It was the end of the moon, and there was no moon. The stars in the sky were spreading on the dark sky, shining and decorating the mysterious sky. There were waves of sounds from the pond outside, one by one. Just when you were curious whether they were going to shake the stars in the sky, they stopped suddenly, and suddenly there was no sound in the sky. The unknown insects in the grass got this free time and started to scream happily. The drum sound suddenly turned into a pleasant sound of the piano, until the frog sounds again, repeating the music of this summer night.

The night in Lingnan is quiet and peaceful. The wind blowing into the yard carries the fragrance of the soil and the breath of aquatic plants steamed from the water, so comfortable that it drills into the soul from the pores.

Xu Ping sat down in the main seat, next to him Duan Fang and Huang Tianbiao, the only court officials.

Tan Hu took Xu Ping's accompanying soldiers to carry a large bucket, and placed a stack of large porcelain bowls in front of the people sitting below, pouring a large bowl of cold sour plum soup.

The young leaders of twenty or thirty immigrants looked at the porcelain bowl curiously, and did not dare to drink it, and whispered in a low voice.

Xu Ping smiled and said loudly: "This bowl of soup is for you. It's not because the weather here is hot. Everyone is tired for a day and their sweat has not dried up. A bowl of ice water will relieve your heat!"

There were a lot of thanks below, and the children of Fujian picked up the big bowl and couldn't wait to take a big gulp, venting the cold air, feeling the feeling that was cold to the bottom of their hearts.

Fujian is almost as hot as Lingnan. These people have never tasted the taste of ice water since childhood. After taking a sip, they are all very novel and exchange experiences with each other.

Unlike the Ming and Qing Dynasties when serving tea and seeing off guests, the custom of the Song people was to welcome guests and serve soup when seeing off guests. It was similar to Xu Ping's habit in his previous life. When the soup at the end of the banquet came up, everyone knew that it was time to leave. Xu Ping turned against this rule today because ice water was really a rare thing in this area and specially treated everyone.

Ice is made of saltpeter. I have made money selling sugar recently. Xu Ping asked someone to transport a large number of them from the north to make ice water first for everyone to taste fresh. This thing is not uncommon in the summer of Tokyo. People are selling it everywhere. The south basically does not produce saltpeter. Except for a few particularly prosperous metropolis, it is not visible in small places.

In this era, the highest yield of saltpeter was Jingxi Road, especially in Ruzhou. In winter, there were white flowers everywhere. There were gunpowder in the capital, and a large amount of saltpeter was purchased as gunpowder to make weapons for the army. Of course, Xu Ping bought saltpeter as a slurry, but it was not used as weapons, but repairing fields and opening up roads.

The geology here is not as good as that of Xu Ping's Zhongmutian Village. It is full of stones. Manpower is used to knock it bit by bit to make it go to the year of the monkey and horses. The most efficient way is to use gunpowder. As for making guns and cannons to deal with the barbarians, Xu Ping is not that unreliable. The village soldiers who fight against Xu Ping can do one-on-two. The biggest trouble is that they can't beat them, but the road is inconvenient. If they lose, they will hide in the mountains and forests and they will no longer find anyone.

Not to mention the barbarian chiefs under Yongzhou, even Jiaozhi in the south, they can fight as long as the traffic is smooth. The biggest trouble in the southwest of the Song Dynasty was not that they lacked combat power, but that they were too small to support the army. The population under the Quanguang South West Road was only over 200,000, and it was not as good as a large prefecture in the Jianghuai region. As the largest state in Lingnan, Guizhou had a population density of even twice that of Guangzhou, an important city in Lingnan, and occupied a large part of it. The vast other areas were not far from the prefecture city, so it was wilderness.

After drinking the ice water, the twenty or thirty people below were suddenly excited and looked at Xu Ping excitedly.

Xu Ping looked at everyone and asked, "Does any of you have relatives in Lingnan?"

Seven or eight people stood up and said, "We have, but we are all on the east road. We have been recruited by the imperial court to shoot the land there for many years."

Xu Ping nodded and signaled them to sit down. There are two major sources of Han people in Guangdong and Guangxi. One is that the Central Plains turmoil migrated south along the old road in Lingnan, with Guizhou as the most. The second largest source is the cultivators mainly from Fujian, with the three cultivators from Chaozhou and Xunzhou in Meizhou. The cultivators are a bit similar to bidding. The government clearly states the bids and lists various conditions and preferential measures. Those who meet the conditions are directed to cultivating. Most of the land reclamation methods are used in various places.

The guy standing at the end did not sit down, looked around, scratched his head and said, "I have a cousin in Xunzhou, West Road, but he was not a land plant. He used to be a wing army there. When he was in the military service, he did not return to his hometown except for military service, so he stayed there."

"Oh, what's your name? What's your cousin's name?" Xu Ping suddenly became interested, "How many years have he been in Xunzhou? How are he doing?"

