A confrontation training ended in such a dramatic way. Li Tai had already decided on the punishment for the defeated people. He directly sent those who participated in the fight to the horse camp to be responsible for feeding and training the horses.
Li Ya, an old horseman, was responsible for supervising the work.
Next, Li Tai and his party stayed overnight in Chengcheng Fang, and the next day he led a group of personal guards to continue northward. When passing through Luochuan Fang, he did not stop, but continued northward to the Kuli River Basin.
When Li Tai was running the Three Defense City before, he built a canal to divert the Luoshui River eastward and connect it with the Kuli River, a tributary of the Yellow River. Through manpower, he created a land suitable for farming and living in northern Shaanxi, which is roughly equivalent to
Later, Nanniwan was located south of Yan'an City. Since the vegetation coverage of the Loess Plateau at this time was still relatively good, this area was actually wider than Nanniwan.
Originally, Heishui Fangcheng, one of the three defense cities, was established in this area, but it was later renamed Xihe County. The location of Xihe County was the core of Li Tai's various operations in northern Shaanxi, especially the Kulichuan line.
The farming area is now the largest and most important farming center in northern Shaanxi.
Dugu Bin and other Xihe County officials had been waiting at the upper reaches of the Kuli River early in the morning. When Tang Gong and his party arrived, they led Tang Gong to the Xihe County town and introduced the current development of Xihe County along the way.
"Now there are more than 5,000 registered households in the county, more than 16,000 people are stationed there, and more than 15,000 hectares of farmland are being cultivated..."
The most important indicators of the livelihood and economy of a place are the land and population, so Dugubin and others also focused on relevant data when reporting.
Xihe County is not a large-scale county with a vast area. At that time, it was just a narrow strip drawn between Dongxia Prefecture and Beihua Prefecture, and it was only a section along the Kuli River Basin.
When Li Tai heard that the number of cultivated fields in Xihe County had reached such a number, he couldn't help but nodded with satisfaction. When he became the governor of Suizhou and was transferred from Sanfang City, the reclamation work had just started.
Although thousands of hectares of land have been reclaimed by burning wasteland, most of it is through rough cultivation and the harvest is limited.
Now a few years have passed, and the barren wasteland has turned into mature fields with considerable harvests. Although it is also related to the overall warming of the climate and making it more suitable for farming, the most important thing is naturally the effective management of the officials and the efforts of the villagers.
Work hard.
More than 15,000 hectares of land may not be very impressive in the entire Western Wei Dynasty, but within the county of Xihe County, it has basically fully reclaimed the wasteland suitable for farming.
Although northern Shaanxi no longer occupies a core position in Li Tai's career map, it is the starting point for him to take charge of local military and political power and develop his own power. Naturally, he has extraordinary feelings in his heart and is happy to see the personnel in this town.
Development is booming.
In early autumn, farming is busy, and there are many farmers working hard in the fields. When they see such a large group of people passing through the countryside, they can't help but stand up and look around curiously.
When it was learned that the then-ruling Duke of Tang came to inspect the countryside, many farmers rushed from the fields to the left side of the road and worshiped from afar to welcome him. Many people even shouted loudly: "Little people."
Datong was kidnapped by barbarians in the old year. Fortunately, he was rescued by Duke Tang and settled in the county, where he was able to get married. The kindness of Duke Tang in rescuing and rebuilding the family will never be forgotten..."
Similar shouts came one after another, which also brought Li Tai's thoughts back to the old years of Datong. At that time, he personally led a team to sweep away a group of Jihu tribes and rescued many Han and Hu people who were kidnapped and enslaved by Jihu.
Manpower has been added to the farming and development of this township.
Unknowingly, several years have passed. Although he is now in a powerful position, these rescued villagers are also living and working in peace and contentment. Looking at the sincere gratitude and heartfelt smiles on their faces, it can be seen that life is much better than before.
There have been huge improvements.
The three guardsmen followed behind, and they were deeply touched when they saw Mr. Tang walking in the fields and interacting cordially with the farmers.
They naturally knew that Tang Gong had a high reputation among the people in Guanzhong, and even their own soldiers and guards were loved and praised a lot for this.
In the past, they only knew about Tang Gong's various illustrious martial arts, but they didn't know that Tang Gong had done many benevolent and righteous deeds to save people and benefit the world in his early years before his fame was revealed. Now when they heard the farmers' excited expressions,
Describing the story of that year, the image of Tang Gong in their minds suddenly became taller and fuller.
Nowadays, those working in the countryside are not only local residents and camp residents, but also many powerful rural people who come from other places to rent and cultivate land.
