Chapter 145
In fact, Cheng Shijie was not familiar with Zhu Wannian, the prefect of Laizhou, at all, and had not even met in person.
But the problem is that Sun Yuanhua knows Zhu Wannian.
Since the last time Sun Yuanhua returned to Dengzhou from southern Liaoning, he began to pay attention to the three prefectures under the rule of Governor Denglai. He didn't know it and was shocked when he saw it.
Except for the newly reclaimed farmland in southern Liaoning where crops are growing well, in other places the vegetation is withered, the rivers are drying up, the land is cracked, and there is almost no sign of life.
On the steaming road, countless farmers in ragged clothes and skinny bodies walked in groups, staggering, not knowing where they were going.
You don't need to think with your head, you can tell with your knees that they must be going to Liaonan, because they can only find a way to survive in Liaonan. On the road to southern Liaoning, people kept falling down. Once they fell, they could no longer stand up. No one looked at them, they just walked by numbly, and their bodies were left to rot on the roadside.
The farmland is simply unsightly.
Either it is deserted, or the crops inside are sparse, with few living seedlings...
Corruption was rampant in the Ming Empire, and it had penetrated into every aspect of the aging empire, eroding its foundation. The last bit of executive power left in the empire was used to plunder the people's wealth.
But sometimes a phoenix will fly out of the chicken coop. In this bureaucratic system that exudes a strong staleness and rottenness from top to bottom, there are still some people who are willing to do something practical for the people and the country.
For example, Bi Ziyan, the Minister of Household Affairs, Xu Guangqi, Lu Xiangsheng, Sun Chuanting, Sun Chengzong, Sun Yuanhua and Zhu Wannian, the prefect of Laizhou.
Sun Yuanhua saw that the crops in Laizhou, Dengzhou, and Qingzhou were growing very poorly. Those lands where the gentry were powerful relied on convenient irrigation and the growth was slightly better. But the problem is that the gentry and powerful people don't know how to pay taxes. Whether the crops are good or bad has little to do with them.
The most critical ones are the homesteaders.
Sun Yuanhua summoned the three prefectures, six prefectures, and thirty county magistrates under his control to Dengzhou Prefecture, and even scolded him. If it was just scolding, Zhu Wannian would not hate Cheng Shijie.
As the saying goes, there is no harm without comparison, because Cheng Shijie did so well in southern Liaoning. Sun Yuanhua also asked Cheng Shijie how to grow good crops.
Cheng Shijie's answer is "Irrigate in time, prevent and control pests in time, and keep up with fertilizers. If you do these things, you can generally have a good harvest!"
"Why is the yield per mu exceeding a thousand sprinkles?"
"Shandong has such fertile land, but its population is smaller than that of Henan, and it rains far more than Shanxi and Shaanxi. If you want to starve to death just by guarding such a large amount of land in Shandong, you are all idiots."
According to Sun Yuanhua, in Cheng Shijie's eyes, including himself, the governor of Denglai, and all the officials in the six prefectures and sixty-five counties in Shandong were fools.
He alone is a wise man.
Zhu Wannian came from a poor family. When he was nine years old, his father Zhu Ruiguo became ill due to overwork, but he had no money to treat his illness. Zhu Wannian's eldest brother Zhu Wanli wanted to borrow a loan shark to treat Zhu Ruiguo's illness, but Zhu Ruiguo scolded him bloody. In the end, his father Zhu Ruiguo was pained to death.
In order to support Zhu Wannian's education, Zhu Wanli sold himself as his son-in-law, and two of his three sisters were sold to wealthy families as concubines.
Zhu Wannian is very aware of the difficulties of being a common man, and he also wants to be a good official. He does not seek to leave a name in history, nor does he seek to be promoted and make a fortune. He just wants the people to be able to scold the official less often. It is enough.
But the problem is, only after he put his ideals into practice did he realize how big the resistance was: there was no way to implement his decree, and he couldn't even get out of Laizhou City. There were always so many people working against it, intentionally or unintentionally holding him back... …
Zhu Wannian wanted to see how Cheng Shijie, a warrior, could lead countless refugees to colonize more than five million acres of land. He made a calculation. If these more than five million acres of land were planted with wheat, every year One mu of land is calculated based on one bucket of grain, which requires more than 500,000 stones of seed grain.
If soybeans are planted, it will require more than 100,000 rocks of soybeans, and these more than 5 million acres of land will require 500,000 to 600,000 people.
