Chapter 20: Chongzhou in February

The fleet set off from Jinhai on the fourth day of the second lunar month, arrived at Hecheng on the 17th, and stopped for two days around Danluo Island in between.

The situation in the Central Plains is becoming more and more chaotic, and the trade routes are blocked, not only the bulk commodities such as cotton silk, sugar, japonica rice, porcelain, and tea in Jiangdong County are unsalable, but the raw materials such as wood, iron ore, and coal that Jiangdong needs may even be cut off.

In addition to the Jinhae Grain Road, Lim Tie will also directly open up a route between Chongju and Jeju.

Lin Jian plans to use the port of Danluo Jeju as a transit point to dump the bulk commodities of Gangdong County in Kyushu, Honshu, Goryeo and other places, and also consider importing raw materials such as timber, iron ore, and coal from Kyushu, Honshu, and Goryeo.

Nineteen maritime merchants, including Sun and Zhou, brought their families and depended on more than 3,000 people who moved south, and more than 2,000 craftsmen and their families moved south.

Except for Sun Zhou and other clans, except for the near branches, which are relatively wealthy, the distant branches are not much cared for, and there are many poor people.

Although Danluo is far away from home, and there are more than 30 families and more than 180 people willing to stay in Jeju to reclaim this wasteland obtained from the Danna people.

In order to protect the vigilance of the Danluo people, Lin Jian did not directly set up an inspection department in Jeju Port, but handed over the military and civilian affairs to Ge Changgen to be responsible, and transported more than 100 excellent young horses from Danluo Island and returned to Chongzhou across the sea.

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In addition to the total loading volume of ships, the capacity of the port is also a limiting factor.

At present, the total capacity of the Heishui Ocean Shipping Company has reached 80,000 stones, and there are 96 large and medium-sized ships with more than 500 stone masts.

Even if there is no shortage of labor, even if there is no shortage of labor, even if there is no accident, it takes seven or eight days to load and unload a single loading, and this does not take into account the situation where the water camp warships and other commercial civilian ships or ferries are berthed and occupy the berths at the wharf.

The expansion of the port takes time, and Lin Jian naturally wants to use the port resources of Hecheng and Jiangmen at this time, and even build an inland wharf in Jiuhua.

In the coastal area between the Yangtze River and the Huaihe River, due to the role of tidal support, the sand and silt water in the offshore area are shallow, which is not conducive to the berthing of large ships. However, due to the law of tidal movement, there are also a small number of deep-water channels between the shallow sea silt, and large sea vessels can directly berth at the shore, becoming a rare natural harbor between the Yangtze River and the Huai River.

As early as 1,000 years ago, the local people discovered the Hecheng waterway from the offshore silt, and the fishing boats gathered here, and the formation time of the Hecheng fishing port was much earlier than the Hecheng grassland, and it was hundreds of years earlier than the excavation of the Yunyan River.

After the end of the dredging of the Salt River, Hecheng will connect with Chongcheng through the Salt River and the Xishan River waterway, which is nearly 100 miles away from Jiangmen, and will become another important port fortress in addition to Chongcheng.

In addition to Xinchongcheng and Xisha Island, a considerable number of people who moved south will be dispersed to Hecheng, Jiangmen, Jiuhua and other places for resettlement.

Lin Lian, Sun Fengyi, Zhou Guangnan, and more than 200 southward migrants from Hecheng landed at Hecheng Port, while the others continued south with the fleet, bypassing Shajiao southeast of Hecheng and entering the Yangtze River from Jiangmen.

Lin Lian's return journey was undecided, and Chongzhou could not arrange the greeting in advance, except for Wang Chengfu, only Lin Mengde, Li Shuyi, Sun Jingtang, Ge Siyu and others, who organized the dredging of the salt river nearby, rushed to Hecheng to meet after hearing the news.

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Compared with the extreme cold in the north, Chongzhou in mid-February is not so cold.

Lin Jian wore a green shirt and jacket, stood on the sea pond, and introduced the people and customs of Hecheng to Sun Fengyi, Zhou Guangnan and others.

