At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane
Chapter 556: Changes and Incorporation Brought by the Farming Society
Chapter 556: Changes and Incorporation Brought by the Farming Society
On October 32, the 10nd year of the Han calendar, Zhengguoqu Official Farm.
"Thuh, thud, thud!" Twenty tractors lined up in a row, emitting thick black smoke, and slowly moved forward. The huge roar shook the earth, and the people near the tractors were shocked by the scene and could hardly move. Wherever they moved, the land was broken up, the weeds were crushed, and only a piece of plowed land was left.
Xu Fan smiled and said, "This is a tractor that the court has made in the past two years. It can cultivate 1 to mu of cultivated land a day, and even dozens of mu of wasteland a day. All it consumes is some coal. If there is no coal, you can use wood, charcoal, or even straw. Of course, the efficiency will be very low."
The princes of the Han Dynasty were dazzled by the sight of these tractors. The territories of these princes were vast and sparsely populated, even in Southeast Asia. The reclamation of the wilderness was extremely labor-intensive, but the cost of transporting large livestock such as cattle and horses to their vassal states was extremely huge.
Now the tractor gave them new hope. One tractor was worth dozens of cows, especially for the princes in the New World. Their warehouses were more limited, and cows and horses were worthless, but their freight was 10 times higher than their own expenses. Even their local buffaloes needed to be domesticated, and the cost would not be low. And if they had the court's tractors, why would they need buffaloes?
They were already fantasizing that in their own vassal states, tractors were running rampant in the wilderness, and after being reclaimed by them, the wilderness was turned into fertile fields, and the wild land was turned into a land of fish and rice, and their vassal states were prospering rapidly.
Lu Chen asked, "How much does a tractor like this cost?"
Xu Fan said, "It's 12 yuan per unit. If you order more than 100 units, you can get a 500% discount. If you order more than 85 units, you can get a % discount."
Lu Chen said: "I will order 500 units."
"I also want three hundred."
The princes of the Han Dynasty all shouted to order tractors. Although the price was high, it could save shipping costs. As long as the princes were willing to explore and develop, they knew that they could earn back ten or a hundred times the money they spent on ordering tractors.
On the contrary, the princes in Nanzhong and Jiangnan did not have much land. Their land was relatively fragmented, and cash crops were planted in the hills. Local cattle and horses were enough, and this kind of tractor was a bit impractical.
Then Xu Fan took these princes of the Han Dynasty to the watch factory and showed them large-scale alarm clocks, medium-sized table clocks, and small pocket watches.
These princes were not polite either. You ordered 200 and I ordered 100.
But their favorite was the sewing machine. The princes of the Western Regions, the New World, and the South Seas ordered no less than a thousand machines.
In order to pull the Han Dynasty's economy out of its predicament as soon as possible, Xu Fan tried his best to sell Han's goods. The Han Dynasty's merchant class was hit hard by the economic crisis, and their purchasing power plummeted. That is to say, the princes of the Han Dynasty, those who were enfeoffed nine years ago had accumulated wealth for more than 30 years, and those who were enfeoffed later had accumulated wealth for more than 10 years. They were all rich, so naturally they had to consume more goods in the Han Dynasty.
November 32, 11nd year of the Han calendar, Zhaoli.
At 4 o'clock in the morning, before dawn, the villagers here started to get up. Dozens of people came to the glass greenhouse in the village, picked the ripe mustard, leeks, cucumbers and other vegetables, and then put them into the bamboo baskets they had already woven.
Some farmers picked vegetables, while young and strong men moved the picked vegetables out of the glass greenhouse and placed them on the tractors or ox carts that had been prepared long ago. Everyone divided the work and cooperated with each other, and the efficiency was extremely high. Soon, 50 acres of mature vegetables in the glass greenhouse were picked one by one, and tens of thousands of kilograms of vegetables were placed on the tractors and ox carts.
Then, driven by the "thump thump thump!" sound of the tractors, the convoy slowly drove towards Chang'an City.
Fusu and his companions watched the convoy heading towards Chang'an City with hope. This convoy carried the hopes of all the villagers.
"It's so noisy!" Hu Hai yawned and came out to find Fusu: "Is it necessary to go to Chang'an City so early?"
Hu Hai is old now and doesn't sleep much to begin with, not to mention the noise outside that lasted for more than half an hour, which woke him up directly.
Fusu said: "Vegetables must be picked in time. If we don't pick them now, we will miss the morning market."
