Is it easy to farm?
It is not easy.
The rapid development of industry lies in the agglomeration of industries and the concentration of population, which leads to the rapid development of science and technology.
But agriculture is different. People live in one village, and they are far apart from each other, making it difficult to produce agglomeration effects.
However, as far as farming is concerned, it requires very complex knowledge and experience. Therefore, there are a lot of agricultural books written in various countries, but it is difficult to popularize them.
Zhang Yue decisively wrote to Guo Kui, asking him to move some old farmers familiar with farming from Weizhou and Longzhou on Qinfeng Road to Weiyuan Fort. Zhang Yue promised to grant them five years of tax exemption, ten acres of uncultivated land, or cattle for farming.
Then Zhang Yue asked Peng Jingyi to be stationed in Qinzhou City and set up a "Farmer Recruitment Office", promising that no matter whether you were a poor settler, a prisoner of the army, or an assassin, as long as you were willing to come to Weiyuan Fort, you would be given a thousand coins per person to settle down.
But Huang Haoyi couldn't help but complain when he heard that Zhang Yue sent Peng Jingyi to Qinzhou instead of himself.
Zhang Yue knew that Huang Haoyi was afraid of suffering in Weiyuan Fort and wanted to go to Qinzhou, which was more comfortable.
Zhang Yue knew what he was thinking, but Huang Haoyi was a scholar and didn't know how to deal with the common people. As for Peng Jingyi, it was different. He had traveled all over the country for many years, had contact with all kinds of people, and had also learned to read. Zhang Yue was very relieved to let him go to Qinzhou to run his business.
After all, Qinzhou is the center of Qinfeng Road, so it is very necessary to have a reliable and reliable person here.
Since Huang Haoyi was indolent and indolent, Zhang Yue had to put him in Weiyuan to suffer. Under Peng Jingyi's solicitation, people kept coming to seek refuge, many of them bringing their families with them.
Shaanxi was in a war-torn country and had heavy military service. People heard that there was a one thousand yuan per person allowance for settling in, so they signed up one after another. Later, Peng Jingyi reduced his salary to 800 yuan per person, but many people still came to join him.
So since Peng Jingyi entered Qinzhou, dozens or even hundreds of people arrived in Weiyuan every few days.
When the common people arrived at Weiyuan with their money in their arms and escorted by the Xiang army, they were all anxious.
Yang Datou is one of them, and he doesn’t know what he will face in the future. Yang Datou is his nickname. As the name suggests, he has a big head since he was small. He killed his mother when he was born. His father disliked this person and was beaten frequently since he was a child.
Even the brothers and sisters never called him when they were eating.
When Yang Datou had leftovers, he would eat them. If he didn't, he would go hungry.
When Yang Datou entered Qinzhou City, he heard about Weiyuan's recruitment of farm laborers and that he could get a thousand yuan of settlement allowance.
He was moved.
After taking the settlement money, he first used fifty yuan to buy himself a pair of shoes. He had never worn such good shoes in his life. After being satisfied, Yang Datou gave the rest of the settlement fee to his family and set off for Weiyuan without explaining where he was going.
When Yang Datou arrived at Weiyuan Castle after traveling hundreds of miles, he couldn't help but feel uneasy about whether his new employer would treat them well.
He had worked for others in the past, and his bosses were all very tight-knit people. They kept an eye on the hired workers, fearing that they would steal things, break farm tools, and even be afraid that they would be lazy.
At the same time, we don't feed them too much. Only during the Chinese New Year can we have a tooth ceremony and see some meat.
When he arrived at Weiyuan Fort, the officer on the side read a contract with him, stating that he was not allowed to flee for two years, and after the two years were over, he would be given three guan of money or ten acres of land.
Qinzhou had said these words at the beginning, and Yang Datou pressed his fingerprints without hesitation.
Then someone took him to a room full of tables next to him, and he saw a big pot cooking porridge outside the room. Two strong women were cooking the porridge, and they kept stirring the porridge with big spoons.
The aroma of rice porridge wafted, making Yang Datou's stomach growl. He had no choice but to tighten his belt.
