Go back to the Ming Dynasty to be a thousand households

Chapter 120 Three Signs Precursor Fertilizers
万历19年正月28，公元1591年2月19日。

Burmese Yingli led troops to invade Baoshan, Tengchong and other places in Yunnan. Deputy general Wan Guochunye of the Ming army set up a torch as a suspicious soldier. The Burmese soldiers retreated in fear and chased them down.

March 1591, 2 AD.

Traveling through the northern towns of the Ming Dynasty, Zheng Luo, the leader of the Ministry of War, took advantage of the fact that the Mongolian Bushitu tribe was trying to join the Huoluochi tribe, and suddenly attacked its flanks, intercepting a large number of cattle, sheep and other supplies. Many Hui-Tibetan tribes moved away and burned many monasteries in Mongolia. The leader of the Mongolian tribe, Lalik, merged with other tribes outside the Great Wall and planned to go bankrupt.

March 1591, 2 AD.

The Mongolian tribes in Lintao and Hezhou raised their troops to rebel. Zheng Luo passed on the call to dispatch Ningxia soldiers to participate in the counter-insurgency.After the rebellion was suppressed, the army returned to take the outside of the Great Wall, and the bandits who met them were all changed, so they had a heart of ignoring China and foreign countries.Since then, the worship has become more and more arrogant, the chaos in Ningxia, and the three major signs of Wanli have shown signs!

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公元1591年4月5日，农历3月12日。

It's the spring plowing season of Qingming again. For Wuzhaibao, the original ten old farms' operation procedures have been very stable, and they are step-by-step, so Huang Laifu doesn't need to worry about it.As for the new [-] farms, with the assistance of the old villagers, after several months of construction, the construction of the farms and the reclamation of farmland have been completed, and complete supporting facilities such as irrigation wells and ditches have been built. Sowed.

Compared with the old farms, since most of the new farms are not close to the big river, they need more Huanglaifu hand press wells and Huanglaifu large irrigation wells. In the past few months, Wuzhaibao Minqifang has produced many Waterwheel stuff to suit the needs of each new farm.Similarly, the [-] new farms also adopted the horse-drawn plow and columbine cart-like farming method, and each new farm was equipped with five to ten sets of horse-drawn plows and columbine carts, as well as horse-drawn hoe for weeding.

If a set of horse-drawn plows, columbine carts, and horse-drawn hoe requires 20 taels of silver, a farm needs at least five sets, a farm needs 100 taels of silver for this equipment alone, and 20 new farms need 2000 taels of silver.For a farm with such a high cost, in the Ming Dynasty, except for Wuzhai Fort, no one was able to save this money.Regarding the high investment in Wuzhaibao Farm, father-in-law Ma Jiuying had nothing to say except shock.

For the current Wuzhai Fort, the horses are naturally purchased from Mongolia through merchants, and the horses are all of the best quality.As for agricultural equipment such as horse-drawn plows, columbine carts, and horse-drawn hoes, after a year of exploration, the Wuzhaibao Minqifang can now be made by itself, saving a lot of cost.

There is also about the excavation of irrigation wells in various new farms. In the excavation of deep water wells in the past, the walls of the holes were supported by wooden frames and stone masonry. Now, cement has been used. In this way, the cost of excavating irrigation wells is lower and the excavation is more efficient Deeper, after installing the water truck, it can continuously provide water for the dry land.

Just like the old farmers on the old farm, all the farmers on the new farm were dumbfounded at the operation of the new farm. They watched the large amount of water being sucked out by animal-powered waterwheels from the countless Huanglaifu large irrigation wells in each field. Then it flowed into various farmlands, and there was no field that was not irrigated.

Ren is an old farmer who has rich farming experience in his hometown before, but he also finds it incredible.Everyone is discussing that if there was such a developed irrigation system in their hometown before, everyone would not have to leave their hometown to flee famine.

As for the use of horse-drawn plows and columbine carts, the various farms in Wuzhaibao are no better than last year. All the villagers have a wealth of experience in using them. The village chiefs were drawn from various old farms, and under their hand-in-hand instruction, the new village chiefs would naturally have no problem using these agricultural tools.

Therefore, after the beginning of spring, the various farms in Wuzhaibao entered into a busy labor.

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"Master Huang, Eunuch Ma, Team Leader Gu, and Master Yang, this year all the farms in Wuzhaibao use selected fine seeds. As long as the irrigation and management can keep up, there will be no problems with this year's bumper harvest."

Wuzhaibao in April is already showing a bright spring, but it is still chilly. At this time, a large group of people gathered on the ground of a farm in Wuzhaibao. Among them, the leader of the agricultural technology team Su Rui Baihu said affirmatively to Huang Laifu.

Huang Laifu's starting point in Wuzhaibao is agriculture, so he is very concerned about this year's spring plowing. These days, every day he personally goes to the fields of various farms in Wuzhaibao to check.

As for Huang Laifu's uncle, Gu Shibao, the deputy head of the food group, naturally followed him up and down. After several months of diligent study, Gu Shibao is now able to instigate the work of the food group alone, although the food group is theoretically There are still two deputy team leaders, but now the specific affairs are managed by Gu Shibao. As for Steward Yang, he is already concentrating on various chores in the garrison.

As for Eunuch Ma, since he was entrusted by Emperor Wanli to come to Wuzhai Fort, he is naturally very concerned about the food problem in Wuzhai Fort. These days, he also ran up and down with Huang Laifu, his rosy and smooth face was a little bit covered by the cold wind. Blow black.As for Yang Dawei, a thousand households of Jinyiwei, he is now following father-in-law Ma Jiuying, wherever his father-in-law goes, he also goes there, but sometimes he disappears inexplicably for a few days, and Huang Laifu doesn't know where he goes.

