Yang Fan moved his hand along the Zhouhe River, the left branch of Jiyun Canal, and found the mountain pass accurately.
As long as a 2,220-meter dam is built here, the water of the Zhou River can be stored. In this way, the flood season problem of this land will be solved and it will no longer be flooded.
Flood water contains a large amount of minerals. After flooding, these salts and alkalis will slowly evaporate and be deposited on the soil surface. Over time, the land will become salinized.
If floods stopped flooding the soil once a year, the trend toward land salinization would stop.
In addition, after the reservoir is repaired, water can be released to wash away these saline-alkali lands. Salts and alkalis will dissolve in water. Then it is carried away by the water. It takes a few months to clean out the salt and alkali.
If the refugees are mobilized to pick up the stones, it will be even better. These cobblestones will not be wasted. They can be used to mix concrete, build dams, and build your own castle.
The rest is just land reclamation.
There is a reservoir in the upper reaches with sufficient water, and 400,000 acres of paddy fields can be developed.
If you plant high-yielding hybrid rice seeds that have been delivered.
Hey! Yang Fan took a breath.
Even without chemical fertilizers, there is still rice with a yield of about 700 kilograms per mu. At least five hundred kilograms of rice can be ground. Four hundred thousand acres equals 200 million kilograms of rice.
Enough to feed 400,000 people. When used as a military grain field, it can almost support a cavalry of 40,000 people or an infantry of 100,000 firearms.
If there were cold weapon troops there would be more.
If you have 20,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry with firearms. This will be a force comparable to Guan Ning's cavalry and the Qing army.
"You're hysterical, hey, silly pig," Xiao Niangpi looked at Yang Fan looking straight at the map with a pig-like look on his face and drool at the corner of his mouth. He waved his hand in front of his eyes.
"Ah! What a pig!" Yang Fan woke up and realized he was distracted. Hey, it’s not me, Brother Pig, it’s all because the future is too bright.
Yang Fan decided to go back and check the information to see if it was possible to build the reservoir using the resources available in this era.
Everyone was holding back their laughter, and Yang Fan was also embarrassed.
There is no need to rush this matter, you need to investigate slowly and do it bit by bit.
Yang Fan began to understand the lives of these military households.
"Old man, how much land does your family have?"
"Sir, each of our families only has six or seven acres of dry land. We drill wells in the land and the whole family carries water to irrigate the land. If we plant too much land, we won't be able to carry it. It has been too dry in recent years and the seedlings will die without water. . If you plant too much, you won’t even be able to get back the seeds. In addition, the wasteland near the water is relatively moist, so you can plant whatever you want, and if you are lucky, you can harvest some millet."
“Is there enough food to eat?”
"Sir, there is never enough food to eat. Basically, bran for half the year and wild vegetables for half the year. In the first month or two of the autumn harvest, I can eat some wild vegetable porridge mixed with grain. If I don't eat enough, women will have no milk, and babies will not dare to give birth. ah."
"How much food can one acre of land here produce if there is water?"
"I can only have four buckets, but with a lot of land, I can feed and clothe the whole family."
If the problem of salinity and alkali cannot be solved, these people can be fed by simply solving the problem of watering the land.
Seeing that all these people were so skinny, Yang Fan felt that it was impossible not to fundamentally solve the problem.
The key is water.
At this time, a man ran over shouting.
"My lord, I'm sorry. The bandits from Onion Ridge came down from the mountain and snatched away the cattle from the village. They also burned down the houses in the village. The cripples who stayed behind were also killed."
Everyone was shocked and talking about it. The little girl also looked ugly. The leaders of Onion Touling are making her look bad in public.
Yang Fan was also very angry. On the first day he took over this 100-household office, someone tried to intimidate him.
"What's going on in Onion Ridge?" Yang Fan asked sternly.
"Sir, these people suddenly appeared in Onion Ridge half a year ago. I don't know where they came from." Zhang Wu Ge said.
Yang Fan looked at Tu Shanyue. She had a gloomy face and said nothing.
