Of course, it is voluntary for widowers and widows to start a family.
Zhang is unwilling to remarry, and Huang Yi will definitely not force her.
She is very attentive and brings Lan Jinkui and Du Cuilan together as a couple.
Qi Dashan fell in love with Sun Suzhu, and the two got married under the auspices of Huang Yi.
The base area was newly established and the conditions were simple, so of course it was impossible to hold a decent wedding banquet.
Eat roast mutton and drink some strong wine to congratulate the sixty-odd couples who got married.
All the Han people in the base area had the miserable experience of being slaves. Now they not only have the status of free people but also have their own families. Everyone looks forward to a bright future.
Zhang, Qi Dashan, Lan Jinkui, Liu Shifu, etc. are all very hardworking.
During this period, he has been leading more than 200 Han people to work, not only digging out the two old wells in the original Dunbao, but also digging a new well and building more than fifty underground nests.
The public toilet requested by Huang Yi has been put into use. Of course, it is not a flush toilet, but a relatively primitive dry toilet.
The crops are all dependent on fertilizer, and public toilets can accumulate a lot of farmyard fertilizer.
He Jiye, Liu Shifu and others have been collecting fertilizers. They have accumulated a lot of sheep dung and horse dung. Cow dung is not fertilizer, it is fuel, and it also needs to be collected.
Huang Yi has solemnly handed over the corn, wheat, and rice he accidentally brought from 2021 to Zhang.
He also told her to take care of and grow the food herself.
Huang Yi is not sure whether the food he bought to feed the pigeons is a genetically modified crop, so he cannot be sure whether it will germinate.
We can only hope that these are the seeds reserved by farmers on their own land.
Seeing that Huang Yi attached so much importance to it, Zhang understood that these were the fine seeds Huang Yi had brought back from Franji Country, and she immediately felt a heavy responsibility.
She stated that she would discuss with Liu Shifu, He Jiye and other farming experts to avoid losing all the seeds due to one wrong method.
She would use these seeds to try planting bit by bit until she found the most suitable time and method.
Just corn, wheat and rice, they are all ordinary crops with no special requirements.
Seeing that Zhang was so serious, Huang Yi was worried that if all genetically modified crops did not germinate at all, it would severely dampen Zhang's enthusiasm.
Huang Yi wanted to help, but unfortunately he didn't know how to farm, so he could only explain some common knowledge about growing corn, wheat, and rice that he downloaded on his mobile phone.
Of course, the vocabulary related to modern agriculture must be rephrased, and all content related to mechanical farming is omitted.
Seeing that Mrs. Zhang listened carefully and took notes in detail, she looked trembling with fear.
Huang Yi is even more worried that all the seeds are genetically modified products and are impossible to germinate, making Zhang, who is responsible for this matter, feel guilty.
In order to take precautions, Huang Yi stated in advance that these seeds had traveled across the ocean for too long and might have died long ago.
However, Ms. Zhang didn’t think so. She knew that seeds had strong vitality and it was impossible for them not to sprout unless they were boiled.
Modern agriculture cannot be explained to an ancient person!
Huang Yi could only smile bitterly and pray in his heart, praying for God's favor and at least allowing the corn seeds to germinate.
The corn, rice and wheat were all bought to feed the pigeons while visiting the Daxinganling Scenic Area.
Heilongjiang Province is a major grain-producing province, and farmers who speculate that sales should not purchase food from far away.
Since it is locally grown food, it is of course a cold-resistant variety.
Zhangjiakou's latitude is closer to the south than Heilongjiang Province. If these seeds can germinate, it will bring unexpected surprises.
Because even though the yield of corn was limited in ancient times without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the yield of corn could be doubled or even three or four times that of wheat.
The main reason for the chaos in the late Ming Dynasty was hunger.
Food is so important!
How much food is destined to feed how many people.
Therefore, Huang Yi must do everything possible to obtain grain, and he must strive to obtain an increase in grain.
The grain purchased in Zhangjiakou with real money and silver is definitely not an increase and will not alleviate the food crisis of the entire Han nation.
However, when wheat fields are reclaimed and wheat is grown outside Zhangjiakou, it will be an increase regardless of the amount.
Because there were no such fields outside the mouth.
If a large amount of cold-resistant corn with a yield three to four times that of wheat fields is planted in the base area, it will be possible to "cultivate one and leave two" or even "cultivate one and leave three" within three years.
This means that only a quarter of the families in the base area can farm to ensure full meals.
Three-quarters of the population can mine, smelt iron, burn bricks, lime, and cement without farming, and can also sell the output of the base area to Guannei and Mobei.
The strongest teenagers are, of course, educated warriors.
The initial stage of great development requires group cooperation. The management methods adopted by Huang Yi are similar to those of later generations of the Construction Corps and People's Communes.
Public ownership has proven to be more cohesive when resources are scarce.
In just one and a half months, the large framework of the base has been formed, and a large room that can accommodate 200 or dozens of people to gather and listen to stories has been built.
At that time, Wang Baishan, Qi Dashan, Lan Jinkui and others thought that with this big house, all the people in the base area could come here to listen to the family leader's lessons.
Unexpectedly, the change was too rapid, and the head of the family brought back hundreds of people.
It seems that a more spacious house will be built.
Huang Yi is not going to mobilize everyone to build another big house with logs and stones.
Instead, let them dig as many wells as possible.
The characteristics of the basin are rich in groundwater.
In the winter, other construction is difficult to carry out, but it does not affect well drilling.
After all, the proportion of frozen soil accounts for less than five percent of the total depth of the well.
The well-drilling teams led by Huang Dashuang, Huang Daquan, He Jiye, etc. were actually constructing indoors.
This is not a joke, it was Huang Yi who instructed them to build a large yurt where the well was dug. The difference from the yurt used as a house by the Mongolians is that the door is wider.
With the yurt, the well-drilling teams who take turns can rest by the fire while working, which makes the workload much less severe.
The same purpose of digging wells was to take precautions. Droughts often occurred in the north in the late Ming Dynasty. Huang Yi had no way of knowing whether droughts would occur in the north of Zhangjiakou.
The river that crosses the basin originates from the Yanshan Mountains and will basically not dry up, but when it encounters a drought, the water volume will definitely drop significantly.
Drill more irrigation wells and irrigate the fields not close to the river. Even if there is a drought that occurs once in decades, all farmland will not be harvested.
The walls of the well are built with collected stones, which are local materials.
Therefore, drilling a well basically only costs labor. Now Huang Yi has a lot of labor in his hands, but there is relatively little work to do.
Therefore, twenty well-drilling teams were formed, with each team consisting of twelve young and middle-aged men plus a woman responsible for cooking. They first dug 200 irrigation wells some distance away from the river.
The north of Zhangjiakou has abundant sunshine, floods are rare, droughts are common, and the frost-free period is sufficient for the growth of crops.
As long as irrigation water can be ensured, a bumper harvest is basically in sight.
