Chapter 1072 Everyone is happy

As the twelfth lunar month entered, the atmosphere of the New Year began to gradually become more and more popular in the capital.

Last year, the national mourning was in the midst of the country, and the city was covered with white mourning. This year was different. After the talent show, families who were left with signs to marry must prepare for marriage; families who were left with signs can also get married by themselves.

How many families are preparing to get married? Not to mention the other side, even the cucumbers in Daoxiang Village sell 30% more than each year.

Tianhui and Niu Niu's boot shop also sold out all their inventory. Several masters were eating and living in the factory and worked overtime.

The Cao family’s New Year’s goods were almost the same, and the managers of various places also sent local money and rice.

However, the only thing is that Cao Yong cannot return to Beijing to celebrate the New Year, which makes everyone in the Western Palace very concerned about it.

Cao Yong was in Ganzhou, but he started to get busy again.

He stayed in Ganzhou not only to handle logistics for Nian Gengyao, but also to emigrate and reclaim wasteland.

The new city between Ganzhou and Xining has been completed. The land reclamation land that was designated is between the new city and Ganzhou.

In order not to delay next year's spring plowing, before March, the seeds, equipment, cattle and horses needed for land reclamation and spring plowing must be prepared.

The source of this immigrant comes from refugees from Shandong and Zhili.

Cao Yong has received a letter and immigrants have been taken to Ganzhou in five batches. The first batch will be able to arrive in Ganzhou by the end of the twelfth lunar month.

The magistrate of Ganzhou was named Duan. He was a professional and in his forties. He used to be an official in Sichuan and was transferred to Ganzhou last month. He thought it was a light provincial government office, but he just made a decoration. He didn't expect to catch up with the immigration and reclaiming land.

If it is established under its jurisdiction, it will be a good thing to increase the population. However, in the northwest border, refugees are moved. If there is a bad situation, the top of his head will not be kept.

Three thousand households and more than 12,000 people, this is not a small number. And according to the court's intention, these immigrants were only in the early stages. If they were well placed, the scale of land reclamation would be expanded in the northwest.

If there is one bad thing, he will lose it.

Ganzhou is a military important place, and the local people are not rich. Not to mention the other side, these 3,000 immigrants who live temporarily in Ganzhou. Ganzhou is afraid that they can't bear it.

Although the new city has been built, most of the immigrants need to be placed outside the city.

It is the cold winter month now, and the northwest is cold, so immigrants cannot sleep in the open. In that case, I don’t know how many people will be frozen to death.

Cao Yong was also worried about how to resettle immigrants for the winter. With Ganzhou's ability, it's okay to resettle hundreds of households, but if you say too much, it's easy to cause problems.

It seems that it still needs to be delivered directly to the new city.

He was still unable to make up his mind when he built a simple nest or purchased the tents directly from the Northwest Army's logistics and used them temporarily.

The former is more troublesome, while the latter is much easier.

Finally, he took Duan Zhizhou and several officials from the Ministry of Revenue to go to the open space outside the city and conducted an experiment.

That is, someone asked someone to dig a ground nest and set up a military tent. Then, basins were placed in both places and pinched the spots with pocket watches to see when the two places were freezing in the water without any heating.

The former is only an hour, and there is only a little ice on the water surface; the latter is only an hour, and it is frozen to solid.

Then, an iron furnace was placed in each place, ignite the heat to see how long the water in the two basins should be thawed.

Use this to determine two simple accommodations, which one is more drought-resistant and warm.

Needless to say, the ground nest is not a little stronger than the tent.

But when the earth is moving, it is not easy to dig a nest. A family of four has to dig at least seven or eight feet square and three feet deep to barely be able to settle down.

Such a land nest requires two strong laborers to dig for a day.

Cao Yong looked at Duan Magistrate Duan. Duan Magistrate couldn't help but change his face and said with a bitter face: "Mr. Cao, this year's corvee service has been used up. It's time for the Chinese New Year, and the people should take a break."

He said this not only to be sympathetic to the people, but also to recruit labor service for the people of Ganzhou when building the new city. Now the people have only returned home for less than a month, and then to transfer people at this time will probably cause public grievances.

The people in Ganzhou are fierce. Although there are large troops stationed, it is a big deal to really arouse public anger. Although he is a new official, he has learned from the past.

His job and his job were both dismissed from office due to civil unrest.

"Mr. Duan, can you tell me what the market for short-term wages in Ganzhou is? How much does rice and grain cost per stone?" Cao Yong asked.

Duan Zhizhou obviously did not expect Cao Yong to ask this. He was stunned for a moment, then lowered his head and thought for a while, and said, "The rice is not produced in the northwest. White rice is expensive. It costs one or two cents of silver to raise rice, and only one or five cents of rice. Wheat and sorghum are cheaper, wheat is eight cents and sorghum is five cents. The servants' money depends on the market conditions of each industry, more or less, five cents to a few taels of silver per month.

Cao Yongyuan has no good feelings for this Duan Zhizhou.

Nian Gengyao transferred him to Ganzhou at this time. To put it bluntly, he should guard against Cao Yong's villain.

Although Yongzheng now valued Nian Gengyao, his brother-in-law, and his Northwest personnel were all based on Nian Gengyao's intentions, Cao Yong knew that such a glory would not last long.

