Datang: What's wrong with my fief being a billion points larger?

Chapter 189 Reasons, Hybrid Rice

Li Yuanji came to the outside of the rice shop. Several people in the rice shop looked at Li Yuanji. One of them wanted to go out, but was stopped by the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper came to Li Yuanji cautiously.

"Sir, do you want to buy rice? I am the shopkeeper here. If you need it, just tell me. I will definitely give you the discount I can give you."

Li Yuanji looked at the middle-aged man and immediately smiled.

"You have some good sense. How much is this rice sold for?"

When the shopkeeper heard this, his whole face was filled with smiles.

"Sir, this rice is 20 cents, and this corn is 10 cents. If you need it, I can sell it to you at this price even if the quantity is large."

When Li Yuanji heard the price and the quantity offered, he looked at the middle-aged man deeply and then smiled.

"Interesting, interesting, let's go in and talk."

The shopkeeper immediately welcomed Li Yuanji in and served him hot tea. Li Yuanji took a sip and looked at the shopkeeper.

"Boss, I have a question. If you sell these grains somewhere else, the profits you get will be very high. Why come here?

Selling grain here, after deducting the cost, you can say that you can only break even. But it is difficult to make money. I heard that the grain price in Chang'an is very high. The price of rice has reached sixty or seventy cents, and the price of corn has also reached thirty or forty cents.

This is a good opportunity, why don’t you go there?”

Li Yuanji was very curious. He could buy goods cheaply here. Those who wanted to open a shop here had ordinary items that were not expensive, and the profits were not as high as those sold in the Tang Dynasty. However, these people still opened shops here. Although he was happy, he was also very curious.

Upon hearing this, the shopkeeper said, "To be honest, sir, the price of grain in Chang'an is indeed very high. The price of rice has reached 80 coins, and the price of millet is between 40 and 50 coins, and the price is still rising.

The court did not have much grain and was unable to keep the price down. Even grain merchants would take the initiative to buy low-priced grain from the court. The court did not have enough grain, and Chang'an had a large population, so buying grain from grain merchants was an inevitable trend.

In order to make more money, they kept raising the prices. Because of the food shortage, people had to buy food or they would starve to death. Even though the price was high, the people had no choice but to buy it.

At the beginning, I also stockpiled some grain and was planning to sell it in Chang'an, but later I found the King of Qi, so I came here directly, mainly because the profit of these goods is very high.

Although the profit from selling grain is huge, I still feel a little guilty about it. Now that I have a choice, I decided to come here with my people and all my property.

As long as we can reach any cooperation with the King of Qi on their products, we will not lose money but make a lot of money instead.

It's no secret that the King of Qi is short of food. The fact that goods are delivered with money and grain is enough to explain the problem. That's why I come here to sell food.

But because of cost issues, although I don’t want to make money from food, I can’t have any losses, otherwise my family’s livelihood will be difficult to maintain.

I have some food stored here. If you need it, I can deliver it to you at cost price. I just hope you can give me a chance to ship the goods here to other places for sale."

Li Yuanji looked at the shopkeeper and immediately smiled.

"When did you figure out my identity?"

Li Yuanji was very curious. When the other party quoted the price of the grain and showed respect to him, he knew that his identity was exposed.

Li Yuanji was confused. He thought he had hidden himself well, so how could this person see through him? Or was he really that bad at disguising himself?
After hearing this, the shopkeeper stood up immediately.

"Greetings to the King of Qi. Reporting to the King of Qi, on the way here, passers-by looked at him with burning eyes and wanted to say something, but were stopped by the King of Qi.

In fact, I did not dare to confirm it here, until I saw the temperament revealed by the King of Qi later, I became convinced.

The King of Qi was in plain clothes, and I did not dare to point out his identity. I was unable to meet him in time, please forgive me, King of Qi."

Li Yuanji immediately smiled bitterly, he knew that he could not visit this place in disguise, especially in the inner city. There were too many people who had seen him in the inner city, and fewer people who had seen him in the outer city. It would be easy for him to be exposed in the inner city.

Li Yuanji waved his hand to signal to stand up, then spoke slowly.

