A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 205

Li Shimin is very interested in stealing a teacher from the Wu family to learn art.

He stood aside and watched as Wu Huaiyu deliberately picked out a pot of small potatoes. After cleaning, he didn't need to peel them. He added an appropriate amount of salt to the boiling water in the pot, and then put the whole small potatoes into it to cook.

"This salt is very good. Did you bring it back from Zhang County?" Li Shimin asked.

"Return to Your Majesty, this is indeed Zhang salt produced after the restoration of Yanjing Village in Zhang County."

"Baojing Jiyu, it turns out that this is the fire-salt brick from Baoyu No. Yanfang. I heard that Chang'an is quite famous now," the emperor said with a smile, but Wu Huaiyu could hear the meaning of the emperor's words. He Wu Huaiyu did it in Zhang County. The emperor has already grasped that private property clearly.

"Your Majesty, this fire salt brick is still not as good as the green salt from the Wubai Salt Pond in Yanzhou."

Boil the small potatoes in the pot until they can be easily pierced with a toothpick, then remove and drain the water, and then cut the fresh and tender shallots into finely chopped green onions.

Pour sesame oil into the pan, put the small potatoes, and fry slowly over low heat until the surface is golden and wrinkled. Sprinkle fine salt, cumin powder, pepper powder, pepper powder and coarse chili powder in turn.

Stir-fry for a while, and finally sprinkle with coarse cumin, white sesame seeds, and shallots, and put it on a plate.

The spicy smell came out.

The little potatoes are fried golden and crispy.

The last time Li Shimin ate the mashed potatoes made by Huaiyu, he was very satisfied. Today, the fried cumin potatoes are different, especially the kinds of noodles sprinkled, especially the red ones, which are very unusual .

"what is that?"

"Chili powder, dry the chili and roast it in the ashes of the stove, pat it clean and grind it into coarse pieces, it is very spicy."

Pepper pepper Li Shimin knows that this is the first time I have seen pepper.

"Same as potatoes, corn, and sweet potatoes, are the seeds of the vegetables collected by your master?"

"Well, it is said that it was obtained from a sea merchant. The sea merchant said that the origin of the chili and corn is in the Eastern Wasteland, on the other side of the East China Sea, tens of thousands of miles away from us... ·”

Li Shimin was very interested in this Donghuang, but unfortunately Wu Huaiyu didn't reveal much, only that he didn't know.

Xu Luoren first tried small potatoes for the emperor.

It looked very tempting, but when he put a small potato into his mouth and just chewed a few mouthfuls, his face became serious.

Even his face turned red in the end, and finally turned purple and swollen.

"water!"

Seeing this, Zhou Shaofan immediately asked Wu Huaiyu, "General Wu, what's going on?"

"Chili is hot."

Xu Luoren, who was eating chili for the first time, felt a little uncomfortable. The spicyness of the Tang people generally refers to ginger and garlic. You see what the Tang people say, the onion is spicy, the garlic is spicy, and the leek is spicy.

They even think that leeks can break the neck tendons, and they say that onions and garlic are spicy, but they know that they can't eat anything spicy, and cornel and fuliu vine are only used as seasonings when making some stewed meat.

Sprinkling a lot of chili noodles directly like Wu Huaiyu is too shocking for Xu Luoren who has never eaten spicy food.

He felt that the tendons in his neck were going to snap, and he even suspected that he had been poisoned.

Facing his questioning eyes, Wu Huaiyu directly picked up a toothpick and put it in his mouth.

Well, that's the smell.

Familiar taste.

It's a pity that I forgot to put some coriander. It would be very good if there is Zheer root mixed in it.

One bite at a time.

These small potatoes are best for frying. They are crispy on the outside and glutinous on the inside. Those seasonings make the taste extremely rich.

Dazzled five or six times in one breath, Wu Huaiyu was fine, but looked intoxicated.

Seeing this, Li Shimin didn't hesitate anymore, picked up a toothpick and put one in his mouth.

