Neon Clothes and Iron Clothes

Chapter 501 Rice and Cotton

"Oops, quick, quick anchor!" An Taishun paused and said, "What, there are still people in the water? Don't worry about it, quick anchor, quick anchor!"

"Don't worry!" Cao Sengnu grabbed An Taishun's arm: "They are fast, we have so many copper ingots on our ship, we can't escape, even if we escape, the people in the water will be caught by the government. I will definitely confess you, so what will you do then?"

"Then, what should we do then?" An Taishun was in a hurry when he heard the words. He had a big business, a rich family, and was well-known in Yangzhou City, but he was a Sogdian merchant. Without much power, in the eyes of the government, he is just a big piece of fat.If it is involved, even if it does not destroy the family, it will lose a lot of money.

"Brother An, don't worry, everything is under my arrangement, and I will keep you safe!" Cao Sengnu patted An Taishun's shoulder twice, and patted his palm twice, a short, strong man stepped forward and said : "What are your orders, Mr. Lang?"

"You tell the accompanying party to get ready. If I open and close the folding fan later and clap my palms twice, you will do as usual, understand?"

"This subordinate understands!" The man responded, and retreated.An Taishun heard something wrong and asked, "Brother Cao, what do you mean by following the rules?"

"Hehe!" Cao Sengnu laughed twice: "Brother An, don't you want to know who is behind me? You will know later!"

"No wonder Brother Cao is so determined!" An Taishun breathed a sigh of relief, and said with a smile, "Okay, okay, then everything will be arranged by Brother Cao!"

"Stop the boat, stop the boat! We are the official patrol boat!"

Liu Ze stood at the bow of the ship, at his feet, the bow cut through the gray water surface, the oars slapped the water surface, the big flag fluttered with the wind, and the round-headed merchant ship not far ahead was furiously pulling up its anchor, There was chaos on the deck.These little thieves, Liu Ze thought contemptuously, since they came to salvage the goods that fell into the water, they didn't prepare for the worst!Thinking of this, he couldn't help reaching out and stroking the handle of the knife at his waist.

"Give me the bow and arrow!" Liu Ze took the horn bow from his subordinates, drew it fully, aimed at the mast of the merchant ship that was in a panic, and shot an arrow. On the deck at the stern, there was a sudden exclamation.

"Tell them, let me put down the things in my hands, don't shout, I can spare them death!"

Liu Ze's intimidation paid off, and the deck of the merchant ship on the opposite side calmed down. He waved his hand in satisfaction and let his own ship approach, put down the gangplank, and walked over first, saying loudly: "Speak, the ship that fell into the river How much copper did you fish out?"

An Taishun took a careful look at Cao Sengnu, noticed that the other party nodded slightly, and then stepped forward and said: "Is it Captain Liu? Can you take a step to speak? It's all a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding!"

"What misunderstanding? Blue-eyed dog, don't try to fool it!" Liu Ze scolded angrily: "I have already tortured him clearly, all of this is all behind your back! Say, where did the copper come from? There are other things , Don’t be afraid of the pain if you don’t talk about it now when you go to the government!”

An Taishun was speechless by Liu Ze's aggressive scolding, he opened his mouth wide, and subconsciously turned to Cao Sengnu with a begging look.Liu Ze also noticed this, and said with a smile, "You are the one who can make the decision. That's fine, do you have anything to say?"

"Ah!" Cao Sengnu sighed: he unfolded the folding fan in his hand, shook it twice, and sighed: "Actually, it's obviously unnecessary, so why bother?" He put away the folding fan, He tapped his palms twice.

"Why bother? You—" Liu Ze laughed loudly when he heard the words, and when he was about to step forward, he suddenly made a soft sound, and was shot in the throat suddenly, choking his laughter in his throat.

"Evil thief!"

"How dare you!"

The soldiers who accompanied Liu Ze on the boat were stunned at first, and then furious, they drew their swords and stepped forward. The man in white came up to him, with cold iron in his hand, and his eyes were silent. As soon as the two sides fought, the patrolling soldiers fell to the ground , They were horrified to find that these mysterious enemies were all wearing iron armor, including scale armor, bright light armor, and two levels of armor, but at least each of them had an iron armor.

