The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"What's the name of this village? It's really desolate."

More than ten riders appeared outside Taijiazhuang under the control of Yanzhou Prefecture in Shandong Province. They stopped and looked at the small village surrounded by earth fence from a distance.

"Da Sikong, this place is called Taijiazhuang, and we also call him Taizhuang, because most people in Zhuangzi have the surname Tai."

A scribe from Yanzhou Prefecture came up to report and report.

"Taijiazhuang, this is supposed to be a village where Taiwanese people settled again?"

Da Sikong is naturally Zhu Heng, Minister of Industry.

In accordance with Wei Guangde's entrustment, he specifically inspected and calculated along the new canal route planned by Weng Dali to determine the feasibility of digging the Jia Canal.

"probably."

The scribe didn't know how to answer Zhu Heng's words.

Taijiazhuang has existed here for many years. If we really count, the earliest record of Taijiazhuang appears to be in the Tang Dynasty, when the Tai clan started to establish a village here.

It's just that in later generations, not many people knew about Taijiazhuang, because he had a more resounding name - "Taierzhuang".

"It's getting late. Let's stay in the village tonight."

Zhu Heng said.

"Okay, I will go to the head of the village to make arrangements."

The scribe immediately clasped his fists and said.

After the scribe left, Zhu Heng looked back at a middle-aged man in his thirties behind him.

He was not wearing official uniform, but what looked like what a servant would wear.

This kind of clothing looks very special among a group of people wearing official uniforms. Although there are a few similarly dressed people behind him, their clothes are obviously different from them.

Zhu Heng waved to the man to come over.

When the others came up, Zhu Heng said to him: "Duan Shao, does your master want you to buy as much land as you can in this section?

The one in front is Taijiazhuang. In the future, this area will probably become extremely prosperous due to the arrival of the canal. "

"Mr. Zhu, my master said so. As soon as the decision is made, I will buy him some fields here."

Duan Shao bowed and saluted Zhu Heng.

"Okay, according to the previous rules, the land purchased will be counted as one share for me."

Zhu Heng smiled and shook his head and said, "By the way, was your master also such a naughty person when he was a child?"

"It seems so. Anyway, at that time, the master was the child king of our Bengshan Castle. He was his brother before, and then he came to him. Haha, I went to study with Master Sun with him at that time, but it was a pity that I couldn't get in."

Duan Shao smiled.

"You and your master are still classmates, haha."

Zhu Heng smiled casually, then waved his hand and said to the people behind him: "Let's go to Taijiazhuang and rest here tonight."

The Grand Canal has always been regarded as a golden waterway in ancient times. Relying on the Grand Canal, it not only supports tens of thousands of people on both sides of the canal, but is also a way to make money.

Why were so many people opposed to Wei Guangde's proposal to change water transportation to sea? That's because this golden waterway is filled with too many interests. Interest groups formed by these interests are not willing to give up what they have in hand easily.

The opening of a new canal to replace the Xuzhou section of the canal will mean a change in the golden waterway. The trade that brought prosperity to Xuzhou will gradually be transferred to Taizhuang, Hanzhuang and other places. It also means that whoever occupies the land in these places can A steady stream of money was drawn from the canal.

The combination of power and information will undoubtedly double the speed of this accumulation of money.

After persuading Zhang Juzheng and once again sending people to investigate the feasibility of the Jia Canal, Wei Guangde realized that this was a good opportunity to make a fortune.

Taking advantage of the time difference, we can acquire the worthless land in Taizhuang, Hanzhuang and other places. Even after the canal's path is determined and new towns are born, the value of those lands will increase countless times.

How could Wei Guangde let go of the wealth at his fingertips.

When Zhu Heng set off from the capital, Wei Guangde arranged for his servant Duan Shao to accompany him and acquire land along the route. In the future, whether it is building houses or warehousing, these lands will be projects that can make a lot of money.

If Zhu Heng didn't expect it at first, he more or less understood it after Duan Shao came into contact with some landlords.

Of course it's not possible to make a wedding dress for nothing, and his old Zhu family also wants a piece of the pie.

In this regard, Wei Guangde has already explained that he will allow people on his side to participate in the company.

Only when interests are tied together can everyone work together more collaboratively.

After all, they still have to face the old and wealthy landlords in the Xuzhou section of the canal. The dispute between the old and new canal has not been resolved in the court, but it has just begun.

They had just entered Taijiazhuang and were welcomed into a relatively clean and tidy courtyard by the clerk.

"This is the home of Taixiao, the elder in Taijiazhuang. We have made an agreement with him to rent it temporarily for a few days. He will move to a relative's house these days.

I was just in too much of a hurry and the yard hasn't been cleaned yet. Please forgive me. "

The scribe bowed and cupped his fists.

"It doesn't matter, it's already good."