In fact, Huang Laifu wanted to develop an intelligence organization in Wuzhai Fort to monitor everything in Wuzhai Fort. He just considered that the Jinyiwei of the Ming Dynasty was all-pervasive. Is it appropriate to develop an intelligence organization by himself? Is there an ulterior motive?So Huang Laifu has been hesitating.

And last year, Su Rui was appointed as the leader of the agricultural technology group, responsible for the purchase and cultivation of improved varieties of Wuzhaibao's farms, vegetable gardens, and orchards, as well as the prevention and control of various pests.After receiving the funding, Su Rui really lived up to expectations and made a series of achievements.

Due to the bumper harvest last year in Wuzhaibao, the wheat grains are full and the quality is good, so they are naturally good seedlings for planting.The year before last, he had to spend a lot of money to buy wheat seeds from outside, but after the wheat produced last year was carefully selected by Su Rui's hundreds of households, the seeds left behind were all good quality.

Now the wheat seeds in Wuzhaibao are already self-sufficient.Moreover, Junbao prefectures and counties around Wuzhaibao admired Wuzhaibao's bumper harvest last year, and many people even came here to buy high-quality seeds from Wuzhaibao.

In addition, Su Rui also sent people to various places to buy different wheat seeds, and specially opened up a seed field with particularly good conditions in Wuzhaibao, carefully sowed the seeds with dung, carefully preserved and raised the seeds, and observed the adaptability of each seed. Matching with planting varieties, etc., to select the best and most suitable seeds for Wuzhaibao, the intensity is as great as breeding imperial rice.

In addition, Su Rui also went to Taiyuan to buy a lot of agricultural books on farmland water conservancy, and hired some experienced farmers from other places to come to Wuzhaibao at a high price, and asked them to explain his many years of farming experience. Let people organize it into documents and leave it for future inquiries.

"very good!"

There was a smile on Huang Laifu's face, and Eunuch Ma was also very happy to be there. If Wuzhaibao still has a bumper harvest this year, the dividends distributed to Emperor Wanli will naturally be more, and the dividends will be more. For Eunuch Ma, he is working in Wuzhaibao. The impression of being powerful will be heavier in the emperor's heart.

"What about the seeds from the vegetable garden and orchard?"

"My lord, these seeds are currently being selected and bred in Wuzhaibao. The seeds used at present are all purchased from other places. I have bought the best rapeseed and fruit seeds from Taiyuan, but the cost is quite a lot."

"Money is not a problem. The most important thing is that the seeds must be good. If your agricultural technology team has insufficient funds, I will allocate them to you. If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools."

"Master is wise."

"That's right." Huang Laifu remembered something, "Have the pesticides and fertilizers been made yet?"

Su Rui said: "It has been made a long time ago. After the experiment, the effect is good. Now the agricultural technology team has made a large amount of pesticides and fertilizers. Do you want to use them now?"

At this time, most of the wheat seedling pests in Daming are wheat stalk flies and other insect pests. If the land is cultivated for a few years, these problems will probably occur. At this time, there is probably no way to eliminate the pests, either by hand or by some local methods in various places. .After consulting the agricultural knowledge in the computer, Huang Laifu concluded that the cultivation measures of strong and dense wheat plants help to control the damage of the wheat stalk fly.Therefore, it is necessary to sow early, to plow deeply, and to apply sufficient water and fertilizer.

Right now, the cheap and high-quality insecticide in Daming is lime, but Wuzhaibao is a yellow land, so sulfur has to be added to the lime, so last year, Huang Laifu asked Su Rui to make this earthy pesticide.Huang Laifu planned to spray the farmlands of various farms in Wuzhaibao with a pesticide made of lime and sulfur before deep plowing and sowing, to kill insects.

As for chemical fertilizers, in Daming right now, accumulating manure has always been the top priority of farmers.

At this time, the fertilizer is generally human manure, animal manure, various sundries, rotten grass and ditch mud.These traditional fertilizers of the Ming Dynasty cannot be thrown away. At present, in the large livestock farms in Wuzhaibao, there are a lot of pig manure, chicken manure, duck manure, etc. These manures are naturally the treasures of the farms in Wuzhaibao.In addition to these, the seed cakes, bean cakes, hawthorn cakes, fruit oil residues, sesame oil residues, etc. in the workshops of Wuzhaibao are also good materials for making compost, and they should be collected in the same way.

In addition, there are nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers for later generations. Huang Laifu gave the method and ordered the agricultural technology group to develop it.The crude method of nitrogen fertilizer is to make it from decaying plants and animals.Phosphate fertilizer is made by grinding animal bones into bone meal, which can be made into phosphate fertilizer after being treated with an appropriate amount of sulfuric acid.

In fact, waste from some iron factories can also be used to make phosphate fertilizer, but this method is too unconventional, not suitable for the people of Ming Dynasty, and the process is more complicated, so Huang Laifu gave up.

For Huang Laifu, in Daming at this time, as long as the traditional fertilizers are sufficient, and nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers can be made by crude methods, it is enough to greatly increase the yield of farmland.

"That's right, use it now!"

After hearing Su Rui's words, Huang Laifu was very happy, and he told Gu Shibao who was beside him: "Group Leader Gu, you tell the heads of the various farms to come to the agricultural technology team today to collect pesticides and fertilizers, and to plow deeply now. When sowing, pesticides and fertilizers should be applied at the same time."

Gu Shibao respectfully said: "I obey my orders."

(End of this chapter)