I really don't want to be emperor at the end of Ming Dynasty

Chapter 146 Commercial Confidential No Inquiries
Chapter 145

In fact, Cheng Shijie was not familiar with Zhu Wannian, the magistrate of Laizhou, at all, and had never even met him in person.

But the problem is, Sun Yuanhua knows Zhu Wannian.

Since Sun Yuanhua returned to Dengzhou from southern Liaoning last time, he began to pay attention to the land of the three prefectures under the governor of Denglai.

Except for the newly reclaimed farmland in southern Liaoning where the crops are growing well, the vegetation in other places is scorched, the river is dry, the land is cracked, and there is hardly a trace of life.

On the steaming road, countless ragged and skinny peasants staggered in groups, wondering where they were going.

No need to think about it with your head, but with your knees, they must be going to southern Liaoning, because only in southern Liaoning can they find a way to survive.On the road to southern Liaoning, people kept falling down. Once they fell down, they couldn't stand up again. No one looked at them, and they just walked numbly, and their bodies were left to rot on the side of the road.

The farmland is simply unsightly.

Either it is barren, or the crops inside are sparse, and there are not a few living seedlings...

Corruption in the Ming Empire has become rife, and it has penetrated into every aspect of this old empire, eating away at the foundation of the empire, and the last bit of execution ability left in this empire has been used to plunder the people.

But sometimes a phoenix will fly out of the chicken coop. In this bureaucratic system that exudes a strong sense of stagnation and rancidity from top to bottom, there are still some people who are willing to do something for the people and the country.

For example, Bi Ziyan, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, such as Xu Guangqi, Lu Xiangsheng, Sun Chuanting, Sun Chengzong, and Sun Yuanhua and Zhu Wannian, the prefect of Laizhou.

Sun Yuanhua saw that the crops in Laizhou, Dengzhou, and Qingzhou were in poor condition, and those lands where the gentry were powerful relied on the convenience of irrigation, and the growth was a little better.But the problem is that the powerful gentry don't pay taxes, and whether the crops are good or bad has little to do with them.

The most critical are those yeoman farmers.

Sun Yuanhua summoned the three magistrates, six magistrates, and thirty county magistrates under his rule to Dengzhou Prefecture, and just scolded him severely. If it was just scolding, Zhu Wannian would not hate Cheng Shijie.

As the saying goes, if there is no comparison, there will be no harm, because Cheng Shijie has done so well in southern Liaoning, and Sun Yuanhua also asked Cheng Shijie how to grow crops well.

Cheng Shijie's answer is "Irrigate in time, control pests in time, and use fertilizers to keep up. If you do these things, you can generally have a good harvest!"

"What kind of yield is over a thousand per mu!"

"Shandong has such fertile land, and its population is smaller than that of Henan, and the rainfall is far more than that of Shanxi and Shaanxi. If you guard so much land in Shandong and still starve to death, you are all fools."

According to Sun Yuanhua, in Cheng Shijie's eyes, including himself, the governor of Denglai, and all the officials in the 65 counties of the six prefectures of Shandong, are idiots.

Only he himself is a wise man.

Zhu Wannian was born in a poor family. When he was nine years old, his father Zhu Ruiguo became sick from overwork, but he had no money for medical treatment. Zhu Wannian’s elder brother Zhu Wanli wanted to borrow a usury loan to treat Zhu Ruiguo’s illness, but Zhu Ruiguo scolded him bloody. Zhu Ruiguo died of pain.

In order to support Zhu Wannian's education, Zhu Wanli sold himself to become his son-in-law, and two of his three older sisters were sold to rich people as concubines.

Zhu Wannian is very aware of the difficulties of being a commoner, and he also wants to be a good official. He does not seek fame and history, nor does he seek promotion and fortune.

But the problem is that after he put his ideal into practice, he realized how much resistance there was: there was no way to carry out his decree, even Laizhou City could not get out, and there were always so many people who were obedient and violating, dragging him back intentionally or unintentionally... …

Zhu Wannian wanted to see how Cheng Shijie, a martial artist, managed to lead countless refugees to settle more than 500 million mu of land. He had calculated that if the 500 million mu of land were planted with wheat, each mu of land would Calculated according to a bucket of seed grain, this requires more than 50 shi of seed grain.