"When I go back to Shangguan, my name is Peng Shujian, and my cousin is Cheng Qi. I have been in Xunzhou for six years. As for how I am, I can't say that I am young. However, we are all from Jianzhou, and our family has many mountains and no land, so we can't compare to our hometown."

"Okay, you sit down too. After tonight, I'll talk to you again."

Inspection Officer Zhang Rong and his subordinates' renewal period were approaching, and Xu Ping had already made up their minds. Regardless of ancient and modern times, there were people who were more suitable for garrisoning the border than retired soldiers.

After everyone sat down, Xu Ping asked again: "You have been here for some time. Are you still used to living here in Yongzhou? Are you tired of working? How about food and accommodation? Just compare with your previous days."

When asked about this, everyone looked at each other, hesitantly no one spoke.

Xu Ping knew that they would like to talk about these concerns in public. The superiors who agreed to be satisfied, and their companions might not think the same when they went back. If they said something bad, the person who usually cared about them would sit next to them, thinking about his good life in the future?

"You don't need to worry. Just say it directly. I'm asking you to hear what you think and how you look at your days in Yongzhou. Don't be afraid of offending the people sitting next to you. No matter what you think, it has nothing to do with them. It's impossible to do this for the first time without any mistakes. Only after listening to your words can you know how to change in the future and how to do things well."

No matter how nice Xu Ping's words sound, no one dared to take them seriously, and it was a bit unstoppable.

The frogs outside started to clamor, and the cold air that they drank was dissipated. The hot wind that came was mixed with water, which was stuffy and hot, making people feel more irritable.

Xu Ping smiled, picked up the tea and took a sip, put the cup down, and shook his head and said, "If you don't say it, I just think you are used to living here, eating well and sleeping well, and living like heaven. If you suffer in the future, don't complain again."

An impatient boy in his twenties stood up and whispered: "Shangguan asked, I will just say it. My name is Song Chenglu. If you offend all the officials, I will admit that I am unlucky if you want to control me!"

Xu Ping smiled and said, "If anyone dares to control you, I will control him. What are you afraid of?"

Song Chenglu blushed and said, "Actually, it's nothing, mainly because he can't get used to it. The people here have light tastes, and the food here is heavy with oil and salt, which is really hard to taste!"

"So that's the case? I can't blame others. The taste is determined by me. I originally thought that these days I have to open fields to plant rice and plant sugarcane, and I have to do a lot of work. The weather in Yongzhou is damp and hot, sweating a lot, and oil and salt are used to supplement nutrients and water. Don't lose your body."

Song Chenglu scratched his head: "But-Shangguan, we really can't get used to it!"

"It's okay, I can't barely do anything about taste. Let's do it. From now on, you can start the fire yourself, you can control the taste yourself, and you can do whatever you want. As for how to arrange manpower, how much money each person calculates in a month, we will talk about it tomorrow, how?"

Song Chenglu looked around and whispered: "Anyway, I think so, I don't know what others mean."

Xu Ping whispered loudly: "Does others have anything to say? No, but that's it!"

These people usually get together, so what don’t talk much? They all have the same idea and no one speaks.

"Okay, that's all the food. What else?"

Someone started and had good results, and the atmosphere became lively. Another middle-aged man stood up and said, "There is something that young people don't know whether to talk or not."

Xu Ping said: "Have fun, just say something!"

The man said, "Many of us have saved the wages paid here in Yongzhou, but we don't know how to send them home, and no one knows what to do."

Generally speaking, for maintaining a basic life in the city, adults cost about twenty to thirty cents a day. Xuping’s environment is hard and heavy. In addition to food and accommodation, each person also pays 500 cents a month. This era is a good treatment. People from Fujian Road are poor families who are used to hard life and spend very little money on their daily lives, and most of the money has been saved. However, there is no foreign exchange business, so they have no place to save money here, and their families are short of money and cannot spend it. Many people are so anxious.

Xu Ping thought for a while before saying, "I can't reply to you about this matter. I have to wait until I go back to discuss with others, and I have to ask the court for advice. Try to make sure you send money to your family and use flying tickets. But you have to discuss with here. How do they collect the money after sending it back? It's time to take care of it."

From the capital to the states, there are three departments to manage the ticket business. Before leaving the city, merchants handed over the cash to the transfer shops under the three departments to receive the vouchers. After arriving in the state, they received the money with the tickets and charged a renewal fee of twenty cents per cent.

In the early Song Dynasty, there were bans of money in various places, and the capital was particularly strict. For a period of time, it was strictly forbidden to carry more than the quantity of copper coins out of the city. Now, although the ban on money was in name only, it was unrealistic to travel with a large amount of copper coins. The court once had jokes that the transportation cost of less than 5,000 guan from Jinghu North Road to the capital, and the travel expenses cost nearly 2,000 guan, ordinary people need to say. Not to mention the complexity of the Song Dynasty's money system, there were copper coins and iron coins in different places, and the weight and quality of the coin minting in various places was slightly different, which was extremely troublesome to exchange sporadically.

