Chapter 865 Farming and planting sugarcane

Chapter 865 Farming and planting sugarcane

"The last general is here to meet my lord! Congratulations to my lord for his great achievements in conquering Jiangling. Now he is in Xiangyang and is the authoritarian ruler of Jianghan. He no longer has to be restrained and obstructed by the mediocre men and foolish old men in the country. I am very happy for my lord, and I am even more happy for the last general and others!"

Such a familiar attack power and strike surface, it goes without saying that it must have come from He Ruoden. This guy had been stationed in Badi before. Now as the situation gradually stabilized, he also led his troops to Xiangyang, and the troops were stationed outside Xiangyang City. After that, he went into the city to see him in the hall.

Naturally, Li Tai would not follow He Ruodun's words to discuss the issue of mediocrity and stupidity. Instead, he smiled and said: "General He Ruo led the army to conquer Bashu and spread his voice to the land of Sanba. It was also very heroic. The former Jingzhou army was able to calmly Although the general did not participate in the arrangement and control of Jiangling, he still assisted. "

This is not a polite word. Although Brazil, where Ho Ruoden was stationed before, was far away from the Jiangling battlefield and had no direct involvement or interaction, it formed a mutually restrictive relationship with Chengdu.

After Li Tai defeated Yu Jin, he still dared to calmly arrange and continue to advance towards Jiangling, while Yu Wentai could only sit back and watch a series of subsequent events happen, also because his various possible ways to launch counterattacks were restricted, such as in Shuzhong The power cannot be controlled at all.

It's very cool to just lift the table, but the purpose of lifting the table is not to vent and then make each other's idiots think twice. After lifting the table, you have to bear the humiliation and help me up. The seemingly redundant arrangements turned out to be just for the sake of a situation that was beneficial to oneself.

"Although I have said this, I am unable to accomplish this great feat with my lord due to my lack of skills. I feel deeply regretful in my heart!"

When He Ruoden heard this, he also showed a bit of pride on his face, but soon he said with a regretful expression: "The last general passed through Jiangling on his way back to his home, and observed the general defense of the city, and also practiced some offensive and defensive techniques in his mind. I feel that the lord's quickness and ferocity in setting up the situation is really unparalleled. Even if the general comes to encircle him, it is impossible to do better than the lord. However, the lord is wise and powerful, but there are no experienced generals in the army at that time, so Zhuzi becomes famous. If the general had been in the army at that time, no one would laugh at me because I was superior to the enemy. I would have fought bravely and conquered the fortified city quickly, making my lord's reputation even more powerful!"

As soon as these words came out, the faces of the generals in the hall were somewhat unnatural. Although Li Tai still maintained a smile on his face, his smile was somewhat stiff. This He Ruodun is really a rose with thorns. After I fought the Battle of Jiangling for more than half a year, no one except you dares to laugh at me!

After not seeing each other for a while, this guy seemed to have become more toxic. Li Tai did not dare to let him continue to play, so he raised his hand to signal He Ruoden to take a seat first, and then turned his eyes to Li Qianzhe who came with him. , said with a smile: "I have much to rely on General Li for his calmness regarding the situation in Xiangzhou. I would like to ask the general to explain in detail what the situation is like there now."

After the Battle of Xiangzhou, Li Qianzhe stayed in the town. Now that the situation had initially stabilized, he returned to the government to report on his duties. By the way, he presented his ideas and plans for the governance of Xiangzhou to the Taiwan government.

"Although the war in Xiangzhou is over, the land has been plagued by disasters for a long time. Since Wang Lin took over the city, he has ruled the people with violence. Although he has gained the city, the houses are empty and the people have no grain..."

After hearing the king's words, Li Qianzhe took a step forward and described the current situation in Xiangzhou.

Compared with Jiangling, Jiangbei, where the vitality has basically been preserved, the situation in Xiangzhou cannot even be described as miserable, and the order of people's livelihood has been severely damaged and destroyed. Especially in Changsha City, where Wang Lin once stationed, few civilians remained. The vast majority of the people had their property deprived and themselves became military slaves.

Historical records record that when Wang Lin died, Tian Fuye was old, and everyone shed tears whether he knew it or not. It is estimated that these people do not include people from Xiangzhou. After all, there are almost no people in Xiangzhou who have been harmed by him. This is quite reasonable.

After some sorting and statistics, Li Qianzhe collected more than 50,000 people in Xiangzhou today, including the barbarian troops he had gathered before, and those received after the surrender of Changsha City. After deducting these two parts, the number of people who really belong to the civilian population is only a few thousand.

This number may not seem like much at first glance, but if you think about it carefully, it can be called a tragedy. Changsha, where the capital of Xiangzhou is located, is the largest central city south of the Yangtze River and around Dongting Lake. And a regional center in such a vast area only houses a few thousand civilians, and they are all extremely poor.

What kind of brutal rule and terrible torture could lead to such a situation?

After listening to Li Qianzhe's report, Li Tai was silent for a moment, and then asked again: "According to General Li's opinion, what should Xiangzhou do in the future to restore its vitality as soon as possible?"

"This time I returned to the government as a plan to report to the king. Nowadays, everything in Xiangzhou is in trouble. It is not easy to return to the government. The most troubled people at the moment are people and money and food!"

Li Qianzhe didn't talk too much nonsense and even talked about the biggest problem facing Xiangzhou right now.