"Compared with before the war, a rammed earth city wall was built on the periphery of Hecheng Fortress, and now it has become a big city with a vertical height of more than 400 steps, a horizontal of more than 600 steps, a dock inside, and an outer coastal port......

Song Xiaobo is the real chief official of Hecheng, Wang Chengfu's Hecheng Division inspection is still set up by Lin Tie, he came to greet him very regularly, and he honestly said goodbye and left first.

Wang Chengfu saluted Lin Jian and the princes, and said: "Although the regulations of Hecheng are large, it is far from being called a heroic city and strong. Chongzhou has a lot of heavy rain in summer and autumn, the soil is soft and soft, the city wall is only rammed earth version building, it is not strong enough, it is easy to collapse, and it also needs to be covered with blue bricks outside. In addition, the coastal area of Hecheng is susceptible to strong winds and tides, and the next step is to strengthen the sea pond, and plant a large area of miscellaneous forests inside and outside the sea pond to prevent the sea defense wind protection and berm - and when the real new Hecheng is completed, it will take a long time and continuous investment. ”

"In addition to protecting Hecheng from the disaster of wind and tide, the sea pond and the sea protection forest belt can continue to extend to the south, and those tidal flats that have no grass and are susceptible to the flood of the sea tide have the conditions to be transformed into fertile fields," Lin Jian said to Zhou Guangnan, Sun Fengyi and others, "I don't agree with you buying land in Chongzhou Circle, but you want to invest your money in building a sea pond and transforming this large tidal flat into a mulberry cotton field, and I support ......it with both hands."

In addition to the grassland, nearly half of the land in Hecheng is along the beach flats and swamps, and it is really necessary to make great efforts to reclaim it, and it is easy to get another million acres of land outside the grassland.

In half a year, nearly 160,000 acres of fertile land such as mulberry, hemp, cotton, rice and wheat were reclaimed. However, Lin Jian invested more than 200,000 taels of silver before and after, and there were 240,000 stones of rice and grain transported to the island alone, plus nearly 30,000 people who continued to work hard for a year and a half, so that such results were achieved.

In the Central Plains and Shandong wars, a large number of displaced people poured south, and there was no shortage of labor, but at this time, Lin Jian wanted to concentrate the resources in his hands to build the Jiangdong Left Army and the Jinghai Sea Camp, and did not have the capital to build a large-scale sea pond and reclaim barren beaches in the east of Hecheng.

Lin Jian didn't want Sun, Zhou and other clans to move south to compete for land with the locals of Chongzhou, but pushing them to come to Hecheng to build sea ponds and reclaim barren beaches would be beneficial, and it would not cause conflicts between the southward moving clans and local forces.

Lin Mengde said with a smile: "The two brothers Sun and Zhou really want to go to Xisha Island to have a look and fight with the sky, so that they can have endless fun." In two years, a riverside desert island has been opened up to us for 1670,000 yuan of fertile land, which has made many people who pass by Xisha Island again dumbfounded...... Everyone in the world says that the strategy of adults is on the battlefield, but they don't know that outside the battlefield is the place to see the real kung fu. ”

Sun Fengyi and Zhou Guangnan are both older than Lin Mengde, so they are called brothers; Sun and Zhou both knew that Lin Mengde was really one of the core figures in Chongzhou, and humbly replied: "The plan of the adult, we have a deep understanding and a deep understanding. ”

Although none of them have ever been to Chongzhou, they are deeply involved in many things that Lin Jian did in Jinhai.

Not to mention anything else, Lin Jian broke with tradition and forcibly changed wheat and rice on both sides of the Wushui River, causing a nearly threefold surge in grain production, which made them feel deeply.

Next, the amount of silver transferred from Jinhai to Chongzhou will be considerable. Taking the Zhou family as an example, after the war, nearly 80,000 acres of fertile land were encircled on both sides of the Whirlpool River. Although the grain produced per mu in the north is small, the grain price is high, and the land price is not slightly lower than that of Chongzhou, and even if the 80,000 mu of fertile land is disposed of at a low price, it can transfer three or four hundred thousand taels of silver.

