Lu Fang and his group sat under the tree to cool off and rest. Niu Wu also saw that the group was either rich or noble, and stood aside and served carefully, for fear that something would not be done well would cause trouble in vain.

Lu Fang took the cloth towel that he had washed with clean water, wiped his sweaty head and neck, feeling indescribable coolness. Seeing the farm tools scattered beside him, he picked up a plow, but felt that the weight in his hand was wrong. After careful examination, it turned out that the plow was just a thin layer of iron at the edge of the blade, and the wood inside was exposed in many places. Lu Fang picked up several other farm tools, but most of them were the same except for a sickle. Most of them were made of iron, and most of them were worn out. Lu Fang tried the sharp blade with his left finger, and the blade was also very blunt. Lu Fang put the sickle back to the ground, his face was gloomy and gloomy. After half a cup of tea, Fang smiled at Niu Wu: "Why don't you polish this sickle? Such a dull mouth makes it hard to do work."

Niu Wu replied with a bitter face: "How can this guest official know the hardship of villains? In the past two years, wars in Huzhou are frequent. The heads of various families are training Zhuang Ding and preparing for war. Most of the iron tools in the village have been collected. Even if a blacksmith makes farm tools for you, the price is scary. Most of the people in the village use iron-wrapped ploughs. Although the blade of this sickle is blunt, it is always stronger than that of the iron-wrapped. If it is worn out, there is no way."

When Lu Fang heard this, a shadow flashed across his face and his brows frowned slightly. Zisheng next to him looked at his lord's face and asked, "The war has ended long ago, so the iron price should have fallen, right?"

Niu Wu sang a fat look to Zisheng: "Young man doesn't know that although the war has been settled, mining and smelting iron is not something that ordinary people can do. Since ancient times, there has been iron ore at the foot of Tianmu Mountain. There is also a coal mine not far away. But it is said that the new governor sold official positions and titles and sold the county magistrate and lord to Yu and You Er family. Now the ones who can mine and smelves there are people from the two families. I heard that the price is very expensive. After the villain's autumn harvest, after paying the autumn tax, he didn't know if he had any remaining money to put two agricultural tools on his back." Speaking of this, Niu Wu couldn't help but lower his head and sighed, and he didn't see the people around him hearing that he was rude to the new governor. His face changed drastically. Someone had pressed the knife hilt on his waist.

Lu Fang, who was opposite, looked as usual, stretched out his right hand and pressed it down slightly, signaling his subordinates to be calm, took out more than twenty pieces of money from his arms, and handed it to Niu Wu and smiled: "I have been disturbing here for a long time today, and I have drunk such good well water again. This little money is considered to be the tea money for Brother Niu. After hearing what his brother said, the governor was also a fool. He was so tired that he had no iron farm tools to rule the people. It was really strange that people like this could even be ranked in the fourth rank."

Niu Wu was about to reach out to refuse, but although Lu Fang's expression was kind, there was a kind of force in his words that made people obey. In addition, Niu Wu was indeed very poor, and finally took the money with shame and smiled and said, "What is some clear water worth? How could it be so worthy of such a heavy gift?" At this point, Niu Wu suddenly patted his head and smiled and said to Lu Fang: "Customer, wait here for a while, the villain will go back." After that, he turned around and took the half gourd and ran towards the bushes not far away. After a while, he ran back. The gourd ladle held in both hands contained some wild fruits, which looked quite appetizing. Niu Wu took clean water and washed it, and smiled and said, "The fruits in the mountains are also delicious. Please try them first to relieve the heat."

Lu Fang took one, and the fruit was a bit like a raspberry. He stuffed it into his mouth and tasted it. It was so sour and refreshed. He took another one and ate it. He smiled at everyone and said, "It tastes pretty good. Come and taste the wishes of Brother Niu Wu."

Everyone came over and took wild fruits to eat. It was the weather of autumn tigers. Everyone walked on the mountain road for a long time. After tasting the wild fruit, they felt refreshed and had a little better view of Niu Wu. While everyone was eating wild fruits, Lu Fang seemed to ask Niu Wu accidentally: "Brother Niu Wu, if someone can make many iron tools and sell them at a cheap price, what do you think?"

Niu Wu did not take it seriously and replied with a smile: "How is that possible? This iron is not an ordinary object. Where can ordinary people trade? Is it a joke?" It turns out that since Emperor Wu of Han, iron has been a monopoly product. It has iron officials in the iron production area. The mining, smelting and forging of iron ore are controlled by the government, and the prices are also controlled by the government. If private mining and smelting are private, they will be punished with severe punishment. In this way, the government can obtain huge profits from it, secondly, the government can control this important resource, thirdly, the mining of minerals often concentrates many refugees, which is easily the root of rebellion. Although there have been some changes after the Han Dynasty, iron making is by no means an area that ordinary merchants can enter, so Niu Wu thought Lu Fang was joking.

Lu Fang sat there smiling and didn't speak. Niu Wu looked at him as if he was joking and said, "That's good. I didn't expect that the guest officer would do such a big business, but I don't know when that happened." He sighed as he said.

