Chapter 492 Reading a Heavenly Book
The next day, the Minister of Revenue Du Fan came to Zhao Yulin's house early and took him out of the city to watch the dry rice seedling cultivation operations in Huaxi Village.
Outside the city, the road leading to Huaxi Village was already full of carriages. It turned out that because the village was under construction, the officials' vehicles could not enter. They got off the car and followed them inside.
Mr. Du said with a laugh that Huaxi Village became famous because of the Zhao family's brother's concern.
Haha, that’s true when you think about it.
Since the Tang and Song dynasties, has there ever been a village that has had so many court officials? In the future, many places in Huaxi Village will probably be left with the footprints of court officials, and stone tablets engraved with poems and songs will probably be erected everywhere.
They arrived at the Zhang family compound and saw Meng Gong was already inside. Du Fan asked cheerfully: "Mr. Meng, you are worried about your wife's safety, so you arrived yesterday, right?"
Meng Gong burst into laughter when he heard this, but Madam Qian, who was standing next to him, looked delicate and had a blush on her face.
Hulan was very happy and warmly welcomed them and led them to the northwest slope where a pig farm and a biogas digester were being built.
Zhao Yulin pointed to a large waterwheel being built on the ditch below and said: There is a shortage of water on the slopes, so we can adopt dryland planting methods according to local conditions, and move the houses that need to be built here to build them without occupying arable land.
Du Fan nodded and shouted, "Good."
He further explained: The pig manure water cleaned from the pig farm flows into the biogas digester for fermentation, and the biogas produced can be used as fuel and directly introduced into the operation room to cook pig feed.
Everyone was stunned to see the craftsman bending the golden copper tube and connecting it to the kitchen.
Zhao Yulin said that we cannot make plastics at present and can only use copper pipes. We can build the kitchen close to the biogas digester to save the distance of the pipes. When we have plastics in the future, it will be convenient to make plastic hoses and we can build biogas digesters at will.
Du Gong asked him in confusion: What is plastic? I have never heard of it.
Everyone immediately stared at him and examined him.
Zhao Yulin knew that he was happy and threw out the garbage that was thrown everywhere in the future. He said calmly that this thing could be made into a plastic hose that could be bent at will, and made into any object we wanted. He was still thinking about it and trial-producing it.
The gentlemen immediately became fascinated and followed Zhao Yulin to continue walking down to visit the rows of small fish ponds.
He said: After fermentation, the mature biogas slurry is the best raw material for fertilizing water. It can produce a large number of granules, which are plankton that fish like. There is no need to put bait into the fish pond, and the fish can grow well.
All the ministers were confused as they heard it, and it felt like they were reading a heavenly book.
These high-ranking officials in the imperial court had never heard of his theory of ecological planting and breeding, let alone seen it. Their faces were filled with confusion and surprise. One man was so absorbed in his thinking that he didn't pay attention to his feet and accidentally fell to the ground and rolled down the slope, causing everyone to scream and laugh. The person involved embarrassedly slapped his clothes.
Hu Lan stood on a small hill, pointing to a large piece of newly opened fertile farmland and explained: After the roads and ditches were straightened and built, more than 300 acres of land were opened in Huaxi Village, all of which were fertile depressions. After excluding the land occupied by the road construction, the village's arable land still increased by more than 200 acres, which did not affect the people's grain harvest.
My fellow ministers, please be happy. This is a great achievement.
Everyone arrived at the centralized seedling raising site. The fields had already been cleared and the old farmer was using a sieve to sift out fine powdery soil for sowing.
Zhao Yulin went over personally to give instructions and told everyone that there were no good seedling trays at the moment, so they could only lay torn sacks on the bed to grow seedlings. If plastic seedling trays were available in the future, on-demand sowing would be possible, and the next step of transplanting the seedlings would be much more convenient.
Even so, the current seedling cultivation only requires carrying water to keep the bed surface moist, just like sowing vegetable seeds, and the seedlings will grow just as strong.
This new model of rice seedling cultivation immediately attracted everyone's attention.
The young deacon from the Agricultural Affairs Department proudly said that all the rice seedlings in Huaxi Village were planted here, so the common people didn't have to worry about every household, which could save a lot of time and a large amount of land.
Everyone nodded in agreement. This was another pioneering effort.
In the past, each household selected, saved and bred seeds by themselves. This year, they took out all the rice seeds and let the old masters in the village evaluate them. The best ones were kept for unified sowing. Now they can rest assured that there are dedicated people to watch over the seedlings.
When they returned to the Zhang family compound, they saw notices neatly posted on the wall at the gate: Notice on the relocation of households of the Huaxi Village Council; Notice on the selection of owners of the Huaxi Village pig farm; Notice on the selection of owners of the Huaxi Village chicken farm. One notice after another made public the handling of various affairs in the village.
A Qian told everyone: In Huaxi Village, the common people voluntarily elected ten fair-minded elders, plus the chief guardian, a total of eleven people. How to handle village affairs and how to make They will discuss and decide together.
The results are posted on this wall for the whole village to know. If any villagers are dissatisfied, they can come to her to argue. She will take the deacons to verify them one by one.
