novelaction 第220章 3天1小刨，5天1大锄
第220章 3天1小刨，5天1大锄
What exactly causes this situation? In fact, it is mainly due to the following reasons.
The first point is to clear away the weeds that are tangled and intertwined on the wasteland.
These weeds are extremely tenacious and must be removed bit by bit using farm tools and hands.
This requires the people to dig a little every three days and dig a big hoe every five days until the surface soil is loosened and all the grass that has emerged is dug out.
However, even though it is so hard, people still dare not use fire to deal with these weeds as they did in the past.
why?
It turns out that the government has issued clear instructions, emphasizing that setting fire to open up wasteland will not only damage the moisture and nutrients in the soil, but even if the land is reclaimed, it will be difficult to grow high-quality crops.
There was no other way, so the people had to behave themselves and be honest, swinging their hoes one after another to turn over the ground beneath their feet.
Moreover, even if the weeding and tillage work is finally completed, the newly reclaimed land cannot be used for growing crops immediately.
There is also a key issue here, that is, there are many stones buried in the ground.
These stones are of different sizes, and if they are larger, they must be picked out using special tools;
As for those small stones, only the most primitive method can be adopted - people have to bend down, squat down, and pick them out one by one with their own hands.
Just completing these two steps requires considerable time and manpower.
Secondly, another key factor that must be mentioned is the trouble brought about by this geographical location.
You know, not every wasteland is close to a water source.
For those wastelands far away from water sources, just running back and forth several times a day to irrigate them would make people exhausted. How could they have the extra energy to cultivate the barren land?
As a result, the land reclamation project was naturally hindered.
What's worse is that when people devote all their time and limited manpower to reclaiming wasteland, they have no time to take care of spring plowing.
After all, missing the busiest and most critical spring plowing season of the year undoubtedly means that for the people who make a living from farming, they can only tighten their belts and wait anxiously for the next farming season in the days to come.
In short, the land reclamation policy proposed by Xiao Heng had a very good starting point, but it seemed a bit hasty in its actual implementation.
Moreover, he failed to fully and deeply understand the customs and habits of the local people, as well as their laziness, which ultimately led to the current slightly embarrassing situation.
It didn't take long for the news to spread in the court, and many ministers began to talk about it after hearing it.
Some of the ministers believed that those unruly people were born with blessings but did not know how to appreciate them, and they should be made to pay more taxes. Only in this way could they be motivated to work hard to reclaim wasteland.
Other ministers argued that the interests of the landlord class must be protected, and the tenant system must not be greatly impacted by the new land reclamation policy, and this group must not be disheartened.
Whether it is the view of supporting increasing taxes or the view of safeguarding the rights of landlords, they actually more or less reveal a common view - they all feel that the land reclamation policy implemented by Xiao Heng this time ended in failure!
Especially those officials in the Ministry of Revenue who were specifically responsible for land management and tax collection made the most noise. Their voices rose one after another, making the entire court noisy.
Xiao Heng, who was sitting on a high seat, listened to the various arguments coming from below, and his face became increasingly gloomy and ugly. In the end, this court meeting could only end hastily in an unpleasant atmosphere.
In fact, even Shen Qingge felt very uncomfortable.
After all, everyone has always been working hard to make Lingnan prosperous, but unfortunately, neither she nor Xiao Heng is engaged in agricultural production, and ultimately lacks relevant practical experience.
Simply blindly referring to the successful policies of others does not guarantee that they will be fully suitable for local conditions and can be directly applied. Instead, they need to be guided by the specific local conditions.
It has to be said that this was the first major setback they encountered in policy implementation after arriving in Lingnan.
Immediately, their eyes met, as if they had telepathy, and they thought of the key to solving the problem at the same time - they must explore more deeply to find the root cause that was hindering the smooth progress of the land reclamation work.
Although they had the same goal, they chose different paths of action, each moving in the direction they believed was right.
As a decision-maker, Xiao Heng chose to sit at the desk and began to read a large number of policy documents from various places regarding land reclamation and farmland management.
Not only that, in order to obtain more valuable information and experience, he also specially borrowed many agriculture-related books collected in Shen Qingge's space and read them eagerly.
On the other hand, Shen Qingge quickly organized a capable team and personally led them deep into the fields to listen to the real needs of the ordinary people at the bottom of society.
Shen Qingge changed out of his usual clothes, put on a simple linen dress, picked up a heavy hoe, and like a real farmer, led Cangyu and a few others straight to the outskirts of the city.
When they arrived at their destination, a vast scene appeared before their eyes, with an endless expanse of barren land stretching as far as the eye could see.
Unfortunately, the number of ordinary people working hard on this land is quite limited and seems sparse.
What is even more worrying is that many of these few people lack motivation and often lie down on the ground to rest after digging a few times.
Seeing this scene, Shen Qingge and his companions exchanged a few glances and then walked towards the fields.
Soon, they noticed a middle-aged man lying lazily on a pile of earth, with his legs crossed, smoking leaf tobacco leisurely.
Shen Qingge came forward and asked in a puzzled manner:
"Brother, I see there's a lot of good wasteland around here, why don't you work harder to reclaim it?
This way, we can plant more crops and increase our harvest.”
After hearing Shen Qingge's question, the man looked her up and down.
The woman in front of him had a pretty face and fair skin. He could tell at a glance that she was a delicate young girl who had not done much farm work. Maybe she was a poor daughter of an official's family.
He then gave a slightly disdainful smile and replied in a rough voice:
"Little girl, I'm not saying anything bad about you, but you're so young, how can you be so naive?
Don't always be fooled by the so-called preferential policies issued by the government.
Although the policy sounds good, we poor people don’t have the blessing to truly enjoy it!
Before we can even cultivate these wastelands, we will probably be exhausted to death!
Instead of working so hard, it would be better to be an honest tenant farmer like I did back then, and live a more comfortable life!"