare, and even the pirate ships pass through here, and they have no interest in going ashore to loot. Lin Jian saw that there was a miscellaneous forest behind the dozen or so thatched sheds, and the area was quite large, with hundreds of acres.

There are many shrubs and scattered trees in the Hecheng grassland, but there are very few elm and poplar forests, and this miscellaneous forest does not look like it is naturally generated.

Lin Jian stood on the sand bank, waited for the flag leader Wang Chengfu to climb up, and asked with a smile: "The Duting Courtyard is hidden behind the forest, why can't you see the road?" ”

Wang Chengfu couldn't figure out the meaning of the forest, and saw that some cavalry had gone around to the back of the forest first, wiped the sweat on his forehead, he woke up at this time, and honestly led the way in front, and said: "There are dozens of salt dings in Duting, and there are five or six hundred grassland households around it, and pirates are frequent, but I don't dare to be too public...... Several paths are in the woods, and you can walk through them. ”

Passing through the miscellaneous forest, passing through the miscellaneous forest, it is much more spacious all of a sudden, not far from the north is a large courtyard covering an area of more than 30 acres, there is a circle of paths along the outer wall of the courtyard, the gate faces north, and there is a dirt road in the north to extend to the southeast side. As soon as the rainy season passed, the main official road in Chongzhou County was also badly damaged during the rainy season, and it needed to be refilled and compacted, but this dirt road looked very neat.

It is not appropriate to say that the yard area of 30 acres of land is already very large, and the large surrounding houses on Xisha Island that can accommodate 80 to 100 households are just that size. This courtyard is boxy, there are 100 steps wide on one side, the courtyard wall is made of blue bricks, it is very towering, it is almost more than one zhang high from a distance, in addition to the Yuanmen sentry tower, there is a corner tower on each of the four corners, it is said that it is a dock village can not be said to be inappropriate.

I saw the report of the sentinel before, saying that Jiangmen Duting is not simple, but after seeing it with my own eyes, I realized that it is really not simple. The tattered straw boats and ragged men I had just seen on the river beach were probably just an illusion to confuse the pirates. In fact, if the pirates landed from there, even if those few roads did not fork, they would have to pass through the forest more than two miles deep before they could see where the Jiangmen Pavilion was located.

"This pavilion is well run for you, I went to the Hecheng Division to see, the Salt and Iron Division has four or five hundred garrisons there, and the scale of the Hecheng Division is so large, it may not be as strict as this," Lin Jian said with Wang Chengfu who walked in front, "This pavilion, how much salt is there, how many grassland households are managed, and how large is the grassland area under its jurisdiction......

"There are sixty people from the head of the capital below Wang Tianyi, and there are no officials. In the past few days, except for a small group of people who went to the Hecheng Division with the commander of the capital, everyone else is here. The grassland households live relatively scattered, there are 526 households, and every year they have to collect 300,000 pieces of hay from the land of 28 li in length and 22 li in the horizontal area and transport it to the salt pans in the north...... "Wang Chengfu truthfully reported the situation of the pastures, pasture households, and salt ding under the jurisdiction of Jiangmen Duting to Lin Lian, and these data were recorded in the Hecheng Division, and there was no need to conceal them.

Lin Jian frowned, making it impossible to tell whether he was satisfied or dissatisfied with Wang Chengfu's answer.

The area of Hecheng grassland is not necessarily less than that of Chongzhou County, but the grassland households registered in the Hecheng Division are less than Dingkou 11 in Chongzhou County, and in addition, it is 1,000 salt dings. There are almost more than 20,000 people under the jurisdiction of the entire Salt and Iron Division, and of course, outsiders don't know how many of them eat empty quotas.

The grassland land under the jurisdiction of Jiangmen Duting is 28 miles longitudinal and 22 miles horizontal, and such a large piece of land is not much less than Xisha Island, and in Chongzhou County, it can almost reclaim 1120,000 mu of grain fields and support 5,000 or 6,000 households. In order to ensure the needs of the salt farms for burning grass, such a large area of land was abandoned and could only be cultivated into grass, and it was strictly forbidden to cultivate it into grain fields, and every year the five or six hundred grassland households under its jurisdiction were driven to provide three or four hundred thousand pieces of hay to the salt fields in the north.

If nothing else is said about this land, every year as long as the reeds growing on the river beaches, river beaches and sandbanks are harvested, three or four hundred thousand wah of hay can be obtained. For the pasture households who have lived here for generations, harvesting enough hay every year is not a difficult task, and the hardest part is transporting this hay to the salt works four or five hundred miles away. The journey is difficult, the turmoil is sinister, and the slightest mistake is the end of the family.

However, here in Jiangmen Duting, I can't see how hard it is.

Zhao Hu had already sent a military pawn to take over the defense here, and strengthened the vigilance, Lin Jian walked into the Duting Courtyard, passed through the gate of the Yuan, and saw that the courtyard wall of the bricks of the blue bricks was almost eight or nine feet thick, and he thought that the gate would be blocked, and ordinary pirates really couldn't attack it.

