Yu Wencheng only greeted him at the palace boundary, but he would not escort the whole process. It happened that Tang Xitai was ordered to go to Yuzhang to see Lin Jian passing through Peng Ze, Tang Xitai walked with Yue Lengqiu, and Yu Wencheng transferred another team of soldiers to escort them.

Tang Xitai is one of the thirty boys in Chongzhou, almost a disciple of Lin Bin, the former Luzhou Mansion Sinong joined the army, and his status in Huaidong does not seem to be high, but in fact it is not low.

It is believed that Huaidong will not give up Tang Xitai's life and arrange for Yue Lengqiu to rob and kill the Kou soldiers on the way, and Deng Yu, Yue Zhi and others are more relieved to watch Yue Lengqiu leave.

Traveling southwest from Pengze to Duchang to boarding a boat across Poyang Lake is a shortcut to Yuzhang.

The three counties of Pengze, Hukou and Duchang along the way are located on the east bank of the waterway connecting Poyang Lake to the Yangtze River.

After the Shangrao defense line was penetrated, the luxury family fled across the river to the north in a hasty and decisive manner, and it was too late to carry out large-scale destruction in this area.

Although the counties of Jiangzhou have been severely exploited by luxury families in the past year, this year's agricultural affairs have not been greatly affected, and there is no major chaos in the countryside. This is a rare and valuable item for the dilapidated Jiangxi.

From Pengze to the west, through Hukou to the south to Duchang, along the road the wheat ears are golden, it is the harvest season.

Yue Lengqiu and Tang Xitai took two carriages, one in front of the other.

Yue Lengqiu and his family Yue An and Yue Zhou took a car, the so-called once they came, they were safe, and they would not be particularly anxious when they looked at the scenery along the road.

"It's rare that Jiangxi likes to eat bread, but I didn't expect Jiangzhou to grow wheat so widely?" Yue Zhou sat in front of the wheel, looking at the wheat fields along the road, quite surprised.

"Wheat from the northwest into the Central Plains, has been a thousand years, there is a process from the west to the east, from the north to the south, but after to the south of the Yangtze River, it is the first Jianghuai, the two Zhejiang, and then to the west gradually spread, almost to the early years of Qisheng. At this time, Jiangxi planted wheat on a large scale, and it was about a hundred years old, with Jiangzhou and Shangrao being the most prosperous. Looking at the geography, it can be seen that Shangrao planted wheat, which was introduced from the two Zhejiang; The wheat planting in Jiangzhou is gradually from Jingchu to the south - but to the hinterland of Jiangxi, Fuliang, Fuzhou, Yuzhang, Ganzhou, Yuanzhou and other places, there are few farmers to plant wheat. It's not inappropriate, it's really not there, "Yue Lengqiu has countless experiences in his life and has a wide range of knowledge, although Yue Zhou is a slave, he actually regards him as a disciple. Yue's children are not numerous, Yue Lengqiu carefully cultivates the family children, much more loyal than outsiders, this time Yue Zhou accompanied him, but also has more time to teach homework along the way, patiently explained, "In the past, farming was harvested in spring and autumn, so there was a dilemma of not receiving green and yellow. After the autumn harvest or planting wheat, it can make up for the lack of spring yellow, and does not damage the fertilizer, Jiangxi should plant wheat on a large scale......"

When the world's grain production is low, the annual harvest of beans and wheat in the north cannot be regarded as a famine year. The rice planted in the Jianghuai paddy field is only more than 200 catties. If the paddy fields are planted with one more season of wheat in winter, even if Jiangxi is seriously damaged by moisture, and the wheat planting is not as good as two Huai, but one mu of land can have 80 or 90 catties of grain harvest, the peasant households will have to smile and laugh.

"At this time, the master still has the heart to pay attention to the general affairs of farming?" Family member Yue An sat on the wheel, listened to Yue Lengqiu's careful teaching of Yue Zhou's farming, and said suspiciously.

