Follow Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer the country

Chapter 219 After productivity increased, Liu Bowen was shocked!

"There is no way, unless they are willing to hand over their army to our Datong Society, join the Datong Society, and take the throne. In this case, we can let their officers and soldiers eat rice and flour."

"You can even eat meat."

"After the emergence of chemical fertilizers next year, if the grain yield is really high, the prolific sweet potatoes and potatoes will definitely allow more livestock to appear. By then, not only will the entire army be able to supply meat, but schools and factories everywhere will also be able to supply meat. Learn this way and production efficiency will be greatly improved.”

Zhang Cheng responded to Guo Tianxu while pulling up the sweet potatoes dug out from the ground.

"This is good!"

"Even if we can't let people eat meat every day, it would be a big progress if students and craftsmen could eat meat every day. This was something that was unthinkable before. Looking at historical data, we haven't seen any prosperous times that can say that this is possible. Let students and craftsmen eat meat every day.”

"Mr. Zhang, because of potatoes, sweet potatoes and chemical fertilizers, our country has not yet been established, and the prosperous times have appeared first. You are indispensable!"

Zhu Yuanzhang sighed as he spoke.

Zhang Cheng smiled slightly: "The superior has given me the award. It's not me who deserves the credit, but the idea of ​​Datong. If I hadn't upheld the idea of ​​the Datong Society and took the initiative to find ways to increase grain production, all I could do was talk about etiquette. Talking about how to domesticate the people so that they will not rebel even if they mourn and starve, then today's high-yielding grains will still not appear, and chemical fertilizers will only be farmyard manure and soil ash made by the people themselves. "

In addition, it is difficult for bandits in various places to exist for a long time, because the number of retired officers and soldiers stationed in various counties is increasing rapidly.

What made Zhu Yuanzhang even more emotional was that Zhang Cheng always brought surprises to him.

Because he did not expect that the Chinese army would increase its number of soldiers in just one year.

Not to mention the concept of Datong, such as the current potatoes and sweet potatoes, Zhu Yuanzhang now only regrets that people like Zhang Cheng were not born a hundred years earlier.

Zhu Yuanzhang agreed with a smile, and looked at Zhang Cheng who was digging with them with respect.

The key is that with the explosion of food production, the Chinese army's troops are still growing rapidly. Therefore, basically when the army in front of the front takes a city, there will be troops to defend it immediately.

"Okay, you don't have to pursue me like this anymore."

Because he can travel back and forth, he can greatly accelerate the speed of technological development here, making it difficult for the landlord and bureaucratic class of this era to cope with the situation, and they have no choice but to do nothing.

"That's right!"

This shocked Liu Bowen.

On his way to Jiqing, Liu Bowen saw many soldiers and horses crossing the border from time to time to his hometown of Liang Zhejiang.

Guo Tianxu nodded at the side: "Mr. Zhang's words are quite true. Now that we have planted this land, we have seen with our own eyes that the price of cloth and food is getting lower and lower, so we have to admit that his concept of great harmony is indeed different. However, you, Mr. Zhang, brought this idea of ​​great harmony, and in the final analysis, you, Mr. Zhang, deserve the most credit.”

On the land of China, most of them are mountains.

Zhang Cheng said with a smile, wiped the sweat from his forehead and said: "Actually, this is just the beginning. When the world adopts the concept of Datong as the governing platform, the real good days are still to come!"

Because in Zhu Yuanzhang's view, if Zhang Cheng had appeared a hundred years earlier, maybe his parents, brother and sister-in-law would not have starved to death, and maybe they could have survived on sweet potatoes no matter how bad they were.

What Zhang Cheng said was not a lie.

Of course, the reason why Zhu Yuanzhang said that Zhang Cheng was indispensable for the emergence of potatoes and sweet potatoes is because as a farmer, he knew very well that the value of potatoes and sweet potatoes lies not only in high yield, but also in his far-reaching requirements for soil conditions. It is far lower than the soil requirements of wheat grain, which means that many barren mountainous lands can be put to good use.

Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang could imagine what kind of population explosion the emergence of potatoes and sweet potatoes would bring, and how many barbaric lands would be transformed into places of cultural prosperity where Chinese culture had been successfully implemented.

In any case, Zhu Yuanzhang had to admit that Zhang Cheng was indeed different from other Confucian scholars. Although other Confucian scholars said that returning to their hometown to farm was a good way of life, most of them despised labor and even considered it Although this was considered a great shame and humiliation, Zhang Cheng was very willing to work.

Since Zhang Cheng improved firearms and built infrastructure, military progress has indeed been rapid. Yuan soldiers everywhere and the landlords who still insisted on supporting Yuan Ting were unable to resist.

Guo Tianxu followed up and said: "This is true. Now the Privy Council has reported that General Deng (Deng Yu) has led Shao Cheng, Hua Yunlong, and Hu Quan to capture the cities on Guangde Road, and General Zhu has led the Shenji Battalion. Jintan and Danyang were captured. My uncle and Xu Da also captured Shaoxing. Hu Dahai and Chang Yuchun have captured Jiande and Wuzhou. It is estimated that Jiangsu and Zhejiang will be completely pacified next year, and our concept of Datong will be completely spread throughout the entire country. Spread the word in Jiangsu and Zhejiang!”

