Chapter 174: Military households in Hexi

After several spying on the Tubo people and Tuyuhun people, there was no news. Huixi Fort sent people to Hehuang area several times to investigate, but there was no discovery of large-scale military force gathering in the Hehuang area. It seemed that the Tubo people were not very sensitive to the construction of Huixi Fort. Perhaps their goal was to advance eastward rather than northward, so this matter was gradually forgotten.

It was as hot as it was. In early May, gold sand was sent three times over the Liusha River. Zhang Huan ordered craftsmen to cast them into ingots according to the Tang Dynasty standards. After removing impurities, they obtained extremely high purity gold nuggets, which even exceeded the gold ingots cast by the Shaofu Temple of the imperial court.

On this day, Zhang Huan went to Tianbao County to inspect the land relocation progress. Tianbao County is a county with more military households in Longyou, with about 2,000 households. It is also the county garrison among the counties in Wuwei County, second only to Huixibao. There are 3,000 troops garrisons, mainly to defend against the Tubo people coming from Zhangye.

Tianbao County is the county with the largest grassland area in Wuwei County. A hundred-mile Shiyang River runs through the entire county, and dozens of small tributaries are injected into it, penetrated deep into the Tengger Desert in the north. On both sides of the Shiyang River are grasslands with a radius of dozens of miles.

May is the season for the most plump grass. Under the pure sapphire sky, large groups of cattle and sheep are walking leisurely on the grassland. From time to time, you can see a group of military horses galloping on the grassland. In the distance, there are the snow-capped Qilian Mountains.

After traveling for more than a hundred miles, the mottled city walls of Tianbao County were vaguely visible. The new county magistrate of Tianbao County, who received reports in advance, came to greet him from afar. The new county magistrate was surnamed Huang, about fifty years old. He was originally a county magistrate in Longyou. After the Uighurs attacked Kaiyang County the year before yesterday, he was dismissed and returned home in Wei Yan's subsequent large-scale official purge. Because one of his sons joined the army in Hexi, he simply served as a military household and was moved to Hexi. He was immediately appointed as the county magistrate by Zhang Huan, who was in short supply of talents. After the original county magistrate Li, he was promoted to the county magistrate.

Zhang Huan always had a special feeling for Tianbao County, and the people of Tianbao County missed him very much. Along the way, herdsmen came to greet him from time to time. After entering the county town, large groups of children and women ran out from their homes to greet him. There were red smiling faces everywhere. Many soldiers even carried the children on horses, and dozens of local dogs were having fun before and after the war horses, laughing loudly.

Tianbao County is of medium size. It turns out that there were more than 1,000 households living in the city, seven or eight thousand people, mostly concentrated on both sides of a narrow street east of the city, while there are large open spaces in the west and north of the city. In Zhang Huan's memory, there were weeds more than one person tall, and poisonous insects often appear. But now it has become a neat wooden house and a place for concentrated military households.

Zhang Huan did not go to the county government office, but went straight to the west of the city where the military households were placed.

"Has this river been widened?" Zhang Huan asked in surprise, pointing to a river about five feet wide. In his memory, this small river called Panheshui was originally only one meter wide, but now it has become five feet wide.

County Magistrate Huang smiled bitterly and said, "This was expanded by the military households when they first moved here."

“Why?”

"They were worried about being attacked by locals, so they widened the river for self-protection." Huang County Magistrate said, pointing to a wide and flat wooden bridge: "Did the governor see that? This bridge was built by the military households themselves in early March. Before that, the east and west of the city were isolated by a river and did not interact with each other. County Magistrate Li was also afraid of something, so he ordered the people in the west of the city not to go to the east of the city, making Tianbao County seem like it had become two counties."

Zhang Huan dismounted, patted the sturdy wooden bridge, and smiled and said, "Why are the bridge repairs now? Are you clearing your guard?"