Although there are still tens of thousands of people in Xiangzhou at the moment, these people are either barbarians or surrendered soldiers. Obviously they cannot be arranged as normal people and need to be dealt with more appropriately and comprehensively. As for the Xiangzhou treasury, it was completely an empty shell. During this period, Li Qianzhe relied on the baggage materials left behind when the army withdrew.

"Although Xiangzhou has been in chaos for a long time, it is by no means a land of aggression. Its land is fertile and its resources are abundant. If it is managed well, it will recover quickly. In the end, due to its human geography, it will be a little trick, along the way. Hutuntian, because of the sugarcane cultivation in the mountains, has both of these, and Xiangzhou can be conquered!"

When Li Qianzhe returned home, of course he couldn't just complain. He soon talked about his governance strategy: "There are many fertile plains around Dongting Lake, but because of the long-term dereliction of land, there are also many bandits. If the land is hastily equalized, , the people will be eaten by the bandits! If you build a garrison in the fields, you will not lose any precautions. Even if bandits come to disturb you, you will not be harmed. Over time, the vitality will grow on its own, and the people's livelihood will become more peaceful. If you have time to farm and weave, you will surely have more supplies.

Xiangzhou is located in the southern part of the country, where the sun is shining brightly and sugarcane seedlings thrive. There are many wild sugarcane in the mountains and fields. Most of the sugar cane used in sugar making in Jiubi was produced in Xiangzhou, and was transferred to Jiangling and sold by Jiangling people. Now that I have taken possession of the land, I will prepare the land, build a garden, and build a sugarcane plantation. I will make the land more favorable and the people will return to it! "

Li Tai was also very interested when he heard this idea proposed by Li Qianzhe. There is nothing to say about farming along the lake. If a land is to be managed, it must first develop agriculture. During the Nanliang period, there was already a considerable development foundation around Dongting Lake. If there was no certain economic foundation, it would not have been so fractious for so many years, and everyone would have starved to death.

Taking agricultural production around Dongting Lake as the basic industry for governing Xiangzhou is just in time. When it comes to farming, it is naturally the Han people's business. Therefore, the future governance of Xiangzhou must be based on the local Han people as the main body, while also tolerating and absorbing the barbarian tribes in surrounding areas.

After all, even in later generations, there were many ethnic minorities living in the Xiangxi region. If we want to govern Xiangzhou, these barbarian tribes cannot be excluded, but they need to be actively educated and organized to transform raw barbarians into mature barbarians, and even eventually integrate into the Han people's system.

The second half of Li Qianzhe's idea is to plant sugarcane in the mountains, which is more interesting. Sugarcane is not a crop that likes drought and heights, it just hates waterlogging. If timely drainage and waterlogging cannot be prevented during the growth cycle, Then when mature, the quality will be poor, the sugar content will be low, and even large areas of rotten roots will be waterlogged and die. Therefore, it is better to choose to plant on the slopes transitioning between plains and mountains. In addition, the climate and rain in Hunan are more suitable for planting. This crop became a large sugarcane-producing area in later generations.

Li Tai had previously used the production of cane sugar to attract the powerful people in the Bashu region to cooperate, and there is no need to say more about the profits of the cane sugar industry. Once its industrial scale is spread over a large area, the energy that will burst out will be absolutely amazing.

Naturally, the largest consumption in ancient society was food for subsistence and cloth for keeping warm and cold, so farming and weaving have always been a top priority for a political power. After food and silk, there are various addictions, the more representative ones are salt, tea, honey, etc.

These addictive drugs are often active in commercial transactions as important commodities. With commercial transactions, there will naturally be wealth circulation and regional exchanges. The circulation of wealth and regional exchanges are very important factors in maintaining the internal vitality of a vast farming empire.

For example, during the period of vassal separatism in the later Middle Tang Dynasty, although the central authority was greatly weakened, the rule still survived.

Although the dispatch and circulation of resources led by the central government through policies have fallen into a trough, private commerce and regional exchanges have also been activated and strengthened. In addition to the famous three towns of Heshuo, the relatively powerful vassal towns in the Middle Tang Dynasty This is also the reason why they are mainly concentrated in key areas on land and water.

The Song Dynasty after the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties was also a dynasty with unprecedentedly active commerce, precisely because of the social foundation created by the strengthening of non-governmental regional exchanges after the mid-Tang Dynasty.

Compared with other power leaders of the same era, Li Tai, who has experience in later generations, attaches very high importance to industry and commerce. Through Li Qianzhe's idea of ​​planting sugarcane as an economic industry in the mountains of Xiangzhou, he immediately derived many associations from it. Of course, it’s not that similar ideas didn’t exist before, but they became more intense and concrete after taking Xiangzhou.

In fact, not only Xiangzhou, but also the entire Lingnan region, including Yunnan, Guizhou, Jiaozhou and other places, are more suitable for sugarcane cultivation. The development of regions has always been closely related to profit returns. For example, the mountainous areas occupied by some barbarians are not unconquerable, but the costs are too high, the gains outweigh the losses, and there is no incentive to maintain long-term rule. The existing foundation is not sufficient for the resources of the mountainous areas. Access and returns are too low.

However, if the interests of the cane sugar industry are promoted, the high mountains and roads are far from difficult, and the rampant miasma is also not a difficulty. Apart from poverty, there is nothing to fear!