Hu Hai said: "Look at the miserable state of Chang'an this year. Even kerosene lamps are reluctant to light. How many people are willing to eat off-season vegetables? If there were not tens of thousands of princes and their followers in Chang'an, I can guarantee that your off-season vegetables this year will definitely be wasted."
Fusu said: "I just know how to say these discouraging words."
Hu Hai asked, "How about I take these off-season vegetables?"
Fusu asked, "How did you eat all this?"
Hu Hai said: "Of course, I will send them to people, businessmen I have cooperated with, officials, or even middle schools and elementary schools in Chang'an. I will consider it as charity to improve my reputation."
For Hu Hai, no matter how expensive off-season vegetables are, they are only worth a few million. If he can use these few million to improve his reputation, it will be considered a big profit.
Fusu said: "It is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. Even if you help the villagers get through this difficult time, what will they do next year? Leave it to them to work hard on their own."
Then Fusu looked at Hu Hai and said, "You can't make enough money. Doing business overseas is too dangerous. You are old now. Have you ever thought about staying in Chang'an to retire?"
Hu Hai said with a smile: "Brother, you got it wrong. Chang'an is the Han emperor's Chang'an. We are the remnants of the previous dynasty. I am living under someone else's roof here. How can I retire in such an environment? On the contrary, in Tianzhu I am the real uncrowned king, with the same treatment as the emperor. If I want to retire, I will go to Tianzhu."
For Hu Hai, Tianzhu was his country, and he was one of the top upper class people in Tianzhu. But in Chang'an City, even a minor official could arrest him. The gap in status was so great that Hu Hai naturally preferred to stay in Tianzhu.
Fusu thought about it and stopped trying to persuade him. Among all his brothers, Hu Hai lived the most free and easy life. Since Hu Hai wanted to stay in India, he stopped trying to persuade him.
Hu Hai looked around Zhao Li and said, "The Nong Family is indeed the most practical school in our Han Dynasty. If there is no Nong Family to organize production in Zhao Li this year, I am afraid that every village elder in Zhao Li will suffer heavy losses. The Tianzhu Trading Company will also ask the Nong Family to plan Tianzhu's agriculture."
Although the cities were the hardest hit by the economic crisis, the rural areas were still greatly affected. Villagers returned from the cities, but lost their salary from working outside the city, and because of the drop in food prices due to the economic crisis, they lost another source of income.
But after staying in Zhaoli for half a month, Hu Hai was surprised to find that Zhaoli was one of the best regions in the entire Han Dynasty to solve the economic crisis.
When the Han Dynasty was founded, Zhaoli had a total of 253 farming households and 3 acres of land. Even in Guanzhong at that time, it was considered a relatively wealthy village.
Now, more than 30 years have passed, and the registered households in Zhaoli have increased to more than 300, but the population has more than quadrupled. There are many families living under the same roof with three or four generations. The Han court popularized health knowledge and pushed medical clinics to the township level. There are also a large number of barefoot doctors at the village level. The improvement of sanitary conditions has greatly increased the birth rate and reduced the death rate. In addition, Zhaoli has been the most prosperous village in Guanzhong for decades. There are very few people who marry out, but many people marry. All these favorable factors have led to the rapid increase in Zhaoli's population.
However, in contrast, the area of farmland in Zhaoli has not increased by a single acre in these 30 years. The villagers here can become rich, on the one hand, because they followed Hu Hai to get rich, and most of them worked in Chang'an city.
After the economic crisis of the Han Dynasty broke out, these young and strong laborers had to return to their hometowns. Although they still had land to support them, their income had decreased significantly, with each farmer's income reduced by 3000 to 5000 coins.
Moreover, under the influence of the economic crisis, the prices of grain, soybeans, and cotton cloth have also shown a downward trend, generally falling by 20% to 30%, which is like adding insult to injury for these farmers.
The villagers in Zhaoli have now placed their hopes for increasing their income in the glass greenhouse. As long as the off-season vegetables can be sold well, their income this year will not only not decrease, but will even increase slightly. The villagers in Zhaoli are even a little glad that the farmers came at the right time. After the farmers built the agricultural cooperative in Zhaoli, they mainly did two things. The first thing was to organize the farmers here, forming a group of 10 households according to the principle of land and voluntariness, and everyone worked and harvested together on more than acres of land.