The Huang County Magistrate nodded and smiled: "Actually, the local people are simple and the people here are really good. They often throw some sheep across the river, and the children also secretly swam across the river to play together. After everyone was together for a long time, the military households took the initiative to build this bridge to facilitate the connection."

As soon as he finished speaking, he saw a large group of seven or eight-year-old children running from afar. They all rushed across the wooden bridge with wooden swords and cheering, and there was a group of children across the street, jumping and preparing to fight.

Seeing this, Zhang Huan was really relieved. The ethnic groups in Hexi were complex, and about half of the people were Qiang, Turks, Tubo, Uighurs and other ethnic groups, and the people were rough and fierce. He was most worried that the military households in Longyou had conflicts with the locals after coming to Hexi, causing chaos. Now it seems that the situation is much better than he thought.

The Huang County Magistrate seemed to know Zhang Huan's thoughts. He sincerely exclaimed: "In fact, this is mainly suitable for the governor's land strategy. The governor deprived the land of the large households. Although the major households in the city were making a big fuss, the ordinary people in the city benefited. In addition to the arable land allocated to the military households and directly affiliated with the army, some land was also allocated to locals with children to join the army. The army hired the original tenants to reduce the land rent, and everyone was happy, so the survival contradictions that should have disappeared invisibly. The governor's move is really high!"

"It's nothing." Zhang Huan smiled faintly and said: "Resetting up military households is nothing more than redistribution of interests. Some people gain and some people lose. There is no need to do both, so it's better to cry all the way than to cry all the way."

The magistrate Huang County nodded silently. He was an official in Longyou for many years. When Wei Yan had conflicts with the Dangxiang people, he adopted the method of massacre, which made the conflict between the Dangxiang people and the Han people so far sharp, which was caused by the failure to properly handle ethnic conflicts.

"The governor is really going the right way to treat these non-Han people."

Zhang Huan glanced at him, but shook his head and said, "Things are not what you think. You cannot do good deeds all the time. This also requires different treatment. I will naturally not make things difficult for ordinary good people who live with the Han people. But one thing is that these nations cannot form tribes or regimes. Once they have the will of independence, they will sooner or later be the enemy of our Central Plains. In this case, you must not be lenient and you must completely eliminate them when the signs are just born."

As the two talked and walked, they soon arrived at the place where the military households lived. There were 2,000 military households, which occupied almost half of the county town. It was completely different from the dirty and messy east of the city. The houses here were built in pieces of wood, neatly and uniformly, and the roads were very wide, all of which were rammed with soil. There was no grass growing on the road. Every household had a courtyard. After the wall of the high shoulders of the people, you could see that some of the yards were planted with vegetables, some of them raised chickens and ducks from the whole courtyard, and almost every courtyard had a tree planted with it, which looked very warm and comfortable.

It is almost noon now, and the entire military district is very quiet. When Zhang Huan saw many women holding pots to go out, he turned around and looked at the Huang County Magistrate.

The Huang County Magistrate hurriedly said, "They are going to deliver food to their men, and everyone is on the ground!"

"Anyway, there's nothing wrong, let's go and have a look!"

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Tianbao County has not much arable land, about 300 hectares, mainly concentrated in the east of the county town, distributed on both sides of a river called Mangshu. The soil here is fertile, with abundant water and sunshine. Large areas of wheat fields are endless, and there are ditches between the wheat fields.

In order not to disturb the people, Zhang Huan ordered the soldiers to temporarily stay in the military camp outside the city, and he came to the wheat field with more than a dozen personal soldiers and Huang County Magistrate.

It was May, and the wheat fields were golden, breeze blew, and the golden wheat waves rolled under the blue sky. It was the critical time for field care, and the ridges were filled with farmers eating lunch.

Zhang Huan suddenly discovered a huge windmill-shaped object by the river two miles away. He couldn't help but become curious. He ran away quickly and only found that it was a huge trolley. He used hydraulic power and thick bamboo trolleys to continuously send the river water into the canal. Zhang Huan had seen this trolley when he was in Taiyuan, but this was the first time he saw it in Hexi.

