Chongzhen Daming: Starting from Coal Mountain

Chapter 517 The Great Harvest

The food crisis in Ming Dynasty has been completely resolved.

Soon after the second meeting of the Daming General Chamber of Commerce, the maritime merchants were mobilized to purchase rice from Champa, Siam, Myanmar, and Japan and continuously import rice into the south of the Yangtze River. Because it was profitable, the maritime merchants were very active.

Of course, there must be a price to pay, and the price of Jiangnan rice has risen to one yuan and five.

This is actually inevitable, because the Ming Dynasty has entered the credit currency era, and the typical symbol of the credit currency era is inflation. Mild inflation is actually conducive to promoting economic development.

In addition to purchasing grain from overseas, Huguang, Guide, Xuzhou, and Kaifeng also ushered in bumper harvests, among which Xuzhou and Guidefu had the best harvests.

Because the drought in Xuzhou and Guide Mansion is very light.

The grain harvest is ushered in, so the town soldiers in Xuzhou and Guide are in a good mood.

Since the beginning of the autumn harvest, Yang Ponu's big mouth has never been closed again, almost cramp from laughing.

At this time, Yang Ponu and Wang Laoqi were each pushing a rooster cart to collect grain. Just as they walked out of the gate, Widow Wang chased them out with a baby in their arms.

"Officer, wait a moment."

"You pulled down the dry food."

Widow Wang put a bag of steamed cakes on the chicken bus.

"Miss, you should just rest honestly during this time and don't do any work."

Yang Ponu glanced at Weilong's belly, the widow Wang's. The eldest child was less than four months old, and she was pregnant with her second child. He will have two sons next summer.

Thinking of this, Yang Ponu was full of energy.

"How could it be so precious." Widow Wang's pretty face showed a slight blush, "Wang's sister-in-law and Niu's sister-in-law have been around for ten months, why don't they still carry heavy burdens?"

"Besides, Xuzhou has built a hospital now."

"Even if there is something, you can go for surgery."

"What kind of knife?" Yang Ponu said angrily, "Just listen to me, or wait until I come back to deal with you."

When Yang Ponu mentioned the word tidying up, Widow Wang's pretty face became more and more red, her big eyes almost dripped, and she lowered her head and let out a low sound.

Seeing that his daughter-in-law had been restrained, Yang Ponu and his uncle continued to go to the field.

As soon as I walked to the gate of the Zhaibao, I met Chen Zilong and his wife head-on.

Although Chen Zilong is dark and thin, he is full of energy, and he is very satisfied with his current job and life at a glance.

Liu Rushi, who was following behind Chen Zilong, also lost the demeanor of a courtesan at all.

I saw Liu Rushi's hairpin in a cloth dress, and her pretty face was completely unpainted.

If the former sisters met, they would definitely not recognize this former Qinhuai courtesan.

But to be honest, Liu Rushi really likes the current life. Mentally, Chen Zilong can sing with her poems, and materially, he can live comfortably, and more importantly, he can work with Chen Zilong.

Liu Rushi never imagined that one day she would be able to work for the Ming court.

Chen Zilong may have been influenced by Chongzhen, or because of the precedent of Li Xiangjun, so he unexpectedly recruited Liu Rushi into the Agricultural Science to help him without hesitation.

If Chongzhen knew about this, he would have to say that Chen Zilong was really good at it.

This is definitely a winner in life who works as a secretary when he has something to do, and who has nothing to do as a secretary when he has nothing to do.

Well, in fact, it was also to pay off the debts. Chen Zilong owed a lot of debts to marry Liu Rushi.

Closer to home, Chen Zilong is still very capable, at least he is not inferior to his teacher Xu Guangqi in agricultural affairs, because Xu Guangqi's sweet potato thinning is limited to theory, but Chen Zilong has put it into practice.

Xu Guangqi sweet potato Shuli said that there are thirteen wins in sweet potatoes, and the one that ranks first can harvest tens of stones per mu.

But in fact, Xu Guangqi was just hearsay and did not actually go to the field for field investigation, so he just wrote a vague and general figure, which is not such an exaggeration.

After breeding and improvement, sweet potatoes can indeed yield tens of stones per mu.

However, it is impossible for sweet potatoes at this time to achieve tens of stones per mu.

Don't say that it is difficult to harvest tens of stones per mu, or even ten stones per mu.

For example, Xuzhou has 400 million mu of land, and the production capacity per mu reaches ten shi.

Among them was an acre of water land owned by Yang Ponu's family. Chen Zilong hurried over after hearing about it.

"Chen Gijian, Mrs. Chen." Seeing Chen Zilong and his wife, Yang Ponu hastily bowed in a serious manner, but Wang Laoqi stood behind Yang Ponu at a loss. Country people have never seen the world, and they are afraid of officials. .

Chen Zilong also bowed back, stood up and asked, "Yang Ponu, your family has an acre of sweet potatoes and harvested ten shi?"

Yang Po hummed and said: "Returning to Chen to advise, my family indeed harvested [-] jin for one mu of land, which is exactly ten shi, but only this amount was harvested for this acre, and only seven or eight jin for other land."

"There are a lot of seven or eight stones, and other people's homes only have five or six stones."

Chen Zilong was even happier when he heard it, and immediately asked: "How does your family grow?"

"I have to ask Seventh Brother about this." Yang Ponu turned his gaze to Wang Laoqi behind him, "Seventh Brother, come and tell Chen Gejian, how do we grow our sweet potatoes?"

"Actually, it's nothing, just..."