"Looking at these years, at the root, I just don't care enough about these general affairs!" Yue Lengqiu sighed lightly, but he was not worried that Tang Xitai behind him would hear it, and said to Yue Zhou, "Mai Zuo is not afraid of cold, but it is harmful to waterlogging; Therefore, the fields of rice and wheat double cropping need summer water and winter drought, and they are particularly dependent on ditches. Before Chongguo Gong entered Huaidong, the ripe fields of rice and wheat in Chongzhou County were only two or three hundred thousand mu, and they were called the hometown of rice and fish. However, in less than ten years, almost all the paddy fields in Chongzhou County have achieved double cropping, and this ability to govern is not convincing......"

"Yue is really familiar with the matter of Chongguo," Tang Xitai called the coachman to drive after him, and drove with Yue Lengqiu, and said with a smile, "My family was in Chongguo at the beginning, and I wrote a letter about the eternal tenant and rent reduction, but I didn't see Yue Governor respond, so far I regret it, I really don't know that Yue Yue's relative agricultural insights are also so deep." ”

The five counties of Chongzhou have been sealed by Lin Bin, Yue Lengqiu is used to the old name, and it is difficult to change his words for a while, but Tang Xitai insists on calling Chongguo.

Yue Lengqiu's status is naturally not comparable to Tang Xitai, but it is difficult for the tiger to fall into Pingyang, and Yue Lengqiu can't put a score in front of Tang Xitai.

"It is really a great benefit to reduce rents, set rents, and perpetual tenants, so that tenant farmers will not be harmed by repeated turbulences, and they will concentrate on agricultural affairs. To put it simply, only one crop is charged for planting two crops, and the tenants are naturally willing to farm and double crop, fertilize the fields, and participate in ditch remediation," Yue Lengqiu said, "Chongguo Gong is Chongguan's eleventh year of Chongguan wrote about this matter, but at that time, Yue mistakenly thought that this was not the urgent need of the moment, but he didn't expect it to be a big mistake......"

Tang Xitai said with a smile: "At that time, the Jinhai grain road was still there, and the north needed to draw millions of stones of grain from Huaidong, and my family was also forced to think of ways to increase production and raise grain; It's not as good as it could be. ”

Listening to Tang Xitai's breezy tone, Yue Lengqiu smiled bitterly in his heart: How can you call it satisfactory?

The most mistaken part of the collapse of the luxury family from Jiangxi was that he did not expect Lin Jian to stabilize the situation in Jiangning so quickly and launch an offensive against Jiangxi so quickly.

To quickly stabilize the situation in Jiangning, on the surface, Lin Jian borrowed five million taels of silver from Huaidong Qianzhuang twice in the name of the household department and Jiangning Mansion to make up for the shortfall, but the luxury family once captured Jiangning and plundered millions of taels of gold and silver, why did the luxury family not recover after retreating to Jiangxi?

Gold and silver only make up for the lack of circulation, but if there is no grain to buy from the people, no amount of gold and silver will be waste -- in the past year, only the 11 counties of Huaidong have transported as much as 4 million stone of cheap rice and grain to Jiangnan, and this is the fundamental reason why the situation in Jiangning has rapidly stabilized.

Without food import, farmers starved and had to flee their homes to escape famine. Not to mention that it is difficult to recover local agricultural production, it will also have an impact on other places, affecting public security and production. With sufficient grain input, peasant households will be able to concentrate on farming and resume production, and the situation will naturally stabilize.

However, a considerable part of the 200,000 soldiers and horses in Huaidong itself have to rely on Huaidong for food, including western Zhejiang, eastern Fujian, and northern Zhejiang, which are all new places for Huaidong, who would have thought that only eleven counties in Huaidong could come up with so much surplus grain at once?

The way to dominate is nothing more than two things: building a city and accumulating grain, Lin Jian really did these two things to the extreme.

The defeat of the extravagant family is not as good as non-military and strategy, but it is actually weak in governance.

Of course, Yue Lengqiu had Yue Lengqiu's surprise and confusion, and Tang Xitai would not tell him all the roots of Huaidong.