Is Cheng Shijie a god?
How could he have more than 500,000 young men?
As for Cheng Shijie's statement of twenty or thirty shi of grain per mu of land, he didn't believe it. He was not a mediocre official who didn't like the fireworks of the world, nor was he a corrupt scholar who became stupid through reading.
It is a matter of basic common sense. Almost officials from three governments, six states and thirty counties understand this truth.
These officials were very angry and hated Cheng Shijie very much. You are a martial artist who has done such a good job in farming, but why are you going to let people live?
Isn’t this a case of a dog stopping a mouse and meddling in its own business?
When these officials came to Liaonan, they saw the fields in Liaonan. At this time, most of the fields in Liaonan were almost invisible, especially the sweet potato fields.
Sweet potato seedlings are treasures. These seedlings can be cut and fed to pigs, cattle, or horses. They cannot be wasted at all. As for the wheat fields, although the wheat in southern Liaoning is growing well, it is very gratifying to see the heavy wheat ears. But the problem is that the staff of these officials have already done the calculations.
The yield of these wheats is at most two or three shi, which is four to five hundred kilograms per mu. As for the soybean fields, after calculation, it is only about two kilograms at most, which is more than three hundred kilograms. Although the yield per unit mu is higher than that in Shandong, the problem is that it is not much higher and is within their understanding.
They wanted to see how Cheng Shijie could produce more than a thousand kilograms of grain per mu, as much as ten or twenty shi.
Some staff members have recognized that Cheng Shijie planted a large number of sweet potatoes, but the problem is that the people of the Ming Dynasty are now mature in the cultivation technology of sweet potatoes. The farmers of the Ming Dynasty have developed the habit of growing traditional crops such as rice and wheat beans, and they have also developed the habit of growing traditional crops such as rice and wheat. Inertial thinking.
They still planted sweet potatoes according to the pattern of planting wheat, but since then, the sweet potato seedlings will grow wildly, but the sweet potatoes will not grow very well. The yield of the sweet potatoes introduced to Daming Dynasty was not high at the beginning.
Now almost all Shandong officials are ready to see Cheng Shijie's jokes. Of course, if Cheng Shijie was just the original Ning Navy Chief Officer, they would dare to laugh at him.
However, Jimo County Magistrate Liu Xuemin kept saying that the officials were disrespectful to Cheng Shijie, and the soldiers and civilians of southern Liaoning did not care about him. When Liu Xuemin stayed at the inn, the clerk accidentally knocked over Liu Xuemin's chamber pot while cleaning, and the urine It also sprinkled on Liu Xuemin's boots and trouser legs.
What can he do?
After scolding the blind boy and kicking him several times, the shopkeeper rewarded the beaten boy with five taels of silver.
This is just the beginning.
Liu Xuemin had many misfortunes. When he ate fish, he would eat fish hooks. When he ate mutton, he was so spicy that he broke out in cold sweat. When traveling in a car, the axle broke and the dog was smashed.
After passing the septic tank, a deaf-mute old farmer came towards him carrying a pole. Someone called the old farmer, and the old farmer turned around and knocked Liu Xuemin into the septic tank.
After Liu Xuemin was fished out with a hook, he was cleaned and had a cold. There were also several cuts on his arm. The doctor who was invited said directly: "This requires amputation..."
Even a fool knows that Liu Xuemin is being targeted.
Some people did not believe in evil and said that Cheng Shijie was running a girls' school. As a result, several women chased and beat the official, insisting that the official watched them take a shower...
Looking at four or five strong women, who is watching them take a bath?
Aren't you afraid of burning your eyes?
This official had a hard time talking about it, so he just let it go if he was scolded. When he was traveling, he was directly splashed with feces. The key is that the man was talking eloquently...
This scene is so exciting.
Cheng Shijie did not arrive at Maqiao Town in Zhenhai City, so everyone could only wait.
In the crowd, there were not only Huizhou businessmen, but also Fan Yongdou, an upstart from Liaonan.
When the two thousand iron hoofs were delivered to southern Liaoning, Cheng Shijie and Fan Yongdou called themselves brothers and said bluntly that from now on, there is no need to pass the messenger to the Ning Navy General Mansion.
Of course, Fan Yongdou didn't take it seriously. It was not only Cheng Shijie's mansion, but also Ning Haijun's palace. If he made a wrong move, there would be no place to complain if he killed him.
