Since ancient times, agriculture, industry and commerce have always been ranked second, but in fact, no matter in which dynasty, the status of farmers is the lowest. Respecting farmers is just an excuse for the rulers of past dynasties to use agriculture as the foundation of their national policy. It sounds good on paper, but the actual treatment is much worse.
Since the founding of the Song Dynasty, the government has been stable, and commerce in southeastern Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Lingnan has developed rapidly. Commercial tax revenue is ten times as much as agricultural tax revenue. Merchants come and go with bright clothes and angry horses, carrying eight large sedan chairs, and are ranked last in the four major industries. There is a faint tendency to surpass the group of scholar-bureaucrats.
Zheng Ruoying only hated that she was born a girl and had to miss out on her official career. The family has fertile land and shops, so he can only devote himself to business, hoping to achieve some results on this road to satisfy his father. Most of the shops in Fengshan belong to the Zheng family, but no matter how much money they make in these places, they can only rely on his father's light. Zheng Ruoying can never get rid of his father's shadow. By chance, she met Liang Chuan, and growing sugar cane became a top priority.
Farming is a very boring activity. Zheng Ruoying never thought that one day she would go to the fields more frequently than to the shops. Fan Dianyuan and his group of tenant farmers were working in the fields. Zheng Ruoying made a special trip to invite Liang Chuan to guide Fan Dianyuan and his team in their farming.
Liang Chuan hates that Zheng Ruoying disturbs his elegance in chopping firewood every three days. After all, once this ax skill is perfected, it will be used for a lifetime. Three feet of ice will not be frozen in a day. If you don't persevere, you will definitely not be able to achieve the level of perfection like Li Chuyi. realm.
Fan Dianyuan and the others were indeed diligent and willing to plow the sugar cane fields according to Liang Chuan's instructions. People like them are the backbone of our country. They have supported our nation for thousands of years, and they are the only ones worthy of the word hard work.
Several children followed the adults and played in the fields. They were all children of northern farmers and had never seen sugar cane, a species from the south. Children naturally like to put everything in their mouths. As soon as they put it in their mouths, they discovered that in the New World, although the sugar cane seedlings were only a small piece, they tasted sweet. The children were greedy and the sugar cane seedlings had not been planted yet. , but the child secretly put it into his mouth and ate a lot. Fortunately, there were a lot of sugarcane seedlings, so the few the children ate were insignificant.
When Fan Dianyuan found out, he whipped several of the little ones severely. The most important quality of a farmer is to be responsible and peaceful, and not to behave like a mouse looking at a rice vat. Now his boss is treating him like this The gang is not thin, so you can't mess around.
Liang Chuan looked at the farm tools they used in this era and wanted to improve them for them, but then he thought about it, farm tools are quite expensive now, and casually improving farm tools for them to use would increase the burden on these farmers. Besides, the farm tools of the Song Dynasty were already very mature. Even in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, little changed. Take the plow as an example. In later generations, little changed, except that the material changed to iron.
Whether a farm tool is easy to use or not depends on whether the person using it is used to it. No matter how convenient a tool is, if it cannot be used, it will only be counterproductive. So Liang Chuan didn't say much about farm tools.
Moreover, it is already the beginning of spring. If they are asked to change farm tools at this time, it will take some time to adapt. By the time they are fully adapted, spring plowing will have been missed, and sugarcane will have to wait until next year to plant sugarcane.
After the sugarcane ridges have been plowed, the twenty-odd cartloads of sugarcane seedlings can be planted one after another. After almost all these sugarcane seedlings are planted, you can wait for the next batch of sugarcane seedlings. This way, time will not be wasted, and overall time efficiency is the highest. The depth of the cane seedlings should be one foot into the cane ditch, and the depth of the soil should be more than a finger after the cane seedlings are placed. After seven days of planting the cane sugar in the soil, you can slowly apply fertilizer.
This is relatively simple. Liang Chuan wields the hoe to make his hands weak, but these crops are as simple as drinking water.
What is more troublesome is the issue of irrigation.
In this era, there were no sluices, dams, or water pumps. Just like Fan Dianyuan and his family in northern Shaanxi, the harvest depended entirely on God's will. When there was a severe drought, the whole family had no choice but to flee famine or go begging in other places because the world was not peaceful. If it rains, there will be no water on the ground.
The South is not afraid of severe drought, but afraid of severe floods! If the water in the fields is not drained out in time when the rainy season comes, the crops soaked in the fields will rot and die, and the result will be no harvest. .
Liang Chuan said to Zheng Ruoying: "Several basic problems are now no problem, but there is one that is more difficult?"
"what is the problem?"
"Although we are close to the Nanxi River here, the water level of the Nanxi River is much lower than that of the north bank. This water cannot be brought up without the help of some tools, and it cannot irrigate so many of our dry fields. Spring is okay, with continuous spring rain, but in summer If there are no typhoons, rainfall and high temperatures, the water demand for such a large sugarcane field is not a small amount!"
Zheng Ruoying looked at Liang Chuan's confident face, as if he had expected such a problem for a long time, thinking that you must have a way to deal with it, but you have to pretend to be sophisticated every time, okay, if you don't tell me, I won't ask!
