Why does Zuo Mengeng want to increase Zuozhuang’s wheat yield per acre?
Of course it was to impress the big families.
These families all control large amounts of land.
He had already asked Zuo Fu to investigate. The land owned by the Zhang family, the Lu family, the Geng family, and the Liu family accounted for 75% of Linqing's land.
And these families, like landlords all over the world, use the most primitive methods for farming.
Efficiency and output are naturally insufficient.
Since last year, Zuo Menggeng has done the most in agriculture, which is experimentation and reform.
Although he knows that industrialization and large-scale agricultural production are good ways to increase output, he is not sure whether it is feasible in this era.
After all, there were no large-scale machinery in this era, and most farming relied solely on human labor.
An attempt was made in Zuozhuang last year, and as of this summer's harvest, overall the results are very good.
Before mechanized and industrialized agricultural production cannot be realized, intensification methods are still very helpful to increase production.
Zuozhuang's approach is actually the large farm route of later generations.
More than 400 workers were assigned to all aspects of farm farming, and supplemented by the best farming technology of this era, the output was significantly increased.
Of course, a sufficient number of cattle and agricultural tools are also the basis for achieving all this.
In short, the example of Zuozhuang proves that industrializing agriculture is definitely a good way to increase production.
"Nowadays, natural disasters are frequent and harvests are poor in various places, causing food prices to skyrocket. For a long time to come, food must be the top priority. Whoever controls food controls the world. How to increase food production is up to us. Something that must be considered.”
Zuo Mengeng began to speak.
"Shandong is a good place. Although there are occasional disasters, it is much better than Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, and Gyeonggi. At least we have sufficient water resources and no shortage of irrigation. With a moderate climate, as long as we put in our efforts, Increasing production is not difficult. As long as we have enough food, we will have enough power to do more."
From a collaborator to an ally, the biggest change is that Zuo Menggeng can be more explicit when speaking to these people.
In fact, these families are not fools. They have seen the changes in Zuozhuang, and the profits of Fuyao Group are also there. Especially after the rear camp came back this time, the army suddenly expanded to include so many people that it was impossible to hide it from the eyes of interested people.
If any of these families are loyal to the imperial court, Zuo Menggeng may have already encountered a crisis.
However, even the Lu family, who were originally the most estranged from Zuo Mengeng, were now alienated.
Everyone can scheme.
The rear camp of more than 2,000 people can defeat more than 5,000 Tatars. Now the troops are at least tens of thousands. Doesn't it mean that even if they encounter an army of 30,000 Tatars, they still have a chance of winning?
If 30,000 Tatars can be defeated, how many Ming troops are there to defeat them?
What's this?
This is a prince.
These families still don't know that Zuo Mengeng is about to have an army of not more than 10,000, but more than 20,000.
The second division is still an empty shell. Once the second division is also formed, Zuo Mengeng will have the capital to compete with the imperial court.
Even if the court wants to deal with him, he will be confident of victory.
The top priority is to convince the major families to change the traditional farming model, increase food production, and lay a solid foundation for hegemony.
Chen Zhi stood up and explained Zuozhuang's farming model in detail.
Everyone listened carefully and soon understood that they would not be able to implement this model without cooperating with Zuo Mengeng.
Zuozhuang's increase in yield per mu is the result of a combination of models and science, and neither of these two aspects can be handled by each company on its own.
At the very least, once this is done, a large number of tenant farmers will inevitably lose their jobs.
If these tenants are not properly arranged, they will rebel.
But the industries of each company are all based on the traditional model, and the personnel are already saturated, with no place to place them.
Only Zuo Mengeng, using large factories like Fuyao Group, can absorb the excess rural population.
Do you want to cooperate with Zuo Mengeng?
Zhang Zonghuan knew Zuozhuang best and raised a practical question.
"Zhongheng, the increase in the yield per mu of your Zuozhuang is mainly due to the adequate irrigation. The farmland in your village is next to the river, so it is easy to get water. But a lot of our land is far away from the river, so it is not easy to get water. Even if you adopt the model of your Zuozhuang, it may be difficult to improve it. Yield."
Although Linqing is the intersection of Wei River and Huitong River, agricultural water use is very embarrassing.
Guarding two big rivers, but unable to get water.
Because these two rivers are used for water transportation, water for irrigation must be approved by the court, otherwise it will be the same as treason.
Zuozhuang guards a small river that irrigates its more than 1,000 acres of land. However, the water consumption for irrigation of the hundreds of thousands of acres of fields owned by major families will be astronomical.
Without solving this problem, Zuo Mengeng's idea will be empty talk.
