Chapter 260 Typhoon disaster, food donation
There are five major rivers in Jibei Province, and Li Qiao placed the 100,000 acres of land that Sheng Hong gave him for the last time in the four prefectures far away from the five major rivers.
In the name of facilitating irrigation of his own fields, he diverted water from the five major rivers to these four prefectures.
At that time, the four prefectures started digging rivers at the same time. Sheng Hong also sent officials from the Ministry of Industry to provide guidance. He spent hundreds of thousands of taels of silver and dug a total of four large rivers leading to the four prefectures and hundreds of small ditches.
All projects have now been completed.
There has been no rain for almost three months, and the water conservancy projects built by Li Qiao came in handy.
He hired people from Royal Logistics to go to these four prefectures to check the situation, including the irrigation status of the prefectures and counties along the four rivers, and report them to him.
Because the roads are all cemented, people from Royal Logistics can leave quickly and come back quickly.
There is no need to worry about the irrigation of the Li family's fields, because Li Qiao dug ditches directly in his Li family's fields, allowing the ditches to occupy the area of the fields. In this way, the ditches extend in all directions.
Moreover, because the keel waterwheel could irrigate only a limited area, Li Qiao also specially purchased a batch of bamboo from the south to use as water pipes. He had people use bamboo water pipes to divert water so that the river water could flow to fields farther away from the ditch.
Now the keel waterwheels and bamboo water pipes in the fields of the Li family in the four prefectures can completely cover all the fields.
The tenants who rented the Li family's land were very happy. They said every day that Mr. Li was kind-hearted and that although he was aloof, he could take care of the needs of the common people at the bottom.
As for the places where the four big rivers of Lijia pass through, people also use keel waterwheels and buckets for irrigation.
However, there are only a few keel waterwheels, because a keel waterwheel is too expensive and ordinary farmers cannot afford it.
Most farmers still adopt the oldest method, fetching water from the river with buckets, and then pulling it to their fields on carts for watering.
This oldest method of watering is very inefficient. A family can only water a few acres of fields after working all day.
However, the water levels in the four major rivers in Lijia have not dropped significantly yet.
As for the future, it’s hard to say.
Sheng Hong was also fed up with the extreme cold or the lack of rain for several months. In mid-April, he and Sheng Jun took a boat around Shengjing-Jibei Province.
Sheng Jun loves to go out and play. Previously, because Sheng Hong was not in good health, he could not go out of Beijing.
In the past few years, Sheng Hong had combined work and rest with exercise, and his body and bones had recovered well. In addition, he had not had enough fun, so at the end of April, he took people on a boat to go to the south of the Yangtze River for fun.
After Sheng Jun left Beijing, Meng Yue also left Shengjing and started his patrol mission again.
After spending several months of inseparable and happy life with the Seventh Prince, he was very reluctant to leave Beijing this time.
The seventh prince was equally reluctant to give up.
In the past few months, as if to make up for the lack of intimacy before, he and Meng Yue were not shy and tried many positions like a real couple.
He felt the beauty of being connected.
He also felt the beauty of being a little brother.
Moreover, as Meng Yue said, even if you don’t do that kind of thing when you stay together, you just hug each other and read a book. You don’t even read a book, you don’t even talk, you just hug each other. very happy.
Happy wants time to stop so they won't be separated.
After thirty years of loneliness, he was soaked in a honeypot for the first time. God knows how much effort he had to maintain his cold face when he was outside.
He really wanted to announce to everyone in Dasheng that he and Meng Yue were still married even if there was no official matchmaker!
The affection between them is no less than that of other couples!
Now asking him to resume a long-distance relationship is like cutting his flesh with a knife. The pain causes him not only to lose sleep, but also to do one more thing:
shed tears.
He didn't want to cry.
But missing this emotion is too painful.
When he stayed in the house, he could think of Meng Yue no matter what he did, but he couldn't see or touch it. He could only rely on memories to fight against this longing.
But memories often get entangled with longing, turning into knives that forcefully penetrate into his bone marrow, making him miserable.
This kind of torture was much more terrifying than when he and Meng Yue were in a different place last year.
Desperate to stop the pain, he considered transferring to the canal system.
There are no big cases in the Criminal Department now, and all they deal with on a daily basis are trivial matters. It would be the same with or without him. Instead of spending time in the Criminal Department, it would be better for him to go to the canal.
However, several princes are staying in the Sixth Department. If he is transferred to the canal, the Sixth Prince will definitely not agree.
It’s so painful, it’s so painful to miss someone so deeply.
At this moment, he was really envious of Tao Zhu. Tao Zhu had married Li Qiao since then, and the real separation was when Li Qiao went to the border town.
Having been inseparable for more than ten years, when will such a good thing happen to him...
The seventh prince was unhappy in his heart, but he kept a cold face all year round, so outsiders could not detect his true emotions.
But the eldest prince watched him grow up, and his emotional changes could not escape the eldest prince's eyes.
The eldest prince knew about his entanglement with Meng Yue, but now the eldest prince could only harden his heart.
For the sake of a throne, he has spent his whole life, and his younger brother has also spent half his life. After paying such a high price, he cannot fall short of the success.
