Destiny Only Han

Chapter 437 Liu Ying: Oops!The system cheated! (Look, this is really a system text!)
Linzi, the Qi Palace still under construction.

Liu Ying sat in front of the window with her hands resting on her cheeks, letting the scorching sun shine on his face, while his gaze was staring blankly at a row of uniformly sized objects placed on the window sill.

The shape of the thing is slightly oblate, the skin is khaki, slightly uneven, and at first glance it looks like some rough pebbles.

In later generations, this kind of thing is called potato or potato, ground egg, but there is another more popular name.

potato.

Yesterday, after dealing with the problem of the gold diggers protesting that the alcohol content was too low, Liu Ying only felt that her sleeves were sinking, and then she got these big potatoes that could only be obtained through time and space.

Well, at this time, the potatoes native to South America should be as big as quail eggs. If they want to grow to the size of a fist in Liu Ying's hands, it may take hundreds of years of breeding.

If you’re from a rot country, the first thing you think of when you see potatoes is fish and chips; if you’re from a hairy country, you probably think of all kinds of mashed potatoes; as for Liu Ying, the first thing you think of is hot and sour. Shredded potatoes and goulash!

But what saved these potatoes was not the scarcity of seeds, but the fact that there were many scary-looking seed sprouts growing on the surface of the potatoes...

Liu Ying struggled for a long time between being poisonous and being able to eat without the head, and finally decided to give up the temporary appetite, first explode the seeds, and then eat to my heart's content!

He really, I cried to death... After Liu Ying complained about the shamelessness of the system, she stood up silently, and called Han Tan who was standing at the door with her hands drooping naturally:

"Find four or five larger empty boxes, and some more plant ash, I'll use them."

Han Tan didn't say anything, just bowed and bowed and left as ordered.

This is what Liu Ying likes about him very much. He is loyal and obedient. If Liu Ying doesn't take the initiative to talk about it, he will never take the initiative to inquire.

Then, Liu Ying put the sprouted potatoes into the basket, took a shovel and walked to the garden.

Although it is not the best time for sowing potatoes, the time for sowing potatoes in future generations is March and August. At this time, it is close to the end of June in the lunar calendar, and it is not far from August in the Gregorian calendar.

Therefore, it is not very difficult to control the temperature of the soil in the early stage to avoid too much direct sunlight. It is not very difficult for potato tubers to take root and germinate.

Liu Ying stood in the garden, looking around, choosing the right soil.

Cao Shen is Liu Fei's distant uncle, so he did his best to build Liu Fei's palace. Naturally, the soil in the flower garden is much more fertile than other places.

After a while, Liu Ying chose a suitable place, rolled up her trousers and waved a shovel to destroy the flowers with her hands. Many exotic flowers and plants transported from thousands of miles died tragically in his hands...

On the palace in the distance, Cao Shen looked at the flower garden with a sullen face, so that his fingers pinching the railing turned white.

Prodigal, too prodigal!
It's just that although Cao Shen was slandering in his heart, he didn't intend to step forward to stop it.

He had worked with Liu Ying for a long time, and he knew how stingy and vengeful Liu Ying was...

In particular, he vaguely heard from drunk Fan Kui that when Liu Ying was very young, in order to get revenge on Lu Wan, he flicked his own bullshit, and directly set fire to Lu Wan's house!
For this reason, he did not hesitate to take the entire Zhongyang Lane!
Anyway, it was Liu Fei's palace that Liu Ying harmed. Regarding the matter between other brothers, especially that guy who killed eight hundred enemies without fear of self-defeating ten thousand, Cao Shen decisively chose to be wise and protect himself.

So he turned around and walked into the palace, reporting to Liu Bang the population and tax situation of Qi.

In the flower garden, Liu Ying was sweating profusely. Without much effort, she dug a big hole in the ground and filled the black, oily high-quality soil into several large boxes that Han Tan found.

Immediately afterwards, he squatted on the ground, took out a few daggers inlaid with suet jade and rubies that he used to store, inserted them into the prepared alcohol bottle and soaked them.

This step is to sterilize the daggers to avoid bacteria from invading the potatoes when cutting the potatoes, and to prepare multiple daggers to avoid cross-infection.

While soaking the dagger, Liu Ying picked up a piece of charcoal that hadn't been completely burnt from the ashes Han Tan found, and drew lines on the sprouted potatoes, which would save a lot of trouble when cutting.

Although Han Tan didn't know what Liu Ying was holding, he could tell what Liu Ying was going to do from Liu Ying's posture at the moment, so Han Tan, who had farming experience, began to dig ditches in the wooden box to facilitate Liu Ying's planting. .

After a while, Liu Ying began to cut potatoes along the drawn lines.

This step does not require any technical content, just avoid cutting off the seed sprouts, and cut the potatoes into large pieces as much as possible. Before the potato tubers have rooted and sprouted, the growth of the seed sprouts also needs the tubers to provide nutrition.