Zhu Heng waved his hand indifferently, it was just a loan, and it depends on the conditions here.

When he entered Taijiazhuang, he had already noticed that this courtyard located in the center of Zhuangzi was the best courtyard in the entire Zhuangzi. What more could he ask for.

After asking the servants to go in and clean up the main house, Zhu Heng asked someone to move a chair and sit in the yard to rest.

The bumpy ride on the horse was still a bit too much.

But he hadn't rested long before there was the sound of horse hooves outside, heading straight for the yard.

Not long after, one of his men came over with a postman.

"Sir, there is an official document coming from the capital government office."

The servant said in front of Zhu Heng.

"Um."

Zhu Heng agreed, and the postman had already untied the mailbox from behind, opened it, and took out the official document inside.

Then he took out the document from his crossbody pocket. This was required to be signed by the recipient when handing over the official document, so that the postman could go back to deliver the official document.

Zhu Heng first read the sealed official document and saw that the seal was intact, then he took off a gold seal from his waist and asked his men to sign the postman's official document.

After collecting the gold seal, he opened the sealed official document and quickly read the contents.

However, as he saw the changes in content, his expression became increasingly difficult to look at.

According to Qin Tianjian, next year is likely to be another troubled year. According to the situation in recent years, the first thing the court thinks of is the Yellow River.

In recent years, flooding in the Yellow River has not been cured. Flood disasters have continued to occur, which has seriously affected agricultural production in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.

In particular, the yellow sand left behind after passing through the water is extremely troublesome to clean up, and it will take a long time to resume agricultural production.

In the Ming Dynasty, which was based on agriculture, this was naturally a top priority.

Yellow River, Yellow River.

After reading the official document, Zhu Heng couldn't help but murmur.

Since Liu Daxia built the Taihang Embankment during the Hongzhi period, the north path of the Yellow River has been completely blocked, leaving only the southward flood.

Therefore, every time the Yellow River floods, it does not threaten the north of the Yellow River, but after it bursts to the south, it repeatedly seizes the Huaihe River and enters the sea, causing great damage to the Xuhuai area.

At the same time, it also began to threaten the Mingzu Mausoleum.

The Taihang Embankment still needs to be repaired, and the consequences of the Yellow River's North Break will be even more serious. Once the Yellow River breaks north, the Yellow River floods will flow from Zhang Qiu to the river, and the water transportation of that year will be completely blocked.

Because in the north, there are fewer river channels. If the water of the Yellow River flows through the river, the river channels will be completely blocked by yellow sand, and it cannot be dredged without a huge amount of people.

Well, Liu Daxia majored in repairing the North Embankment of the Yellow River, and the South Embankment was a symbolic repair. He also explained to the court that the purpose was to let the Yellow River divert the Huai River and flow into the sea.

He Liu Daxia didn't even think about it, the Yellow River just followed your guidance so obediently.

Even if we seize the Huai River and enter it into the sea, the result will be flooding south of the Yellow River, and the river sand will then block the Huai River.

In fact, the so-called protection of water transportation cannot be guaranteed at all.

However, Zhu Heng cannot blame Liu Daxia now. He has been dead for many years, and he still has to think of a good way to regulate the Yellow River.

But for now, we still have to put the inspection of river embankments first. Preventing possible floods in the Yellow River next year is the top priority of the court.

Immediately, Zhu Heng called his entourage and began to change the original planned itinerary. He wanted to visit Gaojiayan first.

Gaojiayan is also the embankment of Hongze Lake. It was first recorded in Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, it referred to a section of the Huaihe River embankment near Gaoyan Village in Huaiyin County. It is said that it was created by Chen Deng of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It is the earliest in the world over two thousand years ago. Artificial dikes.

Although archeology dating back to the Eastern Han Dynasty is highly implausible, the existence of the Gaojiayan embankment is indeed an important part of protecting the Huaihe River from being eroded by the Yellow River.

Since Liu Daxia, the Ming court has actually acquiesced that the Yellow River will seize the Huaihe River. It just wants to prevent the Yellow River from eroding the large and small lakes in the Huaihe River system and prevent these lakes from being blocked by yellow sand.

Hongze Lake is related to the Ming Zu Mausoleum, so Zhu Heng's first priority now is to inspect the Gaojiayan Dam to prevent the Yellow River floods from entering Hongze Lake and threatening the Ming Zu Tombs.

The trip to the Kanchajia Canal was interrupted, and officials from the Ming court, large and small, appeared throughout the Huanghuai River Basin, inspecting the embankments on both sides of the river.

Perhaps, this is the Ming Dynasty version where the superior just opens his mouth and the subordinate breaks his legs.

It’s just unclear how much of it is a real inspection and how much is just a formality.

Huai'an Prefecture, the governor's office of water transportation.

