4331 (the seventh year of Chongzhen), mid-May.
Winter wheat harvesting has begun in Hanzhong Prefecture and some areas in Shaanxi and Gansu.
Zhou Qiniu, captain of the Baoji Prefecture Taxation Bureau, drove a bullock cart pulling the latest multi-functional agricultural machinery.
He rushed back to his father-in-law's home in Yimen County to help his father-in-law's family harvest wheat.
This is a machine that his father-in-law asked him to buy in Fucheng.
He is from Hanzhong Prefecture, was promoted to captain of the Baoji Prefecture Taxation Bureau, and got married here.
His father-in-law's family was originally a small gentry family, when King Qin Suhe divided the land.
The father-in-law did not dare to resist, but in order to protect his family's land, everyone divided their families.
Even teenage girls are counted as a separate household and allocated land.
Policy has always allowed this, and even encouraged the gentry to do so.
My father-in-law’s family is a big family. They used to work together in farming and harvest together.
There are now a large number of factories competing for labor during the busy farming season.
The land of the father-in-law's family was also divided over several years. As the dominance of the local government strengthened, the authority of the patriarch became weaker and weaker year by year.
The land owned by my father-in-law's family is now owned by each family.
My father-in-law’s family doesn’t have much labor and they farm a lot of land, so they can only do it through machinery.
Summer is a rainy season. If we don't harvest quickly, the wheat will be watered by the rain and germinate, and most of the harvest of the year will be lost.
Zhou Qiniu rushed to his father-in-law's house and saw that the wheat in the field had turned golden yellow.
These wheats with large ears are special wheat specially developed by the Agriculture Institute of the Academy of Sciences.
The ears of this type of wheat are much larger than those of ordinary wheat.
“The bull rides are here, the harvesters are finally here, and we’re officially starting to harvest the wheat.”
Huang Li watched his third son-in-law arrive with the harvester.
He was very surprised that he could harvest wheat quickly with a harvester.
Nowadays, if you want to hire people, it is difficult to find them. All the strong laborers are harvesting their own land.
When their own family is finished, they will become Mai Ke and help other people to harvest apprentices.
The weather is constantly changing, so we can't delay the farming season.
When Zhou Qiniu heard his father-in-law's inquiry, he smiled and said: "This is a new multi-function machine, and I still need to install and debug it.
When I bought the machine, I learned how to install it. "
Zhou Qiniu immediately started installing the machine.
Install the harvester components and it's a harvester.
Install the mechanical plow assembly and it becomes an excellent plow.
Install the planter assembly and it is a planter.
This multi-functional agricultural machinery can harvest many crops and only needs to be replaced with different blades.
Zhou Qiniu heard that there was a machine being tested in Hanzhong. It did not require cattle or horses, but only a steam engine to drive this machine.
Its size is five or six times that of the oxen-pulled machine. This kind of machine is too large and difficult to operate, so it has not been promoted.
Zhou Qiniu moved very quickly. He replaced the harvester with a wheat-cutting blade.
He installed the corresponding components and put the machine around the cow's neck.
I tried it in the field and could quickly harvest wheat.
"Father-in-law, the machine has been installed and can be put into the field to harvest winter wheat."
Huang Li immediately called his son Huang Pingzhi and asked him and his brother-in-law to learn how to use the harvesting machine.
After learning, drive the cattle to the fields to harvest winter wheat.
The cattle drag the harvester hard through the wheat field.
The harvester cut the wheat quickly, causing the wheat to fall to both sides.
Someone immediately followed behind and started bundling the wheat.
Huang Li sighed while tying the wheat: "The family's land has been divided, and there is no way to unite it.
My second brother’s son took the lead and only worked on his own family’s fields. If he wanted them to harvest other fields, he had to spend money to hire them.
These people are still plausibly saying that they go to work in factories in the mansion and can earn several taels of silver coins a month.
You can't work in vain to help the family.
Listen, these people are all monkey spirits now.
There is no family righteousness at all, and he only cares about his own small family.
