Daming 1805

Chapter 311 The No. [-] Farm in the Outer City of Xintianfu

When Zheng Fuguang drilled oil in Lake Maracaibo, Xintianfu Agricultural Machinery Factory finally finished commissioning the newly assembled tractors.

It was late April at this time, and the autumn harvest around Xintianfu had come to an end.

Most of the farmland outside the city has been harvested and has entered the stage of plowing and sowing wheat.

In order to find a place to display the new machine, Zhu Jingyuan asked the guards to ride out on horseback and run around for a long time.

Finally, in a corner of the moat square in the outer city of Xintianfu, a small piece of unharvested cornfield was found.

This field was cultivated by the "No. [-] Farm in the Outer City of Xintianfu".

So Zhu Jingyuan decided to go to this farm to "help work".

Zhu Jingyuan called two staff members, brought eight guards, and Zhao Youde, the treasurer of Huangzhuang who was in charge of managing this area.

All put on camouflage uniforms suitable for work, and put harvesters, plows, harrows, and seeders on four-wheel trailers.

A group of people drove two 64-horsepower tractors and dragged tools and people to the [-] Farm with a trailer.

Around a small intersection, there is a large courtyard in four directions, and signs are hung at the gates of the courtyard.

They are the four farms of [-], [-], [-], and [-].

Zhu Jingyuan parked the tractor in front of the [-] Farm, and entered the compound with Zhao Youde, the shopkeeper of Huangzhuang.

Entering the courtyard is a straight road. On the left is a large warehouse, and on the right is a large stable with more than a dozen horses.

Further on, there are five small yards on each side, a total of ten small courtyards, which are the houses of the ten families in this farm.

It is said that it is a small courtyard, which is also relative to the large courtyard of the entire farm.

In fact, the area of ​​each yard is not too small, and it seems to be at least a thousand square meters or more.

The main building has two floors, and each floor has more than four horizontal rooms, and the depth is relatively large.

There are at least two rooms, east and west, and at least two rooms.

At the end of the ten courtyards, facing the entrance road, there is another big house.

That's where all kinds of celebrations are held, as well as the collective canteen of the farm.

During the busy farming season, we eat in the cafeteria in the farm, and during the off-season, each family cooks for themselves.

The cost of the canteen is counted as the operating cost of the farm, which is deducted from the final harvested grain and profits.

The cost of cooking at home needs to be borne by oneself, so farmers actually like to eat canteens.

Zhu Jingyuan was coming to help the farm, and the farmers of the farm had received the news in advance.

It's just that Zhu Jingyuan didn't want to make too much noise, so he asked them not to go out to greet them, and just stay in the farm yard.

After breakfast today, all men, women and children came out and waited at the entrance of the compound.

Zhu Jingyuan followed the shopkeeper in, and the dealers immediately clapped their hands in a chaotic salute:

"I have seen Your Highness..."

"Hi everyone, you're welcome..."

Zhu Jingyuan returned the salute casually, and observed these people a little at the same time.

There are a total of ten families, and the total number of men, women, old and children in front of them is estimated to be nearly [-] people.

On average, each family has four to five children.

In fact, at least one-third of these ten families are relatively young, and have not reached the age to stop having children.

Those couples over the age of 40 are surrounded by six or seven children.

And look very good complexion, adults are relatively strong, children are more juicy.

There is no lack of oil at first glance, more than half of the people are at the level of being slightly fat, and there are not a few people with big arms and round waists.

It is the busy season of farming, and the clothes they wear are obviously short clothes suitable for working, but at first glance, they can't find any patches.

It just means that these ordinary farmers are quite rich in terms of food and clothing.

Their house is enough for each child alone, and there are not only draft horses in the stables, but also horses suitable for riding.

Finally, to Zhu Jingyuan's surprise, a blond and blue-eyed Thai woman appeared in the crowd.

Zhu Jingyuan immediately looked a little more curiously.

Zhao Youde, the treasurer of Huangzhuang who was following him, also saw it, and immediately asked the director of the farm, an old man in his 50s, Liu.

Old man Liu immediately called the woman and the man beside him, and at the same time introduced to Zhu Jingyuan:

"Your Highness, this young man is the eldest son of the old Li family, named Li Qingsong.

"Being a soldier in our Huangzhuang team, according to the rules, you will not be separated from your family for the time being.

"Last year, he went to a place called Dongyi Kingdom as an errand, and became the local banner chief.

"This girl from Xiyi is called Erica, she is the translator of Dongyi country, so I have to follow him.

"So he brought his daughter back to meet his parents and daughter-in-law.

"I held a banquet at the farm a few days ago, and the farm work was delayed for two days, which slowed down the harvesting of corn in our farm by two days."

"They will return to Dongyi Kingdom in a few days."

These two people are Li Qingsong and Erica who came back from Dongyi Kingdom on leave.

Li Qingsong managed to get things settled at home and planned to go back in a few days.