This Duan magistrate was lucky to be from a seventh-rank magistrate to a fifth-rank magistrate. However, if you are labeled as "yearly selection", if you are not surprised, your career will stop here.

Unexpectedly, he is a down-to-earth official.

Cao Yong had read the resume of this magistrate Duan. He was a Jinshi in the 48th year of Kangxi. He was first appointed as the magistrate, but he had not waited to take office as the magistrate. He returned to the 52nd year of Kangxi and became the magistrate of Xinjin County, Sichuan, and then was re-elected for three consecutive terms.

When Cao Yong saw that he had no place for three terms, he thought he was a mediocre official.

According to today's opinion, this conclusion seems to be too early.

"Since the labor service is used up, then raise the workers. Pay the wages according to the number of completed nests." He calculated the wages and rice prices and said, "A qualified land nest, three cents of silver."

In this way, a strong laborer can dig fifteen land nests in a month, earn four or five cents of silver, and buy sorghum for half a year. This is a very attractive wage. Even during the festival, there is no need to worry about not being able to summon people.

Even if it is a poor laborer, only half of the amount of money can be taken, there are more than two taels of silver.

Duan Zhizhou was not happy when he heard this, and frowned and said, "Mr. Cao, these are three thousand households. If they are all placed outside the city, they will need at least three thousand land nests. If they are in charge of wages, they will need nearly a thousand taels. In the accounts of the magistrate's office, there are only more than three hundred taels of silver, so they cannot bear this expense."

Cao Yong couldn't help but be surprised when a prefectural yamen was only more than 300 taels of silver.

Then I thought about it and felt relieved.

Although this place is a military land, people's livelihood has actually withered a little, and there is no extra tax revenue. The government office that should have is a little bit too much. It is not easy to have less income and more expenditures on the books.

"The silver is directly from the Ministry of Revenue, and the wood is ready-made. It is best to send it to the immigrants directly. The old tent is also needed, and it is directly used as a floor nest ceiling, which should be warmer than thatch." Cao Yong said: "It's just that it's time to choose a site, measure and plan. It's better to send a few proper people to the village unit and beside the farmland, so that the people can get resettled and spend a second time."

Although Cao Yong was of high grade, he was too young, so Duan Zhizhou was not convinced.

I spent a long time with him today. Seeing that everything he did and said was surrounding the people's livelihood, I unknowingly put away my underestimation and said seriously: "Around the new city, there are twenty places, and each place can be reclaimed 30,000 to 40,000 mu of fertile land. At that time, just use the household registration list to resettle 100 to 200 households. But the official once went over to see that there is only a river five miles south of the new city, and there is no water source on the other three sides. The terrain is also high, and if you don't dig a well, the harvest will be limited."

After hearing this, Cao Yong couldn't help but look at the prefect.

It was him who had been to the new city many times after it was built, but he didn't expect the water source.

He just looked at the endless fields, thinking about how many acres of land they could reclaim and how many refugees they could settle.

Duan Magistrate Duan is familiar with people's livelihood and can also pay attention to water conservancy. It is a blessing for the people to have such local officials.

Cao Yong couldn't help but feel a loving talent in his heart, looked at him, and said, "Since that's the case, just write a note."

After hearing this, Duan Zhizhou was excited and said, "What do you mean by sir?"

"Since the people have moved from thousands of miles to the sky, they can't keep a large area of ​​land but can't eat. The corn and sweet potato seeds transported from Henan are drought-resistant things. But for the sake of safety, it's better to drill two more wells in each village." Cao Yong said.

It can be said that both of them were unexpected today, but they also knew that the other party was like him and could think about the livelihood of the people.

With the support of Cao Yong, the Ministry of Revenue Department, Duan Zhizhou dared not do it.

It was too early to dig a well, but the construction of the ground nest is imminent.

So, the magistrate's yamen began to get busy.

On the third day of the twelfth lunar month, a recruitment notice with the magistrate seal was posted on the stone wall in front of the yamen.

Within three days, more than 600 laborers registered.

The young and old were kicked out, leaving four hundred people to listen to it, and the prefectural yamen prepared shovels and hammers, and distributed them to everyone.

As for the supervisor, they used the officials of the prefectural yamen, each with two cents of silver per day, and signed up in a voluntary form.

By the 18th day of the 12th lunar month, all three thousand land nests were dug, several days in the morning than Cao Yong expected.

Just because this time, the salary was calculated by "only items", everyone worked hard, for fear that they would be slow and digging fewer land nests.

If you put it next to you, you may not be able to withstand such a tiring job.

On the Xincheng side, Cao Yong and Duan Zhizhou are both careful and will not make such mistakes.

The recruiting worker was a resident, and although he brought his own dry food, the yamen also prepared hot porridge and strong wine to warm up the body and drive away the cold.

When these people received their wages in the yamen happily, they had to add something, which made the originally deserted Ganzhou shops much more lively.

In this case, the first batch of immigrants had already arrived in the new city and moved into the built land nest. Each household received rice, grain and other goods according to their population.

For a moment, everyone was very happy...

Capital, imperial palace, and palace of cultivation.

Yongzheng looked at the secret note handed over by Cao Yong, which also included the new city agricultural statement prepared by Duan Qinglin, the governor of Ganzhou...
Chapter completed!