It was almost noon, and Du Zhongxiao and Han Yueniang bid farewell to their family, boarded the Guan boat, and went down the road to Caizhou. There are many rivers in this area and the water transport is well developed, not down to the Huaihe area. However, the river is not connected to Tangzhou, so they get off from Caizhou, cross the watershed, and arrive at Tangzhou by land.

Tangzhou is located on the main transportation route from Xijing Henan Prefecture to Dengzhou and Xiangzhou. Since ancient times, it has been an important place to communicate north and south. Fangcheng Mountain has a large section of the Great Wall built by the Chu State. This is also the closest road from the Jianghan area to the Central Plains. After crossing Fangcheng Mountain, it is close to Xuzhou and a smooth road to the two capitals. During the reign of Emperor Taizong, the Xianghan canal was opened here, intending to communicate north and south, but it ended in failure. Later generations of the South-to-North Water Diversion was also the pass here.

As a strategic location, the late Tang and Five Dynasties fought too many battles here, and the population has not recovered so far, and there are a lot of idle land. When the Song Dynasty was established, there were less than 10,000 households, and it developed for sixty or seventy years, and now there are only more than 10,000 households.

The yamen where Du Zhongxiao established Yingtian was not in Tangzhou City, but in Qingtai Town between Koudaobiyang and Fangcheng County in the north. Qingtai Town is adjacent to Dushui in the east and guards the major transportation routes of north and south. Since ancient times, it has been a place that military strategists must fight for. The surrounding land is flat and fertile, and river water irrigation is a good place for agricultural development. Due to too many wars, there are very few people here, and there is a large area of ​​idle fields around it, which is suitable for reclamation.

Most of the more than 20,000 Bianhe boatmen who came from the capital were placed here and had arrived in advance. Du Zhongxiao was in charge of official duties and did not go to Tangzhou to meet local officials first, so he directly brought his entourage to Qingtai Town.

Qingtai Town is not big, with only two or three hundred people. After entering the city gate, there is still a large open space. I don’t know when this city was built, but because it was located on a major transportation road, it was destroyed and destroyed. I don’t know how many wars it fought. This is the gateway to Dengzhou south, with the inspection department and the fifty or sixty wings of the army.

After receiving the news of Du Zhongxiao's arrival, the town inspector and Jianzhen went out of the city to greet him and surrounded him into the town. The Jianzhen yamen only had a row of five houses, and they were cleaned up at this time to serve as Du Zhongxiao's residence.

The boatmen who arrived early stood on both sides of the street, and most of them lazily looked at Du Zhongxiao who had entered the city. Most of them had been flirting with their whole lives, knew nothing about farming, and were very confused about their future life. When they arrived, the superiors could not restrain themselves and rushed into the city one after another. On both sides of the waiting road, they set up tents on the open space in the city, making the small town uneasy.

Du Zhongxiao rode on the horse and looked at the situation in the city and couldn't help but frown. These people were pulling on the river, shouting horns, and moving forward step by step was particularly disciplined. But once there was no control, they were all kinds of tricks and were not much better than ordinary people. When pulling on the fiber, they were often divided into small organizations, and forming cliques was better than ordinary troops.

Seeing that it was getting late, Du Zhongxiao was too lazy to restrain himself and followed the prison town into the yamen.

Please ask Du Zhongxiao to sit down. Niujian Town smiled and went forward to salute, saying, "This is a small town, and the lower part is simple, so the fortune will be stopped."

Du Zhongxiao looked around and saw that the yamen was too small and could not arrange a group of personnel from his yamen. He said to the prison town: "I will take a break here first, and don't choose a place to build a yamen official office. You can go to the inspection camp in the next few days."

"It's okay, it's okay, you can settle anywhere."

Niujian Town is just a small official who borrowed from the third rank. Its status is far from Du Zhongxiao. I also want to support the superiors and discuss everything.