Walking into Yuanmen is a large drying field, there are two or three acres of land, in addition to the official hall in the middle, there are fifty or sixty neat courtyards around the ring, which means that there are fifty or sixty single courtyards in the big courtyard.

Usually there is no official business to talk about, so I saw three or five children playing in the drying field in front of the business hall, and some chickens, ducks and geese walking in the drying field.

Lin Lian walked to the wooden trough where the chickens were raised on the east side of the drying field and grabbed a handful of chicken food, mixed with nearly half of the grain, it seems that the grain field is cultivated privately here, not only is it extravagant enough to use grain to make wine, but also the surplus grain is fed to the poultry, he glanced at Wang Chengfu, did not say anything, and put the chicken food in his hand back into the trough.

There are also 22 pavilions under the jurisdiction of the Hecheng Grassland Division under the jurisdiction of the Weiyang Salt and Iron Division, and when Lin Jian inspected the Yunyan River in mid-August, he went to the three pavilions on both sides of the Yunyan River to see. It is said that the river transportation on both sides of the Salt River in the north is more convenient, but the three pavilions are dilapidated. Not to mention the burnt blue brick wall, even the adobe wall has not been repaired for many years, five or six barracks are simple, the official office is still thatched roof, very shabby, except for the fat heads and big ears of the officers such as the head of the capital and the head of the banner, the life of the grassland households and the salt ding is very poor, far less than Jiangmen so rich.

Wang Chengfu stood aside and watched Lin Lian's actions, thinking that he was born as a son, abandoned his pen and followed Rong, went north to Qinwang and Yannan to fight, became famous in one fell swoop, was awarded an official reward, and was stationed in Chongzhou.

"Looks like you're doing a good job here!" Lin Jian clapped his hands, didn't rush into the official hall, stood on the drying field that could double as a school field, looked at this dock plug where the military and civilians lived, and said with emotion, "Wang Tianyi, I've heard of this person." I heard that he beat his boss when he was a military attache in the Hecheng Division in his early years, and he rushed here, he was an illiterate martial artist, and he didn't have much business thoughts. ”

Lin Jian frowned slightly, thinking in his heart, even if he cultivated the grain field privately, only relying on five or six hundred grassland households, he would not be able to make such a large scale here, the dirt road in the north of Yuanmen was rammed quite neatly, it should have cost a lot of manpower and material resources, he knew that there were displaced households here to privately cultivate the grain field, but it was difficult for outsiders to figure out how many people there were, and his eyes were staring at Wang Chengfu and asking, wanting to find out the truth from his mouth.

"It is indeed the credit of Wang Dutou," Wang Chengfu said, "Who can be the master of Jiangmen except Wang Dutou?" ”

Wang Chengfu knew that the Chongzhou River Estuary would build a prison city, and the imperial court would officially follow it at the end of July, but Chongzhou had not taken action until now, and he suspected that Lin Jian was patrolling the river so far to build a prison city.

However, the sandbar and sand island in the estuary belong to Chongzhou, and the shore is the jurisdiction of the Hecheng Grassland Division to which the Weiyang Salt and Iron Division belongs. Thinking of this, Wang Chengfu suddenly felt a headache, his arms couldn't twist his thighs, Lin Lian wanted to invade this land, and stabbed the matter up, so that the imperial historians of the Metropolitan Procuratorate knew, so that Lin Lian's calculations could be beaten, but he was a small thorn with a prisoner, and he couldn't stop Lin Lian's revenge afterwards.

Lin Jian didn't say anything more, Zhao Hu walked over and said in his ear: "There are two horses in the courtyard of the official office, it seems that they came from a long distance, there should be outsiders, do you want to search?" ”

The Jinghai Metropolitan Envoy Department can't take care of the affairs of the Hecheng grassland, but if he really wants to send someone to search, he doesn't dare to stop it.

Lin Jian walked to the gate of the courtyard of the official office, saw that there were two thin horses in the stable, and asked Wang Chengfu: "Are there guests in Jiangmen?" ”

"There are two masters and servants who traveled through Jianghuai, and when they passed through Jiangmen, the villain dared to leave them down to drink a few glasses of water and wine." Wang Chengfu said.

"Oh?" Lin Lianhu stared at Wang Chengfu suspiciously, at this time, the army was in chaos, although Liu An'er was expelled from Haozhou, but there were still a lot of small gangsters, who would be interested in traveling to Jianghuai and running to the Hecheng grassland to wander around?

"Lord Lin, don't come to Wuxian?"

Listening to the familiar voice, Lin Jian looked back, but he never expected that it was Song Bo, a child of the Song family who had a few encounters in Jinan, who walked out of the lobby of the official hall and stood in the corridor to greet this side.

"It turned out that Brother Song Bo was here, I thought that Brother Song had gone back to Jin An Yongtai, how could he be interested in wandering around in the wild place of Hecheng Grassland?" Lin Jian was talking in his mouth, but he glanced at Wang Chengfu, it was not difficult for him to guess that Song Bo had the intention of peeping at Jianghuai for the eight surnames of Dongmin, but Song Bo was stranded in Jiangmen, and he was drinking and talking with this Wang Chengfu in the house in the afternoon.