Chapter 31 Chen Hu Returns

[Recite the URL three times silently. Do you remember it? If not, I will ask you again in the next chapter. It would be best if you could share it on Facebook for me]

"Let the households plant more sweet potatoes on the newly reclaimed dry land." Qin Hao, who was sitting on a wooden table reading documents, reminded Zhuge Xuan, who was writing furiously next to him.

Qin Hao simply loves sweet potatoes. When he first counted the grain, he found sweet potato pieces, and then he realized that many people have started to plant this crop.

Sweet potatoes are a food artifact. Even the poorest soil can produce much more per mu than growing grain.

For ordinary land, even if no fertilizer is applied and not cultivated carefully, the per mu yield in one season is about 2,000 jin, and one mu of land can feed a family of three or four people.

If this crop was planted, even the Little Ice Age would not have caused so many refugees and bandits to appear in the Ming Dynasty. Unfortunately, the Ming Dynasty did not reap this bonus.

You should know that this thing was brought to the Ming Dynasty by missionaries during the Wanli period, but unfortunately no one cared about it. It had to wait until the glorious Qing Dynasty before it was widely planted, creating a prosperous era of Kangxi and Qianlong, where people grew up eating sweet potatoes.

"Got it!" Zhuge Xuan kept writing and only responded lightly.

It's not that he didn't know the importance of this matter. As early as the beginning of the land division, Zhuge Xuan used a written order to force all households to plant sweet potato seedlings on the other half of the land that was reclaimed, that is, the land that Qin Hao sealed.

And he also asked all households to dig cellars now, so that they can be stored conveniently after the sweet potatoes are harvested.

You should know that although sweet potatoes have a large yield and are delicious, one of the disadvantages is that they are difficult to preserve, especially in the summer of Taiwan Island. They will sprout in less than a month, and then they can no longer be eaten. However, as long as they are dried and stored in the cellar at low temperature, they can be kept fresh for up to 5 months.

Now he is very busy with these things. Not only does he have to calculate the number of acres of land in each village and allocate quotas, but he also has to remind the households what to do and what not to do. Later, he will go to Zhulin Village to deal with a dispute between Han and Gaoshan.

Qin Hao knows that he is working hard, but he doesn't care, so he lets him go.

These days, Qin Hao is not idle. He is either in the villages he is inspecting or staying in the station in Pingyuan Village to learn how to handle government affairs with Zhuge Xuan.

Rewarding good and punishing evil, various military positions, official positions, and silver laws, these should be known to some extent, so as not to make a fool of himself when handling problems in the future.

After a few days, Qin Hao has learned a lot and knows the difficulties and problems of these government officials.

At present, there are two major problems.

First, there are too few people.

Only Zhuge Xuan and Li Guo can handle it. There are basically no talents in this area in the village. There are not even a few scholars. They are all rough men. All affairs are on the two of them. If Qin Hao hadn't come to help these days, it would probably be a big deal.

Second, there are too many things and too complicated.

Don't think that Zhuge Xuan is like the officials in the late Ming Dynasty. He sits in the hall every day to read documents, listen to complaints, let the yamen runners do some work, and then he can handle things cleanly, and then go back to the yamen to drink tea and play games with his concubine.

Zhuge Xuan has not rested for an hour in the past half a decade. He has been pulling Li Guoma to inspect and divide land between villages, and arrange some households to start moving land.

At the same time, if there are any conflicts between households, they will handle and mediate.

Zhuge Xuan complained to Qin Hao about this matter, saying that there are too few talents and life is too difficult.

But Qin Hao had no choice. Now the territory is so small, there are no talents, so he had to comfort and give verbal rewards in the future.

Fortunately, Qin Hao arranged a few maids to take care of his daily life these days, so that he didn't worry about food and clothing, and he devoted himself to government affairs.

These maids were the women rescued from the mountain. They were originally planned to weave cloth, but later they found that there were no ready-made tools and no one could do it, so they were left alone. Anyway, they could afford it.

Later, Li Guo mentioned that there was no one to take care of His Highness, which made Qin Hao think about it. After thinking for a while, he stuffed all of them to Zhuge Xuan to take care of them. He did not keep any of them for himself, and the cavalry soldiers took care of them.