Is there anything Zuo Mengeng can do?
There really is.
"Except for groundwater, I rely entirely on canals for agricultural water in Linqing. But the canal is related to water transportation, and the court does not allow it. What can we do? However, canal water transportation depends entirely on the weather, but there is an opportunity for us to take advantage of."
What did Zuo Mengeng think?
Taking advantage of the off-season for canal water transportation, the canal water is diverted and stored for use in farming in the coming spring and summer.
"There is a piece of wasteland near Taotun Village east of the Huitong River, which can be used to build a water storage lake. In winter, the capital is frozen and water transportation is cut off. I put water into the pond at this time, accumulate it over months, and supplement it with underground water. It is enough For irrigation purposes.”
Zuo Mengeng has observed that although it is the Little Ice Age, the temperature is not always cold.
For example, in the winter of the first year of Chongzhen, the canal froze in the Linqing section.
In the second year of Chongzhen, there was no ice in the Linqing section, which was also one of the reasons why winter wheat grew well.
However, it is still frozen near Gyeonggi, and it freezes every year, which makes winter the off-season for water transportation.
Zuo Mengeng planned to seize this opportunity to divert canal water into the reservoir to supply summer irrigation water.
The water from the canal is diverted and will soon be replenished.
Because the canal is an artificial river, it passes through many river basins. Many rivers, such as the Yangtze River, Huaihe River, and Yellow River, fill the canal with water.
With a continuous water source, there is no need to worry about the water level in the canal falling and affecting water transportation.
The key point is that the amount of work required to dig the reservoir and supporting ditches is not small, and it is difficult for all the major families to contribute money and efforts together.
Not only money and food, but also manpower are not enough.
However, here in Zuo Mengeng, these are not problems.
"Everyone should know that when our army returned to the division not long ago, we defeated the Bailian bandits who caused trouble in Dongchang Mansion, and captured more than 10,000 people. The screening work of these prisoners has been completed a few days ago, and the most guilty ones have been dealt with. The remaining ones The captives must, of course, be redeemed for their crimes.”
Zuo Mengeng looked at everyone with faint eyes.
"With more than 10,000 laborers, I wonder if it is possible to build reservoirs and ditches?"
Everyone didn't expect that he had even planned this, but if they thought about it carefully, it was really feasible if he did this.
Using captives to work would save a lot of money and food without wasting people and money.
Are these prisoners considered human beings?
Not to mention working to death, as long as you don't starve to death, it's considered kind.
Of course, Zuo Mengeng didn't tell them that the labor intensity of these prisoners was actually not high.
It's only June now, so there's still a long time before the water is stored for the winter. These prisoners worked slowly and it was enough to finish the job.
Zuo Mengeng's purpose was to allow these prisoners to complete preliminary transformation through labor before they could be fully integrated into the army.
Everyone is exhausted. Where can the Second Division go to replenish its troops?
However, the most difficult problem of the irrigation project was successfully solved, so that every family no longer has any worries.
On the same day, each company signed a cooperation agreement in the Xinsheng Hotel.
Zuozhuang jointly held shares with various companies and established Linqing Agricultural Reclamation Group, which was fully responsible for grain farming. Each family owns a certain share of the land and enjoys a share of the dividends.
At the same time, each company sends people to join the group to assume leadership positions and be responsible for the daily operations of the group.
After Zuo Mengeng's research, Chen Zhi was appointed as the general manager of the Nongken Group.
This is the manager who knows the most about agriculture under him, and he manages Zuozhuang in an orderly manner. Now there is really no one available, so we have to let those who can do more work.
However, Chen Zhi did not feel that she had become an animal. Instead, she was able to fully demonstrate her talents. She was very happy and immediately started running for the Farm Reclamation Group.
The first step is for each family to take back all the land, and then after survey, select suitable plots for reorganization.
Each family has a lot of land, but not all of it is connected. Moreover, the land in some places is not suitable and must be eliminated.
The difficulty in this step of work lies in the individual tenants.
Because they have lost the opportunity to farm, they must make arrangements, otherwise there will be big trouble.
In addition, among each family's land, there will also be some farmland owned by small landowners and homesteaders. These people also need to be persuaded to join the farming group so that the cultivated land can be connected.
Zuo Menggeng taught Chen Zhi, Lu Hao and Liu Ji a certain task.
He didn't explain anything about the need to treat things fairly.
In fact, in the process of capital expansion, there is absolutely no tenderness.
If those small landowners and farmers are really stubborn and cling to their land, some means will be used to force them to submit.