Based on Tu Shanyue's character, this reaction shows that these bandits are not simple. Sure enough, I heard Brother Zhang Wu continue to say
"There are about three hundred of these people, and they are all horse bandits. And these people have a special characteristic." Brother Zhang Wu paused and looked at everyone.
Yang Fan was a little surprised. This guy was showing off at the critical moment, but the girl didn't kick him.
"When they charge on horseback, they hold two guns and a long spear under their arm. They are invincible and unstoppable."
Wang Dali also continued: "After they came, they have burned and killed seven or eight villages in the past few months. Before, our hundreds of households were far away and were not affected. Now it seems that they have begun to regard us as their targets. "
Yang Fan asked: "Then the government didn't send troops to exterminate them? This is Ji Town, an important place in the capital. How can we let such a large number of horse bandits go around burning and killing them?"
The local officials have been hiding this matter. If such a big thing happens in the local area, if you report it, you will lose your official position.
"And these horse bandits are also very cunning. They never go to prefectures, counties and major transportation routes to show off. They only attack small mountain villages and remote towns. The government organized several encirclement and suppression campaigns privately, but they were all defeated."
Yang Fan thought to himself that the 300 elite cavalry could only be resisted by the recruits from the regular border army. These guard soldiers were all skinny and skinny and could not walk far, so there was no way they could fight.
Yang Fan thought about it and said, "Fortunately, I came today and no one is in the village, otherwise everyone would have suffered."
Everyone quickly said yes and there was a lot of compliments.
Yang Fan is somewhat used to the compliments from these people now, this is the way it is in this era.
"Look now, these horse bandits have begun to target us. Do you think we, a hundred households, can resist them?" Yang Fan asked.
Two general flags and ten small flags lowered their heads and said nothing.
Come on, there are only forty-three soldiers in total.
"Now that the autumn harvest has begun and there is no farm work, we simply evacuate everyone to the town. Repair the wall and at least ensure everyone's safety. There is no way to rescue people in such a scattered state, and we can only watch the villages being slaughtered. We don’t even dare to rescue people with our small strength.”
Tu Shanyue spoke, "Yang Fan, have you ever considered whether you could stop these 300 horse bandits if you gather more than a thousand people together? The more people there are, the more wealth there will be. Now there are more than a dozen people attacking the village. Two A small group of horse bandits with more than a dozen people, you gather them all together, what if you attract all 300 people?"
I have to say that Tu Shanyue's considerations are very realistic. The key here is that several villages were killed and they were able to hide it. If the entire Hundred Households were breached, even if he could escape, this matter would still be hidden. I can't hide it anymore, I will definitely be punished by then.
Nowadays, the horse bandits are attacking many places in the surrounding areas. The responsibility belongs to everyone. It is said that the law does not blame everyone. If you bring them here, then the responsibility will be yours.
This is why they all concealed it.
But Yang Fanru couldn't do it no matter what, and remained indifferent when his subordinates were being killed.
"If anything happens, I'll be responsible for it. We'll all go back and move tomorrow. We'll all move to the town. You two, general bannermen, organize your manpower to rebuild the wall. Extend the wall a little eastward and include the dock."
The little girl sighed, this guy looks very talented, and I like him no matter how I look at him, but he is too soft-hearted.
General Wang Dali hesitated and said: "Your Excellency loves the people, and my subordinates deeply admire him. However, our institute is very short of money and food. We don't have enough money and food. Building walls is a heavy job. You can't do it if you don't have enough to eat." . I’m afraid that money and food won’t be enough to support me.”
"I will return to Zunhua tomorrow morning and transport food to you by boat. I will provide the food and you will provide the strength. You are working for yourself. To save your own lives. So you must work hard to save yourself."
Early the next morning, Yang Fan and Xiao Niangpi left the rocky beach. Matters here are left to the two hundred households to handle together. For important matters, the clerk rides to Zunhua City for instructions.
If the bandits really came to besiege the city, they would use ships to travel.
He was the person sent by Tu Shanyue himself, and they would never dare to mess around behind his back. I believe they will work hard to save themselves.