Finally, the protagonist arrived belatedly in a four-wheeled carriage.
"Greetings to Mr. Manager!"
Even though Cheng Shijie was a military officer, the economic and military pacification envoy was also an official in charge of the military. But the problem was that he was a civilian official, even higher than the governor Sun Yuanhua.
Cheng Shijie looked at the large crowd of officials in Wuyang Wuyang and coughed: "Why haven't you started harvesting sweet potatoes yet?"
"Aren't you waiting for Mr. Manager?"
Sun Yuanhua was not embarrassed because of Cheng Shijie's high official position. In the officialdom, this was actually a normal phenomenon, just like Lu Xiangsheng, who raised his own military pay in the second year of Chongzhen and went north to Qinwang with tens of thousands of civilians.
Then, in the third year of Chongzhen's reign, he directly took the rocket position. He was first promoted to be the chief envoy to Shandong and participated in politics. He organized the military and military preparations of the famous people and had jurisdiction over the three prefectures of Daming, Guangping and Shunde. He was the second-in-command in Shandong Province.
It's just that he participated in politics against the Shandong rightists, but he did the work of Beizhili.
In the fourth year of Chongzhen's reign, he was appointed as the inspector of Shandong, and he became the inspector of one of the three divisions, that is, he became a high-ranking official. Within two years, he completed the triple jump.
This is a height that is difficult for ordinary officials to reach in a lifetime. As for the speed of military attache promotion, it is also the speed of light. Mao Wenlong was also upgraded from the garrison to the first rank of Zuo Dudu Guanju, holding the seal of General Liao.
Of course, neither Lu Xiangsheng nor Mao Wenlong had such a dazzling record as Cheng Shijie. Who has beheaded more than 4,000 people since Nurhachi rebelled in the 47th year of Wanli?
Cheng Shijie is the only one who has such a share. Even though the victory of Haizhou was caused by Jian Nu's sacrifice of thousands of people, Cheng Shijie was given a great contribution in vain. But the problem is that except for a few people like Sun Yuanhua and Xu Guangqi, no one knows the truth.
Cheng Shijie waved his hand and said, "Let's get started!"
There were more than 10,000 men, women, old and young in the 50 farm fields and 100 households in Zhenhai City, and they rushed to the fields that their respective 100 households were responsible for.
The cattle pulled the curved shaft plow in front and plowed it carefully. After only one plow, large and small sweet potatoes were exposed. The advantage of this is to prevent the sweet potato diggers from digging around with their hoes and destroying the sweet potatoes. .
After the soil was plowed, the military household responsible for digging the sweet potatoes picked up a hoe and dug down with extra care, digging out the sweet potatoes with their roots. Naturally, someone would pick up the sweet potatoes and put them in a basket.
At the beginning, almost every tree dug out would cause a burst of exclamation: "Oh my god, it's so big, there are so many! There was a basket after digging out only a few trees!"
Slowly, no one shouted anymore, they were all numb. Those in the front were digging hard with their hoes, and those in the back were picking up. They quickly filled the baskets one by one, and then picked them up to the road and loaded them into the car. Someone shouted the slogan. With a wave of the whip, the baskets of sweet potatoes were transported back to the field for temporary weighing.
Fan Yongdou held a sweet potato, which weighed three to four kilograms: "Can this thing be eaten?"
"Of course you can eat it!"
Cheng Shijie knew that some of the people present did not know much about sweet potato, so he had already prepared for it.
As dozens of four-wheel dining trucks drove over, a group of Ning Haijun's cooking soldiers came down and began to collect sweet potatoes.
Some peel the sweet potatoes, wash them, and cook them together with the porridge.
Some sweet potatoes are not even washed and roasted directly on the fire.
Some sweet potatoes are cut into sweet potato fries and fried in oil, making them French fries.
Some sweet potatoes are made into sweet potato snacks.
Some sweet potatoes are made into sweet potato cakes, sweet potato balls, sweet potato slices, sweet potato buns, sweet potato crisps, sweet potato dough cakes, shredded sweet potatoes, crispy sweet potatoes, etc., there are more than 40 kinds of sweet potato products.
Seeing that Cheng Shijie was well prepared, the officials and businessmen also wanted to see what Cheng Shijie was up to.
General Ning quickly built a huge tent on the edge of the field and placed the tables and chairs unloaded from the car in the tent. This huge tent was not made of cowhide, but was an affiliated factory of the Lushun Shipyard. , the canvas produced is waterproof, strong, and wear-resistant. The most important thing is that the cost is far cheaper than cowhide tents.
