Daqin: When I return from sea, I will offer you a map of the world

Chapter 5 The meaning of five hundred catties per mu!

Da Kyushu said that a big problem is that it is difficult to prove.

After all, in this era, Xu Fu and Zhao Si are the only ones who have truly set foot outside Kyushu, and even only Zhao Si has performed the feat of traveling around the world.

After the first emperor asked, he didn't say anything more. The meaning of this world map is more of a supplement to the Great Kyushu, rather than the direction of Great Qin's future conquest.

Of course, the premise is that the teenager in front of him is not lying.

The First Emperor handed the map to Meng Yi beside him, and then looked at the crops covered with soil.

"What is this?" Shi Huang asked.

"This thing is named sweet potato. It can be eaten both raw and cooked. It tastes sweet and crispy when eaten raw. It tastes soft and waxy when cooked, and it tastes sweet. It also has the effect of ventilating and filling the stomach. The yield per mu is several hundred catties!"

"This thing is named potatoes. It is full of food and can be used as rations. The cooked food is delicious. The yield per mu is also several hundred catties!"

"This thing is named corn, and it can be used as a staple food. Although the yield per mu is not as good as that of sweet potatoes, it has twice the yield of ordinary crops."

"This thing is named chili pepper. It tastes spicy and delicious, and it tastes delicious!" Zhao Si smiled.

When Zhao Si came back from overseas this time, besides collecting sweet potatoes, potatoes and corn, he also collected a large number of edible vegetables, spices and fruit seeds.

Although Zhao Si is not very good at history, he also knows that before the Han Dynasty conquered the Western Regions, the agricultural and sideline products and condiments in the Central Plains were relatively simple.

For example, pepper, grapes, walnuts, carrots, peppers, beans, spinach, cucumbers, pomegranates, etc. were all introduced to the Central Plains through the Silk Road.

The origin of chili corn, sweet potato and potato is as far away as America.

In fact, the current Central Plains can only be called livable, and the degree of development and civilization far exceeds that of other regions. However, the vast land and abundant resources have to wait until the Han and Tang Dynasties have repeatedly expanded beyond the Great Wall and carried out a large number of agricultural and sideline products and cultural exchanges.

Among these things, what Zhao Si valued the most were various fruit seeds and spice vegetable seeds.

It is worth mentioning that many fruits eaten in modern times are selected through artificial breeding.

So in fact, the fruits that Zhao Si found in this era did not taste as good as modern ones, and some were even hard to swallow, so they looked like relatives.

Most of them are sour and astringent, the moisture is not as sufficient as modern fruits, and the edible parts are not as many as modern fruits.

Agricultural and sideline products are also part of the human taming of nature.

How can there be any fruit that just grows above the taste of people, but it just happens to be edible, and it tastes okay. After a long period of manual selection, the taste is sweeter, the water is more, and the fruit is bigger. Will be left to continue sowing.

In modern times, the development of science and technology has brought about earth-shaking changes, and even the fruits of certain fruits on the market are almost two species from wild fruits in terms of taste and appearance.

Most of the seeds brought back by Zhao Si belong to wild species, and basically have not been artificially cultivated.

Except for some spices and vegetables that are more in line with human tastes and can be planted and eaten directly, a large part of fruits need to be cultivated over time.

In short, at this stage, even if Zhao Si continues to plant, the fruits harvested will most likely be small and unpalatable.

It is the same reason as in primitive times, humans have tamed wolves into dogs through a long period of time.

Compared with the three new rations of sweet potatoes, potatoes and corns, Zhao Si obviously paid more attention to spices such as peppers.

It's normal, after all, there are other crops in this era without sweet potatoes, potatoes and corns, such as hemp, millet, millet, wheat, and bean.

The significance of high-yielding crops such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corns is more universal, and will have a relatively large impact on the agricultural ecological pattern of Zhuxia.

The meaning of condiments such as chili and pepper to Zhao Si is more straightforward.

As a native of Sichuan, Zhao Si can be said to be all hot and happy.

Before peppers came to the Central Plains, there were only peppers, chives and other seasoning agricultural and sideline products in the Central Plains.

Compared with the straightforward stimulation of chili on the palate, these are three points inferior.

However, from the perspective of the First Emperor, even though Zhao Si could clearly feel Zhao Si's love for peppers and other crops, his attention was still on sweet potatoes, potatoes and corn.

"Yield per mu, several hundred catties?" Shi Huang repeated.

Although the Qin Dynasty was the beginning of the great unification, in most cases it was a mixture of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States.

Although intensive farming methods were also adopted during this period, neither the seeds nor the farming experience were far behind those of later generations.

During the Qin Dynasty, the grain yield per mu generally stayed around one hundred catties.

If the yield per mu is 120 catties or more, it is considered to be able to cultivate well, and if it is 150 catties or more, it will be burnt.

As for the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties, without the influence of natural disasters, an average yield of two hundred catties per mu has become a norm.

Zhao Si knew that the seeds 2000 years ago were different from those after 2000 years.

It is normal for modern sweet potatoes and potatoes to produce three to four thousand catties per mu, and some areas can even achieve eight thousand catties per mu...

But that is based on insecticides, fertilizers, and even the seeds themselves have undergone scientific artificial cultivation.

Therefore, Zhao Si only dared to say less.

Such things are of great significance, and it is better to say less than to say more.

After all, compared to the average grain yield of hundreds of catties per mu in this era, a few hundred catties is an astronomical figure.

"About? About five hundred catties?" Zhao Si was very conservative, he didn't even say a thousand catties per mu.

About five hundred catties... What kind of concept is this?
This means that when it is popularized, the number of people who starve to death in the world will be reduced by more than half.

From the perspective of the first emperor, a grain crop with a yield of [-] catties per mu undoubtedly contributed to the rule of the Qin Dynasty and increased the extremely high stability of the regime.

"At most five hundred catties?" Shi Huang even asked one more sentence.

"About five hundred catties." Zhao Si replied.

The average yield of [-] catties is very high, and the maximum yield of [-] catties will be too watery.

People cannot be generalized from person to person, and neither can food from food.

During the Qin Dynasty, after Shang Yang reformed the law to encourage production, there were already records at that time that some people could produce 250 catties per mu.

After the successful construction of Dujiangyan, the highest yield per mu even reached 317 jin.

I don't know if there is any moisture, but the average yield per mu in the Qin State area at that time was still just over [-] catties.This is also due to Qin's farming war system, and there are rewards and punishments for farming, so the agricultural production efficiency and technical level are higher than those of the six countries.

And now that the first emperor ruled the world, there are even many areas where the yield per mu is less than [-] catties.

Objectively speaking, after the Qin Dynasty unified the world, the average yield per mu dropped by about ten to twenty catties.

Grain production also varies greatly from top to bottom, and only the average value is the most reliable.

The average yield per mu is [-] catties, what is the concept in this era?
"This kind of crop? Is it easy to handle?" Shi Huang subconsciously thought that it was a kind of crop that required more expensive growing conditions.

There is no way, the yield per mu is too large, and the condition is not high, it always feels unreal.

"It's easy to feed!" Zhao Si grinned.

Even the First Emperor had great limitations in the face of unknown information.

Five hundred catties per mu... is just Zhao Si's conservative statement.

(End of this chapter)