Zhu Yunwen watched as someone pulled the basket up and poured the soil aside. There was also a shovel-like tool stuck on the ground, but it was obviously not a shovel. The bottom was pointed and seemed to be somewhat hollow. The bottom was connected by two tools similar to butterfly wings. Nidou couldn't help but ask his father-in-law: "What is this?"
Without waiting for his father-in-law to reply, Yang Shiqi picked it up and said with a smile: "This is a butterfly awl, a tool for digging wells."
The old man nodded repeatedly and praised: "You know better."
When Yang Shiqi was young, he wandered around and hid here and there. He often mixed with black and white, and it was normal to know more.
Zhu Yunwen watched Yang Shiqi operate it. Sure enough, the butterfly cone can put the soil into the mud bucket and then pour the mud out of the mud bucket. This is also a way of lifting soil.
Later generations had running water pipes in every household and did not know the hardships of the well diggers. They could not even understand the meaning of "don't forget the well diggers when drinking water".
Digging a well is a very arduous task, and it is not something that can be done easily.
This is a drinking water well at the moment. The expected depth is between four feet and five feet. When converted to more than ten meters, it would take four or five floors to be dug down. There are no excavators here, and it is completely dug by manpower.
It is not enough to just dig a well. After all, you cannot just focus on the depth of the well. You must use the well radius to support it and avoid landslides. Some shallow wells mostly use stones or bricks as the radius, and are mostly circular wells.
However, drinking water wells are large wells with deep depths. It is not enough to rely on stones or bricks for support. They must be lined with well radiuses. The well radius is not dug after the well is dug, but must be done at the same time as the well digging. , digging and supporting at the same time.
Building a well requires a craftsman, and you must also find a carpenter. Considering support and usability, wells are often designed in a hexagonal shape. This is why many ancient wells were hexagonal. The well radius is made of thick wooden boards, with mortises and tenons at both ends, commonly known as male mortises and tenons. Then the boards are fastened one by one according to the mortises and tenons. No nails are needed in the whole process.
Drilling down the well radius requires labor. We all use hammers to tamp it down, and then set up new well radius to form a continuous support until we dig to a certain depth and water is dug out.
With so much work and busy work, it is simply difficult to handle without more than ten or twenty people. The most distressing thing is that even if you work hard for ten days and a half, there may be quicksand at the bottom of the well and no water at all. So how much investment will you make in the early stage? It’s all over with giving.
Yang Shiqi said on the side: "Drilling a well is time-consuming and labor-intensive. In ordinary villages, it is considered good to have a well. Some places do not even have wells. You need to walk a mile or two to get water from rivers and lakes."
Zhu Yunwen looked at the people working hard, wiped the sweat from his forehead, walked to his father-in-law and asked: "There was a severe drought in Fengyang Prefecture last year. We were also hit here. Is it serious?"
When the old man heard this, he couldn't help laughing: "When the drought started, there was no harvest, and it was difficult to even drink water. Everyone was panicked. Fortunately, the court responded in time and sent many high officials and sergeants to gather everyone there." Deep wells were drilled in the city, so we had water to drink and a lot of food was transported. Don’t you know that our emperor is kind and treats the people as human beings, unlike those Hulu Tatars who don’t care at all? Treat us as human beings."
"Have you ever suffered from the Tatars?"
Xia Yuanji asked.
The old man sighed: "No, I think when I was a teenager, I was dragged to be a strong man, and the one I beat was the same. Yes, in Tianwan Kingdom, we don't know who is who, and we are not afraid of your jokes. At that time, we were When I saw mountains of corpses and seas of blood below the city, I was so frightened that I peeed. I had nightmares for a few days, and then I ran away with others, so I stayed at home and saved my life."
The people on the side laughed loudly after hearing this, but Zhu Yunwen couldn't laugh.
It is true that it is not a glorious thing to pee on the battlefield, but when a common man is captured and sent directly to the battlefield to die, this is not a comedy, it is a tragedy!
This was true in the Yuan Dynasty, and it was also true in many cases in the early Ming Dynasty. Otherwise, how could Zhu Yuanzhang's team grow? Isn't it just to recruit strong men, annex forces, recruit strong men, and then annex forces?
Fortunately, the border is now calm, and the new army's strategy is gradually taking effect, making the sergeant realize that he is no longer a pure strong man of the old Zhu family, but a sergeant who protects his family and the country, is loyal to the emperor and serves the country, kills the enemy and performs meritorious service, and is looking for a title. !
"Old man, was there no well in this village before?"
Zhu Yunwen looked at the village not far away. There were about eighty households.
The old man moved his crutch: "There used to be a well, but last year's drought changed the water flow. At the end of the year, we couldn't get much water out. Every household had to go to the Hui River five miles away to fetch water."
"Five miles?"
Zhu Yunwen frowned.
It takes ten miles to get water and back, and you have to carry it all the way. You can imagine how hard it is.
"Hey, if there was a good well, we wouldn't have caused any trouble to the court during last year's drought. I heard that in order to take care of poor people like us in Nanjing, the emperor only ate steamed buns every day, not even a single vegetable."
The old man sighed.
The corners of Zhu Yunwen's mouth trembled a little. How did this spread? Disaster relief is disaster relief, and you can't save food. If you don't eat well, how can you have the strength to deal with the memorial? How can you fight against the officials...
