Short video spoiler history: The beginning of modern warfare

Chapter 62 Improved Seeds and Fertilizers

[In your impression, what was China like in the 1950s and 1960s? ]

[Feeling energetic but looking pale and thin, full of energy but always hungry? ]

Is this really the case with most people’s lives?

[At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, my country's grain output was 1.13 million tons, 209 kilograms per capita]

[How much is the internationally recognized food safety standard? 400 kilograms, nearly double the difference]

[From this, you can imagine the extent of our country’s food shortage and the difficulty of people’s lives]

[Even by 1956, my country's grain output was only 1.92 million tons, with a per capita possession of 306 kilograms, still failing to reach the international safety line]

During the Hongwu period, Jinling City.

Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the sky and it seemed to have lost its color. The image he saw on the sky was probably the era of later generations, the world about fifty or sixty years before that.

This is probably about an event that happened after the founding of the country in later generations.

As can be seen from the sky, the scenes inside are basically in the countryside, either harvesting wheat, paving roads, or mining.

Compared with later generations, the people inside are really very thin. Although the image is in black and white, you can see that their spirits are much fuller and their enthusiasm can be felt outside the sky. This kind of overflowing enthusiasm and simplicity can still be seen in the farmers in the counties under the jurisdiction of Yingtian Prefecture today.

But relatively speaking, the era in the sky seemed to have a flourishing vitality.

Zhu Yuanzhang had no time to worry about why the mental changes of people in later generations occurred, and he continued to observe them carefully.

Judging from the scenes of life that pass by, life in the countryside at that time was almost the same as it is today.

What caused them to change so much later?
Zhu Yuanzhang had no way of knowing the answer, as Tianmu had never given it, but what he cared more about was: could the Ming Dynasty replicate this miracle with the help of Tianmu?

At the Hexing Tea and Snack Shop, all the diners were silent. It turned out that they were similar to us fifty or sixty years ago.

If you remove the machines and cars, as well as the lines of text everywhere, it would almost be a replica of a rural scene.

The threshing with flails was almost the same as it is today, and there were a bunch of people drying and harvesting rice.

And those words that can be seen everywhere:

"Grasp the revolution, promote production, promote work, and promote construction!"

"Work hard, strive for excellence, and build socialism faster, better, and more economically"

“Ensuring agricultural production needs”

[In this situation, people are naturally not picky about food and always eat whatever is available.]

[Brown rice, sorghum, sweet potatoes, etc. are people's three meals a day. Even so, food is still not enough. In order to increase satiety, porridge and wild vegetables have become a regular on the table.]

[Steamed buns and rice were the people’s greatest hope, and the porridge at that time was different from what it is now, and was basically made of coarse grains]

[If someone's family eats rice and millet porridge, it will be a disaster]

[At that time, the supply was limited and the seasoning was insufficient, so the taste of wild vegetables was not comparable to what it is now]

[Blanch with water, sprinkle some salt and mix. Some people may think that blanching wild vegetables and sprinkling some salt on them will taste good.]

[Yes, it’s good for one or two meals, but if you eat it every day and every year, don’t even think it’s good. I’m afraid you’ll vomit when you see wild vegetables.]

[However, in that era, it was good to have wild vegetables to eat, after all, they were easy to swallow and digest.]

[The most torturous thing is the coarse grains. You have heard of Wowotou, but do you know what people used to make it?]

[Crushed corn cob cobs. This kind of thing is hard to swallow, not to mention the taste, and it is also extremely difficult to digest]

[As for meat and egg dim sum, they are luxury goods among luxury goods. When visiting relatives and friends during festivals, it is enough to buy some.]

[And these things are hard to buy. Not only do you need food and coupons, but you also have to depend on the supply. What causes the hardship of people's lives? Food shortages and extremely low grain production.]

[Then the question is, why was grain production so low in the 1950s and 1960s?]

During the Zhenguan period, Chang'an City.

Li Shimin listened to Tianmu's description. These "hard" pasts in their eyes were actually rare periods of peace. Although they were a bit hard, they were not unbearable.

Although there is still some distance from the heyday, it is not far behind.

Moreover, one of the important reasons for the hardships and food shortages he mentioned was that the population was too large. If the population was half as small, the situation would probably be much better.

When it comes to low grain production, the Tang Dynasty today is not much better. With the same amount of cultivated land, the population in later times was twenty times greater than that in the Daye era, and even more so than today.
According to later generations, sweet potatoes can be used in emergencies but cannot be used as a staple food, while the same is not true for potatoes.

Are there other ways to increase production besides high-yield crops and fertilizers?

The experience summarized from the 1950s and 1960s may also be a good solution for the Tang Dynasty today.

[This is caused by many factors, the first of which is the seed problem. As we all know, if you want to have a high grain yield, you must choose good seeds.]

[Therefore, breeding is of utmost importance. The concept of breeding has been around as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty.] [Over the past thousands of years, breeding has become something that every generation has been doing. However, due to problems with the speed of information flow and the system, breeding work has not made much progress.]

[Can you imagine the yield per mu of a conventional crop like wheat in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China? 150 to 200 kilograms]

[Nowadays, even in extremely barren areas, 500 kilograms can be harvested per mu, and in fertile areas, even 1300 kilograms. Breeding has played a huge role in such a large yield gap.]

[You should know that the wheat seeds used by farmers in my country today are all purchased from seed companies. After countless rounds of breeding, they have great advantages in terms of yield stability, lodging resistance, and virus resistance.]