I plan to buy the machine. It will only take five years for me to make back the money.
After my own land is harvested, I can help others harvest wheat, and the money I charge is lower than that of Mai Ke.
The harvester is very fast and can harvest the wheat as quickly as possible. Many people hire machines to harvest wheat early. "
Zhou Qiniu listened to his father-in-law's business experience.
He knew that this was bound to happen, and with financial independence came legal constraints.
No one wants to be bound by the family and have to work hard to help the family.
It took them several days to harvest five hundred acres of wheat.
Even the main contributors to the effort are cows.
They also had to bundle the wheat and drag it to the drying field to dry, and everyone was very tired.
Zhou Qiniu said with emotion: "This is a machine, otherwise we people would never be able to finish the job."
He slumped on the ground and ate the meat buns handed to him by his wife.
The chicken stuffed buns are not as delicious as the pork stuffed buns, but they are still very good.
Huang Pingzhi came over and said: "Brother-in-law, please help me persuade my father.
After planting autumn crops this year, I will get married.
Nowadays, when you get married, you have to wait and see, and if you can't afford the bride price, the girl you like will become a prostitute.
The girl I was engaged to before was not recognized by the marriage, so she climbed up a high branch and married someone else.
No matter how pornographic this girl becomes, I will become an older young man and it will be difficult for me to get a wife in the future.
I don’t want to find a second marriage to take care of my children, so I have no choice but to go to Shibian. I heard that I will find a wife if I go to Shibian. "
Zhou Qiniu patted his wife's brother on the shoulder and said, "Who is that person across the way? He wants to turn three times and make a sound.
That was a wealthy family in the city, so they had to ring three times and ring every time.
When marrying a wife, you must be well-matched and don't be too ambitious.
We can't afford to marry a young lady from a wealthy family. "
Zhou Qiniu has heard three turns and one beep. This is the most advanced machinery now. It is very expensive and most people cannot afford it.
Three turns refer to bicycles, sewing machines, clocks, and one-ring music boxes.
How can we solve these four things without hundreds of taels of silver coins?
Huang Pingzhi continued: "I don't have much money. I calculated carefully and saved some money. Now I only need fifteen taels of silver coins.
Marrying a wife costs fifteen taels of silver, which is not much at all. "
"It's only fifteen taels of silver coins away. How can it be so cheap after three turns and one ring?
I don’t know how much money your kid has saved in the past few years. How can you afford three turns and one ring? "
Zhou Qiniu and his wife's brother were chatting.
Someone shouted, attracting everyone's attention.
"Old man Huang, I, Datou Wei, am here."
The donkey cart clanked, and a machine was dragged on it.
There was a row of people following behind.
This is a steam engine connected to a threshing machine.
Wei Datou put down the cart, took the donkey out of the cart, and tied it aside.
The boiler next to it was moved down and the threshing machine was fixed.
Wei Datou ignited the boiler, and the steam engine quickly started running, driving the threshing machine to rotate at high speed.
"Old man Huang, your family has a lot of wheat this year.
Leave this wheat to me. It only takes one day. We can get all this wheat before dark. "
Wei Datou led the farmers, took the bundled wheat, and put the end with ears into the threshing machine.
The rapidly rotating iron bars of the threshing machine knock off all the grains on the ears of wheat.
The wind generated by the rotation of the threshing machine directly blows away the empty shell wheat that has not been filled.
The plump wheat grains are all poured into the sacks in front as the threshing machine sifts.
Huang Li looked at the bags of wheat stacked in the warehouse with a smile on his face.
It costs a little money to hire a threshing machine, but it threshes the grain very quickly.
Wheat can be stored in warehouses only if it is threshed quickly, so there is no need to worry about rain.
The threshing machine was lit with torches all night, and it was already dark before they finished all the wheat in Huang Li's house.
"I miscalculated. You have more wheat this year. I didn't expect to finish it after dark."
Wei Datou said this, but he also showed a happy smile.
The price was five copper coins per sack of wheat.
The more wheat he packs, the more money he makes.