"Huang Huayang, right? Get up. You are very good. Especially for giving up the stable fortune in Chang'an and bringing your family wealth here. You also invested so much in food. It's very good.

Where are your trade routes mainly located? Is it only within the Tang Dynasty, or are there trade routes to other countries as well?"

Huang Huayang was full of excitement. He was originally worrying about how to contact those officials and whether he could get an allocation. After all, after he came here, he found that there were too many businessmen and wealthy families coming here, and his financial resources were really not conspicuous here.

But he didn't expect that Li Yuanji would come today. This was something he had never thought of, and it happened so miraculously.

Huang Huayang did not dare to delay and spoke immediately.

"King Qi, my trade routes are mainly in the north. I also have trade routes with the Turks and Tuyuhun. However, because the journey is long, it takes at least a year to make a round trip."

Li Yuanji heard this and looked at Huang Huayang for a moment. "Okay, in that case, I will have someone come to take over from you later. You should prepare food and caravans. The goods will be given to you at a lower price, but you have to send caravans to Turks and Tuyuhun to promote this place and let the merchants there come here to do business."

Li Yuanji learned about the other people's situation from Huang Huayang, then got up and left, leaving Huang Huayang excited.

When Li Yuanji returned to the women, his face immediately broke into smiles.

"Let's go, just take a stroll and then go back. I was recognized right away when I went to the rice shop just now. It's boring. In this inner city, I really can't hide my face."

Yang Qingwan and the other girls all laughed when they heard this. Others didn't know, but Yang Qingwan knew it very well. She had known for a long time that Li Yuanji could not keep a low profile, but she didn't say it out loud just to let Li Yuanji accompany them.

After strolling around for a while, Li Yuanji called Cen Wenben directly after returning. In addition to settling Huang Huayang's matter, he also made targeted actions based on what he had learned. The purpose was to preserve the wealth here while attracting wealth from outside.

After Li Yuanji dealt with the affairs of the many merchants who came, Yang Cheng led the fleet to set off again. This time, Yang Cheng's main purpose was to go to Japan and Silla to cooperate with Wei Ting.

And Pei Xuanyan's fleet, after nearly three months of preparation, began to prepare to set off again. This time, Lin Quan led 5,000 naval forces to escort the entire journey to ensure the safety of the navy, because this voyage was to truly go to the Western Ocean.

Foreign voyages and contacts will be directly advanced from the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty to the Wude period of the Tang Dynasty today.

After seeing Pei Xuanyan and Lin Quan off, Li Yuanji was filled with pride as he looked at the now thriving city. All of this was developed by him.

After returning to the palace, Li Yuanji opened the task panel. His contribution points had now reached 30,615 points, and his task was finally shown as completed, with his contribution points directly reaching 60,615 points.

Li Yuanji was completely excited this time. More than 60,000 contribution points, this was such a huge sum of money. Li Yuanji had never felt it before, but he finally felt it this time.

Then he looked at the new task: If you want to develop steadily, you must have a strong army, with the number of regular troops reaching 300,000. You can get 50,000 contribution points for completing it.

Li Yuanji looked at this new task and suddenly became nervous. His army had reached 300,000 soldiers, right? The expansion before and after, plus Feng Ang and Tan Dian's army, as well as the armies of various prefectures, this must be 300,000 soldiers.

However, seeing that this new task had not been completed, Li Yuanji immediately turned his gaze to the task again, and then fixed on the three words "regular army". After a while, Li Yuanji suddenly realized that among his 300,000 troops, only about 200,000 had completed the new weapons and equipment.

Li Yuanji couldn't help but have a guess: is it necessary to equip 300,000 troops before this mission can be completed?
After all, his combat army is now only responsible for combat and has no other affairs to do. It can be called a regular army. Only some of the weapons have not been replaced. To be precise, this is the only reason Li Yuanji can think of.

Li Yuanji was no longer annoyed. It would not take long for the rest of the army to be fully equipped. At most, they would just have to wait one or two more months. Now that smelting technology had been improved, steel production was even greater and the scale was large enough, factories had been built not only in Dongdao but also in other places, so the speed of equipment replacement would only be faster.

