After Xiao Zhong left, Lü Tu carried a hoe and walked to the distant saline-alkali land. He dug for a while and then breathed a sigh of relief.
The saline-alkali land is not deep; half a meter below is sand. This means that less gypsum is needed than one might imagine, and the improvement process doesn't take too long. If the weather cooperates and there are several heavy rains, the improvement process can be accelerated.
The displaced people who were clearing the land saw that Lü Tu had no airs at all, and even carried a hoe to dig the land himself, so their impression of Lü Tu improved more and more.
They've seen plenty of officials who claim to be close to the people, but this is the first time they've seen one who truly lives up to that.
At this moment, Lu Tu returned the hoe to the displaced people who were clearing the land. Only then did he notice that two or three people still needed to work hard in front of the oxen, and he couldn't help but frown.
He called out to the dark-skinned, thin man: "Stop!"
The man stood there dumbfounded, holding the bull's nose, scratching his head in confusion: "Sir, what is it?"
Lu Tu looked at the plow behind the ox and asked, "Why is it a straight-shaft plow?"
Upon hearing this, the surrounding refugees were even more bewildered, and asked in confusion, "Sir, we have always used this kind of plow."
Lu Tu shook his head: "That's not right!"
He squatted down to inspect the straight-shafted plow. The plowshare alone was nearly a meter long. No wonder it was so heavy that even an ox couldn't pull it, and it required two or three strong laborers to do so.
Has no one in this world invented the curved plow? That's incredibly difficult! No wonder people all over the Great Yu Dynasty are starving.
"Sir, is there anything we can do for you?"
Lu Tu waved his hand dismissively: "It's alright, everyone continue. You three carry this plow back to the village!"
With spring plowing just around the corner, the lack of a curved plow will definitely reduce efficiency significantly.
It's not his fault for being negligent; previously, everyone had very limited arable land, and a straight-shafted plow could easily plow it for two days.
Carrying a plow, he went to Hu Delu's blacksmith shop: "Old Hu, come here!"
Hu Delu was yelling at an apprentice, "You're so stupid, you can't even forge iron properly! Try harder, did you not eat?"
Hearing Lü Tu call him, he jogged over and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the towel around his neck: "Sir, what are your orders?"
Lu Tu pointed to the straight-shafted plow on the ground and said, "Change this for me first."
"How can the plow be improved?" Hu Delu's ancestors had made countless plows over generations, but they had never thought that there could be any way to improve this thing.
Lu Tu called the refugees away, then beckoned to Hu Delu: "Come here, I'll tell you."
Pointing to the plow, he said, "Cut this piece into a curved shape and reduce its length by half."
"Why is that?" Old Hu, ever the curious child, pressed on.
Lu Tu smiled wryly. If he didn't explain the principle to Lao Hu clearly, he might not be able to succeed.
Lu Tu simply grabbed a wooden stick and stuck it diagonally into the ground: "Look, it's going straight down one meter now. It's too much effort to loosen the soil."
"But if we make this area into an arc shape, with a curved tip pointing straight ahead, wouldn't it save a lot of effort?"
Upon hearing this, Hu Delu suddenly stood up, slapped his thigh, and exclaimed, "My goodness, sir, you're amazing! How could you even think of something like this? How is your brain even structured?"
Lu Tu was secretly pleased with the flattery. He coughed lightly and said, "It was just a sudden inspiration during the inspection. I'll draw up the blueprints for you. Take a look and see if you can make any improvements."
"OK!"
The two pondered on the ground for an hour. Hu Delu always had a spirit of research when it came to ironware, which Lu Tu greatly admired.
After finalizing the shape of the curved plow, Hu Delu promised that he would definitely make more than 30 curved plows within two days and have more than 30 oxen pull them.
With his assurance, Lü Tu breathed a sigh of relief and thought to himself that going out for a walk had indeed revealed the problem.
Besides spring plowing, he has many other things to do right now. The sanitation issues mentioned earlier also need to be addressed. Recently, as the weather has been getting warmer, a faint smell of urine has been lingering in the village, which makes him very uncomfortable.
Lu Tu came to the group of refugees, pointed to more than 30 people, and said, "Come here carrying hoes!"
More than 30 refugees obediently followed behind, arriving at the outer edge of the training ground, the area where the previous refugees had lived, surrounded by a large number of simple wooden houses.
Lu Tu pointed to a spot and said, "Dig a big, deep pit here."
"My lord, how deep should it be?"
"One zhang!"
"Huh? It has to be this deep? Who are you burying alive?"
Lu Tu glared at him: "Stop talking nonsense! Hurry up."
The refugees swung their hoes and dug with all their might.
Lu Tu planned to build several large latrines in the village so that villagers wouldn't be allowed to defecate indiscriminately.
Firstly, there's the issue of hygiene; secondly, the excrement can be used as fertilizer for spring plowing.
Both of these are necessary. Putting aside the fact that indiscriminate defecation is very smelly, the key concern is that as the population grows, people will eat more and defecate more, which could lead to an epidemic.
Another hour or so passed, and the 30-plus strong laborers finally dug a large pit measuring 10 by 3 meters. They all sat in the pit, panting heavily, looking as if they wouldn't even bother to move even if Lu Tu were to bury them alive.
Seeing their expressions, Lü Tu couldn't help but laugh and said, "Hurry up and come out. Do you know what we dug these up for?"
The strong laborers laughed and said, "Sir, as far as I can see, this is definitely for burying the bodies of the Wuhuan people you kill later."
"It's also possible they were burying the Huai Shuo border troops next door. I think those bastards are even more despicable than the Wuhuan people!"
Lu Tu laughed and said, "This will be the latrine from now on, for holding excrement and urine."
Upon hearing this, the men turned pale and quickly got up, but having just finished heavy work, they were no match for the three-meter-deep pit.
In the end, it was the people above who pulled them up.
Lu Tu then directed them to dig dozens of smaller pits in the pit: "After digging, have people saw the logs into planks and seal the large pit."
"Sir, the plank isn't that long."
Lu Tu couldn't help but scold, "Idiot! Don't you know to put wooden stakes in the middle of the pit as pillars? Go find me a few carpenters!"
The refugees were indeed a diverse group, and these artisans shouldn't have ended up as refugees.
However, there is a history of the Great Yu Dynasty where a certain emperor died on the spot because a broken chair pierced his buttocks.
Therefore, from then on, the status of artisans in the entire Great Yu Dynasty plummeted to rock bottom, and they could no longer hold their heads high. Their status was even lower than that of merchants.
Even those carpenters who mingled with the refugees and did manual labor wouldn't dare say they were skilled. If they hadn't witnessed how Lu Tu treated craftsmen like Hu Delu, they wouldn't have admitted to being carpenters.
Lu Tu discussed things with the others for a while, just then Xiao Zhong returned.
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