A pleasant life in a courtyard

Chapter 310 The History of Hunger

The earliest school military training was not as simple as it is now.

According to the leader's March 67 instructions in .

The military should conduct military training in phases for senior students in universities, middle schools, and primary schools, and participate in the work of opening schools, reorganizing organizations, establishing three-in-one leadership organs, and implementing D, P, and G.

In other words, this activity is extended to students of the whole grade.

Not only do we need to carry out practical exercises, but we also need to carry out in-depth ideological study.

Li Xiaodi's school has even formed a "One Team Red" study group, which uses the time after school to study, and the time to go home is getting later day by day.

The Li family's dinner party also changed, from the eldest sister before to the younger brother Li now.

Li Xiang, who looks like this and comes home from get off work every day, looks like an idler.

When Li thought of getting home, Li's mother's food had been washed and cut, just waiting to be cooked.

The reason for this is that this crop has a pattern.

However, years of war and natural disasters resulted in severe famine, causing many soldiers to starve to death.

He went into the kitchen wanting to make some hot water, but his attention was distracted by the shredded vegetables on the cutting board.

This degradation phenomenon has long been considered an insurmountable problem in domestic and foreign agricultural production at this time.

But none can solve the practical problems of planting.

Starving is a word that has been associated with people of all ethnic groups since ancient times.

Generally, the yield is the highest in the first year, then drops significantly in the second year, and the third year can basically be regarded as a complete harvest.

A high-yielding crop actually plays a very important role in the expansion of mankind.

Ever since potatoes were first introduced, they seem to have nothing to do with "rareness".

Under the extreme shortage of food, it is inevitable that people will eat people.

If there is a bad harvest year, there will be basically no potatoes in the urban vegetable markets all year round.

It was only after Li Xiang came here that he realized that even in the north where potatoes are a staple food, except for the farmers who grow them themselves, others cannot eat them every year.

"Mom, it's the Year of the Potato." Li Xiang's voice was a little surprised.

Over the past hundred years, relevant scholars from various countries have published countless research papers on the phenomenon of potato degradation, and there are hundreds of miscellaneous scholars who have said everything.

Among the various horrific events in the long history, countless cases were caused by hunger.

"Yes, I saw it on the market at the market this morning, so I picked up what I could buy and picked out the older ones." Mother Li replied.

During the Sixteen Kingdoms period, some monarchs banned sericulture because mulberry leaves were one of the military supplies.

And when it comes to everyone’s impression of potatoes, “high yield” has always been one of its important labels.

Some scholars have pessimistically predicted that this is a crop that will become extinct sooner or later.

The history of ancient China is simply a history of hunger.

When the harvest is good, every household in the city or in the countryside will not be short.

There are always people who will do whatever it takes to survive.

During a war, once the army is defeated, the remaining soldiers, whether dead or alive, will become the opponent's rations.

Even if the soldiers who work hard are like this, the lives of ordinary people are not to mention, even those living in the capital.

"Zi Zhi Tong Jian": In the spring, the first month of the year, King Qin Jian went to court to dine with his ministers. At that time, Chang was hungry and people ate each other. The generals returned and vomited meat to feed their wives.

Translated meaning: In the former Qin Dynasty, Fu Jian hosted a banquet for officials in Chang'an. In that year, people in Chang'an were eating each other. After the officials returned home from the banquet, they vomited out the meat they had eaten and gave it to their wives and children.

The idiom "life is in ruins" was coined during this period.

Then 500 years after this period, Qin Zongquan in the late Tang Dynasty raised the technology of cannibalism to a higher level. Because the army was short of food, they not only ate people, but also preserved the meat with salt for dry food because they were afraid that the meat would spoil.

During war, food shortages are inevitable.

In peacetime, the problem of food shortage is still an unavoidable problem.

In an era without family planning, the population would inevitably grow rapidly.

Then the growth of population means that the consumption of food will also increase accordingly.

Our old ancestors have actually used many means to deal with the famine caused by population expansion.

For example, building water conservancy projects, encouraging farmers to cultivate, and promoting agricultural technology. . . . . .

There are also ineffective methods, such as praying for rain, praying to the locust god, praying for rain, etc.

Of course, apart from these, the most important thing is to introduce high-yielding crops.

For example, the introduction of "Champa Rice".

Champa rice is originally from southern Vietnam. It is a kind of rice with high yield, early maturity and drought tolerance.

It was first introduced to Fujian in the early Northern Song Dynasty, and was promoted to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River during the era of Song Zhenzong, the third emperor of the Song Dynasty.

The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and other places have always been the most important areas of concern to all dynasties, whether in terms of taxation or grain.

A slight mistake can affect the whole body.

Being able to move rice seeds and plant them here shows how much determination was made from top to bottom at that time.

And Champa Rice did not disappoint.

Its promotion quickly increased the population of 1.2 million in the Northern Song Dynasty to million.

This is the first time in Chinese history that the population has exceeded 100 million, resulting in the creation of cities with a population of one million.

The second population explosion in Chinese history is attributed to sweet potatoes.

The outbreak occurred in the Qing Dynasty, but the crops were brought back in the Ming Dynasty.

Sweet potatoes are not only drought-resistant, but also very adaptable to the environment. They are grown and raised in a low-quality environment and are not afraid of locust plagues. Whether it is sandy land, hilly land, or red land, the seedlings will live as soon as they enter the ground, and the yield is very high. You can eat just one or two. When full, it can be eaten whether raw or cooked.

At that time, sweet potatoes were brought to the colonial islands of the Philippines by the Spaniards. After proving high yields there, the Spanish colonists were not allowed to export this crop.

A Fujianese named Chen Zhenlong discovered the benefits of this crop in order to save the people in his hometown from hunger.

He then made up his mind to become a fire thief.

He first bribed the local indigenous people and obtained the sweet potato vines.

After that, I tried to pass the border many times, but was stopped all the time, and I almost went to jail.

The last time, in order to avoid the layers of inspections by the customs, he twisted the sweet potato vines together with the ship's rope, thus avoiding the inspection.

After passing the checkpoint, after seven days and seven nights of bumpy sailing, we finally returned to Fuzhou from the Philippines.

After the introduction of sweet potatoes in Fujian, the local agricultural pattern has undergone tremendous changes.

Soon, it was grown everywhere in Fujian, with high yield and low price. Ordinary people even regarded it as a staple food for three meals a day.

In the next thirty years, there was no serious famine in Fujian.

Later, during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the emperor's decree promoted the promotion of sweet potatoes to the north, and Chen Zhenlong's descendant Chen Shiyuan (this gentleman had great love and died at the age of 80 on the way to promote sweet potatoes to Henan) actively promoted it.

Sweet potatoes have taken root in the north.

At the same time, with the help of two high-yielding crops, corn and potatoes, China's population at that time exceeded 300 million.

(End of this chapter)