Chapter 96, the ideal of one hundred acres per capita
After clearing the wasteland, it is time to sow, which requires the sowing artifact, the columbine. Although it is not as recorded in the book as being able to sow 600 acres a day, sowing a hundred acres a day is not a big deal.
Mr. Wang personally kept an eye on the woodworking factory, put down other tasks and devoted himself to building columbists. Thousands of columbists were prepared before spring plowing.
Xu Wei and the others had just reclaimed the land, and Old Man Wang ordered people to sow the seeds quickly. As soon as the 2 million acres of land were reclaimed, Old Man Wang led a team of columbiners to sow all the wheat seeds.
After a month of hard work, the task of spring plowing was finally completed.
Old Man Wang looked at the endless fields and said happily: "After the autumn harvest, we finally don't have to worry about food problems!"
Xu Wei also smiled and said: "That's it! I didn't say that everyone should prepare 100 acres of land. For our 300,000 tribesmen in Mayi, we need to cultivate 30 million acres of land. Now this
It’s only one tenth!”
Old Man Wang also laughed and said: "I believe Qu Shuai can do it. Northern Xinjiang is so vast, not to mention 30 million acres of land, but even 300 million acres of land!"
Xu Wei smiled and said: "You want to expand your territory if you want me. Even half of our county may not be able to cultivate 30 million acres of land. 300 million acres does not mean that we will occupy the entire four counties of northern Xinjiang!"
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The current Shuofang County, Yunzhong County, and Wuyuan County were all abandoned by the Han Dynasty. These lands were either occupied by the Huns or the Xianbei people. Half of Hexi County and Shang County were also occupied by the Xianbei people. They can be said to be rich.
The Hetao Plain has been completely occupied by the Hu people, but if these places were conquered by Xu Wei, there should be 300 million acres of land.
Old Man Wang smiled and said: "With Qu Shuai's ability, how can the Huns and Xianbei be rivals!"
After thinking for a while, he continued: "Now that the land around Mayi has been reclaimed, even Yinguan County has land that we have reclaimed. If we want to reclaim land in the future, we can only go to other counties. The tribesmen cannot all be concentrated like now.
In Mayi, other counties must also send some tribes to go there, so that we can maximize the use of the land in our hands."
Xu Wei now occupies Dingxiang County and half of Yanmen County, and has more than a dozen counties in his hands. However, in order to speed up development and facilitate enemies around him, Xu Wei concentrated his troops in Mayi County and other counties.
The county towns are basically ignored. Until now, there are only a thousand people, not even a district in Mayi, and Xu Wei's army only occupied a few important passes.
And because Mayi is becoming more and more prosperous, not only the surrounding Hu people are approaching Mayi, but even the residents of the counties around Mayi are constantly coming to Mayi. Although Mayi is prosperous, it also makes the surrounding counties more and more prosperous.
It has become increasingly dilapidated, so much so that the armies stationed near these counties now rely on Mayi to send supplies there.
Old Man Wang found that this model was no longer suitable for the increasingly large Tengjia Army. A Mayi County accommodated 300,000 people. Even Yecheng did not have such a large population at the time. Some of the population had to be diverted to other counties.
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Xu Wei thought for a while and said: "If there is a good harvest this year, we will divert our troops to other counties. However, this will increase the territory and our army will have to find ways to expand."
The only disadvantage of choosing this place is that there are powerful enemies everywhere. Not to mention the Han army, the Huns in the west have 500,000-600,000 troops, and all the young men can pull out a cavalry of about 100,000 people.
Not to mention the Xianbei people in the north, they are the only force in the world that can muster more than 200,000 cavalry. Fortunately, they have been divided, otherwise Xu Wei would not dare to come here.
But even so, several large tribes of Xianbei people can summon tens of thousands of cavalry, which is also an easy task.
This is also the reason why Xu Wei shrank his tribe into a group. With his tribe together, he can summon an army of 100,000 at any time. Relying on the city, he can fight against both the Xianbei and the Huns. But if they are separated, the Hu people can rely on the cavalry.
With his mobility, he could defeat Xu Wei's tribes one by one, and even if the Hu people did not invade in large numbers, Xu Wei would not be able to bear the harassment of a small group. He did not build the border to facilitate the Hu people to harvest grass and valleys.
Therefore, Xu Wei can only expand when his strength is further improved.
At the end of spring plowing, the farmers in Mayi put down their farm tools and picked up construction tools. Under the leadership of each team leader, they continued to extend the original elevated water canals to new fields.
A field is not finished once it has been sown. It also requires complete water conservancy facilities to achieve a bumper harvest.
The reason why the Zhengguo Canal was able to increase the yield per mu to more than 4 shi as soon as it was successfully established was because it was irrigated by water. Similarly, even if the newly reclaimed land is irrigated by water, the yield can be more than double that of dry land.
So even though spring plowing is very hard for everyone, no one complains, because they all know that the yield of irrigated land is more than twice that of dry land. The hard work now is so that you don’t have to work hard to carry water in the future, and you can see the water flow.
When you go to your own fields, you can see that your own fields can have a good harvest. No matter how hard or tired you are, you are not afraid!
The amount of the elevated water canal project far exceeds that of land reclamation, and everyone can only build it during leisure time. Xu Wei estimates that it will take 5 years to build an elevated canal system covering the entire Mayi.
Moreover, a lot of manpower must be spent to carefully maintain these water conservancy facilities, otherwise they will lose their functions like the Zheng Guo Canal. The elevated water canal is even worse than the Zheng Guo Canal in terms of durability. The Zheng Guo Canal can still carry water if it is broken, but the elevated water canal is really ruined if it is broken.
Abandoned, this is a water conservancy facility that tests the management system very much.
This is why, since the Roman Empire, there have never been spectacles like elevated water bridges in Europe. Because of the decline of their civilization, the fragmentation of the country, and the thousand-year-long dark Middle Ages, the management system also degenerated into the medieval chivalry system. A
A knight's collar cannot afford such a spectacle as an elevated aqueduct.
After Xu Wei and Wang Laohan discussed it, they appointed Guo Daxian, a former member of the Yellow Turban Army, as the captain of Changshui, responsible for the management of the elevated water canal facilities throughout Mayi.
The reason why Xu Wei appointed Guo Daxian was that, first, Guo Daxian had command experience, and second, that he was old after all and would not be as impatient as young generals like Wang Lei when doing some logistics management. Third, Xu Wei could find the talents he could find at this stage.
There was only Qu Shuai, the Yellow Turban Army commander, who relied on him. After all, they had the experience of commanding tens of thousands of people, and Xu Wei's close confidant General was not willing to waste it on such a retirement post.