If soybeans are planted, more than 500 soybeans will be needed, and this more than 60 million mu of land will require [-] million people.

Is Cheng Shijie a god?
How could he have more than 50 young and strong?
As for what Cheng Shijie said about twenty or thirty shi of grain per mu, he didn't believe it. He was not a mediocre official who didn't eat the fireworks of the world, nor was he a rotten scholar who was stupid in reading.

As for basic common sense, almost all the officials in the three prefectures, six prefectures and thirty counties understand this truth.

These officials were very angry and hated Cheng Shijie very much. You are a martial artist, you have done such a good job in farming, and you still let people live?

Isn't this a dog blocking a mouse and meddling in its own business?
When these officials came to southern Liaoning, they saw the fields in southern Liaoning. At this time, the fields in southern Liaoning were almost invisible, especially the sweet potato fields.

Sweet potato seedlings are treasures. These seedlings can be fed to pigs, cows, and horses after harvesting. As for the wheat field, although the wheat in southern Liaoning is growing well, it is very gratifying to see the heavy ears of wheat. But the problem is that the staff of these officials have already done calculations.

These wheats have at most two or three stones, which is four to five hundred catties per mu. As for the soybean fields, they have been counted, and they are only about two stones at most, which is more than 300 catties.Although the yield per mu is higher than that in Shandong, the problem is that it is not much higher, and it is still within their understanding.

They want to see how Cheng Shijie conjures grains with an yield of more than a thousand catties per mu, as much as ten or twenty shi.

Some staff members have recognized that Cheng Shijie has planted a large number of sweet potatoes, but the problem is that the people of Ming Dynasty are mature in the cultivation technology of sweet potatoes. into inertial thinking.

They still grow sweet potatoes in the same way as wheat, but in this way, the seedlings of sweet potatoes will grow wildly, but the sweet potatoes will not grow very much. The yield of sweet potatoes that were first introduced to Daming was actually not high.

Now almost all officials in Shandong are ready to see Cheng Shijie's jokes. Of course, if Cheng Shijie is just the original Ning Navy commander, they would dare to speak out and laugh at him.

However, Liu Xuemin, the magistrate of Jimo County, spoke unscrupulously and officials disrespected Cheng Shijie, but the soldiers and civilians in southern Liaoning did not care about him. When Liu Xuemin was staying in the inn, the clerk accidentally knocked over Liu Xuemin's chamber pot while cleaning, and the urine It also sprinkled on Liu Xuemin's boots and trouser legs.

What can he do?
After scolding the short-sighted guy and kicking him a few times, after the guy left, the shopkeeper rewarded the beaten guy with five taels of silver.

This is just the beginning.

Liu Xuemin's misfortunes continued. When he ate fish, he would eat fishhooks. When he ate mutton, he was so hot that he broke out in a cold sweat.

After passing the septic tank, a deaf-mute old farmer came towards him carrying a pole. Someone called the old farmer, and the old farmer turned around and threw Liu Xuemin into the septic tank.

After Liu Xuemin was fished out with a hook, after some cleaning, he caught wind and cold, and had several cuts on his arm from the hook. The doctor he invited directly said, "This requires amputation..."

Even fools know that Liu Xuemin has been targeted.

Some people didn't believe in evil, saying that Cheng Shijie ran a girls' school. As a result, several women chased and beat the official, insisting that the official watched them take a bath...

Looking at four or five strong women with thick backs, who would watch them take a bath?
Not afraid of hot eyes?

This official has a lot of troubles, so it's okay to be scolded. When he was traveling, he was directly splashed with feces. The key is, that one is talking...

This picture is old and exciting.

Cheng Shijie did not arrive at Maqiao Town in Zhenhai City, so everyone could only wait.

Among the crowd, there are not only Huizhou businessmen, but also Fan Yongdou, an upstart in southern Liaoning.

When the two thousand iron hoofs were sent to southern Liaoning, Cheng Shijie and Fan Yongdou called them brothers and said bluntly that from now on, there is no need to communicate with them when they come to Ninghai Navy General Mansion.