"Who are you, you dare to hide your armor?" If it was surprise just now, it is fear now.In the south of the Tang Dynasty, there were not many guards, and their armaments were lax. For the sake of convenience and comfort, these cruisers wore leather armor at most, and most of them were simply clothed in civilian clothes. Some people knelt down and begged for mercy, some wanted to escape back to the mother ship, and some simply jumped into the river because there was only one springboard and they couldn't grab the road.And this group of mysterious iron-armored warriors came over on the springboard, even those who jumped into the river to escape, shot them when they breathed out of the water, and those who knelt down and begged for mercy were not spared, but the half-meal In a short time, he killed all the people on the patrol boat, leaving nothing behind!
"How did this happen? How did this happen?" An Taishun, who was standing aside, couldn't speak a complete sentence, but kept mumbling.He has been in business for so many years, what storm has he never seen?Naturally, they are not good men and women. It is not uncommon to raise private soldiers for self-defense, attack competitors, or even kill and set fire.But it is a completely different thing to prepare your own armor like this and openly attack the official patrol boat on the river - just relying on the private possession of armor, as long as it is spread, it will not be enough to lose a few heads!
"Lang Jun!" Just now the short and strong man came back with a head in his hand. He bowed his hands to Cao Sengnu: "Just now I was ordered to kill all the 47 people on board the thief leader and the rest. This is a thief. For Liu Ze’s head, I ask Mr. Lang to check it out, and there are four other men tied up at the bottom of the ship’s bilge, and I’ve already sent someone to bring them up!”

"leader!"

"Boss He!"

As soon as the four came out, Gou'er, Mao'er, and An Tai exclaimed in unison, it turned out that the first one among the four was Boss He.

"Master An, dogs, cats, why are you?" Boss He couldn't help being shocked when he saw this, and when he saw the blood and corpses dripping on the deck, his body trembled and he was speechless.

"Now is not the time to say goodbye!" Cao Sengnu said: "Hurry up and clean up the boat, and then leave as soon as possible!"

After the accident just now, Cao Sengnu had already grasped all the right to speak unknowingly.Everyone returned to their own boat obediently, and the short and strong man came back with his subordinates, and everyone saw the official patrol boat slowly sinking into the river.On the way back, everyone subconsciously remained silent, fear gnawing at everyone's hearts.

In the next few days, An Taishun was terrified all the time. He shuddered at the thought of killing dozens of people on the official patrol boat like cutting vegetables and melons at the order of monk Cao on the river that day. The rumors that came here may not be true, this Cao She'er is no longer the young man he used to be.

"Brother An! Brother An!"

"Oh, oh!" An Taishun came back to his senses, and then he noticed that Cao Sengnu was sitting opposite, with a look of impatience on his face, and sweat broke out on his forehead: "Brother Cao, please forgive me, I was distracted down below." , what are you talking about?"

"It's about purchasing the necessary materials in Yangzhou! Especially silk and satin, and introducing a few Arab, Shendu (ancient Chinese name for India), and Annan merchants."

"Yes, yes!" An Taishun nodded again and again: "Isn't it Alibo, Shendu, and Annan merchants? I have heard of merchants from these countries in Yangzhou, but they usually go with the boat, and few of them are in Yangzhou. Those who have settled down may not be able to find them!"

"This is what the superior ordered, you just do it!"

"Yes, yes!" An Taishun didn't dare to ask more questions, and hurriedly retreated after answering a few times.Looking at the background of An Taishun's departure, Cao Sengnu heaved a sigh of relief. He didn't come here just to open up the shipping route. In addition, he also had a secret mission, which was to find rice and cotton plants.

Generally speaking, the northern border of the ancient Central Plains Dynasty coincided with the [-]mm rainfall line.The reason is very simple. Unless it is oasis agriculture relying on snow-capped mountains to melt water, the annual rainfall of [-] millimeters is the life and death line of ancient agricultural production.The ancient Chinese civilization was based on agricultural production. Without the economic foundation of normal agricultural production, the superstructures such as the country and civilization would have nothing to do with them.

But the Northeast region in ancient times was an exception. It has fertile land, abundant rain and snow, and rich minerals. It is an important grain-producing area in my country in modern times.But in most of the ancient times, the Central Plains dynasty could only control a small part of the Northeast region, and sometimes even a small part could not be controlled. Why is this?A very important reason is that cotton became the main fiber crop in our country very late.

