Allure of a Country Maiden
Chapter 890 - 888_1

Chapter 890: Chapter 888_1

Jingrui, hearing this, did not hide anything and directly stated his plan before arriving.

Shangguan Xuanyi nodded as he listened.

The south has a lot of rain and a long flood season, which Jingrui happened to encounter, so the construction of water conservancy facilities and dams are necessary.

After all, they were just earthen dams. If they were washed away by river water, it would be the common people and crops that suffered.

With the advent of concrete, it was destined that earthen dams would gradually be replaced.

The construction of a concrete dam is a big deal. First of all, how such a dam can resist the force of floods is a technical issue.

But with all he has learned from Xiao’er over the years, who taught him a lot about construction engineering and structural mechanics, he’s sure he’ll have no problem reinforcing existing dams.

Actually, the basic construction of a place includes things like road repairs, bridge construction, and water conservation work. Developing the economy and providing a stable and prosperous life for the people is the ultimate goal.

These are things that each new official will strive to do when they take office.

Although they share the same goal, each has their own method.

How to develop the economy and allow the people to live and work in peace is of utmost importance to a magistrate.

Jingrui proposed several ways to help the people build wealth, one of which was heavily praised by Shangguan Xuanyi.

In the Minze Dynasty, sugar in the north is made from beets, and in the south, it’s made from sugarcane.

For some reason, there are fewer sugar factories in the south that use sugarcane, and they only produce ancient brown sugar and granulated sugar, yet the price of sugar in the south is double that in the north.

Jingrui planned to encourage people to grow more sugarcane, and he intended to find a place nearby to establish a sugar factory and a paper mill.

The sugarcane harvested by the people would be directly collected and sent to the factory for juice extraction and sugar processing.

The remaining cane residue would then be sent to the paper mill to be made into paper.

"This plan is good. By building the factory close to where the sugarcane is grown, a lot of transportation costs would be saved while also ensuring the freshness of the raw materials. In addition, by building the paper mill near the sugar factory, those cane residues can be fully utilized," Shangguan Xuanyi nodded approvingly after hearing this.

Growing sugarcane will increase the income of farmers, and setting up factories will provide job opportunities for those without farmland. Once people start earning money, their lives will gradually improve.

As for the sugar produced, Jingrui is not worried about its sale. First of all, they have supermarkets in all major counties across the country, and secondly, they can sell it overseas. Conveniently, this place is also not far from the seaport.

"If factories are to be built, we should diversify our sugar offerings. We can produce granulated sugar, crystal sugar, brown sugar, sugar cubes, coarse granulated sugar, brown cane sugar, black sugar, and so on."

"There are so many types of sugar?" Shangguan Xuanyi looked at Xiao’er, puzzled.

Jingrui gazed at Xiao’er, his eyes full of admiration. He knew that when he brought it up, Xiao’er would definitely come up with even better suggestions.

"Of course!" Xiao’er was somewhat excited. Sugar is a necessary part of life. Even though it’s not expensive, it’s definitely a volume-based business. They wouldn’t have to worry about finding buyers. She was very interested in this business.

"Brother, let me take care of the factory. I’ll put you in charge."

"If you want to manage it, that’s fine, but you don’t have to put me in charge. I’m already quite busy." Jingrui immediately declined the offer. He couldn’t take advantage of his sister for no reason!

"My time here will be short, and the factory will essentially rely on you, brother, to keep an eye on it in the end. So don’t refuse. Does anyone else have any other ideas?" Xiao’er didn’t allow Jingrui to decline and quickly changed the subject.

"I remember you once said, if the Imperial Court can nationalize the land and then uniformly distribute the land to each household, it can not only better motivate the people’s enthusiasm for production, but also quickly solve the problem of the people’s livelihood. I think this policy of land distribution can be tried out in Zhenyang County."

The previous county magistrate of Zhenyang County was incompetent and was impersonated by someone. That imposter did all sorts of evil things, corruptly seizing many landlords’ land, and even exterminated their families. Because of this, there are now many unowned lands in Zhenyang County, all of which are under the control of the Imperial Court. The Imperial Court can take this opportunity to try implementing land distribution.

After hearing this, Shangguan Xuanyi pondered for a moment before saying: "I have thought about this too. It’s impossible to implement it in every part of the country, but the current situation in Zhenyang County is special, so it’s indeed feasible to try this out."

The current situation in the country is that most of the land is controlled by a small group of wealthy people. This is a typical case of land concentration.

Households that have one or two acres of land are already considered well-off. Many commoners rely on renting land from landlords to survive.

In the past, the yield of grains was low, and even if a commoner’s family had one or two acres of land, it was not enough to feed the entire family.

They also needed to rent land from the landlord to get by.

But now the grain production has increased. For those families with land, even if there are six or seven people in a family and they only have one or two acres of land, they do not need to worry about starving to death.

Those who have several acres of land have so much grain that they can’t finish it all. Every year, they can sell a lot of grains, and even use the grains for poultry feed to earn some money by selling more livestock.

"Brother, how do you intend to divide it?" Xiao’er indeed brought it up once, but at that time, she knew that this method was not feasible here. However, she didn’t think that she had only casually mentioned it once and both of them had taken this matter to heart.

"Divide it according to the number of people in each household. Each person will get two parts of land."

"Good! Two parts of land per person are enough. Second imperial brother, do you have any thoughts on this?" Shangguan Xuanyi nodded after hearing Jingrui’s words.

"I have discussed this with King Xian, and he agreed. I think whatever works, just go ahead and do it." After hearing Shangguan Xuanyi’s words, Jingrui couldn’t help but twitch the corners of his mouth. What could King Xian have thought? Before he set off, he sought Jingrui out and directly asked him to manage Zhenyang County as much as he could, almost as if he wanted Jingrui to take care of everything.

However, as a magistrate, what he really wanted was to be the county magistrate of Zhenyang County, a place full of challenges.

Because of this, when King Xian asked him to help strategize for Zhenyang County, he agreed to do it.

Seeing Jingrui’s expression, Xiao’er guessed that Shangguan Xuanhao wanted to throw responsibilities off his shoulder.

The man had zero interest in anything other than herbs. When he was granted his fief, he asked Xiao’er to help come up with a way for the people of his fief to build wealth.

She then proposed growing yellow dragon fruit, to which he responded with just one word: "Good."

After that, there was no follow-up. He never sent people to investigate the actual situation of his fief. Otherwise, how could they only discover the large issues in Zhenyang County after arriving there!

Anyway, Shangguan Xuanhao was uninterested in anything other than medical matters. He was always pushing responsibilities onto others.

Xiao’er was used to this.

The emperor was deeply disappointed with this son, too!

Shangguan Xuanyi could only sigh at his imperial brother: "Since he has no opinion, you can go ahead and try."

"Yes," Jingrui nodded.