Chapter 364 Look at Her Rivers and Mountains
Unlike the joy and warmth of the Lu family, the Xirong Palace was plunged into grief.
The Queen of Xirong has been bedridden for the past two years.
The Xirong Emperor was worried that she would not be able to bear the news of her third son's death, so he kept the news of Qi Hongshen's death a secret.
But the news could not be concealed.
When Queen Xirong learned that her son had died of the plague, she immediately spat out a mouthful of blood and said, "Call Zong'er back."
Qi Zhuanyu hurriedly hugged the Queen of Xirong and almost begged, "I will call him back right away. You must hold on and wait for him to come back."
But the Queen of Xirong could no longer speak, and when the imperial physician went to treat her tremblingly, she was already dead.
Qi Zhuanyu was deeply saddened. Before he could recover from the blow of the queen's death, he received news that Lu Shiyan had sent troops to attack the city they occupied in the Great Zhou.
Qi Zhuanyu thought of his beloved wife's last words before she died, closed his eyes in pain, and sent a message to Qi Hongzong, telling him not to fight any more and not to take the cities he had captured from the Great Zhou, but to return safely to Xirong with his troops.
Qi Hongzong knew in his heart that compared with Lu Shiyan's military strength, Xirong had no advantage at all.
In the Great Zhou, although many cities were deserted, Lingnan, Bohai County and other places developed very well under the governance of the Lu family.
And their Western Rong was in a state of devastation.
The whole country, even Xiacheng, was plagued by famine and plague. At this time, there was no spare energy to fight against it.
Thinking about this war, they, the Xirong, invested so much, but in the end, they gained nothing, but ended up with the death of their third brother and the downfall of their country.
He sighed in his heart, thinking that the battle between the Western Rong and them was in vain.
However, he did not admit defeat, and only hated that even the heavens were on the side of the Great Zhou.
In his opinion, if it weren't for the drought that occurred later, the Western Rong might have eventually conquered the Great Zhou.
But at this point, it's too late to say anything.
In the end, Qi Hongzong lost nearly 20,000 soldiers and fled back to the Western Rong. Even smaller states like the Rouran had already abandoned their cities and fled when they realized the wind was blowing in the wrong direction.
At this point, the ownership of all cities in the Great Zhou Dynasty returned to their hands.
Although the city was restored, it was in ruins.
The cities that were recaptured were basically empty.
The common people who had fled to Lingnan, Cangwu and other places earlier stayed there and refused to leave.
As a result, a very strange phenomenon appeared on the territory of Da Zhou.
Most of the population is concentrated in Lingnan and other places.
Cities like Datong, once prosperous capitals, are now sparsely populated.
Jiang Tangtang was not panicked by this situation.
She decided to spend a week riding Gugu to take a closer look at the land that would soon belong to her.
At that time, it was already February, and some places were still covered with ice and snow, but in some places, the ground was already covered with green grass.
If it were not for the war and the successive disasters, and the people had not fled everywhere, by this time, the local farmers would have already taken their farm tools and started preparing for spring planting.
Now, these lands are barren.
Many houses in the village have collapsed.
Looking at this piece of land, Jiang Tangtang said with great ambition: "I want my people to live and work in peace and contentment, and never have to flee famine again."
Lu Shiyan took her hand and said, "Let's work hard together."
"Let's go! Let's go see some other places." Jiang Tangtang deliberately let Gugu fly lower and slow down.
Only after seeing it with her own eyes did she realize how desolate the outside world was.
Sometimes, they would not see a single person for most of the day. In the villages they passed, nine out of ten houses were empty.
Uncollected corpses lying on the roadside were commonplace, and many once prosperous capitals were now in ruins.
In the end, Jiang Tangtang didn't want to watch anymore.
You can guess this situation without even seeing it.
War, natural disasters, and later plagues caused a sharp decline in the population of the Great Zhou. This was because most of the refugees had previously gathered in places like Lingnan, so the impact was not as obvious.
She feels that given the current situation, it is definitely impossible to quickly restore farming everywhere.
Let’s recruit refugees to farm on the higher-yielding plains first!
Next, the question is how to coax these refugees away.
As the exam was to begin this month, Jiang Tangtang chose how to lead the people in developing the northern plains as one of the exam topics.
In addition, Jiang Tangtang gathered people from the Ministry of Agriculture together to encourage them to use their brains, improve agricultural tools and improve efficiency.
Jiang Tangtang did not put all his hopes on others. He took time every day to read books in the bookstore and look for knowledge about agricultural tools.
Jiang Tangtang actually found a book about farm tools in the bookstore. She immediately gathered the craftsmen and planned to work with them to research and make some practical farm tools.
Farmers in Lingnan, Cangwu and other places have already returned home to prepare for this year's spring plowing at the beginning of spring.
Although growing sea rice in the bay is a good job, most farmers still want to have their own land.
Just because of the drought, many people's land has been left barren for nearly two years. Planting crops now is like just getting the wasteland, and everything has to start all over again.
Many farmers went to the government to inquire whether there were any policies that would benefit the people.
Jiang Tangtang was indeed thinking about how to help farmers resume farming quickly.
There was a drought in the past two years, and ordinary people basically could not afford to raise cattle. The farm run by Jiang Tangtang bought all the cows back to the farm and did their best to raise them.
Thanks to the grass and spiritual springs in Jiang Tangtang's space, this batch of cows survived well.
In addition, there are cows raised by Jiang Tangtang in the space.
These cows could be put to some use.
Jiang Tangtang decided to send these cows out for business, renting each cow for a few cents a day.
As for how much it costs per day, I still need to think about it carefully.
This price needs to be carefully considered; it cannot be too high, or no one will be willing to hire a cow.
However, the price was difficult to determine, and some extremely poor families were reluctant to spend even a few cents. In the end, Jiang Tangtang decided to use the autumn harvest to pay for the rent of the oxen.
The fact that people can use cows without having to pay money first has made many families willing to rent cows to plow the land, and has greatly improved farmers' work efficiency.
Soon, the countryside in Lingnan regained its vitality.
When Jiang Tangtang was busy organizing the Creative Invention Competition and helping the people resume farming, some of the old officials of the Great Zhou were dumbfounded.
They had never seen such a rebellion.
They were not active during the war, but focused on developing local agriculture, the economy, and sheltering refugees.
Now the world belongs to them, yet they are not in a hurry.
If it were someone else, he would have been impatient to order the Ministry of Rites to prepare for the coronation ceremony.
But what about Jiang Tangtang and Lu Shiyan?
Not only was he not in a hurry, he was also handling various trivial matters in Lingnan at a leisurely pace.
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