How could Cheng Shijie give up the Liaonan product promotion meeting in front of him?
This huge canvas, supported by a dozen huge I-beams, quickly formed a tent, covered with wool carpets, and then set up tables.
After finishing all these things, the first thing to prepare is the fried sweet potato fries, sprinkled with a little iodized salt, a specialty of southern Liaoning, or white sugar, and it's all ready.
Naturally, Cheng Shijie only needs to accompany Sun Yuanhua, Chen Zilong, Zhu Wannian and several other governor and magistrate-level officials. As for the magistrates and county magistrates, they can find a place to sit by themselves.
Cheng Shijie pointed to the classic junk food French fries being served to the table one after another and said: "Master Sun, Master Zhu, Mr. Chen, Mr. Song (Song Yingxing), come and try this!"
Sun Yuanhua picked up his chopsticks and picked up a piece of French fries less than two inches long. Before he started eating, the unique sweet aroma of sweet potatoes hit his nostrils. He gently stuffed it into his mouth, and his eyes instantly lit up: “Very delicious!”
Zhu Wannian and others also eagerly picked up the sweet potato fries with their chopsticks.
At this time, sweet potato cakes, sweet potato slices, sweet potato syrup, sweet potato cakes, etc. were being served one after another. There were actually many people who had eaten sweet potatoes, but they never expected that sweet potatoes would have So many practices.
The more everyone ate, the more surprised they became, especially the merchants. There was no reason why such delicious food couldn't spread. If it wasn't so expensive, it would definitely be popular in the Ming Dynasty.
More than forty sweet potato dishes or snacks.
By the time everyone tries it, they will basically be full.
Cheng Shijie stood up and made a final concluding speech: "This is called sweet potato, also called sweet potato. It is native to the American continent. It has strong adaptability. It likes warmth and light but is not frost-tolerant. It is drought-resistant and alkali-resistant. It is suitable for planting in fertile and well-drained sand. Zhilishi is a crop that is easy to maintain and if it is widely planted, there will no longer be a food crisis in the Ming Dynasty!"
Sun Yuanhua was most concerned about the output and asked: "What is the output of this product?"
This is also a question of concern to everyone present.
"There must be two or three thousand catties!"
Cheng Shijie knew that although sweet potatoes were highly productive, the problem was that some of these seedlings were brought from later generations, some were cultivated by himself, some were more fertile, and some were poorer. He was not absolutely sure, so he only gave a conservative estimate.
"Two or three thousand catties?"
Zhu Wannian still thinks that Cheng Shijie is bragging. If you want to increase the yield of crops, you can actually rely not only on planting, but also on operation. The yield of ten acres of land is said to be the yield of one acre of land. In this way, won't the yield go up?
If Cheng Shijie dares to play this trick, he will definitely be embarrassed.
"So many?"
Cheng Shijie said with some guilt: "I don't know the exact number. Everyone, it's almost time now. We can go and see how many there are!"
Not only did Cheng Shijie have no confidence, but many military households also had no confidence. They didn't seem to care much about the sweet potatoes after they were planted, and they just kept harvesting the seedlings. How could the harvest be so good?
"Then let's go, it's time to eat!"
Sun Yuanhua was not greedy. He only ate one or two bites of each dish, but he had already eaten more than forty dishes.
Not only was he overstuffed, but also several officials including Qingzhou General Magistrate Yan Guangshou, Le'an County Magistrate Gao Jidi, Boxing County Magistrate Han Shuncheng, etc., were all so full that they rolled their eyes.
After leaving the temporary tent, I saw the open space outside and saw that the sweet potatoes on the ground had piled up into hills.
Although Ning Haijun's farm plots are not horizontal and vertical, and each piece of land is the same size, because there is no private land, the plots are very large. The smallest piece of land is also 100 acres, and the larger one is 200 acres. , three hundred acres.
The sweet potatoes harvested from each field are piled together, and the number of acres of each field is marked with white ash.
"Meet the Marshal!"
"Greetings to Mr. Sun, gentlemen!"
Cheng Shijie looked at Liu Sandao and said, "How's it going? How many acres have you harvested now?"
Liu San smiled and said: "Reporting to the commander-in-chief, eight pieces of land, more than 5,000 acres, have been collected."
