Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 482
Yuan Xi's fleet slowly sailed into Haixi port.

The reason why he wanted to stay here for a few days first was because Chen Deng and Tai Shici were sitting in Guangling at this time, and there was no war, so he was not in a hurry to go there.

Besides, besides Zhen Yao, who he wanted to see, there was another person in Haixi City.

Zang Hong.

At first Yuan Xi asked Zang Hong to take people to Guangling, but later he tasted it and found that it would not be appropriate to let Zang Hong go to Guangling.

Strictly speaking, Zang Hong, as the leader of the Suanzao coalition army, was in the same generation as Yuan Shao, and Chen Deng Tai Shici, as Yuan Xi's subordinate, was bound to feel a little restrained when facing Zang Hong, a local tycoon.

If Zang Hong is a person who knows how to advance and retreat, that's fine, but he has the lessons learned from his rebellion. If he really gets into his head and does something outrageous, it will be troublesome.

Guangling City is Yuan Xi's most important strategic office in Xuzhou, so he did not hesitate to put a general like Tai Shici here to guard it. Finally, Yuan Xi thought twice and sent an urgent letter to Chen Deng, asking him to properly arrange for Zang Hong and the others. The soldiers and civilians.

Chen Deng understood, and immediately sent soldiers to meet and lead the way, and resettled Zang Hong and others to Haixi.

After Yuan Xi learned about it, he was quite satisfied. As Haixi was a port, most of the people went to sea to do business, and the people's customs were tough. For Zang Hong, this was somewhat of a restriction.

Moreover, there are frequent accidents in sea merchants, and the rate of personnel attrition is high. The advantage is that they can make a fortune quickly. The nearly ten thousand people brought by Zang Hong want to make a living, and there is a high probability that they will choose this road. The increase of new blood.

But Yuan Xi was also a little worried at the same time. As the city guard of Haixi, would Zhen Yao be able to suppress Zang Hong?

For Yuan Xi, Haixi, an important port, cannot be lost, so he must come here in person and have a good talk with Zang Hong.

He led people off the pier, and found Zhen Yao on the shore to greet him, his face couldn't suppress his joy.

Zhen Yao has already learned about Zhen Mi's birth of a son, which is also a reassurance for him, after all, in the century-old clan, it is often the case that the male heir establishes a new wife.

Now Yuan Xi's power is getting stronger and stronger, and the status gap with the Zhen family is getting bigger and bigger. If other wives give birth to a male son first, and Yuan Xi establishes another heir, the Zhen family will actually have no ability to resist.

So after hearing the news of Zhen Mi's birth, all the members of the Zhen family were relieved.

Yuan Xi walked a few steps quickly, held Zhen Yao's hand and said, "Brother, you have worked hard."

Zhen Yao was even more happy when he heard this address. Just as he was about to speak, he saw a heroic female general with two short halberds on his back behind Yuan Xi. He quickly restrained his expression and said, "I have met the envoy."

He thought to himself that this is the only daughter of the Marquis Wen in the legend. She is not only the daughter of a great general, but also has a higher status after becoming a king, and she is also inseparable from Yuan Xi. Obviously, she is very favored. The younger sister has a strong rival. .

Yuan Xi was in a very good mood, because he saw that there were frequent ships coming and going at Haixi Wharf, and it was obvious that Zhen Yao managed the place well, so he asked, "Have any overseas merchant ships found any new cargo?"

Zhen Yao quickly took out a few tubes of bamboo slips and said, "This year, five ships came back from overseas first, and all the goods they brought have been written on them."

He looked ashamed, "I have bought the cotton that the young master said, but there are some problems."

Yuan Xi was full of expectations, but when he heard the words, he said, "What's going on?"

Zhen Yao sighed: "A ship arrived in Tianzhu, and also got the cotton and seeds that the young master said."

"But on the way back, there was a storm, and the goods were damaged in sevens and eighties, and almost all of them were lost."

When Yuan Xi heard this, he instantly felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured on his head.

Sea trade is very risky. It is not easy to get cotton from Tianzhu. Later, we can send sea ships to trade again according to the same trade route, but even if it goes well, it will take at least one or two years.

Even if you get the seeds, you have to find a suitable soil and area for cultivation. These things are suitable for Tianzhu, but they may not be very suitable for the soil of the Central Plains. No one knows what conditions are the most suitable. We can only keep trying to hybridize, and finally select the one that is suitable for the local soil. climate plants.

This may be a rather long process. If you are unlucky, you may not get anything for a long time. After all this, it is still unknown when large-scale planting will take place.

Although Yuan Xi was in his prime and could afford to wait for a few years, ten years, or even decades, the world couldn't afford to wait.

The end of the Han Dynasty entered the first of the two major ice ages in Chinese history, which caused people to have no experience in dealing with it. As a result, the population dropped sharply on a large scale.

Studies have shown that the population at the end of the Han Dynasty probably shrunk by at least 3000 million. Among them, less than one-tenth of them actually died of war.

The remaining nine out of ten people died of plague, hunger and cold.

Not to mention hunger, if cotton can be promoted, it will be extremely effective in preventing plague and cold.

Food, clothing, housing and transportation, clothing first, in Yuan Xi's view, cotton is one of the key items to help China survive the Ice Age!

Now his ambitions were dealt a devastating blow when he took the first step, how could this not make him uncomfortable?

