Go back to the past and be a schoolboy

In fact, such things as nitrogen fertilizer, no matter during the period of the Republic of China or for a long time after liberation, our country was in a state of shortage.

Before the 80s, the balance of nitrogen nutrient input and output in our country's farmland had always been negative by more than 100 million tons, and there was a serious shortage of fertilizers.

However, the contribution rate of chemical fertilizers to crop output growth has always been more than 30%, especially in the early stage. For every 1 kg increase in the amount of chemical fertilizers (in pure conversion), the grain output increased by as much as 20 kg. In the 21st century, growth will be considered stagnant.

During this period, due to the increase in grain production, our country successfully liberated a large number of labor productivity trapped in the fields, and has since gradually entered the ranks of the world's largest manufacturing countries.

The term "migrant workers" appeared intensively in this era and has become a lingering memory for most people.

All in all, only by liberating more manpower, can industrial development have more possibilities, and nitrogen fertilizer represented by synthetic ammonia is one of the most effective means at present.

Rolling up his sleeves, Cheng Nuo looked at the watch in his hand. There was still some time before get out of class ended, so he wrote a word on the blackboard with confidence:
【Involution】

"Does anyone know what this English word means?"

As expected of a student from Peking University, the student stood up and answered the question as soon as he finished speaking: "Professor Hui, this word is called multiplication in mathematics. You mentioned it in the class before."

Cheng Nuo said kindly, "However, is there anything else you mean by being good at controlling the details?"

The student hesitated for a moment, and said seriously: "It is called degeneration in biology, and atrophy in medicine."

Cheng Nuo nodded in satisfaction, and then asked, "Is there any other meaning?"

The student frowned and thought hard for a while, but couldn't think of any other meanings. He shook his head in frustration, "Professor, I'm sorry, but the students are stupid. I really don't know the meaning of this word. Please teach me."

Cheng Nuo raised his hand and pressed down, asked the students to sit down, and encouraged the students with a smile: "It's okay, you already know enough, the new meaning behind is my newly derived."

As soon as the words came out, the students immediately became curious, and there was a small commotion in the classroom, all guessing the new meaning of the word.

After all, there are not a few people who know this word, it's just that the student reacted faster and answered first.

It happened that Chen Zhongfu and Li Dazhao were passing by, and they were very curious when they heard the movement inside. They looked inside and saw Cheng Nuo walking to the podium, looking at the words on the blackboard, and they became even more curious.

"This Zhiyuan doesn't take math classes well every day, so how did he start messing around with English?" Chen Zhongpu looked at the blackboard with his hands behind his back, frowning, puzzled: "Could it be that math is too boring, so teaching English can be a change of taste?"

Li Dazhao crossed his hands in front of him and said with a smile, "Now it's not called arithmetic, it's called mathematics."

Chen Zhongpu waved his hands, a little impatient: "It's the same thing to change the soup or not to change the medicine. Why don't you go in and see what kind of medicine is sold in Professor Cheng Da's gourd."

Then he took the lead and went in quietly from behind.

Li Dazhao felt helpless following behind: "It's not mathematics, otherwise you and I may not understand it, but it's the first time a big girl is on a sedan chair to hear Zhiyuan teaching English."

Standing on the podium, Cheng Nuo saw the expressions of all the students, and naturally knew that Chen and Li had come in.

But they are still in class right now, nodding each other as a greeting, and then start teaching again.

"Involution here is translated as over-densification. In layman's terms, it means involution, which means that people on one's own side compete with each other and have to compete for limited resources, resulting in a decline in everyone's income. It's hard to say otherwise, but put it aside Very suitable for agriculture."

Even though they said that, everyone in the audience still stared wide-eyed, unable to understand the meaning.

All of this is under Cheng Nuo's control. After a pause, Cheng Nuo added: "Only increasing the total output by continuously increasing labor input on limited land will eventually lead to a continuous decline in marginal benefits.

A mode of production in which output per capita tends to decrease and technological progress stagnates is considered growth without development.

In other words, if we do not use other means to increase food production, then countless of our peasant brothers will be trapped on this three-acre land because of food problems. The development of industry requires population, the development of education requires population, and the development of urbanization More people are needed.

Where does the population come from? It can only come from agricultural and rural farmers. "

Some students were puzzled: "Professor, what will happen if you don't solve this problem?"

Cheng Nuo put away his smile and said seriously, "Then more and more compatriots will die of hunger."