The sources of clothing materials for ancient Chinese people can be roughly divided into two stages—before the Yuan Dynasty and after the Yuan Dynasty. , the poor wear linen and Gebu. Although cotton has a long history in China, large-scale planting and use did not take place until the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Especially in the Yuan Dynasty, cotton textile technology spread from the south to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and quickly became the favorite of most people in the society. Clothing preferred.

The victory of cotton is not accidental. Compared with silk, linen, Gebu, and even wool, cotton has obvious advantages: cotton has a much higher yield per unit area than silk, and consumes less labor; it is warmer and easier to process than linen and Gebu. ; and cotton requires much less land than wool, and does not need to occupy large tracts of land.The rapid popularization of cotton and the improvement of cotton textile technology quickly reduced the cost of keeping warm for the middle and lower classes in ancient China. As a result, the development cost of Northeast China, which had a cold climate but fertile land and abundant rainfall, also decreased rapidly. Therefore, Ming and Qing Dynasties It is no accident that the population and cultivated land reclamation area in Northeast China increased rapidly during the [-]th century.

For Wang Wenzuo, the next step is to develop the Northeast region, which is inseparable from sufficient warm clothing.Unlike the modern society where living materials are extremely cheap, ancient textiles are arguably very expensive materials.The emperors of the Tang and Song Dynasties gave soldiers special summer gifts and winter gifts. The original meaning was to give soldiers winter and summer clothes. Even in the Ming and Qing Dynasties when the cotton textile industry was popularized and clothing materials became much cheaper, a cotton jacket, A quilt is also a pawn for ordinary people. In many literary works, poor people send quilts and jackets to pawnshops to exchange money to tide over difficulties. Even in the first 30 years after the founding of the Republic, urban housewives Using limited fabric and cotton to dress the family neatly and warmly is also a great effort.

If cotton seedlings can be obtained from India in advance, planted on a large scale in Jiangnan and Japan, and then soybeans can be planted on a large scale in Northeast China, and traded with soybean cakes and soybean oil, this will not only benefit both parties, but also deepen the The economic ties between the Northeast and the interior are of great benefit to the formation of a unified multi-ethnic country.

The second is the planting of rice. Unlike modern times, the area with a relatively high degree of development in the Northeast at that time was the southern Liaoning area with more hills and mountains, rather than the flat areas such as the Liaohe Plain and the Sanjiang Plain today.The reason is that in the Tang Dynasty, these flat areas were undeveloped, and they were still large swamps and wetlands.On the contrary, relatively large-scale agricultural settlements have been formed in the hills and valleys of southern Liaoning, and there is not much room for development.

If you want to attack the southern Liaoning area, you will have conflicts with the aborigines, and from the perspective of agricultural development potential, the hills and valleys cannot compare with the fertile land, abundant rainfall, and flat terrain in the eastern Liaoning area.Therefore, Wang Wenzuo's main focus of agricultural development in the future is to focus on the Liaohe Plain area, and this area has been a famous rice planting area in history. Both the soil quality and water flow are very suitable for planting rice. Considering that the unit yield of rice is much higher than that of wheat, Traditional crops such as sorghum are much higher.If ox farming, iron plows, water conservancy, and paddy fields are multi-pronged, we will be able to obtain harvests far exceeding those in history.

Of course, the cultivation, improvement, promotion, and planting of improved varieties of cotton or rice are not a one-day effort, but once they are successful, they will be successful in the present and benefit the future.Without the continuous improvement of agricultural products, his plan to develop the Far East, even cross the Bering Strait, and go to America is just empty talk.After all, even though the seal skins, whale fat, dried salmon from Hokkaido, the gold mines from Sado, and the silver mines from Iwami cost less and gain more, they are things that two or three generations will eat up and use up. Only these last long.

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Cui's house in Qingzhou.

"So, Wang Changshi asked Twelve Lang to propose marriage to my family?" Cui Bian stroked his beard and asked.

"That's right, my nephew is here for this purpose!" Cui Hongdu carefully looked at Cui Bian's face. Cui Bian is the long branch of the Qingzhou house of the Cui family in Qinghe, and Cui Hongdu is a side branch of the Wushui house of the Cui family in Qinghe. In terms of seniority, he was still Cui Bian's peer, but he was ordered to propose marriage this time, so he dared to call himself a junior.

(End of this chapter)