Tang Dynasty Xie Lu Lang

Chapter 422 A Spark
The visit of the County Princess of Yunyang greatly pleased Zhang and his wife, who wholeheartedly approved of this dignified and polite young woman. When the county princess left, Madam Yuan couldn't resist getting into the carriage with her and seeing her off for quite some distance outside the village before returning in her own carriage.

“This county magistrate is dignified and elegant, and handles matters properly. With her help, my grandson can have no worries about family affairs.”

Zhang Shuo also gave the county princess a very high evaluation, while reminding Zhang Dai, "You are not on good terms with the clan members. If you want to avoid any trouble, you should try to persuade Consort Hui. If Consort Hui agrees, there will be no obstacles from the Emperor."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Dai quickly nodded in agreement, as he had also considered this point.

Although his kinship with Consort Wu Hui was not particularly close, their friendship had grown stronger over the years. His audacity in repeatedly provoking Prince Ning and Prince Xue stemmed not only from his understanding of the Emperor's intentions but also from the support of Consort Wu Hui.

Especially as Prince Shou grew older, he needed someone to bolster his position. At present, the position of Crown Prince in the court was still secure, and the people of the time were still attached to the historical burden of Wu Zhou replacing Tang. As a result, even Prince Ning, who raised Prince Shou to adulthood, did not support Prince Shou's active involvement in the political situation. Zhang Dai, his young nephew, became a very important and capable assistant to Consort Wu Hui.

Therefore, if Zhang Dai were to marry a woman from the imperial clan, Consort Wu Hui would be happy to see it happen. Zhang Dai also planned to take some time to inform his aunt about the situation and try to gain her support.

With substantial progress made in his personal affairs, Zhang Dai's career also saw considerable advancement. Following the acquisition of the Wei family's Xiaoyao Garden, Li Xia and Dou E, through their diligent efforts in recent days, also successively acquired other smaller plots of land on Fengqi Plain, thus forming a vast wasteland of over twenty hectares.

The construction of the tea plantation is a long-term project that will have a significant impact on Zhang Dai's future plans. Now that the foundation for its implementation has been laid, Zhang Dai naturally wants to accelerate its progress.

He specially set aside a day to invite Meng Haoran, who had already moved into Zhang's house, and several business partners to go to Fengqiyuan in the south of the city together.

The Guanzhong Plain has a long history of agricultural development, and the area around Chang'an City is the core of the fertile Qin River Valley. However, due to excessive reclamation and cultivation, the Guanzhong Plain is no longer a flat plain, but has formed a series of plateaus.

These plateaus were mainly formed by water erosion, but due to excessive cultivation, various problems have arisen, such as declining soil fertility, soil compaction, and even salinization. As a result, large areas of wasteland have appeared in the nearby southern part of the city.

These wastelands are typically barren and lack sufficient water for irrigation, making cultivation unprofitable even if undertaken. After all, modern agricultural techniques are far less advanced than those of later generations, especially the absence of chemical fertilizers to boost yields, which means the land itself has a decisive influence on agricultural production.

That said, if these lands were still fertile and bountiful, the difficulty for Zhang Dai to acquire them would undoubtedly increase many times over. To put it simply, apart from the imperial gardens and the old Qian family mansions, even powerful eunuchs like Gao Lishi had to go to the north bank of the Wei River to seize farmland in this area south of the city.

"The Wei family's Xiaoyao Garden is truly magnificent, with over a hundred rooms and grand halls. The materials used in just this guest hall alone must have cost more than a thousand strings of cash. You two are truly heartless, only willing to give the Wei family that much money!"

Li Xia rode his horse into Xiaoyao Garden and, upon seeing the vast and magnificent garden, couldn't help but exclaim in delight.

Although his family was also related to the royal family, their family background was incomparable to that of several more prestigious princes.

Their family was descended from Li Ke, the Prince of Wu, son of Emperor Taizong of Tang. However, they suffered a great misfortune during the reign of Emperor Gaozong. Li Jiu was extremely cruel to Li Ke, his half-brother. After killing Li Ke, he exiled all of Li Ke's sons to Lingnan, and even transferred the lineage of the Prince of Wu to another family. It wasn't until Empress Wu Zetian massacred the Li clan that the Prince of Wu's branch was reinstated, which could be considered a blessing in disguise.

Although their branch of the family regained their social status, they had lost all their homesteads and properties. The political situation remained tense and turbulent, and the family lived cautiously, not daring to invest heavily in other properties. It wasn't until the Kaiyuan era that the situation began to improve.

Therefore, Li Xia was also a poor boy. He saved up some money by living frugally and invested it all in starting a business with Zhang Dai. The tea garden had not yet been built, but Zhang Dai and his team had already managed to acquire such a large industry almost without any investment. This naturally made Li Xia very excited.

"You all have your own things to do, so from now on I will take charge here and oversee the construction of the tea garden! I'll take over this Xiaoyao Garden, brothers, please have pity on your little brother!"

In order to enjoy the beautiful mansion, this kid shamelessly begged Zhang Dai and the others in a humble manner.

Zhang Dai had no objection to this. This residence was a shared property, regardless of who lived there, and he didn't have time to stay here for long anyway. It was best if Li Xia was willing to come and handle the trivial matters.

In any case, once the tea plantation is built, it will likely take three to five years to become truly profitable, during which time intensive construction and investment will be required. Zhang Dai also has to navigate the treacherous waters of officialdom, vying for power, so he naturally has no time to attend to these matters.