In order to deepen the students' memory, Cheng Nuo simply used the intuitive way of numbers to tell the students present.

"Recently, I have some free time to help the National History Museum sort out some materials. I don't know if I don't sort it out. I was shocked when I sorted it out. During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, after deducting various losses, the average output of each agricultural population could directly eat refined grains. 808 Jin,

After deducting the average ration of 340 jin per person, 468 jin of commercial grain could be provided to the society; by the end of the Qing Dynasty, the agricultural population could directly eat 400 jin of refined grain, and 60 jin of refined grain could be provided to the society after deducting their own rations.

When we arrive in the Republic of China, do you know how many are left? "

"How much?" Chen Zhongfu couldn't help asking.

Cheng Nuo said slightly sadly: "The per capita output of refined grains that can be directly eaten is only 394 catties, and the commercial refined grains that can be provided to the society are only 53 catties. The situation is not as good as that in the late Qing Dynasty. It is not objective."

Hearing this number, everyone couldn't help but gasp, expressing disbelief at this number.

But if you think about it carefully, since the end of the Qing Dynasty, there have been major disasters and minor disasters every year, and it is not easy to have such an average grain output.

Once the conversation started, Cheng Nuo did not intend to give up, and then added: "The low per capita output of the agricultural population fundamentally restricts China's urbanization process. According to rough statistics, our urbanization rate is about 10%. What kind of concept is it? It is roughly equivalent to the early Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties."

As soon as this remark came out, the classroom completely exploded.

"Professor Cheng, isn't this nonsense? It's so low. We have developed together for a thousand years, and the more we develop, the more we go backwards?"

"He is a professor of mathematics, can he deceive us about numbers? Isn't this a big joke in the world, and there is no reason to deceive us. We are all poor students, so we can do whatever we want."

"Oh, it's all the fault of the Manchu Tartars, who occupy our great land and rivers and don't do anything about it. If it were me, I would have to settle their old accounts thoroughly."

……

It can be seen that the students have already discussed with each other, and the noise is much quieter.

Cheng Nuo threw out the rest of his opinion: "Delayed urbanization can neither provide enough non-agricultural employment opportunities nor modernize the means of agricultural production.

In the end, poor farmers who faced the limit of traditional agriculture's yield per unit area and the scarcity of land resources had to take excessively from nature and embarked on the road of deforestation.

Irreconcilable contradictions between man and land eventually lead to the destruction of the natural environment and more severe natural disasters. This year's Zhili flood was caused by the destruction of vegetation, which led to silting of the river and eventually led to a flood tragedy. "

At this time, Li Dazhao had gradually learned the red theory, and after listening to Cheng Nuo's words, he thought about it: "In order to avoid 'involution', so we need to develop industry?"

Cheng Nuo smiled and said, "Student Li is right, the economic and ecological crises of our agriculture and the countryside are not the product of industrial development, on the contrary, they are precisely the inevitable result of the lagging industrial development in modern China.

Seeking the industrial transformation of agricultural production means is an inevitable choice for Chinese people to break through the bottleneck of resources and environment and strive for the rights and interests of survival after the growth potential of traditional production methods has been exhausted!

Therefore, it is imperative to develop synthetic ammonia in the next step and increase food production, which is necessary for industrial development! "

Of course, apart from the above points, there were other more important reasons, which Cheng Nuo didn't expand here.

In terms of soil quality, most of the land in the country lacks nitrogen, especially in central China, southern China, and southwest China.

In the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, in the Huai River Basin and south of the Yangtze River, there are many lands lacking both phosphorus and nitrogen.

my country's animal husbandry is underdeveloped, and manure has always been scarce, and farmers use more human and animal manure.

Urea is used as a natural fertilizer, and its quantity is directly proportional to the density of the household registration. Near the city, there is little cultivated land but a lot of manure, and in rural areas, there is more cultivated land but less manure, which is not enough for farmers to use.

Moreover, organic fertilizers such as human excrement, barn manure, compost, river mud, weeds, plant ash, bean cake, and cotton cake are rich in organic matter, but their nutrients are thin.

At the same time, most of the efficacy will be lost due to wind, rain, sunlight and other reasons. To adapt to the needs of plants, it is not an exaggeration to apply a large number of plants.

If you want to increase food production, you must develop chemical fertilizers.