The development of agricultural production in the Guanzhong area has become quite mature. A more important sign is that the local resources, especially the basic means of production, land, have basically been divided up. Even Li Tai wants to implement land transfer by government soldiers in Guanzhong.
It is necessary to collect land from the original rural order and expand the scale of reclamation. It is naturally even more difficult for ordinary people to expand farming and increase production.
In the past, northern Shaanxi was a barren wasteland. Basic personal safety was not guaranteed, and even local people were displaced. Naturally, it was even less attractive to people from other places.
However, as Li Tai made every effort to crack down on the Jihu bandits in the territory and actively developed water conservancy construction, various objective conditions were improved, making the area gradually become livable, and its attractiveness was greatly enhanced.
Although many people have the idea of relocating to their hometown and are unwilling to leave their hometown and move to other places, when staying in the hometown and even development and survival become a big problem, of course some people will choose to leave their hometown and find another way out.
Therefore, people have migrated here one after another over the years. Through the government decrees that rewarded farming, they worked hard here to reclaim wasteland, obtained a piece of land, and settled down here.
However, the largest flow of people here are businessmen from all walks of life. Although most businessmen are motivated by profit-making, their arrival has truly injected new vitality into the development of Xihe County.
Previously, Li Tai proposed the Kaizhong method, combining the salt monopoly system with border defense to improve border defense. This policy was highly praised by Yu Wentai, so even if Li Tai had left northern Shaanxi in the future, this policy would always be implemented.
Merchants from all over the world were driven to Xihe County to cultivate wasteland and cultivate fields because of the salt profit, and the grain they grew was exported to nearby border areas such as Xiazhou and Suizhou in exchange for salt. It was precisely because of the participation of these merchants that Xihe County's
Agricultural development has reached its current state. Otherwise, it would be difficult for the wasteland in Xihe County to be developed so quickly and fully just by promoting it at the administrative level.
Not only in Xihe County, but also in other prefectures and counties in northern Shaanxi, many reclamation groups attracted by Kaizhongfa have emerged. The grain produced can not only be supplied to the border defense in exchange for salt, but can also be traded with the local Hu tribes.
If there are no restrictions on transportation methods and transportation costs, it is even possible to return part of it to Guanzhong.
In addition to reports from county officials, Dugu Bin also summoned some merchants engaged in Kaizhong trade to report to Tang Gong on the development status of relevant matters.
Most of these merchants are from Hedong. After all, the salt ponds in Hedong are the main salt suppliers. People in Hedong are also accustomed to making profits from salt. People in other places may not have this understanding even if they have enough capital.
Or they are afraid to get involved easily because they are not familiar with the salt industry.
Just when these merchants came to greet them, Li Tai saw a familiar face among them, that was the famous Nanliang general Liu Zhongli.
Liu Zhongli stood in the crowd with his waist hunched over. He looked much older than in previous years, with a low eyebrow and a pleasing look. It looked completely unbelievable that this man was actually one of the most powerful generals in the Southern Dynasties.
"Liu Zhongli, a sinner, comes to see Duke Tang!"
Liu Zhongli also noticed the way Li Tai stared at him, and after everyone else had finished bowing, he bowed deeply again. Some of the other people around him were unaware of Liu Zhongli's past, and looked curious after seeing this, while others were simply
His expression couldn't help but change, he didn't expect such a person to be hidden among them.
"It's really surprising to meet you here. Mr. Liu, please excuse me. If it's because of the past stories, you don't have to repeat your sins. If you have another relationship after returning home, I would like to hear why you sinned?"
Li Tai was indeed a little surprised to see Liu Zhongli, but he didn't want to directly accuse him.
He himself had no hatred for Liu Zhongli. At that time, it was just a conflict caused by their different positions and interests. Later, a series of punishments such as public trials and strikes were all based on actual needs, and they were not deliberately targeted at him.
And having said that, the reason why he was able to develop so smoothly in Shannan back then was because guys like Liu Zhongli were fooling around during the rescue of Jiankang City, causing Hou Jing to cause great trouble, which gave him an excellent opportunity for expansion. Of course,
, Li Tai would not express any gratitude to Liu Zhongli for this.
When Liu Zhongli heard what Li Tai said, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief, but he did not dare to stand up directly. Instead, he continued to kneel deeply on the ground and reported to Tang Gong all his experiences since entering the Western Wei Dynasty: "In the old years of the sinful people
A criminal in the east of Han Dynasty disobeyed the Duke of Tang, but fortunately the Duke of Tang was benevolent and righteous, so he captured him but did not kill him. After that, he entered the court, was pardoned by the former An Ding Gong, and was released to his hometown. Later, he was rescued by the late Zhongshan Gong..."