"Ashamed, ashamed. My family has been founded in Xiangshan for three generations. Thanks to our ancestor Zeren, we now have a small family property in Xiangshan. I also want to leave some family property for future generations."
What Chen Wuren said was naturally made up, but his emotions when he said it were genuine. Once upon a time, he also dreamed of being the person who "created a foundation for his descendants."
It was just that the social reality later caused his family to be ruined, not to mention "for the sake of his descendants", and even he himself almost died. He almost "cut off his descendants" and finally embarked on a completely different path.
Although he has embarked on the path of "serving the Senate and the people", in his heart, he is still nostalgic for the past, so these words can be said to be sincere.
Guan Youde didn't know the inside story, but after listening to his words, he became a kindred spirit and became very close to him. Greatly praised:
"With you as my master presiding over it, the Chen family in Xiangshan will be able to flourish and spread far and wide."
Once you have a good impression, you won't be able to introduce it in detail.
In Nanhai, Shunde, Xiangshan and other counties, most places near the Pearl River are surrounded by embankments to prevent flooding. The embankment is mainly built on higher hills. Early agriculture was carried out in the highlands within the enclosure, and there is still a large area of water within the enclosure. The development trend since the Ming and Qing Dynasties has been to gradually drain away stagnant water within the enclosure and open up farmland. Due to the low-lying terrain and serious waterlogging, ordinary rice fields have poor harvests. Therefore, raising the foundation to build a pond can not only utilize water resources, but also raise the land to plant crops, which is helpful to solve the problem of reclamation in the lowlands within the area. It is a very happy choice for landowners.
Guan Youde's so-called "picking the foundation", also known as "chissing", is the core step in opening up the mulberry fish pond. The deep part of the low-lying rice field is dug into the "pond", and the excavated soil is built into a building that is significantly higher than the ground. The "base". The base is about three feet high from the water. It requires eighty, ninety to one hundred labors per acre of land to build, and costs eleven or two taels of silver.
Although this business model, which is quite modern and organic farming, is very profitable after its establishment, the labor cost is huge and it cannot be implemented unless a powerful family can do it. If the head of the family cannot run the business himself, he cannot play a big role. Therefore, since its inception, it has been characterized by agricultural capital management. Not only does it require a large amount of money investment, but it also requires careful management by the operator, and it also requires exploring and learning agricultural production and breeding techniques. This is far from a business model that tenants, small producers and tenant landlords can ask about.
The Senate's special interest in mulberry fish ponds is not limited to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, but is also a matter of great interest to the Government Affairs Council. It vaguely means "political mission". Specially sending elders to visit and promote, it also includes wanting to cultivate new "farmers" with this model - after all, Guangdong in this time and space is still very empty, and even the Pearl River Delta has large areas that can be developed. It is suitable for such intensive farming and small farm production.
Zhang Xiao didn't know that the Senate had so many complicated considerations. The only thing he understood was that promoting these technologies would be beneficial to agricultural development, "get more food" and "improve people's living standards."
Due to fertilizer restrictions in ancient rural areas, the ratio of mulberry to fish ponds in Jiujiang has always been maintained at 4 to 6. The base pond is measured in ten acres, with six acres being mulberry and four acres being the pond surface, which is called four waters and six bases. On average, a pond of ten acres is more, because it is just the area that one labor force can manage. The largest one is seventeen or eighteen acres, and the smaller one is four or five acres.
Chen Wuren said that there are dozens of acres of low-yield farmland in the clan that need to be renovated, and the cost should be no less than a few hundred taels of silver, which is definitely not affordable by ordinary people. No wonder Guan Youde called it a "big deal."
Mr. Chen talked about renovating the fish pond lightly, obviously he didn't care about money at all. Guan Youde couldn't help but feel a sense of contempt for Chen Wuren and the others. Those like Chen who could afford hundreds of taels of silver to pick a young man should be regarded as the first-class wealthy family in Xiangshan, but they were also talking to Mo Yu, a former gangster. When it comes to relatives, it is true that when you are poor in the busy city, no one cares about you, but when you are rich, you have distant relatives in the mountains. When the Australians came, all the cats and dogs started to tremble, and even the big business owners rushed to establish relations with them, and there was no shortage of them in the local area. Even the Dan family, who were originally very "informed" and "humble", now seem to "straighten their backs" in front of them.
Guan Youde did not despise the Dan family in the past, nor did he allow his clan members to bully the Dan family. But it's one thing for him to "show kindness" out of kindness, and it's another thing for the other person to be "arrogant". This somewhat made Guan Youde feel unhappy.
"Brother Guan is pretending to be a homebody?" Chen Wuren asked.
"That was in the past, I stopped doing it a long time ago," Guan Youde said, "But I still know the ropes of fish farming."
"I don't know what's the point of choosing a gay?"
"There's a lot of emphasis here." Guan Youde said: "The fish pond should be oriented east-west, and the Japanese shape is better."
"What's the point?"
"In summer and autumn, heavy rains come suddenly. When the rain stops, the fish swim to the surface to suck in the air. It is better to pour clean water to cool them. If they are not taken care of, they will all die soon. The sun-shaped fish pond is easy to fill with water, but the water waves erode the pond base. In addition, the fish pond is often irrigated and drained, and the water level is prone to change. The pond base alternates between dry and wet, and is prone to collapse. Therefore, wooden sticks should be used to build loquats at the transition point between the pond foundation and the water surface to protect the pond foundation."
"How to fill water?" Chen Wuren didn't understand.