Wang Zongmu also received an official document from the capital. He immediately handed the official document to the water transport commander and asked him to immediately give orders to the water transport guard stations to set off early again, set up ships and rushed to Huai'an, waiting for the ice in the northern section of the Grand Canal to lift. Immediately transport grain to the capital.

After handling official duties, Wang Zongmu returned to the back hall and received a secret letter from Wei Guangde in the capital.

"Take the messenger down to rest, and I will reply to Mr. Wei as soon as possible."

Wang Zongmu ordered his servants to take the messenger down to settle down first, and then he opened the envelope and took out the letter paper to read.

"Half a million stones?"

After Wang Zongmu read the letter, he was also a little amazed at Wei Guangde's boldness.

The imperial court had previously set a permanent quota for transporting 120,000 tons of grain by sea to the capital every year. When he was appointed governor from Nanjing to Huai'an, he also heard news that someone wanted to stop shipping grain by sea, but failed.

He never expected that Mr. Wei Ge would be so courageous. He wanted to continue to expand the scale of grain shipping and triple it in just one year.

But it doesn't seem to be a bad thing for him.

As a Zhejiang native, he was no stranger to the sea, so like Liang Menglong, he supported the imperial court's opening up of shipping.

To this end, he and Liang Menglong did a lot of work and completed the trial voyage of shipping grain and determining the route.

He was not worried that Yu Dayou would not cooperate. Transporting so much grain required a large number of ships, and Caosi did not have so many ships.

Caosi once had a large number of sea-going ships, but after so many years, the sea-going ships have long been scrapped. The ships built by Caosi since then are all river ships used for inland navigation and are not suitable for sailing on the sea.

The last time the Fushan Island shipwreck occurred, all the cargo ships lost were Caosi's cargo ships, but the warships sent by the Nanyang Navy were unscathed, which can be seen from this.

Now that the ship is available, the next step is the warehousing involved in the court documents.

At that time, just unload the grain from the ship and put it in storage and transfer it to the sea ship.

Previously in the front lobby, he had already asked people to arrange storage. But after seeing Wei Guangde's letter, he had to consider moving the storage to a place near the sea, which would be more convenient for grain transportation.

After all, five hundred thousand stones and one hundred and twenty thousand stones are completely different things.

Wang Zongmu started to get involved in arranging warehousing, and another letter from Wei Guangde was also being sent to Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.

At this time, the base camp of the Nanyang Navy was chosen by Yu Dayou here because both land transportation and maritime transportation were extremely developed here. The most important thing is that this place is currently the main shipbuilding place of the Ming Dynasty.

After all, Zhejiang merchants had been secretly conducting smuggling trade before. Their demand for sea-going ships was huge, which also maintained the livelihood of Zhejiang shipwrights.

The shipyards in Nanjing, which once represented the highest level of Ming shipbuilding technology, now only had the ability to build inland river ships, and were no longer able to build large sea-going ships.

Although Fujian's shipbuilding strength is not weaker than Zhejiang's, its land transportation is much worse.

Yu Dayou received Wei Guangde's letter two days after Wang Zongmu.

After reading the contents of the letter, he hesitated only slightly before making up his mind. This time he would take the main force of the Nanyang Navy to the north for this trip.

After completing the transportation of 500,000 stone grain at one time, he led the navy fleet southward.

Calculating the time, it seems that it is just right to prepare for the Japanese.

The Nanyang Navy has traveled all the routes from Zhejiang to Guangxi in the past two years, but only the small fleet sent out at the beginning of the year has traveled the route further north.

Wei Guangde wanted to create a Ming navy that would dominate the oceans in the early Ming Dynasty, but it was not only active in the Jiangnan provinces.

However, the most embarrassing thing for Yu Dayou was that Wei Guangde asked him in his letter to send people to Haojing to contact the cannon-casting craftsmen and shipbuilding craftsmen there, hoping to directly recruit people to the Ming Dynasty to teach their skills.

It was not that he had not considered this matter before, but he was worried that once he came into contact with them, the information would inevitably be leaked.

It would be best if we could poach people, but if we failed, the people from Folangji would definitely know about it, and many things that would follow would be more difficult to deal with.

This is why Yu Dayou did not intend to take the initiative to contact these craftsmen who mastered their skills. Instead, he arranged young craftsmen from the guardhouse to sneak into the trench mirror secretly and steal their masters in the name of workmanship.

He had to reconsider the matter arranged by Wei Guangde. Even taking advantage of the opportunity of transporting grain to Tianjin, he wanted to discuss the pros and cons with Wei Guangde face to face.

After all, Mr. Wei Ge was thousands of miles away from Hao Jing, so there was always something he didn't consider thoroughly.

It's not easy to say it in a letter, so it's better to remind it in person. (End of chapter)