In the end, his reaction was not much better than Xu Luoren's, he was so hot that he sucked.

"This chili noodles are really spicy."

"Your Majesty, this is not spicy at all, it can only be regarded as mildly spicy. Really spicy peppers are much hotter than this."

Li Shimin sucked and sucked, and slowly came to the aftertaste. After the hotness, he felt quite refreshed. Although his tongue was numb and his head was sweating from the hotness, it really had a special taste.

"Your Majesty, have a glass of buttermilk,"

"I forgot to put some minced garlic, minced ginger and coriander just now, otherwise the taste would be even better."

Xu Luoren gulped down the buttermilk, but he looked away in awe, "There are still people who would use this kind of thing as a spice? What's the picture?"

"Sweet, sweet, bitter, spicy, are all tastes." Huaiyu smiled, enjoying this long-lost taste, or enjoying this pain.

Li Shimin was brave enough to try new things. He insisted on eating three small potatoes, and finally drank two cups of buttermilk.

Samurai Leng brought a group of officials from Sinong Temple over, this may be because Huaiyu had presented some auspicious potatoes, corns and sweet potatoes before, but just as Sinong Qing was vacant, Samurai Ling, the young minister, was promoted.

Compared with fried small potatoes with chili noodles, cornmeal and goose oil steamed cakes are more popular.

While eating cornmeal and goose oil steamed cakes, they were discussing these novel Hufan grains and vegetables from the Wu family. Sinong Temple is in charge of agriculture, and they are quite professional in this area. The questions they asked Wu Huaiyu were also very professional.

Among Wu Huaiyu's new grains and vegetables, the three most valuable to the imperial court are corn, potatoes and sweet potatoes, which can be used as staple food.

Among them, although the yield of corn is not high, it has good staple food properties and is better stored. It has certain similarities with sorghum, millet, and millet.

"I think that corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes can help open up wasteland in the frontiers or in the mountainous areas of the interior," said a warrior who was born as a landowner. He can even turn Chang'an's house into a farmhouse. He really understands crops and agriculture.

In the Central Plains, especially irrigated land, these new crops do not have much advantage. With a mature irrigation system and plain fields, wheat and rice are more advantageous, but in border areas, or inland mountainous areas, those places have large land and people Diluted, water conservancy facilities backward.

Planting wheat and rice is facing the problem of water shortage and drought, and the yield of millet, broomcorn, sorghum is actually low, but now corn is planted with potatoes and sweet potatoes, neither fertile land nor good irrigation facilities are needed. Even if the land is widely planted and the harvest is small, it can still have a good harvest.

If it is paired with raising some pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks, it will undoubtedly allow everyone to settle down in the more difficult and barren mountainous areas.

"Potatoes and sweet potatoes are not good enough as a staple food, but they are much better than ordinary melons and vegetables. They contain starch, so they can also be used as a staple food."

Li Shimin asked about the yield of these crops.

"Your Majesty, take Guanzhong as an example. The irrigated land in the plains has a higher yield of wheat, and the best irrigated land can produce three stones per mu. However, in the mountains where there is no drought, or on the plateau or slope, you can only grow wheat that is resistant to drought. Dry millet and millet, etc., the yield per mu is less than a stone, and the yield per mu is only about seventy or eighty catties.

On the irrigated plains, the yield of wheat is high, but on the water-deficient plateau and mountainous areas, the yield of millet and sorghum is higher than that of wheat, with an average yield of about one stone per mu. "

Samurai Ling, Secretary of Agriculture, also brought out the data of several plots of land belonging to the Sinong Temple, "Your Majesty, the average yield per mu of the several plots of land planted by Sinong Temple last year was 146 catties of wheat, 152 catties of barley, and 204 catties of sorghum. , 177 catties of soybeans, and 223 catties of millet."

Similarly, the highest yield is millet, then sorghum, and then soybeans, and the lowest yield is wheat, but the same grain, wheat and millet are now the most eaten.