Before working, everyone agreed that the land accounted for 50% of the shares, and the remaining 50% would be based on labor. A strong laborer counted as 10 points, a woman's labor counted as 8 points, and the elderly, the weak, and children counted as 5 points.
After 30 years of compulsory education in the Han Dynasty, even most farmers can read and understand simple arithmetic, so every family can clearly calculate how much effort they have put in, and there is no need for a special accountant.
Later, under the planning of agricultural scholars, 70% of these lands were planted with grain, and 30% were planted with cash crops such as cotton, sesame, sunflower, and peanuts. Because most of the young and middle-aged people lost their jobs and returned to their hometowns, several small farms were also set up to try to ensure that everyone had a job.
This kind of small-scale mutual aid group is also the result of more than ten years of experience of farmers. If the agricultural cooperative is too large, the personnel will be difficult to control, and the relationship between the internal personnel will become complicated. It is easy to cheat and fish in troubled waters. If this kind of behavior can be punished, it will affect the efficiency of production.
In a group of 10 households, everyone knows each other and supervises each other. Those who cheat and act cunningly can easily be excluded from the agricultural cooperative by other villagers.
After this kind of collective labor, the chemical fertilizers that were previously reluctant to use can now be used, and the average planting area of cotton that could not be grown before has doubled this year.
You can even rent a tractor from the village to do farming. Last year, the price of a tractor was 15 yuan, which was too expensive for ordinary farmers to afford.
But for the entire Zhaoli, 15 coins were nothing. Each household contributed 1000 coins, and the money came out. Two tractors were purchased in the name of the Zhaoli collective. Those who wanted to use the tractors had to pay a rental fee of 300 coins a day, and people from other villages had to pay 500 coins. At the beginning, many villagers thought that buying tractors was too expensive.
But they soon felt that it was too cost-effective. The tractor was too efficient. For a field like theirs, a group could cultivate it in two days. The most important thing was the tractor's plowing depth. A cow could only plow 2cm at most, while a tractor could plow 10cm. Not only could it make the land more fertile, but it could also save a lot of time for spring ploughing.
All the villagers in Zhaoli who have used a tractor rushed to rent their own tractors. After all, spring ploughing is a time of rush.
After learning about the high efficiency of tractors, farmers in other villages also began to rent Zhao Li's tractors.
After spring ploughing, summer harvest, autumn harvest and autumn planting, the tractor was used for nearly 200 days and earned more than 8 yuan. The team with these two tractors earned back half of the cost in one year. It was at this time that the villagers of Zhaoli realized that they had made a fortune.
The second time that made the villagers of Zhaoli feel that they had made a fortune was during the autumn harvest. This year, due to group mutual assistance and farmers' guidance on fertilization, the per-acre yield of Zhaoli's fields increased by about 3%, generally reaching shi, which is an extremely surprising number.
You should know that the equal distribution of land after the founding of the Han Dynasty greatly increased the enthusiasm of ordinary people in farming. Later, iron farm tools, water conservancy facilities, and various agricultural technologies were promoted. In about 10 years, the per mu yield in Guanzhong increased from more than one stone to three stones.
But the production enthusiasm that self-cultivating farmers can improve can only go so far. Production enthusiasm is not omnipotent. The production efficiency represented by self-cultivating farmers can only increase the yield per mu of land to three stones at most. This yield per mu has remained stagnant for nearly 10 years without much growth.
In addition, the Han Dynasty's industry was booming, and more and more factories were opened, requiring more and more craftsmen. Farmers in the Han Dynasty only needed to calculate that they could earn more money by working in the city for a few months than by staying in the fields.
Therefore, farmers in Dahan usually go to the city to work for a few months after finishing their work and come back after the autumn harvest. To some extent, this actually reduces the labor invested in the fields.
Under such circumstances, if the Han Dynasty had not continued to reduce agricultural taxes, grain production capacity would not only not increase, but might even decrease.
This year, the yield per mu in Zhaoli increased by half a stone, which is equivalent to an increase of dozens of stones in grain income. Increasing the planting area of cash crops such as cotton also increased their income. Cotton is an economic crop with a yield about three times higher than grain, but the labor input is also relatively higher. In the past, when farmers were self-employed, the amount of crops planted would generally not exceed ten acres, because they planted too much and could not pick them all.
Now that we have groups, we can all work together to plant 200 acres of cotton and pick the cotton together. In addition, the yield of cotton increases after fertilization. These cash crops have increased the income of each farmer here by nearly 3000 yuan.