Nineteen maritime merchant clans moved south, in addition to the previous phenomenon of 300,000 taels, they will almost transfer one or two million taels of silver to Chongzhou one after another.

Naturally, the nineteen maritime merchant clans would not donate the silver directly to Lin Jian for no reason to build the Jiangdong Left Army and the Jinghai Sea Camp; Lin Jian also didn't want the silver to settle in the silver cellar of the southward migration clan.

Only when the silver is used can it be counted as capital and increase in value, and Lin Jian can continuously extract tax silver from the value-added part as the capital to raise the army.

The expansion of the shipyard and shipyard and supporting workshops, workshops and dock wharves immediately had an investment of 300,000 taels of cash capital, and other workshops and workshops in Chongzhou still had a foundation, and could not undertake the injection of millions of taels of cash capital in a short period of time.

In this way, Chongzhou can produce more food, accommodate more displaced households, and have a broader base for recruiting soldiers.

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Lin Lian, Sun, Zhou and others only stopped in Hecheng for a while, and then traveled west along the post road on the south bank of the Yanhe River.

The dredging project of the Yunyan River has been going on for nearly four months, and the construction sites on both sides of the river are busy, even if the Jinhai grain road was urgently opened to solve the Gyeonggi grain shortage last year, which made Sun, Zhou and others breathtaking.

The opening of the Jinhai grain road can be said to be the imperial court's urgent mobilization of all the resources that can be mobilized at that time, but the dredging of the salt river was promoted by Lin Tie in Chongzhou alone.

In addition to Xisha Island, Chongzhou resettled more than 26,000 displaced households, more than 46,000 Ding Zhuang, about 5,000 Zhuang bravely incorporated into the Jiangdong Left Army, and the rest of Ding Zhuang were transferred to work on the embankment. In addition, there are more than 10,000 displaced people Ding Zhuang who poured into Chongzhou after the war, and more than 20,000 local households in Chongzhou. Ding Zhuang alone has more than 70,000 people, plus the elderly, weak, women and children who cooperate on both sides of the strait, the labor force on both sides of the Yanhe River has reached 120,000 people, and more than 6,000 mules, horses, and animals.

In addition to the remuneration of rice grain, the method of remuneration reduction is also adopted.

Ding Zhuang is paid two and a half catties of japonica rice for one work, but if Ding Zhuang is paid for one job, the amount of japonica rice collected in this year's summer and autumn grain rent collection will be reduced by three catties of japonica rice; Half of the remuneration for women and children; There are mules and horses involved in dredging, and 15 catties of grass and 2 catties of material are given every day.

The purpose of the reduction of remuneration is to encourage laborers who have surplus food to receive as little rice as possible, so as to alleviate the financial pressure, and in fact, the county only needs to pay 20% of the interest.

Excluding the investment in mules, horses, animals, and a large number of dredging tools, 200,000 stone of silver and rice have been distributed in April alone.

Such a large-scale dredging of the Yunyan River not only tested Chongzhou's financial resources, but also tested Chongzhou's organizational and mobilization capabilities.

In two months, Chongzhou will enter the rainy season, and the dredging of the Yunyan River will be completed before then, and at that time, Jiyun-class warships will be able to penetrate deep into the hinterland of Chongzhou through the Xishan River and the Yunyan River to participate in operations and defense.

The Xishan River and the Yunyan River have truly become the outer waters of Chongzhou, and the warships and soldiers of the Jinghai Battalion can also quickly transport and infiltrate the Lianghuai region through the Yunyan River, the Xishan River, the Beiguan River, the Gaoyou Lake, the Hongzepu River, and the Huai River -- the strategic topography of Chongzhou will be greatly improved.

In the evening, Cao Ziang, Hu Zhiyong, Sun Jingxuan and others rushed from Chongcheng to greet them, with good news: "For example, Mrs. gave birth to a son last night, who was fat and fat, and they all said that he weighed eight pounds, and he cried so much at night that he heard it; We rushed over to greet your lordship and your brothers, such as Sun and Zhou, and also congratulated your lordship by the way......"