The preliminary investigation in Nanandong lasted for two days. Because of Fu Oya's company, the survey team's investigation went very smoothly. [Read the latest chapter] Fashilu and Cui Yunhong are responsible for agriculture, forestry and mining respectively, while Mu Min investigates the local social conditions. Nanandong is still very rich in products:
First of all, there are various forest resources. There are large areas of forest land in the mountains. Although the original farming technology of the local people planting mountain fences has destroyed a lot, the reserves are still quite abundant. The forest-forming perennial woody cotton that Fa Shilu has been dreaming about has also appeared. ——Obviously the locals use this kind of cotton for spinning and weaving. There are also many wild banana, lychee, longan and jackfruit trees on the mountain, which are a source of food supplement for the locals. There are many betel nut trees, but they are of little use to travelers except as re-exports of trade goods.
Secondly, a large number of native rice seeds have been found in the rice fields here, which is a very useful gene bank for breeders - as long as there are enough rice seeds, new and improved varieties can be continuously hybridized. Fashilu found seventeen different rice species in the paddy fields near Nanan Village alone, and also obtained five mountain-rail upland rice species on the mountain rails on the hillside, including three varieties: indica, japonica and glutinous rice.
Hainan Island itself is the main distribution area of wild rice in China, and the genetic advantages of diversified rice species are very obvious. Lingao is China's main hybrid rice production area in the 21st century - Fashilu looked at the various samples collected and could only laugh in his dreams! The father of hybrid rice in China may be himself...
Sweet potatoes have not been grown here yet, and the people do not even know about this new crop. But they grow some other tubers, most of which are a species of Araceae. This is often used as medicinal materials in other places. Fa Shilu is not a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, but he knows that the taro in Tiannanxing is slightly poisonous - can this thing be eaten? But judging from the cultivated area, it is obviously still one of the main crops. Another common type is sweet potato, also called hairy potato.
As for miscellaneous grains, he discovered corn. Fashilu never knew that millet was grown in Hainan. After the Bairentan War, millet was included in the cereals sent by the locals. This made the entire Agricultural Committee puzzled for a while. After asking the locals, they found out that this was duck foot millet, a common cereal grain in Hainan, with a short maturity period.
In addition to grain, he also found patches of wild ramie. It seems that the Li people don't care much about agriculture. They basically let it flow, and there is no field management. Fruits, ramie and cotton are all in a wild state. They only collect and use them without any planned cultivation and cultivation.
Pigs, cows, chickens and ducks are all raised freely on the hillside, without stalls or feeding. So it doesn't look very strong, but the number of cattle is unexpectedly large, including buffalo and cattle. However, he did not study animal husbandry and did not understand the breed issues. He would send a professional to take a look later.
"It really feels like a waste," Fashilu lamented. "The agricultural conditions here are very good, but the agricultural level is only slightly better than that of primitive society."
"Don't be sad," Wen Desi patted him on the shoulder, "Let's just talk about the paddy fields on both sides of the Wenlan River. How good are they? They are far behind the farmers in our hometown."
Cui Yunhong's gains here were less encouraging. With the help of a map from another time and space, he found an important output: lignite, which was buried very shallow and could be mined. There are also some stone resources, such as small-scale reserves of limestone and perlite. But the journey was long and the roads were not good, so it was of little value. The rarest thing is the discovery of a small-scale tungsten ore vein, but it is of little use to travelers.
The Li people kept a respectful distance from this group of weird Han people. They watched them holding strange things, climbing trees, going to the fields, standing aside and painting for a long time... But the children were obviously interested in the novelty. Things have the greatest curiosity, starting from watching from a distance, then slowly getting closer, and finally starting to play with the traveler's utensils and items, and slowly started to communicate with each other. Of course, most people can't communicate with children, so they can only use a little rock candy to represent friendliness - this is what Wen Desi took care of before leaving. Mu Min had an instinctive affection for this compatriot from another time and space. She could speak Hainanese, and with the power of sugar, by the next day, she had a group of followers around her.
Seeing these children running around naked and looking like mud monkeys, Mu Min suddenly had an idea, which eventually became the first school in Li District across the country.
While the working team to Lebanon was carrying out goodwill activities, another team of travelers, led by Wang Luobin, advanced towards the Ma Niao Peninsula not far from them. The goal is to solve the salt problem once and for all.