At this time, a group of farmers were sitting under the trolley for dinner. When they saw Zhang Huan looking at the trolley, an old man walked over and smiled proudly, "Official, this trolley was made by the grass."

Zhang Huan made a gesture behind his back, signaling that County Magistrate Huang and his personal soldiers should not come over for the time being. He smiled and nodded and said, "My father-in-law? Who is he from?"

Seeing that Zhang Huan was kind, young, and wearing new official uniforms, probably a new Jinshi, she was assigned to the county to be a small official. The initial timid gradually disappeared. He smiled with a hint of an elder's tone: "My surname is Yang, from Fenyang County, Hedong. He is a tenant in his hometown, but I have twenty acres of land here. Where is the little friend from?"

"The father-in-law turned out to be from Fenyang County, Hedong." Zhang Huan pulled him down and smiled and said, "My surname is Zhang and I am from Taiyuan County, Hedong. Speaking of which, we are still fellow villagers! Does the father-in-law have two sons in the army?"

"It turns out that my brother is from Hedong! Then we are really destined to do it." Old man Yang didn't react for a moment. The special surname of Zhang in Taiyuan was special. He smiled proudly on his face: "My eldest son followed Governor Zhang to fight the Uighurs, and later followed him to Beijing, and then went to Hexi. At the beginning of the year, he wrote a letter to tell me that he could get ten acres of land and let me come over. I took a family with him. Seeing that there was really land, I let my second son join the army, and as a result, I got twenty acres of land. I planted the land for the rest of my life, but this was the first time I got my own land."

"Brother Yang, I'll go first." A strong man greeted him.

Old Man Yang quickly stood up and shouted, "I'll sleep in the ground tonight, so you can go home!"

"The father-in-law hired someone?" Zhang Huan was surprised to see that they seemed to be in the same group.

"Who else can I hire twenty acres of land? My younger son and I will have enough planting it."

Old Man Yang sat down and shook his head and said, "He is a Qiang man, a tenant who used to rent my land. After half of the wheat was planted, the land was changed to the owner. I had no money to give it to him, so I discussed with him and continued to help me. After the harvest, the wheat was divided into 40% of it."

Zhang Huan was slightly stunned. He had never considered the interests of the tenants before. Seeing that the summer harvest was about to be approached, if this matter was not properly handled, something might happen. He thought about it and asked, "Do you think there is any other good way to solve this problem?"

Old Man Yang pondered for a moment and said, "I think it's best for the government to set rules, so that some people can't help but some people won't."

Zhang Huan nodded. He had to start when he went back. He also had to exempt him from taxes for three years and needed to consider these tenants. Thinking of this, Zhang Huan smiled and asked, "Since my father-in-law can make a trolley, can he make a curved plow?"

"What's the difficulty? Just draw a pattern for the carpenter to do it."

When Mr. Yang saw that Zhang Huan was very sensible and had dark skin, he didn't look like a child of a wealthy family who was pampered and had no airs at all. He couldn't help but liked him. He glanced at the Huang County Magistrate in the distance, then patted Zhang Huan on the shoulder and smiled, "Brother Zhang is here to inspect! It's hard for you to leave Hedong and come to be an official here. I wonder if you get married?"

As he said that, he glanced backwards. Zhang Huan then found a young woman standing behind him, about sixteen or seventeen years old, who was packing a pottery jar. She probably was the daughter of Old Man Yang, and she looked pretty. When she heard Old Man Yang's words, her face flushed and ran away from afar.

Old Man Yang laughed, "This girl is actually shy."

Zhang Huan understood what he meant, but just smiled without saying a word. At this time, he saw a yamen run away and report something to Huang County Magistrate. Huang County Magistrate immediately looked up at him. Zhang Huan knew something was wrong, so he stood up, took out a scepter and handed it to the old man Yang and said, "Brother-in-law, I am an official in Wuwei. If the officials of Tianbao County bully you, come to me directly."
Chapter completed!