Of course, Fan Yongdou didn't take it seriously, it was not only Cheng Shijie's mansion, but also Ning Haijun's festival hall, if he took a wrong step, there would be no place to complain if he was killed.

Finally, the protagonist arrives late in a four-wheeled carriage.

"Meet Master Jinglue!"

Regardless of Cheng Shijie's background as a military officer, and the economic and strategic appeasement envoy is also an official in charge of the military, but the problem is that he is a civilian official, even higher than the governor Sun Yuanhua.

Cheng Shijie looked at a large group of officials in Wuyang Wuyang, coughed and said, "Why haven't you started harvesting sweet potatoes yet?"

"Isn't this waiting for Mr. Jinglue?"

Sun Yuanhua was not embarrassed because of Cheng Shijie's high official position. In the officialdom, this is actually a normal phenomenon, just like Lu Xiangsheng, who raised his own military salary in the second year of Chongzhen and brought tens of thousands of civilians to the north to serve as king.

Then, in the third year of Chongzhen, he directly sat on the rocket and was first promoted to the right to participate in politics as the governor of Shandong Province.

It's just that he participated in politics under the right of Shandong, but he did the work of Beizhili.

In the fourth year of Chongzhen, he was the procurator of Shandong, which became one of the three divisions of the procurator, that is, he became a high-ranking official. Within two years, he completed the triple jump.

This is a height that is difficult for ordinary officials to reach in a lifetime. As for the speed at which a military officer can be upgraded, it is also the speed of light.

Of course, whether it is Lu Xiangsheng or Mao Wenlong back then, there is no such dazzling record as Cheng Shijie. Since Nurhachi rebelled in the 47th year of Wanli, who has beheaded more than [-] people?

Only Cheng Shijie was the only one. Don't look at the great victory in Haizhou, which was a gift from Jiannu thousands of miles away. Cheng Shijie was given a great credit for nothing. But the problem is, except for Sun Yuanhua and Xu Guangqi, no one knows the truth.

Cheng Shijie waved his hand and said, "Let's start then!"

The official script is written in the fifty hundred households in Zhenhai City. More than 1 men, women, old and children rushed to the fields under the responsibility of their respective hundred households.

The cattle are pulling the curved plow in front, plowing carefully, revealing sweet potatoes of all sizes with only one plow. .

After plowing the soil, the military household in charge of digging the sweet potatoes picked up the hoe and dug down with extra care, digging out the sweet potatoes with their roots, and someone would naturally pick up the sweet potatoes and put them in the basket.

At the beginning, almost every time I dug up a tree, I would be amazed: "My God, it's so big, there are so many! After digging a few trees, there will be a basket!"

Gradually, no one screamed anymore, and they all became numb. Those in the front were digging with hoes, and those in the back were picking up. The baskets were filled up quickly, and then they were picked up on the road and loaded into carts. Someone was chanting. With a whip, the baskets of sweet potatoes were transported back to the field, where they were temporarily weighed.

Fan Yongdou was holding a sweet potato, which weighed three to four catties: "Is this thing edible?"

"Of course you can eat it!"

Cheng Shijie knew that among the people present, some people really didn't know much about sweet potatoes, so he had already prepared for it.

As dozens of four-wheeled dining cars drove over, a group of cooking soldiers from Ning Haijun came down and began to pack sweet potatoes.

Some peel the sweet potatoes, wash them, and cook them with the porridge.

Some sweet potatoes are roasted directly on the fire without washing the mud.

Some sweet potatoes are cut into sweet potato fries and fried in oil to make French fries.

Some sweet potatoes are made into sweet potato snacks.

Some sweet potatoes are made into sweet potato cakes, sweet potato balls, sweet potato slices, sweet potato steamed buns, sweet potato crisps, sweet potato dough cakes, shredded sweet potatoes, crispy sweet potatoes, etc. There are more than 40 kinds of sweet potato products.

Seeing that Cheng Shijie was already prepared, the officials and merchants also wanted to see what Cheng Shijie was going to do.

Ning Haijun quickly built a huge tent by the field, and put the tables and chairs unloaded from the car into the tent. This huge tent is not made of cowhide, but a subsidiary factory of the Lushun Shipyard. , the produced canvas can be waterproof, strong and wear-resistant, and most importantly, the cost is far cheaper than cowhide tents.