You must know that when Huaidong is short of grain, millions of stone of rice and grain must be transported from Haidong every year; It is also in the past two years that the effect of defending the seawall has been more fully demonstrated, making Huaidong's grain output rise sharply year by year.

In the eleventh or twelfth year of Chongguan, Lin Tie Tie took out millions of taels of silver at a time to repair and defend the seawall, how many people watched and sneered? How could Yue Lengqiu not be one of the onlookers and sneers?

At this time, many people in Jiangning were still worried about the luxury family fleeing north and Yanhu might soon open the western front passage, but this successfully took Jiangxi, so that the Huaidong people were full of confidence, and they were not afraid that Jinghu would penetrate the Yanhu cavalry.

It's nothing more than water to cover the earth, and soldiers to block.

The situation in Jiangning, southern Ningning, western Ningxi, and eastern Fujian has been stabilized one after another, and there will be no longer a special shortage of grain, and the situation in western and northern Zhejiang has also improved one after another, and no matter how broken the situation in Jiangxi is, it can be dealt with calmly, at least not more difficult than last year.

The luxury family in the south of the Yangtze River is like an enclave in northern Fujian, and Guangnan County, Yuanzhou, and Tanzhou all have a tendency to be soft.

Even with the current situation, Huaidong can still support 250,000 soldiers; When the situation in the entire south has stabilized, the soldiers and horses of Huaidong have expanded to 300,000 or 400,000, and the south of the Yangtze River does not have to worry about someone controlling the elbows, why not fear and Yanhu to fight head-on on the battlefield of the Central Plains?

At present, on the surface, Lin Jian is exempting Jiangxi from paying taxes for the next three years in order to recuperate, but in fact, if Jiangxi wants to rebuild and resume production, it will have to transport a large amount of salt, iron, rice, coal, tea, cloth, and even mules and horses from other places -- including Guangnan, Xiangtan and other places in the future. Huaidong was able to rely on salt and iron and draw a large amount of money from these areas to raise troops.

After the Jiangning War, the market of the seven prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River was opened to Huaidong, and the iron material alone will bring Huaidong a huge profit of nearly one million taels of silver in the first half of this year.

After Yanhu captured Jidong, he took over the iron factory of the original Jizhen Army in Zunhua, Jidong, and moved craftsmen from Liaodong to become Yanhu's largest iron-making center in the north.

According to the information obtained by the Military Intelligence Department, Yanhu's Zunhua Iron Works has nearly 20,000 craftsmen, and produces a total of 4 million catties of refined iron and wool iron materials a year - although the Yanhu people were born in the wilderness, their king Yezier has great talents, and in the early years, he smelted iron and developed Liaodong in Liaodong, so that he had the foundation to seize the swallow thistle in the south.

The scale of the Zunhua Iron Works even exceeds the number of craftsmen used in the heyday of the Jiangning Ministry of Industry, but it is less than that of the Jiangning Ministry of Industry - one more and one less shows the strong political means and far-sighted vision of Yezier.

It's a pity that it is Huaidong who is in front of Yan Yu, not Remnant Yue, nor is it a temporary hero like the luxury family.

In Huaidong, there are more than 30,000 craftsmen related to iron smelting, but the total annual output of iron is as high as 20 million catties.

In terms of per capita iron production, Huaidong is three times that of Yanhu in the Zunhua Iron Works.

Thinking of this, Tang Xitai said to Yue Lengqiu again: "Listen to Yue talk about farming, Xitai has something to ask?" ”

"Please." Yue Lengqiu said.

"When Yanjing was not overthrown, the north normally needed to import six million stones of grain from the south every year; However, after Yan Lu occupied the northern land, in the situation that Shandong and Henan were all disabled, they could afford to spend four or five hundred thousand soldiers and horses fighting for many years, why is this so? Tang Xitai asked.

Yue Lengqiu glanced at Tang Xitai and thought to himself: Tang Xitai is with you, could it be that Lin Tie deliberately arranged it?