During the Taizu period, there was a clear edict for flying money that states must pay cash on the same day when they see tickets, and violators will be punished. Now this business is very mature.

However, among the states, except for some metropolis, there is no extensive official exchange business. Long-distance travel is mainly exchanged for light goods such as gold, silver, satin, etc. Even Guangnan West Road is offered to the court, and many states are exchanged for gold, silver, not to mention ordinary business travelers.

Xu Ping said that most of the matter had been done. He was also a senior official in charge of the finances of a state. The court would not even give him such a face. The people below were overjoyed and were talking about it.

The people behind mentioned that they were biting mosquitoes and toads, and there was no big deal.

These immigrants only came for more than two months. They originally thought they were going to hell step by step on the road and never had a life to go back to their hometown. As a result, when they arrived in Yongzhou, in addition to living a little heavier life, they also had money every month, which was much better than their previous days, and they were in a good mood. They were still in the honeymoon period these few months, and they had no resentment or any sharp contradictions.

This optimistic atmosphere was even beyond Xu Ping's expectations. He took migrant workers away from home for dozens of miles in his previous life, and they were all very resentful. Unexpectedly, these people were easy to talk to. But they didn't expect that the days these immigrants lived in the past. The land of Fujian was narrow and dense, and wherever they could grow grain and have large bowls of rice were cultivated. Now this kind of life is the better life in their dreams.

"I said that you are not satisfied with it, so let's talk about something else. After more than two months of coming, you are familiar with the situation in Yongzhou. Is there anything you think you can do better?"

"Officials, I think the rice planted here is all local rice. We all planted Chameng rice in Fujian. Emperor Zhenzong also went to Fujian to buy Chameng rice and asked them to plant them everywhere. Can we plant it here?"

One thing is obvious is that middle-aged farmers speak first, and it seems that they have been planted for many years.

Xu Ping nodded: "What you said makes sense. I will send someone to Fujian to buy rice seeds in a few days."

Xu Ping understood this kind of thing better than him that Chameng rice was a good foreign seed. It was first widely planted in Fujian and slowly spread to other places. During the Zhenzong period, the government bought rice seeds and promoted them to the vast areas of Jianghuai.

Chameng rice has played an important role in promoting the increase in rice yields in China. The key is not good varieties, but foreign ones. No matter what crops are planted for a long time, a single variety will degenerate. Traditional Chinese single plants are preferred to select good varieties, but long-term degradation of varieties is inevitable. The Song Dynasty became the peak of yield of grain crops in ancient China, which shows that this is very clear. Introducing Chameng rice, countless local good varieties have been produced in hundreds of years. The peak of yields appeared in the Qing Dynasty, and its potential was exhausted.

It was finally slow to degenerate. It was not until later that scientific breeding was adopted to select other good varieties that reversed this trend. Wheat became more obvious. Since the Han Dynasty connected to the Western Regions, foreign wheat millet varieties were introduced. The local varieties began to improve. When the Song Dynasty reached its peak, the potential of foreign varieties was also exhausted. After that, it began to degenerate. By the Republic of China, the yield of wheat dropped to less than 100 kilograms, which could only reach more than half of the Song Dynasty. The yield was re-increased after the mid-twentieth century, and it relied on new knowledge.

Having said rice seeds, someone suggested that Xu Ping strictly seal the mountains and not open the land on the mountains randomly. This reminded Xu Ping that there are many mountains and hills in this area, and water and soil protection is really a big problem. Fujian lacks land for growing grain, and it opened mountains almost uncontrollably. This era has suffered a lot. Fortunately, the Song Dynasty, like the previous dynasties, was still maintained, but it was just a problem of strictness or not. In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, due to population pressure, the mountain ban was opened, and corn planting was quickly promoted, causing irreparable damage to the environment. Most of the original forests in mainland China were cut down in that era, and there were bald mountains everywhere.

This is the content of Xu Ping's professional knowledge. Agricultural tools come with agronomics. A hillside above 25 degrees is neither suitable for growing grain nor fruit trees. It can only maintain natural vegetation. You can investigate the surrounding area.

The question raised later made Xu Ping a little ridiculous. First, some people said they were idle and didn’t have many books to buy, and Xu Ping agreed to build a library. This was normal. Then some people said there was no restaurant and it was not convenient for everyone to gather. Then some people mentioned that there was a lack of entertainment, no tiles, no songs, and no radiant female prostitutes chatting with others, and life was boring.

Xu Ping looked at the twenty or thirty people in front of him and became more and more enthusiastic. When he mentioned the woman's eyes, he was emitting light and wondered with laughter. Could it be that he had to build a place of love and love here? It seemed that this was nothing, and there were quite a few government officials doing this now.
Chapter completed!