jdhmnovel Chapter 4 Am I merely a beast of burden?
Chapter 4 Am I merely a beast of burden?
Yang Shaofeng glanced at the eight commune leaders, prepared his writing brush, ink, paper and inkstone, and went straight to the point: "Report how many households each commune has, how many adults, how many widows, widowers, orphans and the elderly, how many people over seventy, and how many children each commune has."
"Liu Miao Village consists of only one community, with 35 households and 90 people. There are 10 widows, 20 widowers, and 10 children. No one is over 70 years old. The rest are male."
"Heshan Village, only one commune, with forty households and one hundred people..."
"..."
After the eight commune leaders finished reporting the number of households and people in their respective communes, Yang Shaofeng was completely numb.
In the vast Ningyang County, there are only 309 households in eight communities combined, with a total population of 1,338. There are no elderly people over 70 years old, but there are more than 570 widows, widowers, orphans, disabled people, and children. The rest are young adults.
shocking.
In Yang Shaofeng's memory, a village should have at least a hundred or so households to be considered decent. But now, all eight communities and villages combined only have about three hundred households, and the elderly, women, and children make up half of the population.
With such a small population, even spring plowing is a problem, let alone encouraging farming and sericulture.
Yang Shaofeng sighed slightly, put the paper he had written down elsewhere, and looked at the eight commune leaders and said, "I am already aware of the situation of your respective communes. Now that the country has just been established and everything is in need of rebuilding, and it is also the time for the army to launch a northern expedition, I'm afraid the court will not be able to attend to our affairs for the time being."
"As the saying goes, food is the first necessity of the people. After you return, you must tell the people in the village that they must work hard and not be lazy in agriculture. They must live in harmony with their neighbors, be filial to their parents, not wander around and cause trouble, and absolutely not engage in gambling."
"As the leaders of the community, you should be role models for the people in the community."
"After some time, I will personally go to each community to inspect. If any of them are found to be involved in frivolous activities, I will not punish them, but I will make trouble for you. Do you all understand?"
As Yang Shaofeng finished speaking, all eight club presidents present were filled with awe and bowed in unison, replying, "Yes, we have all remembered."
No one knew what kind of person this seemingly young county magistrate was, and no one knew whether Yang Shaofeng's claim that he would go to various communes to verify the truth was true or false.
However, based solely on the statement that "they will not question their crimes, but will cause trouble for you," the eight commune leaders sensed that the county magistrate in front of them was not so easily fooled.
After having all eight commune leaders sent away, Lame Five tentatively asked, "Your Excellency, the county's labor corps and fast-running corps are currently short-handed, and there's no one to do anything in the back office either. Why didn't you just..."
Yang Shaofeng shook his head slightly and said, "The Zhuangban, Kuaiban, and Houya all need young and strong people, but each village has a small population. It is spring plowing season now. If I force each village to send out young and strong people for corvée labor, wouldn't that delay the farming season?"
After a slight pause, Yang Shaofeng continued, "Please trouble Brother Limpy Fifth to tell the other brothers that they will have to work hard before the autumn harvest. I will find a way to compensate them later."
Limpy Wu waved his hands repeatedly, chuckled, and said, "What are you saying, County Magistrate? You love the people and are thinking about not delaying their farming season. This is the important thing. We roughnecks can't help you, but we will never hold you back."
Yang Shaofeng nodded, starting to think about what to do next.
Yang Shaofeng now faces two problems.
The two groups are: the people outside the city and the people inside the city.
First, there were the people outside the city.
The people outside the city are involved in spring plowing, but spring plowing doesn't care whether Ningyang County has enough manpower, nor does it care whether the Ming Dynasty can send officials to Shandong. In any case, when the season arrives, those who should be plowed must be plowed. If they can't be plowed, the land will be abandoned. If the land is abandoned, there will be a poor harvest, and if there is a poor harvest, there will be famine.
On the contrary, the problems of the people in the city are simpler.
Although the people in the city were still too afraid to go out, the Ming army did not massacre or loot when it recaptured Ningyang County, and now the army had left without leaving a trace. Therefore, the people in the county were no longer as panicked as they had been at the beginning.
What Yang Shaofeng needs to do now is to adopt a people-friendly approach and organize the city's residents to resume normal life and production as soon as possible.
After some deliberation, Yang Shaofeng decided to first make a plan and begin to address the livelihood and production issues of the people in the county town, as well as the spring plowing issues of the people outside the town.
“In the city, roads run east to west and streets run north to south. Each area is a community, no, at this time they should be called a lü. Each lü has a lü chief. People outside the city can’t be captured and used as cattle and horses, but people inside the city can be captured and used as ants, right?”
"I estimate that Zhu will soon issue an edict to allocate land and encourage the development of small-scale industry and commerce. This is indeed an opportunity."
"We'll open two markets, one in the east and one in the west of the city. We can also choose a place outside the city to open a market. Let's try our luck first, whether we have dates or not."
"There seems to be a coal mine somewhere. We'll have to find a way to dig it up when we have more manpower."
"Spring plowing alone is not enough; we also need to prepare irrigation canals and reservoirs, just in case there is a drought or a flood."
“The county granary also needs to be prepared, as does the grain depot.”
"It's impossible for the city to be completely devoid of hooligans; we can't give them the opportunity to grow and expand."
"..."
After a brief internal discussion, Yang Shaofeng realized with despair that compared to the people inside and outside the city, he, the county magistrate, was the biggest burden, having to face so many messy problems all by himself.
As for relying on Chang Yuchun or the Ming Dynasty court...
Forget it, that's simply impossible. Right now, the Ming army is at a critical juncture in its northern expedition. Henan and Hebei have not yet been fully captured, and we must be careful to guard against any possible counterattack from the Yuan army. In addition, the journey is long, and even if Emperor Zhu Chongba were to send officials to Shandong, it would not be possible for them to arrive in a day or two.
Before this, everything in Ningyang County depended on Yang Shaofeng, the acting magistrate, to handle.
Of course, this situation isn't entirely without its advantages.
Because all the prefectures and counties in Shandong are in a similar situation now. The better ones may have a few more people, while the worse ones may not even have a single yamen runner.
The entire Ming court, including Emperor Zhu Chongba, was well aware of the current situation in Shandong and had no hope that Shandong could successfully carry out spring plowing in the first year of Hongwu's reign.
Therefore, if a county magistrate like Yang Shaofeng, who was forced into the position, could do a good job in spring plowing, it would be considered a merit. If he couldn't do it well, it wouldn't matter much. As long as there was no mess of officials forcing the people to rebel, he could get away with it. In addition, with the effect of spending a lot of money to buy horse bones, the county magistrates in Shandong were in an invincible position from the beginning.
The only problem is that this invincible advantage of being the best position to slack off has a very short lifespan; it will expire after the first year of the Hongwu reign.
After thinking for a moment, Yang Shaofeng called over Limpy Five and then led him to the main street in front of the county government office.