Everyone was amazed again, thinking that Huaxi Village's meeting had effectively avoided the problem of each village having one person in charge, one person to do the accounting, and one person to collect the money, thus ensuring that everyone was equal.
Hu Lan pointed to the newly arrived thresher in the courtyard and explained: This latest type of foot-operated thresher only needs two strong men to easily carry it to the field, and it can thresh rice and wheat grains very quickly, and the harvest of grain will be greatly accelerated.
In this way, there will be more surplus labor to handle other affairs in the village.
Therefore, Huaxi Village selected people to raise pigs and chickens, and also formed a large construction team to go to other places to work and earn money.
Du Fan was very happy and summarized to the officials of the Ministry of Households. He believed that there were at least three points in Huaxi Village that were worth learning from: First, the council established in the village, which organized the fair and upright elders in the village to jointly discuss and decide on various affairs, was worth learning from.
Our village level management is too loose, and it has not even been truly managed. Using the village council to manage the village is a good way.
The second is to repair ditches and roads. Almost all places built official roads, and few planned to build new village roads. In fact, the fields in each village were difficult to measure accurately due to their strange shapes, and the actual number of acres of land was a mystery.
Through careful planning of roads and ditches, not only can travel be facilitated, but also marginal wasteland can be reclaimed and fields can be organized. This lays a good foundation for accurate measurement of fields and eliminates unfair distribution of land.
Third, it is the centralized seedling cultivation, which can save time and land for the common people, and can also speed up the introduction of new varieties selected and bred by the government, which is of great benefit to increasing the per-acre grain yield.
All the ministers nodded continuously as they listened to what Du Fan said, fully agreeing.
Du Fan told them that Huaxi Village did not have a large canteen and could not provide meals, so they all dispersed. The officials saw that the guards on the left and right were cooking with their own marching pots, so they knew that they were not doing well, and quickly dispersed in groups of three or five.
Zhao Yulin smiled and said sorry, the village could not entertain all the officials of the Ministry of Revenue, but he could still invite Mr. Du to have a drink.
Meng Gong laughed immediately and told Du Gong that he had already eaten and that the food here was quite good.
A few people moved to the small hall at the back to have their meal.
Mr. Du was delighted. He first toasted the two young ladies and praised them for paving the way for rural reform in the new Song Dynasty.
Zhao Yulin said: There is still a lot to do, and this is just the beginning.
Meng Gong was in a good mood and said very easily, "It's a good start, it's a good start. Didn't Du Gong summarize three advantages?"
The two beautiful girls didn't expect that they would be praised by Mr. Du after only working for a month. They were so happy.
Du Gong told them that he would consult with Fan Gong when he returned, and the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Personnel should discuss the feasibility of establishing a council in the villages across the country. If the new Song Dynasty wanted to stabilize its rule, it must manage the villages well, and establishing a council was a good way to do it.
Zhao Yulin hurriedly said there was no rush, no rush, and raised his glass to invite everyone to drink.
In Guanghua New Village opposite Huaxi Village, the officials of the Ministry of Revenue who had just finished a field meeting went into the restaurant here and sat down. There were not many restaurants in the small new village, and they were all fully booked.
It was a rare opportunity for these officials to leave the city, so they drank and discussed the changes in Huaxi Village across the street.
An old man said to the young deacon beside him: Haha, I was wrong. I didn’t expect Commander Zhao to be really working there.
Deacon A took a bite of Chen Yi Shao and said: What a pity.
At first he was worried that he couldn't live in the countryside where there was nothing. But today he was amazed to see that the Zhang family compound was built in the same way as Jinguan City, and the floor tiles were exactly the same as those in Jinguan City.
Deacon B also let out a sigh after putting down his wine glass, regretting that he had listened to his colleagues' advice and thought that the Third Young Master was just having fun for his concubine. However, he did not expect that the Third Young Master would really move to Huaxi Village.
The Third Young Master is going to live in Huaxi to do business, so of course the Zhang family compound is renovated luxuriously. Don’t you see that all the tables, chairs, and other things are brand new?
Those colleagues who moved in to do their work just changed their working place but their salary doubled. It was a huge loss for them.
When he is promoted in the future, he will benefit from his experience of working with the third young master, even if he has not accomplished anything.
There was a senior person at the next table, and he said: "To be an official, it depends on whether you follow the right person. The Third Young Master is in his prime, who else should I follow if not the Third Young Master?"
Someone next to him immediately asked him: Then why didn't you sign up when the department recruited you to work in Huaxi Village?
Everyone knows that the third young master's wife is the manager.
The guy felt frustrated, and laughed, saying that he had made a mistake, but who would have thought that the third young master would really come down and do it.
Everyone laughed and raised their glasses to start eating.
As night fell, experts from the Inspection Department of the Ministry of Justice sneaked into the secret strongholds around Huaxi Village to stand guard.
A thin old man and a strong young man were keeping watch in the dry bridge hole at the west end of the village. This was their fifth night on duty.
The young man said unhappily: Third Young Master is really tormenting me. Why does he have to come to this remote place to carry out a pilot project?