Liang Chuan turned his back and waited for Zheng Ruoying, who was behind him, to ask him how to solve it. After waiting for a long time, he didn't hear a word from her, but he took the initiative to turn his head and asked, "Don't you want to know how to solve it?"
Zheng Ruoying tilted her face and said, "I definitely want to know, but I don't want to beg you every time I have trouble again, which will make each of us feel like we're just eating."
Liang Chuan didn't expect that his way of speaking would make these people feel uncomfortable, so he said: "Miss, why are you unhappy? We are just communicating, there is no need for any psychological burden!"
Zheng Ruoying snorted and turned her head without speaking.
Alas, this girl really wants to be strong, and she can take soft things rather than hard things.
Liang Chuan smiled bitterly and shook his head and said: "The most ideal state in the sugarcane field is to have water when water is needed, and when water is not needed, the excess water should be drained out in time. The best way to achieve this effect in time is to divert water for irrigation. The ditches for irrigation and the ditches for drainage should be dug separately. The ditches for irrigation should be high on the riverside and low on the ground, so that they can store water. The ditches for drainage should be high on the inside of the field and low on the riverside, so that when the rainy season comes, When the time comes, breaking the ridges will allow the water in the sugarcane fields to drain out."
Zheng Ruoying nodded repeatedly after hearing this, but after thinking about Liang Chuan's plan, she asked, "Where will the water come from? You also said that the water level in the river is much lower than the bank. How can we lead the river water to the north bank?"
Liang Chuan said: "Have you ever heard of a waterwheel?"
In the Song Dynasty, the development of agricultural tools in our country reached a period of prosperity. All kinds of agricultural tools were based on the purpose of serving agriculture and completely benefiting the people. The curved shaft plow improved in the late Tang Dynasty had overturned in the Song Dynasty, but that thing The structure is too complicated and not very practical to use. However, the principle of the waterwheel is very simple. Materials can be obtained in the countryside, and there are carpenters. Zhao Jinyu is a carpenter. After the carpentry work at home is completed, he will tell Zhao Jinyu the structure. , asked Zhao Jinyu to help make a waterwheel.
Several people were confused after hearing this term. Blind Deer interjected: "Is it a large wooden disk that is round and like a wheel? It can bring water up by itself when standing by the river? I know it, but I just don't know how to do it. ah."
Liang Chuan continued: "But it's still early to make a waterwheel. You need to use other tools first. You can go to the mountain and cut two logs of the same length. It is best to have two thick logs and punch a hole in the top to serve as a support. , the tree is on the high ground by the river, then find a long bamboo pole, drill a hole in Sanqi, and use a small wooden stick to cross the hole and the holes in the two round trees. This creates a lever principle .. You can’t understand this. In short, there are ropes tied to both ends of the bamboo pole. A wooden barrel is tied to the short end of the bamboo pole. At the other end, people pull the bamboo pole or hang a heavy stone. This tool is called a tangerine. This can both It saves effort and can pump water from low areas to high ground, where it can flow directly to the sugar cane fields along the dug ditches.”
Several people were confused when they heard what Liang Chuan said, but Liang Chuan drew a model on the ground. This lever principle was originally very simple, but it made people feel complicated when talking about it. This lever is very simple to make. It means that two people must cooperate when fetching water. With a little more effort, it won't be necessary when the water wheel is set up.
A group of people who knew how to farm but did not gathered around Liang Chuan. They were all shocked by the many strange ideas in this young man's mind. Why could He Lu, a man with so much knowledge and knowledge, appear in a place where birds don't poop? character?
Logically speaking, people with so many abilities should not be willing to stay in such a ravine. It is said that this person used to be a little beggar, but he didn't expect that today he would be able to talk like this with the eldest daughter of the number one family in Fengshan. Even the eldest daughter would act according to his wishes.
Zheng Ruoying also thinks that she has read many books and traveled to many places. She is not the most knowledgeable person among her peers in Fengshan, but she can be regarded as a person with a broad vision. However, her little knowledge is in Liang Chuan's eyes. As if it was not worth mentioning at all, no matter what aspect, Liang Chuan could always point out her shortcomings from a higher position than her. . Why does he know so much? Where did he learn it from? .
If Zheng Ruoying knew that all the knowledge Liang Chuan learned was learned from extracurricular books in the classroom a thousand years later, and he didn't understand the real practice, I wonder what she would think?
"If the irrigation problem is solved according to the plan you mentioned, there should be no other big problems. Think about it again, are there any other aspects that we need to consider in advance?" Zheng Ruoying looked in a good mood. Liang Chuan was also very happy. Instead of pouring cold water on him, he asked questions realistically. It was better to be prepared for a rainy day than to sharpen the gun in the face of battle.
"There should be no other problems for the time being. If there are problems, we have to wait until we encounter them and then find a way to solve them. We can't rush now. Although the sugar cane we grow now is not as good as the refined management in our hometown, but looking at this season, it should be better." No one can do it or manage it better than us, so we should still have confidence. Even if the harvest does not reach the level of our hometown, at least it should be better than that of sugarcane farmers in other places. Others If we keep doing this, we will definitely be able to do better!" Liang Chuan said with confidence and a proud face. Everyone present was moved when listening to Liang Chuan's words.
That's right, planting a sugar cane is more expensive than planting several acres of rice. If there is no harvest, God will probably not be able to bear it.
