Chapter 305: Chapter 54 Expansion! The Great Development of Ping’an Town
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Liua Gaowang, the father-in-law of Wang Shouzhe, fiercely winked at him.
Even though you have a good relationship with the people at the Academy, how can we in Ping’an Town possibly handle the influx of forty thousand people?
Chen Dewei from the East Port Chen Family also looked at Wang Shouzhe with some concern. Isn’t the current total population of Ping’an Town only forty thousand?
Faang You’an looked deeply at Wang Shouzhe, his eyes showing a hint of being moved: "Junior Brother Shouzhe, I can see your determination to solve the problem. But these forty thousand people are ultimately too many. We can still consider other solutions."
Faang You’an had come this time with a major task, and as the Inspector General, if this disaster relief inspection is not handled properly, it will also affect his future development. How could he not be moved by Wang Shouzhe’s cooperation?
"Senior Brother Yoou’an, since there is a problem, we must solve it." Wang Shouzhe said earnestly, "Our Wang Family has stored some grain over the past two years. If we purchase some more from other places, we can barely support forty thousand refugees for one or two years. Just at this time, our Ping’an Town needs to dredge the rivers, reinforce the dikes, and there is overall a lack of manpower in the territory."
"Very well. Since Junior Brother Shouzhe is so determined," Faang You’an said, "I will advocate on behalf of Junior Brother to strive for a three-year tax exemption for Ping’an Town. Brother, you can collect the full tax as usual for your own use." If he could make such a proposal, he must have some confidence, and it is a way of reciprocating.
"Thank you, Senior Brother Yoou’an." Wang Shouzhe clasped his hands in gratitude.
"What spirit, what courage," Lei Qiwei from the Lei Family praised, "Since Younger Brother Shouzhe has such spirit, our Celestial Human Lei Family cannot lag behind, and will take an additional five thousand people."
Other families also expressed their willingness to take in more refugees.
Among them, the Shanyang Gongsun Family, the Shanyin Liu Family, and the East Port Chen Family. All received a subtle hint from Wang Shouzhe and finally gritted their teeth to take in an additional ten thousand people collectively.
Under the leadership of Wang Shouzhe, what was initially a very difficult refugee problem was resolved smoothly.
Faang You’an’s mood suddenly improved immensely, and he raised his spirit wine: "In the face of disaster, it’s heartening to see our Changning Guard stand united. On behalf of those refugees, I thank everyone here for stepping up to take responsibility."
With this situation, everyone was naturally delighted.
After this welcoming banquet.
The entire Changning Guard entered emergency disaster relief mode.
And under a decision by Wang Shouzhe, the Ping’an Wang Family went into full operation, embarking on a grand plan.
Clan members, household generals, outstanding branch family members.
All poured into the work at hand.
Expanding temporary refugee camps, redirecting grain supplies, organizing the intake of refugees, registering them, as well as making various subsequent arrangements.
Of course.
Once the refugees settled down a little, the Wang Family would organize them to either build dikes or dredge the waterways.
In Wang Shouzhe’s large planning model of Ping’an Town, the future waterways were interconnected in a network, requiring the excavation or expansion of some new channels.
His plan was to gradually transform the entire Ping’an Town into a granary with countless fertile fields.
As the head of the family, he naturally only needed to manage the major aspects and make overall arrangements.
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Xingsheng Farm is one of the main foundational farms of the Wang Family.
After continuous development and expansion, compared to ten years ago with less than four thousand acres, Xingsheng Farm now boasts seven thousand acres of fertile land, nearly doubling in size.
Then, by this time, Xingsheng Farm had entered a development bottleneck, making it difficult to scale up quickly.
The reason is simple; it is surrounded by hills and mountains. The terrain suitable for irrigation has already been developed.
What remains are highlands where converting them into farmland makes irrigation a major issue. If water resources were manually transported, the production costs would be so high, not even the Wang Family could bear it.
Issues like this developmental bottleneck have spread throughout Ping’an Town.
After long-term development and Wang Shouzhe’s cultivation incentives,
now throughout the entire Ping’an Town.
The Wang Family owns more than sixty thousand acres of clan fields, comprising thirteen farms of various sizes. The rest of the land owned by commoners totals over one hundred thousand acres.
Altogether, it totals one hundred seventy thousand acres of fertile fields, ranking among the top three in the entire Changning Guard region.
If further development is desired, it can only be achieved by making the less arable terrain suitable for farming.
Ping’an Town is surrounded by mountains, and its internal land also consists mainly of hills of varying elevations. In a total area of roughly four thousand square kilometers, more than seventy to eighty percent comprises hilly and mountainous terrain unsuitable for cultivation.
In the face of so many hilly landscapes in Ping’an Town, the best solution Wang Shouzhe could think of was the terracing model.
Agriculture in this world has also developed for a long time. Developing terraces in such hilly areas is not an original idea by Wang Shouzhe; there are many similar records in the Academy.
Yet in this world, terracing is not mainstream, nor even considered niche.
The reason is simple: the cost of developing each acre of terraced field is several times that of ordinary farmland, the difficulty of farming is also higher, coupled with transport and irrigation challenges.
This results in the production cost per unit acre far exceeding the purchase price of grain.
Given this situation, which Noble Family would develop terraces?
On this day, Wang Shouzhe arrived at Xingsheng Farm.
The current manager of Xingsheng Farm is a female collateral relative named Wang Juan. She has been intelligent from a young age and studied at the Clan Academy in the Wang Family’s Main Residence, and has since continuously developed within Xingsheng Farm.