[In the 1950s and 1960s, no matter how good the grain seeds were, the yield was not as good as it is now. If you want to cultivate high-yield seeds, you have to go through generations of breeding, and this takes more than one or two years.]

"In just a few decades, wheat production has increased 4-5 times. Is this really possible with human power?" A general murmured to himself, expressing the thoughts of others.

From ancient times to the present, agricultural progress and food production increases have been extremely slow, and have been the result of spontaneous evolution and improvement among the people.

Whether it was farming technology or farming tools, they were all developed in a small area and it would take a very long time to promote them nationwide.

"I never thought seeds would have such a big impact on the harvest!" someone sighed. He certainly knew that good quality seeds would produce higher yields, but he just didn't expect it to be this high.

The yield has increased 4-5 times in just a few decades. The seeds must have been continuously selected and improved, otherwise such high-yield seeds would have been discovered long ago.

All of this requires huge investment in manpower and material resources. Moreover, for farmers, even in a good year, there is not much surplus grain at home. Unknown varieties represent risks, which is one of the reasons why breeding is difficult.

Li Shimin looked at the civil and military officials who were expressing their deep emotion, and suddenly realized that no matter which dynasty or era, it seemed that no one had ever looked down at the people who were foraging for food in the muddy fields.

Not to mention breeding, which is a time-consuming and labor-intensive task.

And the fact is just as Tianmu said, transportation is inconvenient and information exchange is not smooth in different places. Perhaps the yield of wheat and rice will be very different due to different varieties across the mountains.

This is another new direction for increasing grain production. This new direction means taking charge of the overall situation in the name of the court and selecting and cultivating excellent varieties across the country.

If this can be accomplished, then with the same amount of arable land, the grain output across the country as a whole will increase greatly.

This is a huge project, a great undertaking that will take almost ten years.

Li Shimin was deeply moved. Judging from the sky, future generations would invest enormously in such large-scale projects, such as seed breeding, Yellow River management, and the Three North Shelterbelt Project, which covered a very wide area but was only mentioned once.

The problems solved by this type of project are closely related to people's livelihood, and these things have given him a lot of inspiration.

[For example, Academician Yuan Longping spent decades of energy on breeding before he finally cultivated hybrid rice. You can imagine how difficult breeding work is.]

[However, breeding work must be done no matter how difficult it is. After all, without good grain varieties, grain production cannot be increased, which is related to the people’s food and clothing issues.]

[In order to select and breed good varieties, the Ministry of Agriculture of my country launched a mass seed selection campaign in the early days of liberation, mobilizing people across the country to select seeds together]

[Although the momentum was a bit grand, the results of mass seed selection were also remarkable. By 1959, 2444/2 of the 3 excellent varieties in my country were selected by farmers from all over the country, and the promotion area was as high as 18 billion mu]

[It is precisely because of this breeding foundation that my country's grain output was able to exceed 60 million tons in the mid-2s]

[Of course, in addition to seeds, irrigation and fertilizers are also two major factors that affect grain production. Irrigation, needless to say, requires huge investment in water conservancy facilities at the national level, and my country has never stopped building water conservancy facilities.]

[Everyone must know the importance of fertilizers. As the old saying goes, the success of crops depends on fertilizers.]

[If there is not enough fertilizer, the crops will not grow well, so now farmers are basically not stingy with the investment in fertilizers when farming]

[But in those days, even if you had money, you couldn’t buy fertilizer. There was a shortage of fertilizer throughout the country.]

[In addition, population is also a relatively important reason. At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of my country, the population of our country exceeded 5 million.]

[Even now, it is very difficult to feed such a large population, not to mention the extreme scarcity of supplies in the 1950s and 1960s.]

During the Hongwu period, Jinling City.

It was quiet in front of the Wuying Hall. All the civil and military officials knew the importance of the matter. They could not be careless when it came to matters related to people's livelihood. After all, if not for their official hats, they had to think about their own lives.

Zhu Yuanzhang was thoughtful and learned from the sky that this breeding was also a huge project spanning several decades and was still going on in later generations.

In fact, if you think about it carefully, you will find that this matter really requires the help of the imperial court.

For ordinary people, it is really too difficult for them to select and improve varieties.

For local wealthy families with a little more money, this is a thankless task. After all, it requires too much manpower and material resources, takes a long time, and may not be effective.
No wonder later generations used the whole country's strength to accomplish this matter. This is actually a very good idea.

It would be a good idea to implement the seed selection at the provincial, prefectural and county levels, and if it is carried out well, it would not cause any harassment to the people and would benefit them.

Zhu Yuanzhang thought about it roughly and turned his gaze to the comment area, which was the place for cross-verification.

"Because the level of industrialization was not high, machinery, fertilizers, and improved varieties were not developed. The previous generations suffered for generations, fought hard to increase production, made scientific research breakthroughs, and negotiated the blockade of the two superpowers, which led to today's development."

"Fertilizer production could not keep up with the high cost, so in the 70s, we broke the ice with the United States and bought 13 of the most advanced fertilizer plants in Europe to solve the food crisis."

"In fact, food supply has improved a lot since the 70s, mainly due to fertilizers, improved seeds and water conservancy projects. But China was poor at that time, and all the better things were exported for foreign exchange, so people still lived a tight life. Raising pigs requires food, and this could only be achieved when we had money in the future and imported large quantities of genetically modified corn and raised pigs and chickens on a large scale."

"If you are not full, you will only have one worry; if you are full, you will have countless worries"

(End of this chapter)