After the autumn harvest, we have to concentrate on digging canals, repairing water cellars, reservoirs, and digging wells.
All in all, during the Little Ice Age, we could not rely on the weather. We had to manage small watersheds and store the water flowing out of the Yanshan Mountains.
The north is most susceptible to drought. As long as water can be stored and money and labor are invested in digging wells, food production can be guaranteed.
There is no shortage of groundwater, coal, limestone and slag here. Cement is produced in large quantities and building water conservancy facilities is a top priority.
In later generations, several counties in the northern part of Zhangjiakou had a total area of irrigated land reaching one million and several hundred thousand acres, and agriculture and animal husbandry were developed.
Huang Yi didn't expect to be able to create so much irrigated land, so he could only choose basins with good conditions to start with, and tried to spend a year or two to cultivate one to two hundred thousand acres, which was one-tenth of what would be achieved by future generations.
The yield per mu these days is incomparable to that of future generations. The irrigated land in the north that can be considered fertile is only once ripe. A harvest of more than 200 kilograms of wheat is considered a bumper harvest.
Fortunately, the sweet potatoes, potato seedlings, and seeds purchased from Xu Guangqi's Tianjin Experimental Field have worked well, and the yield per mu can reach eight or nine hundred kilograms.
Drying the sweet potatoes, processing the potatoes into potato flour and potato starch with high nutritional value, and making the sweet potatoes and potatoes into vermicelli and vermicelli can be stored for a long time.
Huang Yi knows how to process vermicelli and vermicelli.
The working people in the base area are not lacking in wisdom and are willing to work hard for five or six hours a day without complaining.
Instruct them to process vermicelli and vermicelli, teach them to use sweet potatoes and potatoes to make wine, so that the efficiency of planting sweet potatoes and potatoes is higher than that of planting wheat, millet, and sorghum, and relatively high-yielding crops can be promoted.
In any case, all acres in the base area must be planted in rotation. In the future, high-yielding potatoes and sweet potatoes will account for one-fifth of the total acres, and maize will be planted in mountainous and corner areas.
With the addition of these relatively high-yield crops, the output of more than 200,000 acres of farmland can feed hundreds of thousands of people.
From time to time, refugees and Liao people organized by Xuanda will arrive. Together with the more than 1,000 rescued Han people brought back by Huang Yi himself, the total population of the base area should reach over 30,000 before the end of this year.
Even if it doubles next year, it will only be 60,000 to 70,000.
The self-produced grain in the base area can not only satisfy the needs of full stomachs, but also save tens of thousands of stones in surplus grain.
With surplus grain, we can accept more refugees, Liao people, and refugees, and we can cultivate more fields, dig out more coal and iron ore, and mine more stones...
The base area has naturally entered a virtuous cycle. With more people, hunger has been eliminated, physical fitness has improved, there are more soldiers, and the army has become more combat effective.
With the support of increasingly powerful force, the base area will certainly become larger and larger, and there will definitely be more and more land available for cultivation!
This is the benefit of being based on the vast outside world.
The late feudal dynasty was accompanied by polarization and serious land annexation.
Is land reform easier said than done?
The Han people regard land as their lifeblood, regardless of whether they are rich or poor.
If you want to overthrow the feudal landlords and divide the fields in the Ming Dynasty, you can only think about it in your dreams.
Quite different from the outside, Huang Yi's strength is growing, and this year he will be able to enclose land at will within a hundred or two hundred miles of the base.
You can cultivate wherever you like, and you don't have to look at people's faces or pay taxes.
Next, Huang Yi will definitely not be satisfied with not having to pay taxes. He will set up a government to collect taxes, and the taxes will be collected from the civilians and used by the military!
The people with the best treatment in the base area are the military personnel.
It takes a lot of money and food to raise a strong army.
It certainly wouldn’t work without tax support!
Whether it can develop healthily in the future depends on whether the foundation is solid, so a solid city is needed.
Now the four single walls of the city have been repaired, and their defense is much stronger than the wooden walls that cannot withstand fire attacks.
The south city gate tower is under construction and will be completed before the frost comes.
Huang Yi did not build official offices or mansions, and still lived and worked in the Beichengmen Tower.
After the completion of the South City Gate Tower, there will be an additional two to three thousand square meters of office building. The space is barely enough without paying attention to ostentation.
Residential residences and dormitories are being constructed in full swing. In line with the basic principle of hard work, the residences cannot be spacious, but they must be kept warm.
It is necessary to ensure that no one lives in nests, tents, or yurts after winter.
The auditorium, which can accommodate seven to eight hundred people for meetings, studies, and performances, is basically completed. Five silos have been completed in the grain depot, and five more are under construction. There is no pressure to store 50,000 shi of grain during the autumn harvest.
After spring plowing is completed, silos must be built. Grain reserves must be carried out in the base area. In the future, the grain storage must be maintained for at least one year.
The monthly output of Lumi guns and bird guns has increased to more than 70 guns last month. Qi Dashan and Lan Jinkui stated that the monthly output will definitely exceed 100 guns, and the monthly output can reach 120 guns by the end of the year.
Flintlock guns were called self-produced guns during this period, and the base area had been developing and trial-producing them. The person in charge was Qi Xiaoshan.
It's just that the test product's fire rate is too low to even reach 50%, and it cannot be mass-produced and installed in the army.
Identifying problems and continuous improvement are ongoing. Huang Yi's requirement is that the anger rate should not be less than 80%.
Qi Xiaoshan can already write five to six hundred words, understand the drawings drawn by Huang Yi, and is also learning drawing.
He often shoots flintlock guns with Wang Baishan, Zhang, Zhao Yong, Li Wanquan, etc., scrapping certain parts and replacing them with improved ones, and continues shooting until the barrel is scrapped.
He, Zhao Yong, Wang Baishan and others all felt that flintlock guns were more convenient and practical than matchlocks, and they were all looking for the disadvantages of having a fire rate of less than half, hoping to soon create a product with a fire rate of more than 80%.
They had all seen and tried the unique minigun and marveled at the ignition wheel.
Qi Xiaoshan, Lan Jinkui and others certainly hope to imitate this kind of ignition device.
Not only blacksmiths and carpenters brainstormed, but jewelers who could process jade also participated. Unfortunately, it was just a superficial product, and only one or two sparks could be produced after ten turns.
This fire rate is still lower than the flint impact firing device of the flintlock gun, so it was abandoned.
Under Huang Yi's personal guidance, two sets of artillery casting molds have been completed, one for the three-pounder and the other for the six-pounder.
The reason why they didn't start casting cannons was because Liu Han, Qi Dashan, etc. were unsure. Everyone was waiting for Huang Yi to come back and make the final decision.
After Huang Yi checked the recyclable mold he designed against the information on his mobile phone, he found no obvious errors.
This kind of mold is composed of eighteen steel modules, and the inner wall is lined with quartz sand. After it is used once, it can be continued to be lined with quartz sand before the second use.
He asked Liu Han, Lan Jinkui and others to boldly try the cannon casting method of using a hollow model, introducing cooling water into it, and solidifying the iron barrel from the inside out. Don't worry about failure. If it doesn't work once, just try it twice or three times...