Yue Lengqiu thought that Tang Xitai was deliberately taking a test, although he couldn't guess why he was like this, but he didn't care, and said indifferently: "In previous years, grain from the south to the north was needed to make up for the shortage of Yanjing, and it could only barely be maintained; And now that the grain in the south is cut off and the north is half disabled, how can Yan Yu raise four or five hundred thousand soldiers and horses according to the north, there are many people who are emotional and surprised. But Lord Tang should know this......"

Tang Xitai smiled embarrassedly, thinking that Yue Lengqiu was really an old fox, and the temptation was a little obvious, but he also stubbornly waited for Yue Lengqiu to continue.

"......" Yue Lengqiu, Yue Zhou, who was going to sit in front of the chariot, also listened carefully, and said, "Although the north is far less rich than the south of the Yangtze River, there are also nearly 100 million mu of fertile land in the Yanji Plain, and the military tuns on the three sides of Jiliao, Xuanfu, and Datong have a maximum total of 17 million mu. ”

Tang Xitai's eyes were indifferent, knowing that what Yue Lengqiu said was true, seeing that Yue Lengqiu knew these numbers easily, he knew it well, and he was also sure that Yue Lengqiu had ascended to the position of deputy prime minister, and it was not a waste of fame.

Datong Town is not a single city, Datong Town as one of the three sides of the north, with Datong City as the core, there are more than 500 military fortresses, constituting a defense line of nearly 600 miles wide, when the scale of military tun is at its peak, the tuntian reaches 7 million acres.

"The abolition of the military tun and the military household system has caused many things to accumulate and it is difficult to return," Yue Lengqiu carefully calculated all kinds of disadvantages since the Yue Yue, and he was also full of emotion, he used to speculate for profit, but it does not mean that he does not understand the key points, and Tang Xitai may be tempted on behalf of Lin Tie, he said eloquently, "The military tun is occupied by the generals, and the soldiers are used to work for the generals, resulting in a large number of military households in the later period." By the time of the Jingbian Marquis Su Hu, the generals of the border army either requisitioned or recruited half, and the central center allocated half of the money and grain and half of the tun crops for self-sufficiency, and it was no longer possible to completely rely on the military tuns. If that's all there is to it, it's not serious. The border army could recruit soldiers to make up for the shortage, but the Jingying army was almost all recruited soldiers in the later period. In the later period of the Jingying Army, the number of soldiers was 130,000, and a total of 500,000 dependents lived in Jinnei, all of which needed to be supported by the central finance and taxation. In addition, when Yanjing was not overthrown, including the grain, the palace and the taxes paid to the center (or the household department, or the internal government department) in various places, in addition to the money and grain of the Jingying army and the border army, it also had to be used for two aspects, one is the meritorious service of the officials, and the other is the support of the inner court of the clan. Yanjing has a population of one million, half of the Jingying army and their dependents, and the remaining 500,000 people, there are officials, nobles, and poor people who are attached to officials and nobles. Officials or food or corruption, and use money and corruption to support their families and servants, isn't it that more than a million people in Yanjing are actually eating the central wealth? The center wants to raise the border army, and it also needs to raise more than 100,000 people in Yanjing, how can it only draw tax grain from swallow thistle? ”

Yue Taizong moved the capital to Yanjing, but it was not arbitrarily decided.

Even if you don't count the border military tun, the Yanji Plain is actually one of the four major plains of the Central Plains, and the Lianghu Plain, the Jianghuai Plain, and the Hehuai Plain. The Yanji Plain is south to the Yellow River, north to Yanshan, west to Taihang Mountain, and east to the Bohai Sea, with hundreds of millions of acres of arable land. The imperial family in Gyeonggi and Yanji encircled the imperial village as many as three or four million acres.

In addition to the Yellow River, there are many water systems that originate in the Taihang Mountains and enter the Bohai Sea, which bring extremely convenient irrigation conditions to the swallow thistle, and at most raise nearly 10 million people.

It is not enough to support an imperial capital with tens of millions of people and 100 million acres of land, which is no longer a problem of lack of food in the north, but the accumulation of heavy burdens in the later period of the Yue Dynasty and the difficulty of returning.

