October 18th year of Jian'an.

Yidu County, Lexiang County.

The blue-gray sky curtain is like a dome, and the continuous mountains on both sides of the river are like screens under the dome. Between the screen and the screen, the river winds.

In early winter, the cold wind is bleak, and the withered reeds on the shore sway for several miles in the wind, making a rushing sound like a tide. A water bird was walking on the mudflat after the river water receded, sometimes bowing his head to peck at the food, and sometimes looking up vigilantly to look around to prevent natural enemies from appearing.

It heard someone's shouting sounding on the other end of the reed marsh, but that's OK. In the past few months, the bird has become used to it. It's nothing more than the biped beasts doing something strange. So it lowered its head and continued to flip into the muddy flats. But suddenly a huge sound of horns came, and finally it was so shocked that it spread its wings and flew up.

The water birds hovered in the air twice, and when they passed the bay at the end of the reed marsh, they cried twice, then swept across the water and flew into the distance.

Below the water birds hovered, groups of men were busy. They were in groups of ten, four or five people holding ropes, wooden rakes and other tools, erecting huge logs that had not been cut off the bark on the shallows. The other four or five people took turns waving the wooden handles and shouting loudly, beating the stone ramming tool weighing more than 30 kilograms on the top of the log again and again.

Logs were rammed into the depths of the mudflats, and then more people were riding on wooden rafts to transport bamboo cages, gravels and wooden boards. The bamboo cages surrounded the logs and placed them in a staggered manner, slowly sinking into the water, and then the gravels poured in. When the logs established were firm and unshakable, wooden boards were laid above the logs to form a causeway that penetrated directly into the water from the shore.

The causeway combined with the original terrain formed a semi-closed water village. On the shore, there were more people running back and forth like an ant colony. With their efforts, a huge amount of earth and stone were either moved away or built into shape, and a huge fortress surrounded by trenches slowly appeared.

This place is the mouth of the old path of the Bingshui that Guan Yu led the Jingzhou navy to circumnavigate upstream. It has now been expanded into a serious wharf that is suitable for military and civilians.

Lei Yuan lifted the horse whip and indicated the situation far and near.

He said: "There are many mountains around Yidu and there is not enough farmland. Since last year, the fields reclaimed by the county government have included 30% of the terraced fields. Half of the remaining parts have been opened from dense forests. The reason why we have to reclaim here is to support the military and civilians of our troops, and also because these cut down trees are useful."

“What’s the use?”

"First, there are many iron materials produced in the deep mountains around Yidu. Carbon can be used to make ironware, but wood is more convenient, so the thorn shrubs cut out can be sold to the iron farm after being coaxed and sunk. Second, there is a Jingzhou Navy shipyard on Jiangjin Port, which also continues to need wood. We just need to tie the wood into wood rafts and put it down from the upstream. We arranged a county official at Jiangjin Port to accept it together with the Jingzhou Navy officers. Third, as Yizhou and Jingzhou gradually became closer, the residences on the front line of Xiakou, Xiling, and Yidao were built, and the storage facilities inside the city all needed wood, and small boats dedicated to passing through the Xiajiang River were also constantly being built... There was only a shortage of wood, not too much time."

The listener thought for a while and asked, "However, it takes a lot of manpower to open up fields, maintain iron yards, carboniferous yards, maintenance ports, roads, residences, and shipyards?"

Lei Yuan looked at Zhou Hu and Tao Wei who were following behind him.

In the past two years, Tao Wei was mainly responsible for the construction in Yidu, while Zhou Hu was responsible for the coordination of resources and the verification of numbers. Noting that Lei Yuan was looking at him, Zhou Hu and Tao Wei looked at each other, and Tao Wei made a gesture of reaching out to invite him.

So Zhou Hu urged him to answer a few steps forward.

These work are important achievements of Yidu County's governance over the past few years. It is still progressing in an orderly manner until now, and it is not stopped because the sect leader is about to leave Jiaozhou. Unfortunately, in the next few months, they have to be handed over to the new prefect one after another, which is a pity for Zhou Hu. However, the new prefect is an old friend of the sect leader, and he praised everything he sees and hears along the way, which makes Zhou Hu feel quite glorious.