His character is also promoted as a non-interfering official. His younger brother had just stuffed Meng Yue into the canal system. Even if he wanted to give advice to his father, he would have to wait for two years...
After Meng Yue left the capital, Li Qiao, Tao Zhu and the others went to the seventh prince's house more diligently. The couple took the seventh prince to talk about the free private school and the affairs of Hui'an Province, and tried to divert them as much as possible. The seventh prince's attention.
It was still a hot night this year. In early May, Li Qiao held a children's riding competition outside Shengjing City. Participants brought their own horses.
Bringing your own horse is not an option for children from ordinary families, and compared to calligraphy and bicycles, riding skills are less popular.
As a result, there are far fewer contestants than calligraphy competitions.
In addition, Li Qiao restricted the age and only allowed those under the age of fourteen to participate, so Sheng Shiyu won the first place again.
Yan Anbang’s grandson was also very brave and won the second place.
The three little guys, Li Xiaorui, Li Changfeng and Li Yunfan, are also outstanding. After all, riding horses is also very popular. The three of them practice very diligently on weekdays. Although they are riding ponies, they run very fast and win the children's championship. The top few in the group.
After the riding competition, the weather is getting hotter and hotter, and it’s time to harvest the wheat.
During this period, there were two light rains in Shengjing, which barely managed to water the crops thoroughly, saving farmers some effort.
Some prefectures in Jibei Province also received rain, but most prefectures still relied on manual labor to irrigate crops.
The water level of the Yongding River outside Shengjing City has dropped a bit. The water level of the five major rivers in Jibei Province, including the four major rivers dug by Li Qiao, has dropped even more significantly.
Li Qiao felt a little heavy, so he worked harder to practice his powers. With his diligence, after the wheat harvest was completed, his powers successfully broke through to level eight.
It took him twelve full years to return to the strength he had in his previous life.
But a few days before he was happy, news came from Zhehai Province that a typhoon had ravaged half of the province.
Zhehai Province is the richest province in Dasheng, but natural disasters such as typhoons have caused great losses to the people. The violent winds and rains swept in, triggering mudslides and landslides.
As a result, ordinary people may not only lose their lives, but their life savings will also be buried.
Sheng Hong took this disaster very seriously.
Li Qiao also attaches great importance to it. He has 50,000 acres of fields in Peng County. Part of the grain from these 50,000 acres of land is used to supply the shop, and part of it is kept in the warehouse as a reserve grain. If there is a natural disaster in many places, then The price of food will inevitably rise. If he purchases food and donates it, he will definitely have to spend more money.
Therefore, he did not use all the grain harvested from the 50,000 acres of land on the shop, but kept half of it in the warehouse.
They are all top-quality fields, and he employs many people. Under intensive cultivation, the grain yield of each acre of land has reached the highest value.
For example, one acre of rice can yield more than 400 kilograms.
In addition to rice, he also planted potatoes and corn. Potatoes and corn are more productive than rice.
Therefore, the food he was able to donate this time, including rice, corn, and potatoes, totaled five million kilograms.
He is willing to donate these grains to the people of Zhehai Province.
Sheng Hong readily agreed.
Well, he gave Li Qiao so many fields in the first place just so that Li Qiao could donate food generously and selflessly when other places were hit by disasters.
Now that Li Qiao has really done this, how could he refuse? If Li Qiao donates five million catties of grain, the national treasury will be able to save five million catties of grain. This saved five million catties of grain can be used for a lot of things!
In the past, some people had criticized him for generously rewarding Li Qiao. After this time, he wanted to see who dared to fool around.
As for Li Qiao's generous spirit, not to mention the civil and military officials of the entire dynasty, even Dasheng could not find another one.
That’s five million kilograms of grain!
It’s not just the sweet potato that’s the most productive and makes you uncomfortable if you eat too much of it, it’s polished rice, potatoes, and corn!
If each of the victims is given fifty pounds, that can feed 400,000 victims!
How big a contribution is this?
Who can do it except Li Qiao?
Li Qiao can do it!
In the court, Sheng Hong praised Li Qiao very much. After the praise, he felt that it was not enough. He even had a notice posted at the city gate to publicize Li Qiao's generous donation of grain.
Everyone in Shengjing was really convinced by Li Qiao's generosity.
Li Qiao hired people to grow these five million kilograms of grain, and the investment cost was definitely not low.
Now Li Qiao donates it without blinking an eye. Who wouldn't be convinced by this courage?
Even if Li Qiao was doing this to gain fame, he had actually donated five million kilograms of grain. After paying so much, what's the point of getting a little good reputation?
Li Qiao deserves the good reputation!
Everyone in Manshengjing was praising him, but Li Qiao's mind had already shifted from the typhoon. He wanted to sigh, drought will kill him, and waterlogging will kill him. If the rain in Zhehai Province can be distributed evenly to Jibei Province, that would be nice.
It didn't rain in Jibei Province, and people from Royal Logistics reported to him that the water levels of the four major rivers he dug had dropped significantly.
If this continues, the severe drought Gao Zhiyuan talks about may really come.
Chapter 261 Li Qiao takes one month’s leave
In the seventh month of the lunar calendar, the weather is hot.