As early as the Song and Yuan dynasties, the Chinese had used lime, gypsum and sulfur as fertilizers, creating a primitive form of chemical fertilizers.

In order to break the serious constraints of backward production methods on agricultural production, for countries like China with a large population and little land, lack of opportunities for fallow land, shortage of green manure crops, and a drop in the bucket of livestock manure that livestock breeding can provide, it is necessary to apply it on a large scale. Fertilizers are the most realistic and feasible way to effectively increase agricultural output.

However, the production and use of chemical fertilizers in modern China lagged far behind the world trend.

Although the practical process of synthesizing ammonia from air and hydrogen appeared as early as 1908, we still have to wait until the early days of the Anti-Japanese War until we can independently produce nitrogen fertilizer. Our annual fertilizer output is less than the world's total. 1% of the output is appalling.

Now that he has the ability and takes the chemical industry as the primary direction of current research, Cheng Nuo naturally will not give up this opportunity to change history.

"All in all, all in all, whether we want to fill our stomachs or develop industries, we must first solve the food problem. People depend on food. This sentence is not a joke."

At the end of the speech, regardless of whether the students can fully grasp the truth, they can also feel the patriotism in it.

The bell for the end of get out of class rang for a long time, and they all crowded around Cheng Nuo.

Perhaps it was because Na Yitong's speech was too shocking before the end of class, or maybe the mathematics was too boring. Cheng Nuo's questions were basically about chemistry, which made him dumbfounded.

After finally getting rid of the crowd, another hand pulled him up from behind.

Cheng Nuo said habitually, "Sorry, classmate, the final exam is about mathematics, not chemistry, let alone humanities, and there is no key point of the exam. Go down and study hard."

Unexpectedly, this "student" was not afraid at all, and he stepped forward, grabbed his arm and said in a rough voice, "But Professor Cheng, what if I'm not interested in chemistry?"

"Then what are you interested in...Mr. Zhongfu?" Before he finished speaking, Cheng Nuo realized that the person following behind was not a student, but Chen Zhongfu.

Right now, he was baring his big white teeth, and said cheerfully: "Just now, the students surrounded you three layers inside and three layers outside. I am too embarrassed to say it directly, can I ask you now?"

"Of course." Cheng Nuo immediately pulled up three chairs, kept one for himself, and shared the rest between the two of them: "What do you want to ask, Mr. Zhongfu is not interested in mathematics, is he?"

Chen Zhongfu shook his head quickly: "You overestimate me. I didn't understand it in the classroom just now, and I still haven't figured out the relationship between agricultural chemical fertilizers and industrial development. Please tell us more."

Cheng Nuo picked up his cup, gulped down a cup of tea, and said slowly, "Actually, it's simple. With the rapid expansion of the agricultural and non-agricultural population, without the rapid development of the chemical fertilizer industry, it is impossible to raise The agricultural surplus necessary for the continued advancement of industrialization and the steady expansion of cities.

Even if it is barely raised, it will be difficult for the countryside to usher in new development. "

Chen Zhongfu suddenly realized: "No wonder, no wonder, it's really a ring and a ring, and the ring can't be changed."

Li Dazhao nodded: "Zhiyuan is more thoughtful, so go ahead and do it boldly. If you need any support, tell us in time. If you can do it, we will definitely help you. As long as it is for the same ideal, you can talk about anything."

Cheng Nuo joked, "It's okay. If it's really necessary, I won't let the two gentlemen go."

Of course, in addition to the above reasons, there is another very important thing is to protect the natural environment.

Without the great progress of the chemical fertilizer industry represented by nitrogen fertilizer, China's vast rural areas are bound to escape the vicious circle of "indiscriminate deforestation - decline in agricultural productivity - no livelihood for farmers - intensification of deforestation".
Continuing to be in the predicament of ecological deterioration, agricultural production crisis and people's lack of livelihood at the same time, it is impossible to curb indiscriminate farming and deforestation, and gradually improve agricultural production conditions and rural ecological environment.

Even if it is impossible not to follow the old path of destroying first and then governing, it should be avoided as much as possible.

After all, due to the destruction of the natural environment, in addition to desertification in some places, it also caused the extinction of a group of endangered animals.

Cheng Nuo didn't want his descendants to only see rare animals such as Chinese Baiji Dolphin and South China Tiger in books.

The development of nitrogen fertilizer industry represented by synthetic ammonia is needed by agriculture, environmental protection, industry, and avoiding "involution".