These numbers are very familiar to Zhou Hu. He touched the thick papers in the cloth bag on the edge of the saddle and reported directly: "The opening of fields is nothing more than slash and fire mattresses, and the manpower is not needed. The prisoners and barbarians arrested in previous wars were mostly 3,500 people, and when it was a small number, it was enough to maintain a scale of about 1,000 people. These fields were all official fields, and the people were on the other hand, and some people organized to reclaim private fields, which were not within the jurisdiction of county governments and county temples. About 40% of them were the fields reclaimed by various ethnic groups in Jingzhou, including the Lei clans in Lujiang."

The listener nodded slightly. Even if the land cultivated by the clans of Jingzhou accounts for only 40% of the land, it is a huge number. However, the current environment is like this and there is nothing to blame.

Zhou Hu turned sideways and pointed to a settlement far away from the river and said, "As for the iron farm and the carbide farm, most of them are the industries of the clans of Jingzhou. In Yidu, there are many Xi and Xiang families, and their clans are owned by their own clans, so we don't need to worry about it. I heard that the King of Hanzhong intends to promote the official salt and iron camp in Jingzhou. Next year, the General Zhang Yi of the Sijin Central Army may come to Jingzhou and his party. It will not be too late to worry about it at that time."

"These are the ones who really employ people." The group of people pulled their horses to the side of the road and gave way to a team of strong men who were pushing wheelbarrows to carry soil and rocks. Zhou Hu continued: "These ports, roads, residences, shipyards, and even docks and forts and cities are directly in the hands of the county government. The county government collects corvee labor during the slack farm every year and uses the people to promote these constructions, while during the busy farming farm, recruits barbarians in the mountain. From the previous year, more than 83,200 people were used, of which half of the Han and Manchus were each used. The grain and fodder consumed by the county government for this year are probably..."

He thought about it, approached the listener, and whispered a number.

"Wow!"

The listener was shocked.

Zhou Hu hurriedly said: "These ports, residences, and shipyards also have huge profits every year. Last year, there were probably..."

He leaned over again and whispered a number.

The listener continued to be surprised, but was clearly happy again.

Seeing his face changing, Lei Yuan couldn't help laughing: "Zhong Miao, if you come to be the prefect of Yidu, I won't let you suffer a loss!"

The one who rode with Lei Yuan to watch the situation in various places in Yidu was Lei Yuan's old friend, General Zhenwei, Huo Jun, who had previously served as the prefect of Zitong.

Huo Jun has very little experience among the generals of Jingzhou, so he is usually regarded as a generation with Guan Ping, Liu Feng and others. In fact, he is already 36 years old this year, and is older than Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong and others.

Previously, when Duke Xuande entered Shu, he attacked from Fucheng all the way south, leaving Huo Jun to take over many military fortresses such as Zitong and Jiange and Baishui in the north. Huo Jun acted with only 500 people and expanded his control to Jiameng in less than a month, and stationed troops there, blocking the most important passage from Hanzhong to Yizhou. Later, he defeated the enemy from the north several times in a row, and took advantage of the opportunity of chaos in Hanzhong to extend his strength to Yangping Pass.

With this merit, Huo Jun was appointed as the deputy general and the prefect of Zitong. After Duke Xuande promoted to King of Hanzhong, he was promoted to General Zhenwei.

Because Duke Xuande will station in Hanzhong and Chengdu in the future, and the important places along the way from Hanzhong to Shu County will be directly under the specialized institutions under the Hanzhong Palace, Huo Jun resigned from the prefect of Zitong and was waiting for the next appointment.

Duke Xuande specially summoned Huo Jun for this and asked him what he thought about the appointment?

Huo Jun said honestly that he was really unwilling to accept the waters and soil of Yizhou, and if possible, he wanted to go back to Jingzhou. Duke Xuande immediately allowed it, and after two days he was appointed to make Huo Jun the prefect of Yidu. Yidu's capital Yidao was separated from the Zhijiang River in Nanjun, Huo Jun's hometown, and Duke Xuande was very considerate.

However, Lei Yuan looked at this time, Huo Jun was very vicissitudes, and he looked ten years older than his actual age. Obviously, he had suffered in Yizhou.
Chapter completed!