So after the autumn harvest, all the villagers here calculated their own accounts and found that although the Han Dynasty was still in an economic crisis, the prices of crops had decreased, and they had also lost some wages from working.
However, the increased capacity of agricultural production and the increased income from cash crops have almost made up for this gap. Some high-income cooperatives have even increased their income by thousands of yuan this year. The income of 80% of the villagers has remained roughly the same, and only less than 10% of the villagers have an income slightly lower than last year.
And now if the glass greenhouse also makes money, then Zhao Li has achieved the miracle of increasing income during the economic crisis.
With a nervous mood, the villagers who stayed here kept looking towards Chang'an.
The clock struck "Ding-dang-dang, ding-dang-dang, ding-dang-dang", and the hands pointed to 9 o'clock.
This was a little benefit that Hu Hai brought to his hometown after returning to Chang'an City. Near Zhaoli Primary School, he built a five-meter-high bell tower with pointers showing time on all four sides. The villagers here only need to look up to know what time it is. Of course, these villagers are not used to the 24-hour time system, and they still prefer to convert it into twelve hours.
The sound of a tractor "thump thump thump" was heard, and all the villagers looked towards the place where the sound came from.
The villagers of Zhaoli soon surrounded the tractor convoy and asked, "How are the sales?"
Jiang Wu said excitedly: "It was sold for more than 30 yuan."
"Great!" All the villagers cheered. The first batch of off-season vegetables was sold at such a high price. After a winter, they can pick them again every 10 days. The off-season vegetables can be sold for at least two to three million yuan. The cost of the glass greenhouse will be recovered in two years, and the rest is pure profit.
The news from the countryside is that it is closed, but it is also open, at a time when all the villages are wailing about the economic crisis.
However, many farmers have found that in villages with farms, the income has not decreased, but has increased significantly. In places with agricultural cooperatives, grain production capacity will increase, and the income from cash crops will also increase, so even if you don't work outside, you can still make money.
The people of Dahan were still extremely pragmatic. Knowing that the agricultural cooperatives could increase their income, the village heads flocked to the villages with agricultural cooperatives and asked farmers to come to their villages to form agricultural cooperatives.
At the beginning, Wu Yue brought more than 100 students from farming families and established more than 100 farmhouses in the whole Guanzhong. Now these agricultural cooperatives have become the best propaganda examples. There are thousands of villages in the whole Guanzhong asking farmers to establish agricultural cooperatives.
Faced with this situation, Wu Yue asked for help from the farmers' headquarters in Shangjun, and at the same time reported the situation to Xu Aimin and asked for help from the students of the Agricultural College.
Chang'an City, Yan Palace.
Xu Aimin brought the information of hundreds of agricultural cooperatives in Guanzhong and said to Xu Fan: "Father, the villages in Guanzhong that have established agricultural cooperatives have generally increased their grain production capacity by tens of thousands of dan, and cash crops such as cotton, sesame, and peanuts have increased by millions of dan. The grain production capacity in Guanzhong has stagnated for nearly 10 years and is growing again. This is all thanks to the farmers."
Xu Fan said: "The fertilizer you brought here is also one of the contributions."
Xu Fan understood that this was the result of the combined effect of productivity and production relations.
Xu Aimin said: "Guanzhong is the foundation of the court. The court should promote the agricultural community model to increase grain production capacity, but the court cannot let the people organize themselves. I think Wu Shi's talent is enough to be the Minister of Agriculture."
(End of this chapter)
You'll Also Like
-
Naruto Live: The Death of Naruto in the Beginning Movie
Chapter 829 9 hours ago -
Anime: Saiyans eat the world of food
Chapter 285 9 hours ago -
Pirates: I plundered entries in the underwater prison!
Chapter 114 2 days ago -
Doomsday: Sign in to the planetary shelter at the beginning
Chapter 1376 2 days ago -
After Rebirth, I Became the Treacherous Minister Black Moonlight
Chapter 425 3 days ago -
Swallowed Star: Reborn Thunder Dragon King, Many Children, Many Blessings
Chapter 436 3 days ago -
The prince of heaven only wants salted fish
Chapter 295 3 days ago -
Participating in a money-saving variety show, earning billions because of stinginess
Chapter 109 3 days ago -
Mortal Cultivator
Chapter 334 3 days ago -
Galaxy Lich
Chapter 598 3 days ago