Of course, although Liu Bei thought this was a bit too extravagant, he did not directly dissuade him, because whether it was extravagant or not did not mean much to Chen Xi. Sometimes Liu Bei carefully considered his current living standard and compared it with the two emperors Huan Ling. To be honest, Huan Ling felt aggrieved.
Liu Bei is still relatively simple, but his wife Zhang and his concubine Wu Yuan will do some very outrageous things from time to time. For example, Zhang will buy some fresh seafood from time to time to supplement Liu Bei, and Wu Yuan often comes from Rome. Import some weird stuff.
The local value of these gadgets is not outrageous, but to transport them to Chang'an, they still need to be able to move around. To be honest, the difficulty is very ridiculous.
Anyway, Huan Ling would definitely not be able to eat it. The best thing Emperor Ling ate in history was recorded as Hu Biscuit. This stuff was made with sesame seeds, walnuts, etc. imported from Europe. It was considered a very high-end stuff. However, After Chen Xi came to power, walnut cakes, peanut cakes, pistachio cakes, and sesame cakes were sold everywhere.
The price is not too low, but it is much cheaper than what Emperor Ling used to eat as a tribute, and the quality is much better. Even during festivals, such as the Mid-Autumn Festival this year, Chen Xi and Liu Tong hooked up in private and made a large amount of peanuts. It turned into peanut cake, and then when the moon cakes were distributed, Emperor Ling knew it, but he didn't know what he thought.
So whether to be extravagant or not, Liu Bei didn't discuss it much with Chen Xi. Liu Bei at least considered the changes of the times. Chen Xi was too buggy in this aspect.
"Wait, Mr. Xuande, what are you thinking about?" Chen Xi scratched his head and realized what was going on with Liu Bei. It seemed that Liu Bei thought he was a little extravagant again.
"It's not for me to eat, I mainly want to improve these fruits." Chen Xi looked helplessly at Liu Bei and said, "The cantaloupe used to be only as big as a finger, but now it is as big as a fist. This is to increase production, okay. "
"There are also oranges. They used to be small and astringent, with many seeds and a tree. Now after research by a professional team and various pruning branches, flower thinning and fruit thinning, grafting improvement and other methods, the number of fruits has become less, but The overall yield has increased, the taste has become better, and there are fewer seeds." Chen Xi scratched his head and looked at Liu Bei and said helplessly.
"So this is not extravagant. This is the same theory of increasing agricultural production as Han Mou. These things require technological improvement, investment in manpower and resources. It is impossible for God to just drop a finished product..." Chen Xi explained to Liu Bei with gestures. road.
However, Chen Xi was silent as he spoke, because he remembered some magical plants, such as wild rice, a common rice in ancient China, which is slightly different from current rice. The fruits of this thing are long and strip-shaped. It is several centimeters long. It was a very orthodox mainstream food during the Shang, Zhou and Spring and Autumn Periods, but was eliminated later.
Because this thing was infected by a certain fungus, it changed from rice to a vegetable that eats stalks. The wild bamboo shoots that Chinese people often eat now are the stalks of wild rice, which was once the staple food.
From a certain point of view, this thing is really because God saw that human beings are too noobs and directly gave up a reliable finished product.
Therefore, God is still very reliable, at least occasionally he gives enough face.
"Well, God may still drop some finished products occasionally, but we still need to improve and apply them to make these things more delicious and increase production. After all, after the soil fertility problem is solved, increasing production is very important." Chen Xi said righteously.
Liu Bei was silent for a while and nodded. If this was the case, then Chen Xi's behavior was undoubtedly correct. So Liu Bei took another orange and studied it, confirming that this thing was indeed bigger and sweeter than before. It can be regarded as understanding Chen Xi's way of thinking.
"Sharpening the knife is as good as chopping wood. If you want this thing to be bigger and more delicious, you have to invest enough time and energy." Chen Xi said with a smile, "But in my opinion, this investment is completely worth it. The human resources of thousands of people are very important, but if the output is greater than the loss of resources caused by thousands of people, then it is worthwhile, after all, this kind of thing is a continuous output."
Chen Xi also wanted to have more than a dozen cookies, improving all kinds of mainstream fruits, vegetables, fungi, herbs, grains, etc., but this was not realistic, so Chen Xi could only rely on a huge team to pile them up. The cost-to-output ratio is far inferior to cookies, but it’s better than not doing it at all.
"If this is the reason, then it is indeed very sufficient." Liu Bei nodded and said, rather than doing these things for the sake of food and drink, bringing this kind of righteousness for the people will be very convincing to others. .
Chen Xi nodded silently. To be honest, the meaning of his improvements was more for better food. For the sake of all people, it was just to popularize it after taking the previous step. Chen Xi's thinking in some aspects is close to Xiangli's. He also Acknowledging Sori's popular theory, if a thing can only be used by nobles, it is not correct in any case.