Cheng Shijie frowned slightly: "The speed is still a bit slow. At this speed, more than five million acres can't be harvested even if it snows!"
"Brothers have tried their best!"
"literature!"
"Here we are!"
"Transfer hundreds of new farm households to participate in the autumn harvest. Each person will be responsible for three meals and will receive fifty kilograms of sweet potatoes!"
"yes!"
Cheng Shijie looked at the counting house that was waiting for him and said, "Let's start weighing!"
"yes!"
As baskets of sweet potatoes began to be weighed.
"Field No. 1, 1,000 acres, with a total weight of 3.52 million kilograms, and a yield of 3,552 kilograms per mu."
Although ancient stones can be used as two units of measurement, one is a unit of volume and the other is a unit of weight. Obviously, the unit used to measure meters is a unit of volume rather than a unit of weight, so there is no Ming Dynasty one stone ( Volume) and current weight unit direct conversion.
In the Ming Dynasty, two dendrobiums were equivalent to one stone, so the volume of one stone was 102,366 ml. (The "Chinese Weights and Measures of Ancient Dynasties" mistakenly stated it as 98724 ml, and the "Research on Grain Yield per Mu of Chinese Ancient Dynasties" stated it as 10225 ml). The volume is 102366 ml. The same is one stone. If it is one stone of water, it is 102.36 liters, which is about 102.36 kilograms.
According to the "Research on Grain Yield per Mu in Chinese Dynasties", a measured figure is also given. One liter of rice (polished rice) weighs 1.5 kilograms. It is not difficult to calculate that one stone of rice in the Ming Dynasty weighed approximately 153.5 kilograms.
But sweet potatoes are different from rice or wheat because the distance between rice and wheat grains is small and the error is not large. However, the shapes of sweet potatoes are different and the distance between them is large, so they can only be measured by weighing them instead of using buckets.
As the total weight of the No. 1 field was reported, a cold sound came from the surroundings.
"Impossible, absolutely impossible!"
Zhu Wannian was startled. He looked at the staff beside him and said, "Have you ever seen them do anything?"
"Absolutely not!"
Sun Yuanhua did not express his position until Xu Dacheng reported the data he had obtained to Sun Yuanhua: "Master Futai, the students have been stared at. This pile of sweet potatoes is indeed the No. 1 field and is more than a thousand acres!"
"How much more?"
"Six points!"
Sun Yuanhua was ecstatic: "The error of six points is within the allowed range!"
Zhu Wannian said in disbelief: "Why is the yield of this sweet potato so scary?"
Xu Dacheng also wiped the cold sweat from kowtow: "One acre of sweet potatoes is equivalent to the yield of dozens of acres of wheat. It's amazing!"
The most shocking thing was the military households in the fields. As soon as they planted these sweet potatoes, they were dragged to work by their husbands who were studying in the Agricultural College. There was really little care for these sweet potato fields, and it could be said that they were basically not used at all. thought.
“It turns out that it’s not impossible to produce a thousand catties per mu!”
Chen Zilong looked at the agronomy expert beside him and said: "Seeing is believing. If I told you in the past that there are crops that can produce several kilograms per acre, would you believe it?"
"Even now, it feels like a dream!"
Zhu Wannian: "Has the yield of field No. 2 been calculated?"
"It's been weighed. The yield per mu of No. 2 is 3,973 jins, totaling 3,973,000 jins."
"Field No. 3, the yield per mu is 3,460 kilograms!"
"Field No. 5, the yield per mu is 4,104 kilograms!"
"Field No. 6, the yield per mu is 4,053 kilograms!"
"Field No. 7, the yield per mu is 3,789 kilograms!"
"Field No. 8, the yield per mu is 3,295 kilograms!"
At this time, everyone in the field was numb, and they had fallen into ecstasy.
Everyone present, including Fan Yongdou, was very happy.
But the problem is that my price seems to be too high.
Chen Zilong sighed and said: "What a pity..."
"What's the pity?"
"Although this product has a high yield, it is not easy to store!"
Chen Zilong smiled bitterly and said: "This must be eaten within a month, otherwise it will go bad! If you don't throw it away and continue to eat it, you will have diarrhea..."
"That's because you are too stupid and don't know how to store it!"
Cheng Shijie said: "There are many ways to store sweet potatoes!"
Chen Zilong asked happily: "What if it is stored?"
Cheng Shijie said calmly: "This discussion is confidential, please don't ask for information!"
(End of chapter)