Now he is completely ahead of the system. As long as he develops more, no matter what task the system issues, he will be able to complete it ahead of schedule. He doesn't have to follow the system like he did at the beginning.

Li Yuanji then opened the item exchange column and found the grain he wanted to exchange. What Li Yuanji wanted to exchange was hybrid rice. His territory was now very suitable for growing rice. Whether it was Lingnan or the place he was about to conquer, hybrid rice was the best.

Of course there is another reason, that is potatoes and sweet potatoes. He really cannot afford to exchange them now, and the contribution points required are much higher. He has no intention of exchanging these two anyway. Now the ship can sail far away, and after further improvements, he can go directly to America. Wouldn’t he have potatoes and sweet potatoes directly?
Why would he waste his contribution points when he could find it here? Wouldn't it be better to use these contribution points to exchange for other things?

As for why hybrid rice can be exchanged for these contribution points, Li Yuanji thought it was simply because the yield of hybrid rice was not as good as that of potatoes and sweet potatoes. He couldn't think of anything else and was too lazy to think about it.

There is no point in thinking about it, the price above is clearly marked. If you want it, exchange it. If you don’t want it, forget it.

It takes 40,000 contribution points to exchange for hybrid rice, but hybrid rice also has a problem, which is the degradation of the crop. Hybrid rice cannot be saved for seeds, and once the seeds are saved, the yield will only get lower and lower.

If you want to remove this shortcoming, you also need to exchange for another thing to improve this genetic defect, which requires 20,000 contribution points, which means a total of 60,000 contribution points are needed.

This is also the reason why Li Yuanji was willing to exchange hybrid rice. If it could not be improved, he would not exchange it at all. Otherwise, what would be the point of planting it once?

He couldn't possibly exchange it with 40,000 contribution points every year. Moreover, through corn, he could roughly know that hybrid rice seeds must also be 1,000 kilograms. If these seeds could not be kept for promotion after the harvest, all of them would have to be exchanged. Even a million contribution points would not be able to withstand this.

After exchanging the hybrid rice, Li Yuanji felt extremely heartbroken. Sixty thousand contribution points were gone in an instant. He hadn't even had time to warm up the money before it was gone. Only 615 contribution points were left.

The only thing that made Li Yuanji feel relieved was that now with hybrid rice, he no longer had to worry about food. This also solved the most fundamental need for development. In the future, he would not have to worry too much even if he produced as much as he wanted.

The only downside is that there are too few seeds. If he wants to promote it, it will probably take another one or two years. Moreover, without chemical fertilizers, although the yield is high, he doesn't have any illusions about how high it can be.

In Li Yuanji's eyes, as long as the rice yield is much higher than the current one, it is a success and he can accept it.

Li Yuanji was in a good mood. With hybrid rice, corn, and sorghum, even without potatoes and sweet potatoes, at least he no longer had to worry about food pressure.

In the following period, things happened one after another to make Li Yuanji happy. Good news kept coming from Yu Ming and there. It might even take another two or three months for them to join forces with Wei Yunqi's army and completely conquer the Nanzhao area.

In addition, on the battlefield of Zhenla, the three-nation coalition he formed was victorious on all three battlefields. Zhenla was defeated in a short time. As for war elephants, tens of thousands of them were captured, and a large number of Zhenla troops surrendered directly.

Xie Shufang, who was responsible for launching the attack from south to north, and the joint army of Funan were already approaching the Zhenla capital of Yishang. Xi Junmai and Tan Dian were also making rapid progress. Only Su Dingfang suffered from the long distance. I'm afraid that the capture of the Zhenla capital this time will have nothing to do with him.

In addition to these three battlefields, the Pyu Kingdom also suddenly joined the war, under the pretext of helping him attack Zhenla, and directly expressed its willingness to be his vassal state. When Li Yuanji first saw this news, he was both happy and confused.

What made him happy was that the Pyu Kingdom actually surrendered directly and became his vassal state, paying tribute every year. This vassal state belonged to him, not to the Tang Dynasty. The difference was huge.

What is puzzling is that he has never had any contact with Pyu Kingdom. How come Pyu Kingdom is so sensible?
(End of this chapter)