"What do you think the emperor eats on weekdays?"
Ma Enhui came out at some point and asked from the side.
The old man scratched his beard and said: "The emperor must eat better than us on weekdays. He should be able to eat two cakes with each meal, and there is probably some sauce. It is very delicious."
"Second Master, how can the emperor only eat two cakes? He must eat at least three, and he can probably eat one egg every day."
The guy working on the side interjected.
"You are all wrong. I have heard someone say that the emperor likes to eat soy sauce duck. He eats it twice a month."
Feng Shangliu shouted.
Ma Enhui laughed so hard that her branches trembled, and Zhu Yunwen smiled a little reluctantly. These are simple people. They have never traveled far in their lives. In their imagination, the best life is to eat a few cakes and add an egg a day. , if you can eat meat twice a month, that is the best day.
This is not because poverty limits their imagination, but because they live in an environment where they have never had the freedom to cook cakes or eggs, let alone meat. The simple and pure small-scale peasant economy can hardly bring them prosperity. Their imagination of beauty only stops at not going hungry, having enough food, and eating better, that's all.
"Still laughing, from now on you can just eat pancakes and eggs!"
Zhu Yunwen looked at Ma Enhui fiercely.
Ma Enhui snorted and took Concubine Xian to pick dogtail grass.
"There is a deep well, even in a drought year, you can hold it, right?"
Zhu Yunwen asked.
The father-in-law rolled his eyes at Zhu Yunwen. This is a question that even a three-year-old child understands.
Zhu Yunwen looked at Xia Yuanji and Yang Shiqi: "Then why didn't the imperial court build more wells? By building wells in every village, wouldn't the drought problem be solved? Even if there was a disaster, the imperial court would just transport food. Even if you die of thirst, you can still fetch water to save the crops."
Xia Yuanji and Yang Shiqi looked embarrassed. Xia Yuanji whispered: "Well, drilling a well is very expensive..."
Zhu Yunwen stared, meaning: "You are so rich, why are you afraid of this?"
Xia Yuanji was afraid, really afraid.
There were nearly 1,500 prefectures and counties in the Ming Dynasty. How many small villages were there? This is a difficult number to count. It can range from hundreds of households to a dozen or even a few households. People live too scatteredly. If wells are dug everywhere, even if the imperial court is sold, they may not be able to build them. ah.
Although the technical content of well digging is not high, it is time-consuming and labor-intensive. The cost of an ordinary small well is about two taels, while the cost of a medium-sized well is around eighty taels, and the cost of some large wells is directly up to fourteen taels. .
Fengyang Prefecture alone has more than 600,000 people scattered over such a large area. Excluding those in the city, there are more than 400,000 scattered everywhere. Counting 80,000 households, 50 households form a village, which is just a village. The number is estimated to be one thousand six hundred.
If one well is dug in each place, which is counted as ten taels per one, it will be 16,000 taels. If the drinking water reel is built to protect the well, and the Jumian well, Huoquan well, and water wheel well are also dug, the cost will be doubled several times. Sixty thousand taels is not enough.
And this is only for Fengyang Prefecture. What about Huai'an, Luzhou, Chuzhou, Xuzhou and other prefectures combined? Does it cost more than three hundred thousand taels of silver?
If it is extended to Shandong, Henan, Beizhili, Shanxi, Shaanxi... don't even think about it if you don't have two to three million taels of silver to start with.
It is difficult for the Ministry of Accounts to support such a large sum of money.
Zhu Yunwen did not expect that drilling wells would be so expensive, but considering that Fengyang Mansion suffered from droughts and floods from time to time, it was not an option to continue doing it like this. The people could not always forfeit the income, and the court also needed to spend money on relief every year.
"My father-in-law, how many acres of land are there here? If we want to dig wells for irrigation, how many wells are needed?"
Zhu Yunwen asked.
The old man looked at Zhu Yunwen and shook his head: "Even though there are only 86 households here, there are still 3,000 acres of farmland. If we build a windlass well and an orange cotton well, we can irrigate three to five acres in drought." , it can irrigate more than ten acres in normal times. If it is a large waterwheel well, it can irrigate more than ten acres in drought, and more than forty acres in normal times. As for the Huoquan well, this is not easy, although it can irrigate hundreds of acres, But this requires finding a spring, and there is no such spring nearby."
Zhu Yunwen swallowed his saliva. According to what the father-in-law said, to ensure that these three thousand acres of land can be irrigated during droughts, more than seventy water trucks and wells would be needed. In other words, the Fengyang Mansion 60,000 yuan given by On the basis of two, do seventy somersaults, reaching 4.2 million taels. If you do somersaults on the basis of two million, even if you sell the Ming Dynasty court, you won't be able to get enough money...
Damn it, is water conservancy project so expensive?
No wonder Fengyang Mansion has always been so poor. No other court would be willing to spend such a huge amount of money to dig a well.
However, without drilling wells, judging from the situation of nine droughts and one flood in ten years here, it will inevitably hinder the overall development of the Ming Dynasty. On the other hand, if the drought problem in Fengyang Mansion can be solved, this place can feed back the north and south of the Huaihe River, and can connect with the Suzhou River to the south. Hang Nanjing, heading north can ensure stability in the hinterland of Peiping.
It’s just that it’s easy to think about where the money comes from…