Huang Li smiled and said: "This is a wheat seed issued by the Qin Prince's Palace, and the yield is really high.
I have been farming for more than 20 years, and I have never seen wheat seeds with such a high yield. "
"If you leave a few kilograms of these wheat seeds to plant next year, it will be prosperous." Wei Datou suggested.
Huang Li said angrily: "You son of a bitch, you actually want to trick me.
Dabanya at the east end of the village bought this kind of wheat from Hanzhong this year to use as wheat seeds.
The wheat he planted this year was very short and had small ears.
He only had enough to pay taxes and land loans, but there was not much left. This is the price paid for opportunism. "
Through observations over the past few years, Huang Li trusted the Qin Palace.
When purchasing the seeds, the township office had made it clear that these seeds could not be saved.
The yield of wheat grown after saving seeds is very low, and there are always people who don’t believe in this evil.
Huang Li was very unhappy. He and Wei Datou settled the money without even leaving them to eat.
Early the next morning, Huang Li took his family to the wheat field.
He saw that the fields around him had all been harvested.
He lit a fire directly in the wheat field.
The weather is very dry now, and the wheat stubble left by the harvester is burning.
Seeing this scene, Zhou Qiniu said happily: "Burn the straw cleanly, and at the same time, you can burn away all the insect eggs in the ground.
The ash left behind is also a good fertilizer. "
After burning the straw, Zhou Qiniu adjusted the cultivator.
Huang Pingzhi drove the cattle into the fields to plow the land, and they spread farmyard manure behind them.
The wheat fields that have just been harvested are being plowed again in preparation for planting autumn grain.
Zhou Qiniu asked Huang Li: "Father-in-law, are you still going to plant sweet potatoes for autumn crops?"
I heard that the Qin Palace has introduced a new crop, suitable for autumn grain planting.
It's called corn, and I heard the yield is higher than wheat, but lower than sweet potatoes.
Its purchase price is much higher than that of sweet potatoes.
One hundred kilograms of corn was purchased by the Grain Reserve Bureau for seven hundred and fifty copper coins. "
“I’ve heard about corn, and the township head even came to the village to promote it.
The villagers were very hesitant and were ready to see how much corn the farm would produce this year. "
Huang Li was very moved when he heard that the purchase price of corn was higher. He had already calculated that as long as the corn could reach the advertised yield, it would be more cost-effective to grow corn.
Huang Pingzhi came back from plowing several acres of land and let the cows rest.
"Dad, we have to believe in the Prince of Qin's Mansion. The Prince of Qin has never tried growing corn, and he doesn't dare to promote corn to our people.
The production of real corn medicine is insufficient. We farmers are doing fine, but those workers in the city are going to run out of food again.
His Highness King Qin will not let this happen. "
"Okay, let's plant corn this year."
When Huang Li heard what his son said, he agreed very much and made up his mind to plant corn this year.
He asked his son and third son-in-law to drive the ox cart to the county to buy corn seeds.
Huang Pingzhi took the opportunity and said: "Dad, I happen to be in the county. I can make a lot of money growing corn this year, so please give me the gift money."
After buying it for three turns and one ring, I can get a wife. "
How could Huang Li delay his son's marriage? He had already prepared the money for the bride price.
I didn't give it to him before because I was afraid that he would be cheated when he went to the city to buy things. Now with the help of his brother-in-law, Huang Li could give him money with confidence.
Huang Pingzhi was happy to get the money, and he and Zhou Qiniu went to the county to buy betrothal gifts and corn seeds.
Zhou Qiniu asked doubtfully: "What is three turns and one beep? It only requires fifteen taels of silver coins."
Huang Pingzhi said excitedly: "Brother-in-law, the three turns and one sound in our rural areas are different from those in your city.
Three turns refer to bullock carts, sewing machines, and hand spinning machines, and one turn refers to a big scalper.
The most expensive among them is the sewing machine, which sells for as much as fifteen taels of silver coins.
I have been working part-time for these years, so I have prepared other betrothal gifts.