Although sorghum has a high yield, it is not suitable for eating directly. Unless it is a famine, it is generally either brewed or fed to livestock as fodder.

"What about corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, how much can be produced per mu, and should they be planted under normal circumstances?"

The same land, with different water and fertilizer, must have different yields, and field planting must be different from experimental planting.

"Your Majesty, based on the corn harvested this year, it is estimated that the yield per mu in the field should be at least 180 catties per mu, which should be [-] to [-] catties more than wheat, but [-] to [-] catties less than sorghum and millet.

As for sweet potatoes, one acre can produce about [-] catties, but sweet potatoes have a lot of water, so if they are dried in the sun, there is not much. Five hundred catties can produce about three hundred catties of flour. "

"The yield per mu of potatoes is lower than that of sweet potatoes, about a thousand catties per mu."

What Huaiyu said is the planting yield of wheat fields. If they are placed on arid and water-scarce plateaus and mountainous areas, the yield will definitely decrease accordingly.

But even if the yield in the mountains and dry land is only one-third, wouldn't it be possible to produce a hundred catties of sweet potato flour per mu?
"One mu of sweet potatoes can produce [-] catties, and [-] catties of sweet potato flour?" Li Shimin was surprised by this yield. Isn't that equivalent to twice that of wheat, and [-] to [-] catties more than millet?

Datang’s grain yield per mu was not high. Firstly, there was insufficient water conservancy facilities, and secondly, there was a lack of fertilizer, and there was even a lack of cattle and horses, and the arable land was not deep.

In future generations, it is not uncommon for rice to yield a thousand catties per mu. Some high-yielding paddy fields can even produce nearly two thousand catties of hybrid rice per mu.

The yield of sweet potatoes and potatoes can reach five or six thousand catties per mu.

But it is not possible in Datang. The best water is used to irrigate fertile fields, intensive cultivation, and additional fertilizers are needed. It is difficult for the yield to exceed three stones per mu in a single season.

Three stones per mu has basically become a ceiling, most of which are about one stone per mu.

Even this field has to be frequently rotated and fallow.

Lack of fertilizer, lack of soil fertility, and insufficient irrigation.

Many self-cultivating farmers in the Tang Dynasty had to plant hundreds of acres of land for their families. This would be unimaginable in later generations without machinery.

Among the yamen in Chang'an, the power of the Taipu Temple is not too great, but the officials live a good life. The most important thing is that the Taipu Temple has a lot of horses, and they have a lot of horse dung. Every year, the horse dung is sold for a large amount. Relying on the welfare of this horse manure, Taipusi lives more comfortably than other yamen.

It's not that the Tang people don't know how to use fertilizer, but in this day and age, there is too little fertilizer, not enough.

"The greenhouse in the courtyard of the Wu family, you guys from Sinong Temple sent officials to wait to guard it, to help Wu Huaiyu take care of it, and to record and learn how to plant it." Li Shimin gave instructions on the spot.

"As well as my Imperial Garden Greenhouse, and the gardens of your Sinong Temple, plant these corns, potatoes, and sweet potatoes as soon as possible, cultivate the seeds well, and teach some farmers to be more careful, and wait for next spring to plant more."

Li Shimin even imagined that in the future, the poor people in the Tang Dynasty would have sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn pancakes and steamed buns to eat every day, so that they would no longer have to go hungry.

"At that time, the world will have enough food and clothing, and there will be no more famine, and it will be possible to have a bucket of rice for two or three dollars!" Li Shimin waved his arms excitedly, so that everyone in the world will have enough food and clothing. Isn't that a peaceful and prosperous age?

"Warrior Ling, Wu Huaiyu, you lead people to build a small greenhouse in the courtyard of my Lizheng Hall, and plant these corns, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and so on, and so on. I think I can also serve them when I have free time in the future." Serve these babies!"

　In a blink of an eye, it has been on the shelves for a month, and more than 100 chapters have been updated.I read everyone's comments every day, and seriously think about how to write better content. Thank you for your support, and I will continue to work hard.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)