"Lieutenant, the Anguang County Magistrate has prepared supplies and is waiting for a banquet ahead." Just as Chen Xi and Liu Bei were chatting, Huang Tao appeared in front of them. The recent scouts and investigation teams already included Huang Tao and Su Zong. Take over, both of them have ridiculous mobility.
"Anguang County Magistrate, let me think about it, Huan Zhi, right?" Liu Bei recalled for a while and said, "I arranged for him when I passed by here."
"A soldier?" Chen Xi asked curiously.
"How many people do you think I know besides soldiers?" Liu Bei curled his lips and said. Chen Xi thought for a while and nodded, that's true.
"But he is a soldier, shouldn't he be a county captain? How could he be a county magistrate?" Chen Xi asked curiously.
"Jiaozhou used to be a remote and remote place. Why did we arrange so many people to do it? So when no one came, we let him temporarily hold the position of county magistrate as a county captain." Liu Bei was not embarrassed at all.
"That's it, it should be developed now." Chen Xi nodded and said. Jiaozhou was at a great disadvantage, but after the port was opened, it took off very quickly. Coupled with the sugarcane plantations and the climate-friendly places, this place The situation won't be too bad.
"I don't know. Even if I came to Jiaozhou last time, I didn't come to a place like this." Liu Bei shook his head and said, "Speaking of which, Huanzhi is actually from Jiaozhi, so he was fine when he was sent back here. I’m happy, but I don’t know what’s going on now.”
Chen Xi's mouth twitched when he heard this. The so-called Jiaozhi people are actually Vietnamese in later generations. No wonder they didn't mind coming here to be the county magistrate before this area developed. For the Jiaozhi people, it was actually already It’s considered a move north.
"Let's go and take a look when passing by. We have a lot of people. The counties in Jiaozhou may not be able to provide sufficient supplies like the previous counties." Chen Xi said.
After all, there are more than 7,000 people, thousands of carriages, thousands of cattle and horses, people eat and horses chew, and the consumption in a day is not small. The counties in the north are relatively prosperous and have complete supplies. When it comes to Jiaozhou, these counties can provide food. It would be difficult to provide others.
However, when the army arrived in Anguang County, Huan Zhi and more than 300 people had already prepared sufficient supplies and local specialties.
During this period, when Liu Bei greeted Huan Zhi, Chen Xi clearly saw Huan Zhi's eyes light up at that moment. It was obvious that Huan Zhi never thought that Liu Bei actually knew him. To know that he should have only met Liu Bei twice, and said it before and after. Less than three sentences.
So Huan Zhi was obviously very moved, so he almost took off his official robe as a county magistrate, picked up his weapons and went to the Ganges River with Liu Bei. Unfortunately, he was dissuaded by the veterans brought by Liu Bei and the junior officials who came with him.
Relatively speaking, Huanzhi's strength has not kept up with the trend of the times. It was indeed good to hear it at first, but he has been busy dealing with political affairs in recent years, and some of it is just training. He is not bad at doing odd jobs. If he beats this group of veterans who follow Liu Bei, Huanzhi is Really can not.
"What we are rich in here is sugar cane juice, and here is sugar cane wine. We in Anguang County don't produce anything else. This can feed everyone. It just so happens that you are here in season." Huan Zhi took a spoon and scooped out a bowl. Sugar Cane Juice greeted the veteran.
The main purpose here is to grow sugar cane, and there are many plantations. Chen Xi's positioning here is to grow sugar cane. Sugar is not only a bulk commodity, but also a war preparation material. No matter from any aspect, it is very worthy of large-scale reserves. .
However, the problem now is that no matter how the Han Dynasty set up plantations, there was not enough sugar.
On the one hand, the Romans eat sugar without a bottom line, and on the other hand, the people in the Central Plains eat sugar without a bottom line. The sugar factories are working hard to produce not enough for these two consumption. Therefore, the Han Dynasty has also been advancing on the sugar cane plantations, but this The effect is not very good.
Let’s talk about a ridiculous fact. In later generations, Chinese people will eat an average of 30 kilograms of sugar a year. However, this data is actually lower than that of European and American countries.
Therefore, Huan Zhi invited the veterans to drink sugar cane juice next to the juice pressing factory. With such a strong foundation of his own family, how could he manage to satisfy himself?
This group of veterans really had a great time drinking sugarcane juice with a heavy sugar taste, sugarcane wine with a light sweetness, and various fish and coconut products that are specialties of Jiaozhou. The veterans were very happy after eating, which means that they will wait until they come back. Still have to pass by.
"It seems that the development here is really good. Although Huan Zhi was a little confused, he really didn't look embarrassed. Moreover, the quality of fruits, vegetables, meat, and rice was basically the same from beginning to end, and the supplies were very sufficient. Liu Bei said with emotion.
Meals for more than 7,000 people are not easy to prepare, and what Huanzhi serves are all hard vegetables with little moisture. The meat is meat. The sugarcane juice is also freshly squeezed, and the wine is also brought in cart after cart. These are not things that can be taken out casually. They all require strong material reserves to be taken out without hesitation.