Unexpectedly, in the past few days at home, I happened to meet Zhu Jingyuan to "help".

When he came in front of Zhu Jingyuan, he hurriedly bowed his hands again.

Erica became even more nervous, she never expected to see Prince Dashi here!
And Erica has a naturally bold personality. While saluting with excitement, she instinctively yelled nonsense:
"I have seen His Highness...Your Highness, you have come to Yinzhou!"

Zhu Jingyuan was also a little surprised by the experience of these two people.

Unexpectedly, the [-] farm left so much corn, it was because of the two of them.

Zhu Jingyuan was in a good mood, so he laughed and made a joke:

"I am now the governor of Yinzhou of Ming Dynasty, and theoretically the Dongyi country where you are located is also under my control, so you two are actually my subordinates..."

After Erica reacted, she immediately bowed again and said:
"It is our honor to serve you..."

Zhu Jingyuan smiled and waved his hands:

"I just happened to design a new agricultural machine. Seeing that there is still some corn confiscated in your farm, I plan to use your land to try my machine. You two should go and have a look together."

Zhu Jingyuan didn't continue to chat with them, and asked the villager to go out to the field together.

The adults went to lead the horses, harness the carts, and prepare to go to work in the fields.

The children joined in the fun, and a group of people went out in a mess.

The farmland behind each Zhuangzi's compound is the land that each farm is responsible for cultivating.

So if you want to go to the field, you can go out, but it is not easy to finish the work.

The outer city area of ​​Xintianfu is a square with a side length of 27 kilometers, and the interior is divided into nine squares with a side length of [-] kilometers.

Each square is divided into nine small squares with a side length of three kilometers, and each small square is divided into nine farms with a side length of one kilometer.

In order to increase the population of each settlement, every four farms are placed in four directions at a crossroad,
Each farm usually consists of about ten households, and is responsible for land that is one kilometer long and wide, and one square kilometer in area.

One square kilometer is 150 mu, and each family has to cultivate [-] mu of land on average.

But in fact, the land is not subdivided into families, and all the people on the farm have to work together, and finally share the income together.

Because the land cultivated by the farm nominally belonged to the emperor, all the families in the farm were just farmers—the employees of Huangzhuang.

But the emperor, who is too far away as the owner of the villa, actually does not participate in the specific management at all.

What these employees get is not wages, but "dividends" of profits.

Thirty percent of Huangzhuang's income goes to the emperor, [-] percent goes to employees, and [-] percent is used for infrastructure such as roads and canals.

The emperor received [-]% of the farm's income, which at first glance seemed high.

But this is not a few percent of the "income" as in ancient dynasties, but [-] percent of the final "profit".

What the emperor wants is not taxes, but also profit sharing, of course, it must be calculated according to profits.

Since it is a profit, it will be calculated after deducting the cost.

Including raising horses, making farm tools, buying seeds, canteen expenses during busy farming hours, and two sets of tooling for adults each year.

If the tax is calculated according to the actual harvest ratio as in the previous dynasty, it may only be half or even lower.

If there is a disaster year, if the farming does not make money, then there is no need to turn in a penny, and the emperor has to pay for the rescue.

Coupled with the large-scale use of horse plowing and the use of various auxiliary machinery on a large scale, the scale of land that can be cultivated is very large.

The average family can cultivate 150 mu of land, which is very close to the limit of what they can accomplish.

There is still a lot of wasteland in Xintianfu, which can be quickly developed into fertile fields or pastures, but there is not enough manpower to do it.

Now the abundance of daily necessities of farmers in Xintianfu is very close to the limit of self-cultivating farmers in the agricultural era.

Before mechanization, if they were given more land, they really couldn't grow it.

The two tractors brought by Zhu Jingyuan were parked by the field, and the workers and soldiers worked together to remove the machines from the trailer.

Install the corn harvester on the tractor, and align the corn output port with the trailer behind.

All the adults and children in the farm were watching.

Children are more curious, while adults are more scrutinizing.

It's not that they haven't seen the machine before, it's just that most of the machines in the past were not easy to use, otherwise the horses would have been unnecessary.

The steam engine is too heavy, the efficiency is low and coal is burned, it is very difficult to replenish and feed, and it is difficult to control the power.

Gasoline engines are boring. Although they run fast, they can't do heavy work.

The two tractors brought by Zhu Jingyuan looked no bigger than the original gasoline engines.

As for the corn harvester, the whole thing is mounted on the top of the tractor, which looks quite heavy. ,

The point is, they seem to be going to let the tractor pull the trailer down, which is too heavy to carry.

The farmers on site didn't have much expectations, worrying that the machine wouldn't work.

The machine here is finally ready, and it is fired again with a blank cartridge.

The tractor equipped with the corn harvester got off the ground immediately.

The machine in front collects the corn and crushes the stalks directly, and the corn is output to the trailer behind the tractor.

