Chapter 549: Descendants of a Famous Family

Chapter 549: Descendants of a Famous Family

After this gathering announced to the masses the plan and specific procedures of the state government's bidding for weir construction, Li Taicai asked everyone to disperse. As for the goods, of course they cannot be placed in the open air, so they are temporarily stored in empty warehouses in the city and closely guarded.

Jingzhou's state affairs are in dire straits and need to be renovated. In addition to the plan to open canals and build weirs, the basic personnel structure in the state capital also needs to be rebuilt.

Although Quan Zhongzun had previously conferred state positions to powerful officials, there were not many appointments for state officials. Firstly, these positions always had personal ability requirements, and secondly, these positions sounded far inferior to those of prefects and county magistrates. The loud names such as garrison lord or city lord are not in line with the aesthetics of powerful people.

Li Tai brought many subordinates from Guanzhong, who could just fill these positions. And there was an unexpected surprise, that is, among the nearly 10,000 soldiers and civilians brought from Fancheng, many were able to read and write, reaching as many as five or six hundred.

This also shows that the culture and education of the Southern Dynasty was much stronger than that of the Northern Dynasty. Many generals in the Northern Dynasty were still illiterate, but many civilians in the Southern Dynasty could read and write. These people are already relatively high-end talents, and they only need to be trained in a certain format before they can be fully integrated into Jingzhou's administrative system.

Feeling this, Li Tai came up with the idea of ​​setting up a state school. As the governor of a state, promoting learning is one of his duties, and it is also one of the best ways to benefit the underdog and strengthen his influence.

There is another point, that is, the garden in the backyard of the state capital is not enough for his father to till and toss, and Mr. Li Tai cannot drive his father out to cultivate wasteland. It is better to find something meaningful to do to give his father a sense of accomplishment than to be idle. It’s better to have nothing to do at home.

As for sending his father to Huazhou, Li Tai did not consider it for the time being. According to what he has seen since we got together, although he has gone through many hardships, he has not made much progress in the city. Not only is he naive, but he also has a somewhat innocent heart.

The current situation in the country is also surging, and even Li Tai is avoiding it. If he goes there, he will definitely become a focus, and he may not be able to handle it.

And when the state affairs come to an end, he will also strengthen contact and cooperation with Xiangyang. With his relationship and connections like me, communication with each other will be smoother.

The personnel reorganization of the state capital can be left to Cui Qian, while Li Tai took time off to conduct an on-the-spot investigation of the water situation in the territory under the guidance of Du Zhaohui and several other Jingzhou locals, and determined a basic rest and reorganization plan in an all-round way.

"Although there is no shortage of water in the rivers and canals among the prefectures and counties in Mianbei, they are all dominated by the Tuo River and the Xia River. As long as these two streams can be regulated smoothly, the problems of drought and floods in the entire territory can be greatly alleviated..."

Du Zhaohui, as one of the first Jingzhou powerful men to rely on Li Tai, respectfully obeyed his orders. When he learned that Li Tai intended to regulate the water affairs in the territory, he also understood it attentively, and now he can explain it in detail.

By the way, this Du Zhaohui is also a member of the Du family in Jingzhao, and belongs to the same clan as the Du brothers in Xiangyang. However, the Du family in Jingzhao originally had a large family, and they had moved south since the Hu Dynasty and the Di Rebellion. Although they had the same surname, there were many cases where they were complete strangers to each other.

The Feishui River and the Xianshui River are the Baihe River and the Tang River in later generations. The two rivers run through the Nanyang Basin from north to south, merge into one in Xiangyang and flow into the Han River, so they are also called the Tangbai River. These two rivers and their respective tributaries basically form a water network covering the entire Nanyang Basin.

Various water conservancy fortifications since the Han Dynasty are basically distributed around these two rivers. However, as Li Tai traveled along the way, he saw not many water conservancy works that were still in good operation and performing their regulatory functions. Most of them were abandoned, leaving only some simple traces, and some even had no trace at all. Du Zhaohui and others could barely pinpoint a rough location based on records in ancient books and word of mouth.

But this does not mean that there are no water conservancy facilities in the territory. In fact, there are many water conservancy facilities. After all, water is the basis of farming. If water cannot flow into more areas and have the function of drought and flood control, there will not be much land that can be cultivated in the narrow strips on both sides of the river.

Therefore, there are many ponds, weirs and ditches on both sides of the Feishui River and Xian River today, sometimes as many as several weirs within one mile. Such a dense distribution is obviously abnormal, and these weirs are often part of a certain farm and are enclosed by fences.

Without systematic regulation of fortifications and allowing the private sector to tunnel and divert water, this situation will result. Water resources will also become a means of production that the powerful can control at will, promote their authority, and monopolize their use.

Regardless of whether the distribution of resources is fair and reasonable, this situation will cause great damage to the water resources themselves. When the water dries up, it silts up, and when the water rises, it overflows. Traces of siltation and flooding are everywhere in the rivers.