But the other party suddenly asked for a sewing machine, and the difference was fifteen taels of silver coins.
Fortunately, these betrothal gifts will be used by our small family after the wedding, otherwise we would really be reluctant to part with them. "
Huang Pingzhi and Zhou Qiniu finished buying the betrothal gifts and collecting the seeds.
They returned to the field and the land had been plowed.
The agricultural machinery purchased has accessories for sowing corn.
Zhou Qiniu read the instructions and assembled the machine.
He adjusted the planter and began planting corn on the land.
…………………………
Su He looked at the reports from various places, and he was most concerned about the locust plague.
Sprayer with pyrethrin pesticide.
Today's locusts have no resistance to pesticides at all. Pyrethrins that are slightly purified and not too high in concentration can kill a large number of locusts.
The locust plague has been completely contained, and they have solved another major disaster.
Wang Zhongce came over with a stack of official documents in his hand and a happy look on his face.
"Your Majesty, King Qin, what a happy event!
This time there was a bumper summer harvest and new winter wheat seeds were a great success.
According to reports from various places, summer grain production increased by 15% on average.
Land that is cultivated intensively will produce more.
Especially farms managed by the government verify the effectiveness of chemical fertilizers.
After using chemical fertilizers, the yield increased by at least 35%.
Chemical fertilizers are too effective. "
When Su He heard the news, he was not surprised at all.
Chemical fertilizers play a huge role in agriculture.
It is an important guarantee for food production.
After years of cultivation, the land of China has been completely depleted of humus and has basically lost its fertility.
Without chemical fertilizers to supplement fertility and relying only on farmyard manure, crop yields will not be too high.
Su He looked through the information and said happily: "With the construction of reservoirs and canals beginning to take effect, the use of selected seeds and farmyard manure has begun.
Grain production has increased significantly compared with the previous two years.
When chemical fertilizers become popular, food production will increase even more.
The cabinet must cooperate with relevant departments to do a good job in summer grain storage and summer grain taxation.
In disaster-stricken areas, local taxes will be reduced or reduced appropriately depending on the disaster situation. "
Su He arranged the storage and tax collection of summer grain.
There is a plate in front of his table. There are many yellow steamed buns on the plate. They are small at the top and large at the bottom. They are cone-shaped.
“This is a steamed bun made from cornmeal.
In order to save the seeds, I never dared to eat corn before.
This is after a round of corn expansion, and the stored corn seeds are enough.
I just asked for some from Li Dajiang. "
Wang Zhongce knew something about corn, which was a crop his brother purchased from the Spaniards on Luzon Island.
One tael of silver coins per pound of corn seeds, a very high price, convinced those Westerners to transport the corn to Macau.
Su He said happily: “The yield of corn is very high, and it is also resistant to drought and storage.
Corn is food, and it far surpasses sweet potatoes in every aspect. "
China’s three major staple foods are rice, wheat, and corn.
Potatoes have tried every means to squeeze into the staple food category, but their acceptance has not been high due to various reasons such as storage and starch content.
Corn’s adaptability to land, the energy it provides, and its storage stability are all top-notch among food crops.
The promotion of corn can truly solve the current food shortage situation in China.
Wang Zhongce was eating the steamed buns, and he said happily: "Your Highness, King Qin, the taste of corn is a bit rough, but it has a strong sense of satiety.
Like sweet potatoes, corn does not pick the land and does not compete for the cultivated land of wheat and rice.
Corn is drought-resistant and can be grown on hillside lands.
Corn has a relatively short growing time, so it's a really good crop. "
Su He added: “After testing, corn can perfectly replace sweet potatoes, and corn can be replanted immediately after winter wheat is planted.
You can harvest a lot of food after autumn. "
If people eat too much sweet potato, it will cause malnutrition. It can only be used as an emergency in disaster years and cannot become a staple food.
Corn does not have this worry at all. Eating corn all year round will not cause harm to the body.
Under the strong promotion of Suhe, government-run farms began to plant a large amount of corn in the northern region.
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