After a while, after drinking a cup of tea, Du Zhongxiao returned to his residence and changed into casual clothes. Niujian Town and inspector Yao set up a banquet in the yamen courtyard to welcome Du Zhongxiao and his party. This was the first time they received someone with such a status, and the two worked hard.

The guests and guests sat down, and the wine was filled with wine. Niujian Town and inspector Yao raised their glasses together: "There is a glorious place to come to the town, and the officials are particularly glorious. Please drink this cup to welcome the lucky sign!"

Du Zhongxiao drank wine, and the two pointed to the dishes on the table: "There is no good food in the small place, so don't blame the Yunjue. This excellent mutton is used. There are also the newly dug lotus roots, which are crisp and delicious. You can taste it."

After eating the dishes for a while and drinking a few glasses of wine, Niujian Town ordered people to bring a plate of slender things and said to Du Zhongxiao: "Yunjuan, the local sugar cane is particularly sweet, so Yunjuan uses it to understand the wine."

Du Zhongxiao almost sprayed out a sip of wine, looked at the sugarcane on the plate and said, "Do you still produce sugarcane here?"

"The products produced and those produced have existed since ancient times. However, this thing is not cold-resistant and not many of them are grown."

This place belongs to the Han River Basin, in principle, to the south of the Qinling Mountains and Huai River, and is considered to be the south in a broad sense. However, Du Zhongxiao never expected that it could produce sugarcane. The climate in this era was probably warmer than later generations, and the sugarcane planting area was relatively north. The largest production area now is not the later Guangdong and Guangxi, but Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Sichuan.

I picked up a piece and chewed it for a few bites. It was really sweet. It was not easy to eat this kind of thing this season.

Putting down the sugarcane in your hand, Du Zhongxiao said: "Sugar is expensive at this time. Since you produce sugarcane here, why haven't you heard of producing sugar?"

Niujian Town smiled and said, "We have heard that squeezing sugar can make a lot of money. A few years ago, someone invited someone with art from Jiangsu and Zhejiang to try to squeeze sugar, but it was not done. I heard that we are too far from the north and the earth is cold. Although sugar cane is produced, it does not contain sugar."

Du Zhongxiao nodded and understood in his heart that the variety should be wrong. Sugarcane can be squeezed, but not all sugarcane is suitable. Some varieties are only suitable for chewing and eating, similar to fruits.

But then again, as long as it is sugarcane, it can squeeze out sugar when biting sweet, but it is not a good deal. When Du Zhongxiao saw sugarcane, he thought he could open a sugarcane plantation here. It seems that he was thinking too much. However, if he can produce sugarcane, he should produce a lot of southern crops here. Here, the transportation is convenient to the two Beijings, and if you can produce southern crops, you can sell them to the capital to make a lot of money.

After drinking for a while, Du Zhongxiao asked about the local agricultural conditions. Niujian Town said: "From this place to the north, all the way to Fangcheng County, it is mostly low-mountain slopes, with no less than tens of thousands of hectares. Since ancient times, this place has been a place where populations are mixed. It was just that the late Tang Dynasty was free and the people fled, and now it is mostly idle fields. There is a lot of rain here, which is different from the north of Fangcheng Mountain, and the slopes are also planted well. If it is flat, rice and wheat have been planted since ancient times."

There is another reason why Niujian Town did not say that during the reign of Emperor Taizong, the Xianghan Cao Canal collapsed, and it was the area that was destroyed, and the population had not yet recovered until now.

At this time, the highest yield of grain crops is rice, especially rice harvesting, and wheat can be planted for another season. The same area will be doubled compared with other crops. At this time, the land is wide and sparsely populated, and the taxes of the government and even landlords in most areas are collected for rent. If you can plant two seasons of grain a year, it is richer than other places.

Seeing Du Zhongxiao's face was filled with joy when he heard this, Yao inspector added: "The only bad thing is that due to the frequent wars and the households fled, and the water conservancy was not repaired for many years, most of the original dam canals have been destroyed. If you want to plant crops well, you must first repair water conservancy."
Chapter completed!