After getting off the ground, the machine basically did not stop at all, and continued to move forward very stably.

This set of machines drove directly, and the four rows of corn were harvested directly, and the straw was also processed at the same time.

At the same time, the second tractor took off the trailer and replaced it with a four-shared plow.

Followed behind the corn harvesting machine, and directly turned over the stalks.

A group of adults who were about to work were a little at a loss as they watched the two machines roaring forward.

"My mother, these machines don't look big, and they don't get stuck at all when walking!"

"The harvester in front, it has so many things, can it still move?"

"This is a four-shared plow. Two horses can pull two plowshares at most, and the plow is shallower than this, and the walking is slower..."

"The point is, logically speaking, these are all machines, and the machines can keep working until they break down. Mark needs to rest."

"You have to carefully control the rhythm of the two horses so that the two horses share the effort evenly, otherwise the horses may be injured."

"This car...you can just drive it, it's so worry-free..."

"This is finally a useful agricultural machine!"

Daming people are not surprised by the machine, what is surprised is that the machine is really easy to use.

Farmers and farmers in Ming Dynasty have a very strong demand for agricultural machinery, because there are really too many fields to grow.

So seeing that the tractor brought by Zhu Jingyuan was functional and easy to use, enthusiasm quickly arose.

The machines in front of Erica grabbed Li Qingsong's arm and said with a surprised expression:
"This harvesting machine can do several jobs in one trip, which is several times faster than horses and people."

Li Qingsong was also very surprised and said in a daze:

"The point is, you can drive alone, you don't need to carefully control the horse..."

Finally, Zhao Youde, the shopkeeper of Huangzhuang looked at these people and muttered:
"The most important thing is that there is no need to raise horses! How much manpower and food will be saved!"

Old man Liu, the director of [-] Farm, said to the shopkeeper beside him:

"Boss, if we all use this machine in the farm in the future, can we grow twice as many fields!"

Zhao Youde calculated more carefully:

"I'm afraid it's not just doubled. I guess, in the past, ten households had one farm field, but in the future, three households will be enough.

"However, His Highness doesn't seem to be planning to let everyone plant more fields. His Highness has other arrangements..."

Zhu Jingyuan's demonstration can be regarded as a great success. The two tractors worked all morning without any failure.

It seems that in the past half a month, the craftsmen have really carefully debugged it.

In the afternoon, Zhu Jingyuan tried to use the planter, and the two tractors worked all afternoon without any obvious failure.

In the evening of that day, Zhu Jingyuan took the farmers back to the farm and entered their cafeteria together.

Before the official dinner started, all the men, women and children in the farm looked at Zhu Jingyuan, waiting for him to say something.

Zhu Jingyuan thought for a while, and sorted out his thoughts:

"Everyone has seen the effect of these machines today, and they are obviously very suitable as agricultural machinery.

"With these machines, the speed of various farm work has been increased by at least three or four times, and the key is that there is no need to raise horses in spare time.

"In the future, maybe only two or three households will be needed to do the work on one farm of ten households before.

"So everyone should be wondering now whether it is possible to split a farm into two or even three.

"Let these extra people go to open more fields and farms, and each farm has only three families.

"In this way, the income from the farm that was previously shared by ten families will be shared by only three families in the future.

"This is equivalent to directly tripling my income!"

A group of honest farmers nodded repeatedly, this was the question they were most concerned about.

Because Xintianfu farmers receive proportional dividends rather than fixed wages, their enthusiasm for doing more work is high.

Zhu Jingyuan looked at the reactions of the farmers, and continued to explain his thoughts quite seriously:

"Because the machine has just begun to be used, it has not yet undergone long-term testing and accurate accounting.

"So for the sake of prudence and insurance, we cannot rashly reduce the population of a farm to three households for the time being.

"You can first try to keep only five households, and let these five households share the income of the original ten households.

"The other five families didn't open up a new farm, but went to the city with me to work as workers.

"Now Huangzhuang is building new factories on a large scale, the most important thing is the factory that produces these agricultural machines.

"Go to the city to work as a worker, produce more machines, and use them for other farms.

"Let other farms also allocate half of the population to work in cities as workers."

A group of farmers began to think, some had already begun to nod and look forward to it, but some hadn't fully understood yet.

Old Man Liu, the director of [-] Farm, has a question:
"Your Highness, half of the people from all the farms will go to the city to produce agricultural machinery, so there shouldn't be enough of them!"

Zhu Jingyuan laughed directly after hearing this question:
"Of course not, the production of agricultural machinery is the most important and the highest priority, but not all.

"Once the farm machinery can meet the demand, other people can go to produce other things.

"Including clothes, shoes and hats, electric fans, washing machines, bicycles, cars, yachts, etc. --

"All in all, if the basic needs of safety, clothing, food, housing and transportation are met, we still have more power.

"Then do the things that make our lives better."

(End of this chapter)