A few days ago, Han Yueniang was unwell, so Du Zhongxiao returned to Qingtai Town. Unexpectedly, Han Yueniang was pregnant and lived there for some days. When her mother-in-law came from home, she returned to the Iron Supervisor.

On this day, the wind was sunny, and Su Song and Liu Wei came to invite Du Zhongxiao to go east of the Iron Supervisor to enjoy the flowers.

South of the Li River and to Fangcheng County, it is full of land for the Iron Prison, and people are not allowed to live and cultivate. Before the Iron Prison was established, this area was full of idle fields, and there were no one except a few hunters. Now those hunters are assigned to the Iron Prison to raise livestock and poultry.

In addition to being used for iron surveillance forging, the rest of the water in the small reservoir flows into the Li River from the east. On the river bank, hundreds of acres of land were opened, which is the vegetable field of iron surveillance, and there is also a flower garden inside. In recent months, meat prices have risen, and vegetable fields have gone south and livestock and poultry farms have been built along the hills. However, after the construction of this place, it was winter and there has been no decent output yet.

A ten-step wide road from the Iron Supervisor was flat and wide. It was covered with slag, and there was no dust on dry days and no mud on rainy days. It was much better than the dirt roads before. Occasionally, soldiers from the Iron Supervisor walked on the road, pushing vegetables and wild fruits in the mountains with carts, talking and laughing.

There are many barbed millet walnuts in the mountains in this area, and there are quite a lot of people all over the mountains. There are many people in the iron prison, so I chose some idle people to pick them in the mountains and transport them back to the iron prison. There is a pastry factory in the camp, which is very prosperous. It uses barbed millet walnuts to add some tricks.

Chestnuts, red dates and mulberry trees were the fruit trees that the imperial court recommended to be planted in the countryside. These trees were easy to plant, and the fruits could be used as food in the years of famine and were crops for the desert. In the past, when the year of the year was not good, people often went to the mountains to pick these nuts to fill their stomachs. This was the norm in China before the population explosion. A large number of mountains were not developed, which was different from later generations.

Not far away, along both sides of the river, a large area of ​​flat land is the vegetable field of the Iron Supervision Bureau.

The commander of the Gu field in charge of the vegetable fields brought a few soldiers to welcome him early. When he saw Du Zhongxiao and others coming, he hurried forward to greet him.

When I got off the horse, I arrived at the barracks in the vegetable field and sat down one after another. Commander of the valley made me come to tea.

Commander Gu was in his fifties. After he arrived at the Iron Supervisory Office, he had no energy to learn new things, so he came to manage the vegetable field. He picked up the remaining imperial guards, and started from Dutou after being assigned to the wing army, and was promoted to Commander for more than ten years. He knew in his heart that he had no future. He thought that he would retire in a few years and return home to live his life with his half salary.

When civil servants resigned at 70, the soldiers of the Imperial Army were removed from service at 60. The Song Dynasty established a country, and civil servants had no salary after resigning. Most of them were retained by the court in the previous chapter and died. They could not receive a part of their salary until Emperor Zhenzong and civil servants resigned. When imperial guards and the Xiang army were relieved at 60, they could receive half of their salary until their old age.

With such a system, once civil officials become officials, they will basically never return home regardless of whether they retire in old age or not. Some people choose places where they are in the last place, some choose places with low prices as places where they spend the rest of their lives. For example, Han Jiang's father Han Yi went to Xuzhou to buy land and houses in the years when they retired. In history, the Ming and Qing dynasties had no salary after retirement, and in the words of later generations, they forced officials to return home and give preferential treatment such as tax exemption and duty exemption. A large number of Chinese genealogies traced back to the Song Dynasty. In addition to the people moving south, there was another reason that officials did not return home and scattered outside.

Commander Gu was like this. After arriving at the Iron Supervisory Bureau, he bought land on the south bank of the Li River and asked his family to take care of it. He just waited for his resignation and settled in Ye County. As for his hometown far away in the sky, there has been no news for decades.

After drinking tea, Commander Gu stepped forward and said, "Officials, the official, I have been ordered to take care of the vegetable fields. I have put some thoughts on it. Today, the weather is sunny, so why not check it out. If there are any shortcomings, please give me some advice. The official ordered people to change it. The flowerbed is in the south where the wind and sun are facing the sun, just along the way."

Du Zhongxiao said: "Okay. Now there are too many iron supervisors and there is no supply of meat and vegetables, which is really annoying."

He stood up with Su Song and others, led by Commander Gu, and walked along the road between the vegetable fields to check the vegetable fields.

After walking about two or three hundred steps, Commander Gu pointed to a place not far from the pond and said: "There is a manure tank in the vegetable field. All the pickled items in the Iron Supervisor will be transported here and fermented for fertilizer. Over the past few months, a lot of manure has been fermented, just waiting for the next spring to be used when growing vegetables in the field. In addition to this, there is another place in the south where livestock and poultry are raising places to ferment the feces of livestock."

Liu Qing smiled and said, "No wonder he had a strange smell when he approached here. He relied on manure to farm. You should not be careless."

Commander Gu crossed his hands and said, "Do you want to go over and take a look?"

Liu Wei said: "Forget it, we are here to appreciate the flowers today, so why should we get close to these unclean things?"

Du Zhongxiao originally wanted to go over and take a look, but after Liu Wei said this, it would be fine. The book about farming, the field business has summarized a lot of experience through more than half a year of practice, including fertilizer. Someone from the Iron Supervision Bureau will come here to check according to the booklet, and there is no need to ask about everything.

The Iron Supervisor pays special attention to the sanitation of the camp. From the beginning, there were no puddles and no garbage dumps were allowed. The garbage was once in the morning and evening, and a dedicated person was transported out of the camp. Most of them were transported here to ferment manure. In this year, there was no plastic products or any non-degradable garbage. After simple treatment, it could be used to ferment the garbage, which was much easier to dispose of the garbage.

Du Zhongxiao saw that the land was opened on both sides and had a canal on the ground. Then he could irrigate the vegetable field. After the reservoir was repaired, there was a height difference between the Li River and it could irrigate it by flowing. This vegetable field was very convenient to water, and it was a good water irrigation area.

Not long after walking, I saw five or six people coming in front of me. A gray-bearded man stepped forward and crossed his hands to salute.

Commander Gu ordered Zheng Shao to give in: "This is Qiu Dutou, who is in charge of breeding livestock and poultry. I heard that the official came, so I came over to greet him quickly."

Du Zhongxiao looked at these people, Commander Gu, and two deputy commanders, all six of them were older. These people were old and could not learn new things, and they were still in a state of peace and contentment, so they were all concentrated in this place where they grew vegetables. The place was quiet, without any troubles or any great benefits, and they were just right for them.

This is the vegetable garden of the Iron Supervisor. If it were later or in big cities, there would be a lot of oil and water. However, the Iron Supervisor was once a vast land and sparsely populated, and there was no place to sell the things here outside. People who work here simply eat more vegetables, fruits, melons, and more chickens, ducks, fish and meat. No one competed for power and profit with them.

After leaving the fertilized place, Qiu Dutou said, "There are chickens, ducks, pigs and sheep in Xiaguan, which is really pickled. The officials can go to the flower garden first, use some wine and rice, and then check it out in the afternoon. Zuo Dutou was bringing soldiers to the reservoir there to net fish. I heard that they had taken some big ones. I asked the soldiers to make it and serve wine for the officials."
Chapter completed!