The wealthy and powerful households have closed the mountains and protected the countryside, and their industries are spread all over the countryside, while the ordinary people in Guizhou are wandering in the countryside and have no place to stand. This basically covers the current situation of people's livelihood in Jingzhou. There are also registered villages, mainly distributed around prefectures, counties and cities. More than ten miles away from the city, it is difficult to see villages where ordinary villagers live together with small households.

After inspecting the water affairs within the territory, Li Taiyue felt that there was a long way to go.

If today's Mianbei area is like Northern Shaanxi before, it would be a wasteland. However, various local forces are intertwined and it is in the border area. If a drastic move touches the interests of powerful people, it will undoubtedly be self-exploding and endangering the enemy, so it is instigated. It is necessary for them to spontaneously compete and eliminate themselves.

That batch of wealth was very tempting, and soon someone prepared a bid and submitted it to the prefecture. The format of the bid was drawn up by Li Tai, and it was basically divided into the manpower that each family could mobilize, the construction period required for the project, and the budget that the prefecture needed to allocate, etc.

The bids submitted at first were basically those that wanted to make a small investment for a big investment, using hundreds of workers and a construction period of several months, but asking the prefecture to pay a huge amount of money.

They did not learn a lesson from the previous experience of Huang Fuhu and other three powerful families who were ruined by greed. They probably just thought that these three families were just unlucky, and they would definitely not be like this if they were in the same situation.

Li Tai naturally rejected all such insincere bids, and even ordered his staff to announce them directly outside the prefecture. Although this was not a punishment in itself, it also exposed their greedy faces to the public. The next bidders should learn from this and correct their attitudes.

The Liumen Weir project was not small. It could collect enough river water to irrigate thousands of hectares of farmland in three counties. It can be seen that this pool must be very large. Now the outline of the pond and weir barely remains, and it needs to be cleared and excavated again and the weir and embankment needs to be built. Even the state government is quite strenuous in building it, and ordinary people can hardly afford it.

Before the deadline for bidding, the state government finally received more than 30 bids. Excluding those that were just joining in the fun, only six could barely meet the state government's requirements.

Each of these six companies can provide more than a thousand servants, and the required construction period ranges from three to five months. As for the required funds, they will try to ask for as much as possible.

Li Tai is not a stingy person. He doesn't care much about the amount of funds required. As long as it is not too outrageous, he will not directly deny it. Compared with these, he is more interested in the labor force that each of these families can provide. Is it exaggerating the facts or still concealing something?

In order to figure this out, he summoned the representatives of these six families separately, and with the requirement of shortening the construction period, he gradually tested the maximum labor they could invest. The results also surprised him. The total maximum labor force that these six families can provide alone is nearly 20,000 people!

In other words, these six powerful families alone have at least 20,000 people under their wing. Considering that most of the people employed are able-bodied men, the population behind them is likely to be several times larger!

Li Tai originally thought that the military leaders of Beizhen and the powerful people in Guanxi were quite strong, but compared with the perennially turbulent and war-torn land of Mianbei, they are inevitably dwarfed! He used to think that it would be difficult to expand the population, but now it seems that if these six families are dealt with, the small goals set before can basically be exceeded.

However, it is also very difficult to swallow them all at once. Even if only half of the nearly 20,000 laborers can be organized into armed forces, that is 10,000 soldiers. Even if his subordinates are all brave and elite, he can defeat or annihilate these 10,000 local soldiers, but it is difficult to completely incorporate them.

In order to prevent the six families from exaggerating the facts and defrauding the government, Li Tai also proposed to verify their detailed information and asked them to send their blood relatives to the state government to serve, of course, as hostages, and the project funds were paid in batches. Finally, after a comparison and consultation, a barbarian chief of the Huan family was selected as the person in charge of this weir repair.

This barbarian chief is called Huan Shuzu. He is now the governor of Hanguang County under Jingzhou. He can mobilize more than 6,000 servants to repair the weir and repeatedly guarantee that the construction can be completed before the spring flood next year.

However, when Li Tai inspected the area, he saw only more than 3,000 servants. After asking, he learned that Huan Shuzu planned to recruit 3,000 mountain barbarians for his own use and put them into work in the next period of time.

When Li Tai heard about Huan Shuzu's plan, he couldn't help but complain in his heart. It was the first time he saw someone who was better at making money out of nothing than himself. He boasted without thinking. Do you think those barbarians are all your relatives? You said you would recruit 3,000 and you would recruit 3,000?

But when he heard Huan Shuzu's self-description of his life, he had to admit that he was indeed short-sighted. He was not just bragging, but really that awesome.

Although Huan Shuzu was a barbarian chieftain, he was born into the famous Huan family of Qiao State in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and was a descendant of Huan Wen, a powerful official in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. If the Huan Chu usurped by his ancestor Huan Xuan was also considered a legitimate regime, then he was also a legitimate descendant of the royal family!