Before Wang Laoqi could finish speaking, he was interrupted by Chen Zilong.

"Wait a minute." Chen Zilong interrupted Wang Laoqi, then turned to Liu Rushi and said, "Ma'am, paper and pen."

Liu Rushi hurriedly took out a small notebook and a writing brush from the satchel she was carrying, and finally took out a glass bottle of pre-ground ink.

"Okay, now you can talk."

Chen Zilong dipped the brush in the ink and said with a wave of his hand.

However, Wang Laoqi was so nervous that he forgot all the rhetoric.

In the end, Yang Ponu said with a smile: "Chen Gejian, let's go to the field and talk, as long as you go to the field, you will know everything."

"Alright." Chen Zilong put away the paper, pen and ink after hearing this.

While following Yang Ponu to the field, Chen Zilong asked again: "Yang Ponu, how much grain did your family harvest this year?"

Yang Ponu pointed his fingers and said: "My family has planted a total of fifteen acres of sweet potatoes, five acres of corn and five acres of potatoes. The sweet potatoes can harvest about 120 shi, the potatoes are about a dozen shi, and the corn has eight or nine shi."

"All of them add up to about 140 shi, which is enough for our family to eat for several years."

Having said this, Yang Ponu said again: "Chen Gejian, the yield per mu of corn and potatoes is not so high, even a fraction of sweet potatoes. Next year my family will not grow corn potatoes, but sweet potatoes."

"The plant still needs to be planted, but it can be planted less."

Chen Zilong waved his hand and said, "It can also be rotated with wheat."

Wang Laoqi nodded repeatedly and said, "It is indeed possible to rotate crops with wheat."

At this time, Liu Rushi suddenly asked: "There are so many sweet potatoes, will they rot if you can't finish them?"

At least half of Xuzhou's 400 million mu of Entian are sweet potatoes. Calculated by harvesting six shi per mu, it is 1000 two million shi.

There are 15 town soldiers in Xuzhou Town, plus their family members, there are only more than [-] people. It may not be enough to eat sweet potatoes for a year.

"Oh, yes." Yang Ponu woke up like a dream, clapped his hands and asked Chen Zilong, "Chen Gejian, we are going to find you, how do we store this sweet potato? Some sweet potatoes that were harvested early are starting to rot .”

Chen Zilong said: "The teacher's Sweet Potato Book introduced the storage method, saying that it is necessary to dig a hole in a sunny and dry place, and then seal it up for storage, but even this can only be stored for a few months. If you want to store it for a year or even longer It is impossible, so Nongke will step up efforts to explore better storage methods, such as grinding into sweet potato flour."

"Then you have to hurry up." Yang Ponu said.

"Otherwise all of them are rotten, wouldn't they be blind for nothing?"

"It will definitely not let the food you have worked so hard to rot."

Chen Zilong said: "If it's not possible, the Ministry of Internal Affairs will come forward to buy it."

"The Ministry of Internal Affairs will come to buy it?" Yang Ponu's eyes lit up when he heard this.

"It depends." Chen Zilong said, "But the possibility is very high, because the Holy Majesty is currently using troops against Liaodong, Xuzhou has also sent [-] recruits, and the daily consumption of military rations is a huge number."

Hearing this, Yang Ponu sighed lightly.

Why didn't His Majesty send us to Liaodong?

Aren't we better than those recruits?

……

A few days passed, and Zheng Zhilong was about to leave.

Before leaving, Zheng Zhilong came to bid farewell to Chongzhen.

As we talked, we talked about the advantages and disadvantages of suppressing soldiers and recruiting soldiers.

"Don't talk about the second and third generations of town soldiers, but the first generation of town soldiers is really not as good as recruiting soldiers." Chongzhen said, "You can't see it when you fight against the wind, but the gap will be revealed when you fight against the wind."

Zheng Zhilong said: "Your Majesty is saying that town soldiers can't fight against the wind?"

"That's it." Chongzhen said, "Because most of these town soldiers fought against Jiannu, the strength of Jiannu has left a deep imprint on their hearts."

"There is no problem when the wind blows."

"But once it becomes a stalemate, or even at a disadvantage,"

"The imprint Jian Nu left in the hearts of the town soldiers will play a role."

"At this time, the confidence of the town soldiers will be greatly shaken."

Having said this, Chongzhen said again: "The direct performance on the battlefield is that the town soldiers' ability to withstand death is far inferior to the newly recruited 27 new troops."

"Ability to withstand death?" Zheng Zhilong thought.

"Yes, it is the ability to withstand death." Chongzhen said, "Even if the new army suffers more than [-]% or even [-]% casualties, it may not necessarily collapse, but the town soldiers can bear up to [-]%."

"The new army's ability to withstand death is so high?" Zheng Zhilong was a little skeptical.

Before the words fell, Xu Yingwei walked in quickly and reported to Chongzhen: "My lord, King Ding has pacified North Korea. North Korea has torn up the covenant with the establishment of slavery, and signed a new covenant with me, Ming."

Chongzhen asked: "I heard that Jiannu also sent [-] guards to escort Li Ji's second son, Li Hao, back to Seoul?"

"Yes." Xu Yingwei said, "But the three thousand guards who built slaves have been wiped out by our army."

"What? Three thousand new troops actually wiped out three thousand Jiannu guards?" Zheng Zhilong was really surprised.

Because Zheng Zhilong is a navy general, he has never fought against Jiannu, but he has heard of Jiannu's white-armored soldiers. These are three thousand white-armored soldiers!

(End of this chapter)