Why would Cheng Shijie give up this Liaonan product promotion meeting in front of him?
This gigantic canvas, supported by a dozen giant I-beams, was quickly formed into a tent, covered with a wool rug and set up with a table.

After finishing these tasks, the first thing to make is fried sweet potato fries, sprinkled with a little iodized salt or white sugar, which is a special product in southern Liaoning, and it's all done.

Naturally, Cheng Shijie only needed to accompany Sun Yuanhua, Chen Zilong, Zhu Wannian and other officials at the governor and prefect level. As for the prefect and county magistrate, he could find a place to sit by himself.

Cheng Shijie pointed to French fries, a classic masterpiece of junk food, and said, "Master Sun, Master Zhu, Mr. Chen, Mr. Song (Song Yingxing), come and try this!"

Sun Yuanhua picked up the chopsticks and picked up a piece of French fries less than two inches long. Before he started eating, the unique sweet and greasy aroma of sweet potatoes hit his nostrils. He lightly stuffed it into his mouth, and his eyes lit up instantly: “Very delicious!”

Zhu Wannian and the others impatiently picked up the sweet potato fries with their chopsticks.

At this time, sweet potato cakes, sweet potato slices, sweet potato syrup, sweet potato cakes, etc. were being served one after another. There are actually quite a few people who have eaten sweet potatoes themselves, but what they never thought was that sweet potatoes would have So many practices.

The more everyone ate, the more surprised they became, especially those merchants. There is no reason why such a delicious food cannot be spread. If it wasn't for the high price, it would definitely be popular in Ming Dynasty.

More than 40 sweet potato dishes or snacks.

After everyone tries it again, they are basically full.

Cheng Shijie got up and made a final concluding speech: "This is called sweet potato, also called sweet potato. It is native to the American continent. It has strong adaptability. It likes warmth and light but is not frost-tolerant. It is drought-resistant and alkali-resistant. It is suitable for planting in fertile and well-drained sand. Quality soil is a crop that is easy to keep harvested, if it is widely planted, there will be no food crisis in Ming Dynasty!"

Sun Yuanhua was most concerned about the output and asked: "How much is the output of this product?"

This is also a question of concern to everyone present.

"There must be two or three thousand catties!"

Cheng Shijie knew that sweet potatoes were high-yield, but the problem was that some of these seedlings were brought from later generations, and some were cultivated by himself. Some were more fertile, while others were barren.

"Two or three thousand catties?"

Zhu Wannian still thinks that Cheng Shijie is bragging. In order to increase the yield of crops, he can not only rely on planting, but also rely on operation. The yield of ten mu of land is said to be the yield of one mu of land. In this way, the yield will increase?
If Cheng Shijie dared to play this trick, he would definitely lose face.

"There are so many?"

Cheng Shijie said with a guilty conscience: "I don't know the exact number, everyone, it's almost time now. We can go and see how many there are!"

Not only did Cheng Shijie have no confidence, but many military households also had no confidence. After the sweet potatoes were planted, they didn't seem to care much about them, but kept harvesting seedlings. How could the harvest be so good?
"Then let's go, just to digest food!"

Sun Yuanhua was not greedy, he only ate one or two bites of each dish, but he was already full of more than 40 dishes.

Not only was he overcrowded, but several other officials including Qingzhou General Judge Yan Guangshou, Le'an County Magistrate Gao Jidi, and Boxing County Magistrate Han Shuncheng rolled their eyes.

Going out from the temporary tent, and looking at the open space outside, I saw that the sweet potatoes on the ground had piled up into hills.

Although Ning Haijun's plots are not horizontal and vertical, each plot is the same size, but because there is no private field, the plots are very large. The smallest plot is [-] mu, and the largest is [-] mu. , three hundred acres.

The sweet potatoes harvested in each field are piled together, and the acreage of each field is measured with white ash.

"Meet the Master!"

"Greetings to Lord Sun, my lords!"

Cheng Shijie looked at Liu San and said, "How is it? How many acres have you harvested now?"

Liu San said with a smile: "Reporting to the commander, eight pieces of land have been collected, more than [-] mu."