"Haha, Mr. Chen didn't know something," Guan Youde laughed, "The location of the foundation pond is also very particular. It is appropriate to set up two water sinuses in the foundation pond to communicate with the river flow. The one at the waist of the pond is the upper sinus, and the one at the waist of the pond is the upper sinus. The bottom of the pond is the bottom sinus. The pond that is close to the river and is easy to drain and irrigate is called the Toutong Pond. The pond that can pass water from the adjacent pond is the Ertong Pond. The pond that has a water source but no water outlet is the Wangtian Pond. There is a water outlet but no outlet. The wild pond where the sluice sinus is set up is a wild pond. Only crops such as gorgon, mushrooms, water chestnuts, and lotus root can be grown in the wild pond, and the mud is the thinnest. If it is a fish pond, the Toutong pond is more convenient, and the rent is more expensive. There is one before Ertong pond. The pond blocks the water flow, so you have to wait until the bottom of Toutong Pond is dry first to catch fish and get on the mud before you can use the pond to get water out, and the rental price will be reduced."
Chen Wuren then remembered that the fish ponds he saw along the way were not one next to another like an ice grid, but there were many small rivers connecting with large rivers between the fish ponds. It turned out to be this function.
"But what drives this row of water irrigation? Could it be a water tanker?" Chen Wuren still doesn't understand. If he relies on rickshaws for water, the cost of fish farming will be high. Of course, he had seen the big windmill used by the Senate to pump water. If the leaders got angry, it would not be impossible to set up several steam engines to pump water, but then the tofu would be the price of meat, which would not be counted.
Guan Youdedao said: "Yes, it's also wrong."
"Oh?" The inspection team all looked confused.
"I'm not going to lie about it. You're right, because every winter or next spring, the pond must be drained once. The method is to follow the water festival first, open the bottom sinus and drain the pond water, and the remaining water will be about a foot or a few inches. Wait, the bottom sinus is only opened when water is released, and is usually plugged with mulberry branches and old grass. Then dig a hole in the pond near the sinus to drive water. The method of driving water is to put the front of the car upward and drag the rear of the car diagonally on the water surface. Use three or four People get on the bicycle. It's not right, because the water in the dry pond is time-consuming and laborious, and it also interferes with the growth of fish. On weekdays, it relies on the ebb and flow of the tide. The tide will make the day longer on the first day of the lunar month, and disappear on the fourth day of the lunar month, and the day will get longer on the eighteenth day. It disappears with the sun, which is the so-called water head; it disappears on the fourth day of the lunar month, disappears on the 14th day of the lunar month, and disappears on the 18th day of the 29th year. It is called the tail of the water on the 29th or 30th day. In spring and summer, the water head is large, and it is strong during the day. In autumn and winter, the water head is small, and it prevails at night. The sinus on the waist of the pond If there is a gate, if the water in the pond is too fat and salty, green skin will appear on the water surface. It is necessary to open the upper sinus, drain out a few inches of salt water, and replace it with raw water. Or if the pond water is shallow, it is also advisable to add raw water into it according to the method. , the measure is to release enough water. If the pond water is too full and it is appropriate to release it, always use the medium depth as the measure." Guan Youde explained the method of changing water in one breath.
The cadres of the Tiandihui were also secretly amazed. They did not expect that the villagers of Jiujiang would find such a way to maintain the water quality of fish ponds by relying on natural conditions. It was indeed the right time and the right place.
If you think about it carefully, this is very similar to the content about fish pond water quality during their training at Tiandihui. It’s just that compared to the knowledge in books, the experience accumulated through this kind of practice is more down-to-earth and more operable.
Only then did everyone understand how the criss-crossing river network in Jiujiang came about. The locals divided the rivers into different levels according to the width of the water surface. The main stream of the Xijiang River and its tributaries became the "sea". From the center of Jiujiang village to Motianji, it was called the Caspian Sea. The area below Tiejiao is also called the East China Sea. The second level is called "Yong" (Yin Chong) and "Jiao", which are tidal river ports.
There are many small enclosures within the mulberry garden enclosure, such as the jade belt enclosure, which protects 46 hectares of mulberry land and fish ponds, and houses more than 4,300 households. Outside the dikes of these small enclosures are rivers, and within the dikes are patches of foundation ponds. The dikes in Xiaowei are generally equipped with gates to meet the drainage and irrigation needs of a foundation pond area. The main function of the gates and dikes is to prevent floods in spring and summer. Jiujiang Tian has a small number of ponds. There are trenches dug outside the ponds, and gushing water is opened outside the trenches. Gates are installed at the entrances of each port, which are opened and closed according to the timing. When the pond water is shallow, water is diverted to enter the pond, and when the pond water is full, water is diverted to flow out. As soon as spring or summer comes, the gate will be lowered to prevent it, and bamboo stems will be attached to the outside to make it tight so that the fish pond will not be flooded.
"Graves" are small waterways in the foundation pond area. These small waterways are dug during the process of continuous excavation of the foundation pond to meet the daily drainage and irrigation needs of the foundation pond. There are a large number of artificial small river channel "cuts" in the Jitang District, which are the terminal water systems of the Jiujiang river network. The cuts are connected with the river flow. The small water sinuses in the Jitang District can divert river water for automatic drainage and irrigation.
While the number of mulberry fish ponds in Jiujiang continues to increase, the original wide water area within the area is divided by ponds, and the water area of some main rivers is gradually encroached by ponds and shrinks. The 28-foot-wide "Caspian Sea" of Jiujiang River in the Ming Dynasty is In this way, the sea was "occupied and turned into a pond". By the end of the Qing Dynasty, it was no longer possible to verify the specific location where it once flowed.
The fish and flower market is not big. Most of the people in the market are sellers who come to order fish flowers. There are both familiar and unfamiliar ones. Chen Wuren and his party are naturally regarded as new fish sellers.