When Zhen Yao saw it, he said in a low voice: "The goods that were salvaged at that time are still stored in the warehouse at the wharf. Do you want to go and have a look?"

Yuan Xi rekindled a glimmer of hope and said, "Okay, let's go together."

Everyone arrived in front of several large warehouses, Zhen Yao ordered the maritime officer to open the door, Yuan Xi looked inside, and there were hundreds of boxes scattered here and there.

Zhen Yao said: "These are all damaged goods after the ship was hit by a disaster. I will collect them and store them here."

Under his leadership, everyone found several huge boxes.

After opening the box, Yuan Xi knew there was no hope.

The dense piles inside are indeed cotton seeds, but now they are covered with withered buds and leaves.

Zhen Yao sighed: "The sea merchant who came back said that he also asked the local people how to plant it. He said that the cotton seeds are first exposed to the sun, then soaked in water before sowing, and finally sowed in early spring when the sun is sunny, and a small amount of water is applied. can germinate."

"This merchant ship encountered a storm and huge waves when it came back, and the cabin was flooded, flooding all the warehouses."

"The ship drifted for more than half a month before it was drained out of the warehouse and repaired before returning to Haixi."

"But the goods inside are almost all soaked, including these seeds."

Yuan Xi opened a box next to it, and it was filled with cotton bolls, which proved that these were indeed cotton seeds.

But this box of cotton bolls can only be spun into half a piece of cloth, so what use can it be?

Yuan Xi looked at these broken seeds and sighed. After soaking in sea water for such a long time, it was basically hopeless.

He said unwillingly: "Find some farmland, soak it in water and plant it, let's treat it like a dead horse and a living horse doctor."

After Zhen Yao heard this, he quickly took orders and asked someone to arrange it.

In fact, Yuan Xi also understood that these seeds were basically useless, so what if there were a few plants left in stock, how many years would it take to grow to a large scale?
But he was really not reconciled. Seeing that he was about to succeed, an accident happened in the end. Moreover, the promotion of cotton was a year or two late, and many people might die in the world.

He suppressed his irritability and inspected other goods, and found that some goods were indeed very useful.

For example, spices, woolen shawls, tin blocks, silver ornaments, ivory and other valuable items can make a lot of money if sold to the Central Plains gentry, but compared to cotton, these are luxury items that are icing on the cake and don’t matter at all. , can also defraud the rich people of their money.

Suddenly he blinked, and found a tightly sealed iron box from the corner, and said, "What is this?"

Zhen Yao quickly found out the key and opened it, saying: "This is the seed that the Zhen family businessman bought in Siam. It is said that after it is planted, it will grow into a sapling, and it will grow into a sapling after seven or eight years."

"There is white water in the tree. After cutting it, store it in a bowl. After it solidifies, it can be used to make utensils."

"The seeds are not easy to store and need to be sown as soon as possible, so the merchant specially found an iron box to seal and store them."

"Fortunately, there was no water in after the storm, and the seeds should still be usable."

Yuan Xi was taken aback, isn't this just rubber!
He immediately cursed secretly, why the tin box didn't contain cotton seeds!

Although rubber is good, its usefulness is quite limited in this era. More importantly, the current China is not suitable for planting rubber at all!

There was a conclusion at the beginning of planting rubber, that is, it is not suitable for planting rubber north of 15 degrees north latitude, and it is also known as the "forbidden area for rubber planting" north of 17 degrees north latitude, while Hainan, the southernmost part of China, is located between 18 degrees north latitude and 20 degrees north latitude. between.

It was not until 2000 years later that the Huaxia people broke through this restricted area and allowed rubber trees to be planted on a large scale in the Huaxia territory. But how can Yuan Xi have this technology now?
He put down the box uninterestedly, hesitated for a moment, and handed it to Zhen Yao, "I remember this thing can be planted in February and March, try to find a piece of land, it's okay if it can't be planted."

Zhen Yao agreed, thinking that Yuan Xi seemed to have no confidence in seeing Yuan Xi like this. Could it be that he has seen this thing before?

Yuan Xi felt a little uncomfortable, but seeing Zhen Yao's uneasy look, he immediately came to his senses, took Zhen Yao's hand and said, "Brother is doing well."

"It's good to make compensation to appease those merchants. After all, it is not easy to be in danger at sea and save a life. After all, they are doing things for us."

"Don't chill their hearts."

Zhen Yao quickly took orders, Yuan Xi said again: "Where is Zang Hong now?"

Zhen Yao replied: "Now I have vacated a house for him to live in."

He lowered his voice, "This person is also strange. He often stays at home, even if he goes out, he goes to the seaside to look at it. I don't know how to deal with him."

Yuan Xi nodded, "You come with me."

Not long after, everyone arrived at a nearby mansion, Zhen Yao stepped forward and told the gatekeeper, after a while, two women opened the door, welcomed everyone in, and said: "Master respectfully invites you."

Seeing that Zang Hong didn't come out to meet him in person, Zhen Yao felt unhappy, but Yuan Xi took a look at the two women. Seeing their clothes, they should be Zang Hong's concubine.

I just don't know if these two are the concubines who were boiled by Zang Hong and distributed to the people and soldiers in the city when Dongwuyang was besieged and food was cut off in later generations?
(End of this chapter)