"sit down."
Yang Datou obeyed the order and sat down blankly, and then the women brought him a bowl full of mutton porridge.
Yang Datou scooped it out with a spoon, but when he saw that it was large pieces of mutton, he couldn't help but rub his eyes.
Seeing Yang Datou's reserved look, the woman couldn't help but smile and said, "The county magistrate has ordered that all new arrivals should have a good meal first."
Yang Datou nodded. There was more mutton in this bowl than he had eaten in his entire life.
He swallowed most of it wholeheartedly, and was about to stop and eat the rest of the porridge slowly, but at this moment the woman came in with a bucket and refilled Yang Datou's bowl.
When Yang Datou saw this, he immediately regretted it. He would have known that he had finished eating just now.
Yang Datou saw that the people around him were also like this.
After eating the porridge, some soldiers immediately led them away.
Yang Datou thought that he could work earlier and repay his employer's kindness so well. He had never seen such a generous employer.
But the soldier did not arrange for him to work. Instead, he took him to a room and gave him a robe and a piece of clothing.
Yang Datou looked at this robe and clothes for a long time and was speechless. This was the most decent clothes he had ever worn in his life.
Then Yang Datou and others were led to an open place to stand, and an officer gave them instructions. Basically, they were told to work hard, not to steal, not to do anything, and most importantly, not to harass women.
When he said this, Yang Datou looked at the sturdy soldiers on the left and right, and immediately nodded repeatedly to express that he understood.
Finally, Yang Datou was brought to the city to meet a person, who said that this person was the county guard.
When Yang Datou heard this, his mouth opened wide. Before he could react, he followed the others and knelt down in a chaotic manner.
The other party just smiled and said a few words.
As for Zhang Yue, he was also very pleased to see people constantly joining him. In just a few days, more than a thousand people had gathered near Weiyuan Fort.
In addition to the Han people, Zhang Yue also allowed the nearby Tibetan tribes to camp in the fields.
There were three or five small Tibetan tribes near Weiyuan, and they all originally surrendered to Muzheng. As soon as the Song army arrived, they knew they could not resist, so they surrendered.
The Qing Tang and Tibetan tribes were half Han and half Tibetan, and many of them were Han people. They also cultivated acres of land on weekdays, but their farming level was not high, similar to the level of slash-and-burn cultivation.
Zhang Yue carried out the policy of reorganizing households and improving the people's livelihood for these tribes, and at the same time taught them how to allocate farmland.
Zhang Yue's recruitment here broke past conventions. For example, Zhang Yue did not regard one hundred acres as one hectare, but twenty or thirty acres as one section.
Because the land of the Tibetan people is intertwined, it is really difficult to prepare the land according to hundreds of acres.
So Zhang Yue divided twenty or thirty acres into one section, and at the same time collected one-tenth of the harvest as tax.
At the same time, an archer appears every three or five stages.
On weekdays, these Tibetan archers live scattered among various tents, and at the same time they can also pay for food. In time of war, they can be recruited into the army without spending a penny on raising troops.
After the nearby Tibetan tribes surrendered, Wang Hou saw that the situation in Weiyuan had stabilized, so he immediately went to Qingping Fort with a thousand troops and civilian services to repair the city.
Mengluojiao and Moershuiba, who were defeated by Wang Shao at the beginning, expressed their willingness to surrender by surrendering. Zhang Yue agreed, ordering each of the two tribes to give hostages, and then asked them to assist Wang Hou in building the city.
At the same time, Zhang Yue also adopted the method of organizing households and people for the two tribes of Munluojiao and Moershuiba, allowing them to camp in the fields, and then taxed them by 11%.
As for Zhang Yue's camp in Weiyuan, his efforts to organize the Tibetan tribe into households, and his initial occupation of the salt fields, they finally aroused Mu Zheng's dissatisfaction.
While he gathered troops from various ministries in Xizhou and Hezhou, he also sent people to Lanzhou to request the Xixia people to send troops for assistance. At the same time, he sent envoys to Weiyuan to question why Zhang Yue was pushing his limits, and challenged his bottom line again and again.