The Wei family's Xiaoyao Garden is indeed quite large. Having such a garden villa for living and storage saves a lot of preparation work in the early stages.

While he was still figuring out where to recruit enough workers, the families of those conscripted in Tongguifang were busy building houses and couldn't attend to the construction here. Moreover, Fengqi Plain had been abandoned for decades, and completely renovating it would be a rather arduous task. At this moment, Meng Haoran, who was inspecting the plain, also arrived at the village. He was still covered in grass and wood debris, but he didn't have time to clean himself up. He first went to Zhang Dai and said, "The terrain of this plain that Liulang chose is quite good. There are at least a dozen acres that can be used to make tea gardens. Don't cut down those big trees on the plain yet. Before the tea trees take root and grow, they especially need these trees to provide shade and stabilize the soil..."

Tea trees prefer moist conditions but are not tolerant of waterlogging, so they usually grow in the southern slopes of mountains with abundant rainfall and good drainage. The climate of Guanzhong itself is not suitable for the cultivation of tea trees.

However, there are also drought-resistant varieties, such as Pu'er tea, which grows slowly due to the lack of water during the budding process, allowing various components to accumulate over a longer period of time, resulting in a richer flavor.

However, tea cultivation and commercialization are still in their developmental stage, and mature techniques for tea cultivation have not yet been developed and summarized. As a pioneer in the industry, Zhang Dai also bears the responsibility of breeding and selection.

Meng Haoran, being knowledgeable and experienced in tea cultivation, suggested that there were several types of tea trees in Shannan that were not too demanding in terms of soil and water, but the situation of their cultivation in Guanzhong remained to be verified.

"The topsoil still needs to be deeply plowed and finely tilled to prevent compaction. Then, beans and wheat will be intercropped, without harvesting, and the soil will be turned over and allowed to decompose..."

When talking about transforming this wasteland into a suitable place for tea cultivation, Meng Haoran spoke eloquently, showing that this Meng Shanren was not just a bookish man who did not engage in physical labor, but also had very rich farming and horticultural skills.

To transform this wasteland into a tea garden, a layer of organic compost needs to be artificially created; tea trees cannot be planted directly on it. When Zhang Dai asked Meng Haoran to stay and guide the transformation of Yuanling, Meng Haoran agreed without hesitation.

With a true expert like Meng Haoran in charge, Zhang Dai felt much more at ease. As for Li Xia, who insisted on staying at Xiaoyao Garden, he could serve as Meng Haoran's assistant.

As for how to recruit workers for the tea plantation, Zhang Dai had an idea: mainly recruit border soldiers who were on leave. The Long March soldiers were not the same as the Fubing soldiers; one was a recruited army, and the other was a hereditary army. The biggest difference was that Fubing soldiers usually owned residential land and property, while Long March soldiers might not.

Just like the border soldiers who had been harassed before, the Long March soldiers were generally in a relatively disadvantaged economic position. If they had farmland to work on, they would not have abandoned their families to enlist.

Although they can receive certain subsidies after enlisting, the actual implementation is often inadequate, with deductions, delays, and even demands for repayment, and the income is far from enough to cover the expenses of the entire family.

Border defense and local administration are separate systems, and local officials do not offer extra preferential treatment to the families of those conscripted for this reason. Furthermore, without their primary breadwinner, these families often find themselves in dire straits.

In the later years of the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras, due to the continuous escalation of border wars, the imperial court simply sent these conscripted families to the frontier for settlement and farming, which brought about a series of negative consequences.

As time went on, these soldiers who migrated to cultivate the land and their families either became the personal soldiers of border generals or were reduced to slaves of Hu chieftains. Those who fared well might become the elite troops of the Hebei warlords in the future, but in reality, most of them were worn down by internal strife and war.

If we want to recruit more soldiers to work, the kind of introduction through acquaintances that Chen Dong used before is no longer suitable, as it is too inefficient and has too limited coverage.

Pei Dunfu, serving as an assistant minister in the Ministry of War, possessed detailed rosters of these border guards on leave. With this information, recruiting them directly from the counties and townships would undoubtedly be much more efficient. Furthermore, the families of these border guards were perfectly capable of handling the daily planting and maintenance of the tea gardens.

Currently, these people are still employed. If the tea garden operates well and is profitable in the future, and a stable border trade sales channel is established, the tea garden can be divided into small plots and distributed to these families, who will be responsible for production, while Zhang Dai will only be responsible for purchasing, processing, and reselling.

Zhang Dai, this mover of wealth, not only used his own money to help the poor, but he also hoped to use his own efforts to take back the means of production that were monopolized by the old money and redistribute them to the real laborers.

One or two, three or five, things will never always go smoothly, but as long as he perseveres, those groups who need his help now will eventually become his strong support in the future.

Of course, simply giving gifts cannot unite a scattered populace into a powerful force with a fighting spirit. Even an old beggar in the neighborhood, starving, would be moved to tears upon hearing the songs and dances and the congratulations from all nations at the Xingqing Palace during the Qianqiu Festival. This is the power of education.

Zhang Dai suddenly felt it necessary to form a troupe of entertainers to tour his various businesses, using popular songs, dances, and acrobatics to promote his efforts in providing livelihoods for those in weaving workshops, boat guilds, tea plantations, and other similar industries.

(End of this chapter)