"When the power is big, go to Jiangnan to buy hundreds of beautiful ones, and change one every day." This is Qin Hao's real idea. He thinks these women are not attractive enough.

"Your Highness, Lord Chen Hu is back." Just when Qin Hao was dreaming about the spring dream of the Ming Dynasty, a guard outside the door reported.

"Hmm"

Qin Hao put down the paper and responded, turned around to look at Zhuge Xuan, and did not mean to disturb him. He got up and ran to the door to greet him.

Standing not far from the village head, he could see the strong figures of Chen Hu and the cavalry soldiers.

"Your Highness, I pay my respects to you." After the ceremony of participation, Chen Hu stood in front of Qin Hao with his hands down.

As expected of a son of a famous family, he became energetic after being preached. This time, he returned victoriously, and his etiquette was just right, without any transgression.

"Let's talk about it when we get back." Qin Hao looked at the many captives and supplies escorted by the cavalry soldiers with satisfaction, and was very satisfied.

"Congratulations"

Walking to the lobby, Zhuge Xuan finally put down the brush in his hand, stood up and greeted, and complained with a smile, "There are too many things to do recently, so I'm sorry I can't talk in detail."

After carefully packing up the documents, he put the brush between his ears, begged for mercy again, slowly left the lobby, and walked out quickly.

"It seems that Lord Zhuge has been working hard these days." Looking at Zhuge Xuan's back, Chen Hu said solemnly.

"Let's not talk about him first, let's talk about how you have been these days." Qin Hao knew that it was not easy for Chen Hu, who led the troops to the mountains to suppress bandits alone.

Although Qin Hao gave him many elite soldiers, this time was different from the time when Qin Hao first came to the mountains to suppress bandits. At the beginning, he took advantage of the moonlight to sneak attack the largest group, laying the foundation in one fell swoop.

But this time, although Chen Hu's number of people was small, they were all small fish and shrimps, but they were scattered in various corners of the mountains, many of which were dangerous places and not so easy to attack.

"Following the order of His Highness, we will suppress the bandits. Because the leaders of the bandits have been killed before, this trip was very smooth. We broke through 12 mountain strongholds, eliminated 54 bandits, and captured 302 people.

In addition, there are all kinds of supplies, 12 cattle, donkeys and horses, 220 kilograms of silver and copper, more than 50,000 kilograms of grain, and 23 pieces of silk and cotton cloth." Chen Hu said lightly.

Qin Hao saw the new scar on his face and knew that it was not as easy as he said, and he had also experienced bloody battles.

"Thank you for your hard work." Qin Hao knew that it was not easy for him these days. At the same time, the soldiers who were sent to report in advance also told Qin Hao that these materials were real data, Chen Hu did not embezzle a penny, and his character was not a problem.

At first, Qin Hao wanted to take the opportunity to preach to Chen Hu, but he didn't expect that there was no such opportunity. Chen Hu did not have the decadent ideas of the officers of this era, and he was precious to die for his country.

"Are there any losses of soldiers and horses?"

"Except for one person who was slightly injured, there were no losses of men and horses." Chen Hu reported truthfully, and he was also happy with the result this time.

When Qin Hao handed the soldiers to him, he was also a little worried, fearing that these soldiers would be unruly and disobey the general's orders.

Unexpectedly, this did not happen along the way. When attacking the mountain stronghold, he was even more brave and invincible, killing with every sword and shooting with every gun, and killing and surrendering with almost no effort.

Chen Hu admired the soldiers entrusted by His Highness, and secretly compared them with the Qi Family Army under his father's command, and found that they were far inferior. Perhaps only the Qi Family Army led by his great-uncle Qi Jiguang could have such strength.

"That's good." Qin Hao breathed a sigh of relief, looked at Chen Hu and said, "I will remember your great merit this time. When the reward system is established in the future, I will personally award it to you."

Chen Hu was so arrogant when he heard the reward that he immediately half-knelt and said, "I dare not be greedy for merit. This time, it must be that all the soldiers fought bravely, how could it be so easy."

"Hahaha, I know what you mean. There will be rewards, don't worry."

At this moment, Li Guo rode a blue-brown horse directly to the door, stumbled in, and shouted, "Your Highness, it's not good, something big happened in Zhulin Village!"

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