Liu Bowen had participated in the war, so he knew that adding a large number of soldiers would mean increasing the supply of food and grass.

If there is not enough food production, no one dares to expand troops rashly.

Generally speaking, if we really want to forcibly expand our troops and horses, regardless of food production, the people will not be able to survive and a large number of people will die of hunger.

But Liu Bowen unexpectedly discovered that he did not see anyone dying of hunger along the way. He only saw many people patting their bellies and basking in the sun by the haystacks after the autumn harvest.

This made Liu Bowen sigh to himself: "Is the potato discovered by Zhang Cheng really so high-yielding? So that while expanding a large number of troops, it can also prevent the people from starvation?"

What surprised Liu Bowen even more was that many gentry in the area ruled by Datong Society did not hoard grain and cloth during this war-torn era, but instead sold cloth and grain like crazy.

Because when Liu Bowen passed through Changzhou, he discovered that many grain ships and cloth ships on the Changzhou waterway were selling grain and cloth at extremely low prices. The prices were even more than half cheaper than the prices in his hometown in eastern Zhejiang, and they were even almost free of charge. What profit can be made. Liu Bowen naturally knew that behind this there must be many wealthy gentry who were crazily dumping grain and cloth, otherwise they would not have set the prices of grain and cloth so low.

After all, he is a wealthy gentry himself, and he knows that he can control the price of grain and cloth to such a low price. It can only be because the wealthy gentry are frantically selling grain and cloth.

In Liu Bowen's opinion, only the wealthy gentry had so much grain and cloth and could keep the price so low.

Therefore, Liu Bowen could not help but sigh to his son Liu Lian:
"After Mr. Zhang came to power in Wu, how high was the yield of potatoes and cotton that allowed the wealthy gentry to sell off the grain and cloth they just wanted to hoard? It makes people shudder to think about it!"

"It's really scary!"

"If this continues, the common people will no longer be willing to work as slaves and maids in order to have enough food and warm clothes. Only those who like leisure and work and want to live a refined life will be willing to work as slaves and maids. But such people are not willing to be slaves and maids. It is not a good thing for the powerful to show off their official positions.”

Liu Lian sighed and expressed his own views.

Liu Bowen nodded and continued:
"This Mr. Zhang is really generous and really saves the world. As a father, he is indeed not as good as him!"

"Father!"

"look!"

At this time, Liu Lian pointed to a ship with a flag for selling land.

People in the south of the Yangtze River often use boats as a means of transportation, and even use boats as homes or shops.

Therefore, sometimes transactions are completed directly on the ship.

But now, Liu Bowen discovered that someone was selling land under a flag on the boat.

Liu Bowen couldn't help but walked over and exchanged names with the owner of the boat. After learning that the owner of the boat was Qin De, a local wealthy family, he asked Qin De, the owner of the boat: "Why do you want to sell the land?"

Qin De smiled bitterly and said, "It won't work if I don't sell it. My father bought a lot of land when he was Hu Yuanxingtai's censor. But now cotton is not allowed to grow on it, and the food is becoming less and less valuable, so it's better to keep it." Better to sell.”

After hearing this, Liu Bowen asked Qin De: "How much is the price per acre?"

Qin Deze said to Liu Bowen: "In terms of cloth coins, it's fifty taels per mu, in terms of gold, one coin is enough, and silver is half a tael."

“Why is gold and silver so cheap?”

Liu Bowen asked after hearing this.

Qin De said: "These two things are worth leaving to our children and grandchildren now."

Liu Bowen shook his head after hearing this, and sighed again after leaving Qin De: "What a shame, Mr. Zhang has single-handedly made these big households unwilling to annex their fields!"

"What my father said is true, but if this is the case, will the people still be willing to farm?"

Liu Lian asked at this time.

Liu Bowen smiled and said: "People who only know how to farm will definitely not let their fields go unused. If that doesn't work, just lower the field tax! But, logically speaking, if you can have enough to eat without having to work hard on the fields, it will make people feel satisfied." There are a lot of idle and unruly people in the world, which makes them lazy and become thieves and thieves, making it difficult to control. But now, it seems that this area is not very chaotic. Although there are many idle people, but There are few of them who are thieves, and I don’t know how Mr. Zhang did it.”

Liu Lian nodded: "It makes people admire and puzzle at the same time."

Soon.

When Liu Bowen came to the vicinity of Jiqing City and saw a large number of factories and workers, and after observing and investigating the area, he sighed and said: "I understand, these idle people are not doing nothing, they have something to do. It’s just that they have time to rest!”

"Time to rest?"

Liu Lian asked in astonishment, "Isn't it true that only idle men who are lazy and useless can take a rest? What good citizen would take a rest?"

"That's what's weird."

"Mr. Zhang actually lets these working people take a break. Isn't he afraid that trouble will occur as soon as these people take a break?"

Liu Bowen felt very strange, so after meeting Yang Xian, he asked about his doubts.

Yang Xianze smiled and said: "Teacher, we currently have a surplus of cloth and grain production, so if we don't allow them to rest, wouldn't it be even more surplus?"

(End of this chapter)