Female-to-male: I live on farming

Taiyuan County is the closest county to the main city of Cangwu. Qin Ke can reach there in one day by riding a horse with Lei Zhong. He had already done work before coming, checking the population registration of Taiyuan County and the land tax revenue in previous years. The tax revenue of Taiyuan County has been unacceptable for many years mainly because the registered land area is very small.

Most of the existing land was held by a few families, and most of the people in the county could only become tenants of those family landlords, or work or hunt outside to make a living.

After Qin Ke arrived in Taiyuan County, he first went to the county government office with the token. When the magistrate of Taiyuan County, Zhu, saw the princess's handwriting, he hurried out to greet him. Qin Ke heard the princess comment on this man, saying that he was mediocre in ability, but timid and obedient.

Qin Ke didn't waste time and directly explained his purpose. County Magistrate Zhu immediately arranged for his advisor Li Zuo to take them to inspect the various towns and villages below. The roads in the towns and villages were rugged and uneven, not to mention that Taiyuan County was full of mountains.

In fact, strictly speaking, most of the roads in Liangzhou are dirt roads. Even in Cangwu City, the main city, only a few streets near the Princess's Mansion are paved with blue bricks. If you want to get rich, you must build roads first. Qin Ke certainly knows this truth, but now he has a lot of things to do.

Liangzhou had many industries waiting to be developed, and everyone had heavy tasks on their shoulders. Qin Ke could only put the road construction on the back burner. Moreover, road construction required a huge amount of funds, and the current Liangzhou treasury could not afford it.

If he had not been there in person, he would never have seen the poverty of the people; if he had not personally inspected the area, he would not have been able to actually understand the conditions of the arable land here.

Several people rode their horses forward, the sound of horse hooves rang out, raising clouds of dust. They got closer and closer, and when they were near the village, some curious villagers began to notice their figures.

The villagers stood at their doorsteps or by the fields, staring at the strangers. They saw these people riding horses slowly approaching, wearing brocade long gowns, and they were obviously from wealthy families.

Some people who had dealt with the county government before recognized Master Li who was following behind, and they tilted their heads and whispered to each other, guessing the identity of the person.

"Where is the village chief of your village?" Master Li got off his horse and grabbed a middle-aged man wearing a coarse cloth shirt and asked.

The middle-aged man had heard the conversation of other people in the village and knew that this person was the legal advisor of the Taiyuan County Government. He smiled and said hurriedly, "The village chief should be at home now."

"Go and call the head of your village quickly."

While they went to call the village chief, Qin Ke silently looked at these villagers. Most of them had sallow complexions, thin bodies, and tattered clothes. When the cold spring was not over yet, many villagers were only wearing straw sandals that had no warmth retention function at all, and their toes were frozen red.

Moreover, most of the houses were earthen houses built with a mixture of mud and straw, and the roofs were covered with thick straw, which could barely keep out the wind and rain. After observing all this, Qin Ke frowned. This place was much poorer than he had imagined. There were not even a few brick and tile houses to be seen.

Qin Ke had just looked away when the village chief came running over. Hearing that someone was coming from the county government, he didn't dare to delay for a moment.

"This is the Minister of Agriculture of Liangzhou. He has come to Taiyuan County for inspection and guidance specially ordered by the Princess." Master Li introduced them.

When the village chief heard that Qin Ke was sent by the princess, he became more cautious.

"Let's talk while we walk. Show me the arable land conditions in your village, and then give me a brief introduction to the arable land conditions in your village." Qin Ke didn't want to show off, and time was urgent, so he directly stated his purpose and got to the point.

Upon hearing this, the village chief hurriedly walked in front of him, leaning sideways to lead the way for him, and said, "There are a total of 56 households in our village, with a total of more than 100 acres of land, with an average of less than 2 acres per household. Many of them can only rent land for farming, and the grain they grow each year is barely enough to pay the tax. They can only go to the mountains and forests to dig up some wild goods and sell them in the county town to make a living."

Qin Ke frowned when he heard this. There were really too few fields. No wonder the villagers lived in such poverty.

At this time, Qin Ke had followed the village chief to the fields of their village. As soon as he took a look, he immediately understood why the cultivated area was so small.

Qinghe Village, where they lived before, was located in a plain area and could be directly reclaimed for cultivation. However, although Taiyuan County did not have high mountains, it was mostly mountainous, with only a portion of it being pure flat land, and the rest being mostly sloping land. Therefore, they had so few registered farmlands here.

The slope is high and there is no water for irrigation. If it rains, it will flow down the slope and the slope cannot store water.

But the silver lining is that the mountains here are relatively low and the slopes are mostly gentle. Qin Ke once traveled to Yunnan when he was in college in his previous life and visited the terraced fields there with his classmates, so he had some understanding of this.

He knew that terraces were best built on a slope with an inclination angle of less than 25 degrees, but he knew for sure that he would not get an answer if he asked the village chief, and he was too lazy to explain to them what the inclination angle was, so he simply walked closer and took a rough measurement to get a feel for it.

Lei Zhong and Master Li looked at him squatting there and gesturing in confusion, not knowing what he was doing, but no one dared to ask.

Qin Ke got a satisfactory answer and clapped his hands. He didn't care about the mud on his clothes. He turned his head and looked at the village chief and asked, "Where is the water source in your village?"

Upon hearing this, the village chief immediately led him to the river. On the way, many villagers saw the few people. The village chief, with a stern face, drove the group of villagers who were watching the fun aside.

When they arrived at the river, there were many women or unmarried girls washing clothes by the river. Some of the girls blushed instantly when they saw Qin Ke, who was well-dressed and handsome.

Qin Ke looked straight ahead, concentrating on observing the terrain here. He also took out a booklet from his pocket and made some simple notes. At this time, he had to mention the convenience of charcoal pencils. They did not need to be ground, he could just take them out and use them.

In order to better observe the terrain, he walked upstream along the direction of the river, found a high place, and stopped only when he could overlook the entire village. Lei Zhong saw that he was busy recording with full concentration, and was afraid that he would accidentally fall, so he followed him closely.

Seeing him act like this, Master Li had a general idea of ​​him. It seemed that this person was not like the usual officials from higher levels who came down to do a formality, but he had rules and regulations, did not exchange pleasantries, and got straight to the point of doing things.

Although the village chief was not well educated, he could see that the Si Nong in front of him was a pragmatic person, and maybe he could really change the plight of their village.

After Qin Ke finished drawing the terrain of the place, he refused the village chief's invitation to keep them here for dinner, casually ate some pork jerky and biscuits, and hurried to the next village.

The village chief looked at his dusty back as he rode away on his horse, feeling mixed emotions.