Then, taking advantage of the interval between changing knives, he began to evenly coat the cut potato tubers with plant ash.

This is because plant ash can not only provide a certain amount of potassium, but also accelerate the incision healing of potato tubers and prevent them from rotting and being eaten by underground pests.

Then, the previous process is repeated until all the potatoes are cut into small pieces of different sizes.

It's just that Liu Ying doesn't plan to do the last step of planting potato tubers in the soil.

"Okay, put the bud side up in the ditch, remember to plant more sparsely."

"Yes."

When Liu Ying recruited a few passing palace people to clean up the messy ground and the flower garden that he had harmed, Han Tan deftly placed the potato tubers in wooden boxes one by one, and then covered them with a layer of remaining plant ash and black soil , but Liu Ying stopped him when he wanted to water.

"I don't need to water it for the time being, just carry it back to the room first, and take it out to bask in the sun sooner or later."

Liu Ying recalled the planting method provided by the unscrupulous system. When the potato tubers were just planted, they did not need to be watered immediately. This was to prevent the tubers from rotting.

As for the water needed for the growth of seed sprouts, it is provided by the tubers. After all, the reason why potatoes are not easy to preserve is that they have a high water content.

As for Liu Ying asking Han Tan to reduce the planting density at the beginning, it was because of the degradation of potatoes.

The so-called potato degeneration refers to the fact that potato seed blocks can be planted in the first year, and high yields can be obtained, but if the harvested potatoes continue to be replanted in the second year, the plants will be short, the leaves will shrink, and the yield will drop. .

This problem is especially serious in low latitude and low altitude areas.

The cause of potato degradation is virus infection. There are roughly three most important ways to sum up.

Direct contact infection, such as rubbing of branches and leaves of different plants; indirect infection, such as tools, clothing, human limbs, etc. first contacting infected plants and then touching uninfected plants, or infection through knives when potatoes are cut into pieces; and insects. For example, aphids feed on infected plants first and then move to uninfected plants.

After the potato is infected, the virus will enter the potato block and accumulate, which will cause the virus to be passed on from generation to generation, and the longer the planting time, the more serious the infection, making the harvested potatoes smaller every year.

The cause of the Great Famine in Ireland that year was that locally grown potatoes were infected.

However, the cause of the large number of Irish deaths was not natural disasters, but mainly man-made disasters. Under the intentional or unintentional operation of the English government and the pursuit of interests by the local landlords in Ireland, when Ireland suffered a great famine, a large amount of food was exported. to a foreign country.

According to the records of the parties, even after the Great Famine had occurred, Ireland still had no shortage of food, but the price was so high that the poor could only watch the food in the window and starve to death!

Well, leaving aside the question of why grains are exported in large quantities from the disaster-stricken areas, there is actually a simple and crude way to solve the degradation of potato varieties.

Buy uninfected seeds elsewhere.

For example, in high-altitude and cold places, the chances of potatoes being harmed by viruses are low, especially insect damage, which is negligible under proper management.

In today's Han Empire, there are many places suitable for keeping potatoes as seeds.

The Longxi Plateau, the Western Sichuan Plateau, and the north of Taiyuan County and the north of Shang County are bitter and cold places that grow once a year.

Especially the latter, the good thing about potatoes is that they can grow in land that is not suitable for sowing food. In this way, when paired with the staple food, they can be cooked twice a year, which is enough to support the rapid growth of the population!
So Liu Ying's plan is naturally to send most of the potato seedlings to the high-altitude areas of Longxi County for breeding, and the remaining small part will be replanted to Dahan Public School in Shanglinyuan.

There, Liu Ying recruited more than 1000 "weipeisheng" from the counties and counties directly under the jurisdiction of the Han Empire, and the main daily learning was the farming skills dictated by the peasant scholars recruited by Liu Taigong.

The schooling period is two years. After graduation, if you pass the assessment, you can be directly appointed as Tian Dian with an annual salary of [-] shi.

Although the salary is not high, he is no longer a citizen since then.

Two years of hard work, in exchange for a lifetime of food and drink, how about the end of the universe is Kaogong...

Well, similar to these Agricultural Committee Pearsons, there are also medical students who study hard with the "Barefoot Doctor's Handbook" written by Liu Yingmo, and travel around Guanzhong to gain experience in free clinics.

Liu Ying saw that the potato seedlings had almost moved away, and ordered Han Tan to send someone to guard the potato seedlings again, then turned around and walked to the distant palace.

If he wanted to find Liu Bang, he had to fool this old guy who played endlessly back to Guanzhong!
So, Cao Can, who was reporting to Liu Bang, saw Liu Ying, who was covered in mud from the soles of her shoes, walking in with her head held high and her chest held high, stepping on the spotless floor that had just been waxed.

He clenched his fist again, but chose to endure it.

Liu Bang raised his head, his face full of displeasure: "It's really passed down from generation to generation! Where did this come from?"

(End of this chapter)