Zisheng stepped forward to take over the conversation: "Since my lord has spoken, it is naturally very fast. You can wait at home. At most, you will definitely use iron farm tools until the end of the year."

Niu Wu nodded half-believingly. Lu Fang saw his thoughts and stopped talking. He asked about the number of households in the village, how many fat and thin the fields are, how many animals are, the main crops they are planted, and the nearby specialties. A clerk stood behind him, recording them carefully. Seeing Niu Wu strange, Lu Fang just shook off his big business and had to find out the situation before he could decide how to do business. He asked for more than half an hour. After Lu Fang read the clerk's record, he got up and left. Niu Wu looked at the strange people's backs disappearing on the mountain road in the distance, and touched the hard money on his chest to confirm that these were not dreams. He muttered a few words before he walked to the field again, tied the harvested crops to the back of the old cow, and had good luck to go home.

Half a month later, in the governor's mansion in Anji City, Lu Fang looked at the neat stacks of books piled up on several tables, and took out one of them and looked through them. It was filled with rows of household registrations, acres, farms, and minerals in the two counties of Anji and the two counties of Great Wall. These were the results of his hard work in the past few months. He either took action himself or sent Fannie Monk and Gao Fengtian to lead a team to investigate the specific situation of Anji and Great Wall.

The first-hand information obtained. Since Lu Fang traveled through time, he has increasingly experienced a famous saying by Mao Taizu in his previous life: "The peasant problem is the basic problem of the Chinese revolution." In ancient times, the peasant problem in China was the general problem of all other problems. When he was on Huai, he allocated land. He first persuaded the heads of the seven families to distribute the land in his family to the tenant farmers, and then formed an army based on these self-cultivated farmers, so that he could survive in Huai, which was attacked from all sides. Now after arriving in Huzhou, he knew that to gain a foothold in Huzhou, he would inevitably get the local area.

The support of the wealthy clans, but they cannot rely on simply giving them benefits to get power, population and other rights to buy them. They must also have the means to check and balance them. In Lu Fang's mind, there are two means to check and balance the local wealthy clans. One is naturally the military power of Moyedu in his hands, and the other is the power of his own governor. According to the official system of the Tang Dynasty, the power of the governor of Yizhou was amazing, almost the local emperor. However, as a migrant official, they knew very little about the local situation and could not leave it no matter what kind of instructions they gave.

The powerful people came to execute it, so the result of all the orders they gave was always unfavorable to ordinary people and was beneficial to the powerful people. Therefore, in the middle and late periods of the ancient Chinese dynasty, they often did whatever reforms were made, and the unlucky people were always the common people. This is why. In order to better balance the local wealthy families, Lu Fang decided to remove the fine soldiers from his own soldiers, plus three or four clerks who had trust in the shogunate, and investigated them everywhere, and obtained the first-hand information in front of him. Whether it was to save the fields in the future or liberate the slaves and servants, they would use these information as a basis.

There were also Chen Yun, Fan Nissen and Gao Fengtian in the room. Except for Chen Yun, the others were like Lu Fang. They were dark and thin, obviously the result of their investigations these days, but the two of them were full of pride and admiration. At the beginning, they heard Lu Fang give such an order and expressed their opposition at the same time. This was a strange thing for Fan Nissen, who usually hated Gao Fengtian. There were two reasons. One was a foreigner, and there were hundreds of villages in the two counties.

It is hard to hide from the local tyrants; secondly, the workload is too large, which is funny. There are thousands of people in Lu Fang's army, but the total number of people who know how to write and calculate is only more than fifty. Among them, Lu Fang agreed to participate in only four or five people. In the era of using brushes and relying on walking, in a month, it would take a complete survey of various details of hundreds of villages in two counties and register them into a book, which is a very amazing project.

"This matter is absolutely not allowed to be leaked before the autumn plan. Mr. Chen, these documents will be kept in your place. Send your trustees to copy one and send it to Shuxian, so as not to be ruthless." Lu Fang whispered to Chen Yun. The so-called autumn plan is when the total results of the state and county after the autumn tax is collected, usually two decades after the autumn harvest is completed.

"Please rest assured, please do it yourself, copy it overnight, and send it to your wife in two days." Chen Yun looked solemn, obviously he already understood the importance of the information in front of him.

Lu Fang nodded with satisfaction and said to the three people in the house: "The clerks who were traveling with him have learned how to act this time. They are the key to whether we Moye can gain a foothold in Huzhou. In two days, let them come to our mansion. I want to tell them why we act like this."

Fan Nissen and Gao Fengtian bowed to accept the order, but Chen Yun disagreed and said with a smile: "Since the birth date of Mrs. Shen is about to come. The lord is over thirty years old, but he has no descendants. Mo Ye is thousands of soldiers, but they are all looking forward to the birth of the young master. For such a small matter, let Brother Fan or Brother Gao do it for the sake of this."
Chapter completed!