Cheng Shijie frowned slightly: "The speed is still a bit slow. According to this speed, there are more than 500 million mu, and even if it snows, it will not be finished!"

"Brothers are doing their best!"

"literature!"

"Under the door!"

"Transfer the new hundred households from Tuntian to participate in the autumn harvest. Each person will take care of three meals, and another fifty catties of sweet potatoes will be given away!"

"Yes!"

Cheng Shijie looked at the accountant who had been waiting for a long time and said, "Let's start weighing!"

"Yes!"

With baskets of sweet potatoes began to weigh.

"Field No. 350, 550 mu, with a total weight of [-] jin, and an yield of [-] jin per mu."

Although it is said that ancient stones can be used as two kinds of units of measurement, one is the unit of volume and the other is the unit of weight. Obviously, the unit used to measure meters is the unit of volume rather than the unit of weight, so there is no one stone in Ming Dynasty ( Volume) and the direct conversion of the current unit of weight.

In the Ming Dynasty, Erhu was one stone, so the volume of one stone was 102366 milliliters. (It was mistakenly 98724 milliliters in "Chinese History of Weights and Measures", and 10225 milliliters in "China's Past Grain Yield per Mu") The volume is 102366 milliliters.It is also a stone, if it is a stone of water, it is 102.36 liters, which is about 102.36 kilograms.

According to the "Research on Grain Yield per Mu in the Past Dynasties of China" and an actual measured figure, 1 liter of rice (polished rice) weighs 1.5 catties, so it is not difficult to calculate that a stone of rice in the Ming Dynasty weighed about 153.5 catties.

However, sweet potatoes are different from rice or wheat, because the distance between rice grains and wheat grains is small, and the error is not large.However, the shape of sweet potatoes is different, and the distance between them is relatively large. They can only be measured by weighing, not by buckets.

As the total weight of the No. [-] field was reported, there was a cold voice from all around.

"Impossible, absolutely impossible!"

Zhu Wannian was taken aback. He looked at the staff around him and said, "Have you seen them tamper with?"

"Absolutely not!"

Sun Yuanhua did not express his opinion until Xu Dacheng reported the data he had obtained to Sun Yuanhua: "Master Futai, the students have been staring at people all the time. This pile of sweet potatoes is indeed the No. [-] field with more than a thousand mu!"

"How much?"

"Six points!"

Sun Yuanhua was ecstatic: "The error of six points is within the allowable range!"

Zhu Wannian said in disbelief, "Why is the production of sweet potatoes so scary?"

Xu Dacheng also wiped his kowtow in cold sweat: "One mu of sweet potatoes is equal to the yield of tens of mu of wheat, which is amazing!"

The most shocking were those military households who farmed the fields. They had just planted these sweet potatoes, and they were dragged to work by the students of the agricultural college. thought.

"It turns out that it is not impossible to produce a thousand catties per mu!"

Chen Zilong looked at the agronomy experts beside him and said: "Seeing is believing. If I told you in the past that there are crops with a yield of several thousand catties per mu, would you believe it?"

"Even now, it's like a dream!"

Zhu Wannian, "Has the output of No. [-] Field been weighed?"

"It's been weighed. The yield per mu on No. 970 is 390 jin, a total of [-] jin."

"Field No. 460, with an yield of [-] jin per mu!"

"Field No. [-], the yield per mu is [-] catties!"

"Field No. 53, with an yield of [-] jin per mu!"

"Field No. 780, the yield per mu is [-] nine catties!"

"Field No. 3000, yield 95 jin per mu!"

In the field at this time, everyone was numb, and they had fallen into ecstasy.

Everyone present, including Fan Yongdou, was very happy.

But the problem is that my price seems to be too high.

Chen Zilong sighed and said, "It's a pity..."

"What's the pity?"

"Although the output of this product is high, it is not easy to store!"

Chen Zilong smiled wryly and said, "This thing has to be eaten within a month, or it will be broken! If you don't throw it away and continue to eat, you will have diarrhea..."

"That's because you are too stupid to save!"

Cheng Shijie said: "There are many ways to store sweet potatoes!"

Chen Zilong happily asked: "How about storage?"

Cheng Shijie said indifferently: "Discuss confidentiality, please don't inquire!"

(End of this chapter)