In addition to the border army, even the more than 100,000 people in the imperial capital need to be supported by the outside world, which is already beyond the tolerance range of the Yanji Plain.

At one time, there were as many as 150,000 or 60,000 households in Jiangning, and in addition to the wealthy Jianghuai households and gentry gathered in Jiangning, there were also a large number of poor people who depended on them for their lives.

This deformed urban population structure is constantly sucking blood on the surrounding Jianghuai Plain, and a large amount of resources are consumed in Jiangning City in vain.

Therefore, after the Jiangning War, on the one hand, Lin Jian transported the households in Jiangning City to the workshops, industrial and mining industries, and on the other hand, he moved the urban poor to eastern Fujian and Yizhou to farm. In fact, it is necessary to reduce the excessive encroachment of Jiangning City on the resources of the Jianghuai Plain, so that more resources can be used to raise the army to compete with Yanhu.

"Before, it was difficult to return, but after Yanlu broke through the pass, Yannan and Lubei were disabled, and the Yellow River burst its embankment and the Caodao was washed away, the situation in the north was already on the verge of collapse," Yue Lengqiu said, "I have to say that Chongguo Gong is really smart, and the Jinhai grain road has been able to rise." By this time, Yanjing's population had dropped sharply due to a food shortage, which actually reduced the total amount of Nancao to less than three million stones, which could barely be maintained. It's a pity that Yan Yu has been in power for a long time, and the first emperor lacks enough patience in Liaoxi......"

Tang Xitai secretly said in his heart: Is Yue Lengqiu hindsight, or did he see that the battle of Liaoxi was rushed and defeated at that time?

If it's the latter, Yue Lengqiu's scheming is really ruthless enough, shouldn't Huaidong tolerate him? But thinking about it, if Yue Lengqiu had seen through everything a long time ago, he wouldn't have told him calmly at this time.

Yue Lengqiu didn't seem to see what Tang Xitai was thinking, and continued with the sound of the rutted road, "When the Northland collapsed, the population of Yanjing had plummeted to 500,000, less than half of what Chongguan had before eight years. Yan Yu occupied Yanjing, and the Jingying army collapsed except for about 30,000 people who stayed with Zhang Xie to surrender to the enemy. Before the collapse of the Northland, the imperial court had to bear the food of more than one million people in Yanjing, but by the time Yanlu stole Yanjing, most of these pressures had actually been dissolved......"

"In the past few years, Yan Yu has enclosed land in Datong, Liaoji, Xuanfu, Jidong, Yannan and other places, and redefined the system of military households. In this way, Yan Lu raised four or five hundred thousand soldiers, which was the Jingying army, and in addition to food and provisions, there was no longer any need to bear additional military salaries. Even if there is a salary, it is a plunder......"

“…… Although there are countless ministers, and they are shameless to accept Yan captives, but since the king and below, the captives and thieves are still thrifty, and the ministers dare not be ineffective, in fact, the consumption has been greatly reduced. When Zhang Xie's old son did not rebel, there were more than 1,000 family slaves, and at this time, there were less than 100 family members. When the imperial court was at its most in Yanjing, the inner court supported nearly 60,000 eunuchs, while the Yanyu palace was only 2,000. This more and one less, it is quite able to ask Yan Lu to raise more than 100,000 soldiers and horses. The actual number of mouths in Yanjing City at this time, plus the garrison, is more than 200,000 ......"

On the surface, it seems that Yan Lu's valuance to his subordinates is not reduced, but in fact, there is a huge difference between being honest and not.

Zhang Xie raised more than 1,000 domestic slaves, and in addition to Yu Lu, a considerable part of them relied on corruption, which actually consumed the central finances. Officials and subordinates can be honest, and the central financial consumption is much less.

All of the above made it difficult for the imperial court to get the thistle in Yanjing, and it was necessary to draw grain from Henan, Shandong and Jianghuai; Although Henan, Shandong and other places are all disabled, but the livelihood of Jinzhong and Yanji has been restored, and the land of two Liao and Yanxi has been obtained, so Yan Yu can raise four or five hundred thousand soldiers and fight repeatedly. ”