Salt is an indispensable necessity for human survival and an important raw material for the modern chemical industry. For the time-traveling regime, they also urgently need a material that can be circulated and exchanged. In ancient societies with backward commodity economies, there was no more suitable exchange product than salt. Moreover, the salt industry here has been very developed since ancient times. Lingao faces the Qiongzhou Strait, with many branches and natural beaches. The concentration of sodium chloride in seawater is very high, generally above 1.5-2 degrees Baume. During the dry season, the temperature is high, the wind is strong, the sunshine is long, and the rainfall is less, making it a good place for sea salt production. Salt has been produced since the Tang Dynasty, when the method of boiling salt was still used. Because of the superior natural environment, Hainan's salt fields have continued to use the sun salt method for large-scale production since the Yongle period. The Yantian Village on the bank of Xinying Bay in the southern part of Hainan Yangpu Economic Development Zone is the earliest existing Japanese salt field in my country. The sun-dried salt production point is also an ancient salt field that still retains the original sun-dried salt production method. This salt farm can still produce normally.
According to the historical information available to the public, the salt field in Lingao during the Ming Dynasty was located on the Mayao Peninsula, 25 kilometers north of the county. It was under the jurisdiction of the salt field ambassador and was under the jurisdiction of the Haibei Tiju Division. It can produce "1,417 and 230 pounds of salt" every year. Based on the calculation of 300 kilograms per import, this salt farm produces more than 200 tons of salt every year, which is enough to meet the production and living needs of the public in the initial stage.
With such a rich resource, of course the crossing government must take over it quickly. Wang Luobin's task is to observe the salt-drying technology in this time and space on the spot, and consider how to use modern technology to improve and increase production-for modern chemicals, 200 tons of salt is really too little.
The equipment of the salt work team is better than that of the Li District work team. Because some salt must be transported back during the task, the entire team is completely mechanized and five agricultural vehicles were dispatched. The car bounced forward on the dirt road. After walking for almost two hours, it was rare to see a pedestrian along the road. After entering the Ma Niao Peninsula area, there were even fewer people. On the road, I saw only ruined walls and abandoned fields, as if there had been a war here. The scattered salt scattered on the road made everyone sure that they were not going the wrong way.
Wang Luobin was confused: According to the operational intelligence he received: According to historical records, there were more than a thousand salt workers in this salt field, plus their families. There was a population of at least five or six thousand people around the salt field. There should be many salt villages. But along the way there were nothing but ruins.
At noon, they found a semi-abandoned stone road. They walked along the stone road and finally found a village with cooking smoke. The houses here were all made of volcanic rocks. The alleys were deep, but many of the houses were The doors were closed, and there were tall weeds in front of some doors, and it looked as if no one had been there for many years. There are also many collapsed houses scattered in the village, with grass growing on them.
There were only a few old, young, women, and children in the village. They were half-clothed and looked extremely poor. Seeing that this group of weirdos didn't even dodge when they came, with numb and indifferent expressions on their faces, Xiong Buyou asked around the village for a long time before finding the village chief's house.
The village chief's surname is Tan, and he is a hereditary salt farmer here. He comes from a famous salt-drying family in Hainan. Faced with Xiong Buyou's request to buy salt, he asked someone to open the salt warehouse: there were five to six hundred kilograms of salt inside. Wang Luobin was surprised by such a small amount of salt. After asking, he found out: In the 45th year of Wanli's reign, there was an earthquake in Lingao. Many of the salt fields in the salt field were washed away, and some places sank into the sea. The production capacity of the Ma Niao Salt Field has always been It has not returned to the original level, but the discount silver stipulated by the government is not missing at all, and many saltmen fled. To make matters worse, since the end of Wanli, pirates have often come to the salt field to rob the salt. Some of the salt workers were killed and some escaped. Now there are only more than 200 salt workers left in the village. The ancient method of drying salt is a completely labor-intensive industry, and it will be even more difficult to maintain production with less manpower. The annual quota is always not paid in full, and the government is urgent in urging classes, so the young men in the village usually hide. Fortunately, Ma Niao has plenty of land and is irrigated by the M Niao River. After drying the salt, he can also cultivate some fields and grow some food to satisfy his hunger. It's just fear.
This situation gave Wang Luobin a big blow. Obviously, the production situation of this salt farm was extremely unsatisfactory. It seems that the executive committee's original plan to control the salt field and purchase all the output needs to be changed - the time travelers must not only control the salt field, but also organize the restoration of production and expand production. For a moment, Wang Luobin felt that he was very much like the land reform team leader in the movie he watched when he was a child. Everything was full of waste.
However, it was not easy to organize the resumption of production. Wang Luobin decided to go to the salt farm to take a look first. After giving the numb-looking village chief Tan a Mexican silver dollar, the numb-looking village chief finally agreed to take him to the saltworks.
