Go back to the Ming Dynasty to be a thousand households

Chapter 23 The Big Farm Project

However, there is still a problem. Even if the grain fields in Wuzhaibao are back to normal, the grain production will still be far from meeting Huang Laifu's needs.

For thousands of years, most of China has practiced intensive farming and a self-sufficient natural economy, and Wuzhai Fort is certainly no exception.

The main feature of this kind of economy is that it takes planting grain as the main body, takes each household as the unit, and aims at self-sufficiency in production. develop slowly.

This kind of natural economy is not only backward in productivity, but also often powerless in the face of natural disasters. Individual households are always small, and their personal strength is always small.In the event of natural disasters and man-made disasters, people are often displaced.

Of course, there are reasons for this production method. China has always had a lot of people and little land, and there is not enough arable land. If we want to produce as much food as possible on limited land, we can only increase the output of food crops per unit area. This is the origin of intensive cultivation.

Although there are many military households in Wuzhaibao farming for the Huang family, in fact, it still operates like a small farmer. In the past, when the weather was good, the income was not much in Huang Laifu's view, and now it is even less when disasters are frequent.

However, after seeing the big farms of later generations, Huang Laifu will certainly not use this natural economic production method again. The area around Wuzhaibao is sparsely populated, and it happens to implement the big farm plan, not to mention Wuzhai Fort, in the nine northern regions, is vast and sparsely populated, and there is a lot of land. Moreover, due to the disaster in the Xiaohe period, many good fields were abandoned and can be used.

This large-scale farm-like production method is incomparable to the small-scale farmer-like production method. It can not only greatly increase the output of food and other crops, but also has a much stronger ability to resist disasters than those small-scale farmer-like production methods.For example, those big companies and big factories in later generations are always more productive and resistant to pressure than some small family workshops.

Take the United Kingdom not far behind as an example. In 1633, there were 57 households holding public books in the manor of the nobleman Barlow, who cultivated more than 2/3 of the manor land.There are another 7 leased land farmers, less than 1/3 of the leased land.However, the amount of land rent paid by these seven capitalists was close to 7/1 of the total land rent income of Barlow Manor. After 2 years, in the same manor, the number of rented farmers increased to 16, and they rented 10% of the manor land. , but the rent paid accounted for 42% of the total.However, the 67 peasant households who cultivated nearly 58% of the land paid only 46% of the total land rent income.

This is why many lords are keen on enclosing land.The famous land enclosure movement in history was directly caused by capitalists renting land.Decades later, in Britain, large farms or ranch-like production methods replaced the natural land farming methods in Britain and promoted the development of capitalist agriculture.

Moreover, the large-scale farm-style production method, due to its strong strength, can easily adopt advanced technology, use new farming methods and farming techniques, expand the area of ​​cultivated land, improve fertilizers, etc., increase food production, and form a virtuous circle.

In fact, in the late Ming Dynasty, due to the development of the commercial economy, a similar Datianzhuang style of management also appeared.

In some Jiangnan areas in the late Ming Dynasty, due to land annexation, some landlords occupied tens of thousands of acres, or even hundreds of thousands of acres, which was very common.Stimulated by the development of commercial agriculture and the existence of a large number of laborers detached from the land, some landowners also changed their agricultural management methods, paying attention to large-scale comprehensive management in order to fully develop the potential of the land.

Tan Xiao's business model in Changshu, Suzhou is quite typical.His operations were large and had actual success.He hired more than a hundred villagers to work for him, he leased out some of the land, and hired labor to operate most of the land.Judging from his tens of thousands of land, from reclamation, planting to management, the number of hired workers is very large.Most of the products in Tan Xiaozhuang's farm are put on the market, and the use of space is very clever and reasonable.It can be said that this is a three-dimensionally operated farm for the purpose of commercial production.

There is also Pan Yunduan in the Wanli period. A considerable part of the [-] or [-] mu of land owned by his farm was managed by hired workers.The varieties of crops planted are also diverse, including rice, wheat, beans, rapeseed, cotton, vegetables, and fruits such as watermelons, dates, peaches, persimmons, cherries, oranges, plums, plums, fragrant rounds, sweet-scented osmanthus, osmanthus, plum blossoms, peonies, Rose, bamboo, cypress, pine, holly, juniper, palm and other flowers and trees.In addition to self-use, Tianzhuang products also have some products on the market.It is also a typical large farm operation.

However, this kind of large-scale farm management phenomenon was only a minority. In the Ming Dynasty at that time, the natural economy still occupied a decisive position, especially in the northern area, where it depended on the sky for food, and the self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy was still dominant. In the small ice river disaster in the middle of the year, he was devastated to pieces.

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Speaking of which, in China's thousands of years of agricultural production, China was far ahead of Western countries for a long time.

China implemented multiple crop rotation during the Warring States period, while in Europe, the crop rotation system did not appear in Britain until the 18s.

The earliest fertilization technology commonly used in China was in the Warring States period.It was not until the 10th and 11th centuries AD that Europe began to fertilize farmland.

The method of growing crops in rows and fine weeding had been adopted in China as early as the 6th century BC at the latest.In Europe, however, these farming methods were not adopted until the 18th century AD.

China invented the multi-tube seed drill in the 2nd century BC, but the West did not have a seed drill until the 16th century AD, and seeds had to be sown by hand.

China got rid of the shackles of bad plows very early, while the West has been plowing the land in an extremely inefficient and labor-intensive way for thousands of years, resulting in the greatest waste of human time and energy.

It was not until the late Middle Ages that Europe knew of such a thing as a plow wall. The Chinese plow with a wall was brought back to Europe by Dutch sailors in the 17th century AD.By the 18s it was the cheapest and best plow available.Western designers innovated this kind of plow in the following decades, resulting in the modern plow, which is the result of many improvements to our country's plow, and is also a very important factor leading to the European agricultural revolution.

Of course, in the ancient West, there were also some agricultural techniques that are commendable, such as horse plowing.

Based on the characteristics of cattle and horses, comparing the input cost and output of cattle farming and horse farming, the benefits of horse farming are far greater than that of cattle farming.The use of horses as animal power for farming crops is quite common in Europe, but horse plowing is only occasionally used in China, although horse plowing technology appeared in China during the Han Dynasty.

Speaking of it, the yoke that made horse farming popular in the West was introduced from China. Unfortunately, horse farming did not become popular in China.It is as if the wall plow originated in China, but spread to Europe and led to the agricultural revolution.

There are many reasons why horse farming is not popular in China.But no matter what, Ma Geng has obvious advantages in the operation of large farms and in the use of dry land. Huang Laifu wants to build a large farm, and of course he will not let go of the use of Ma Geng.

China's agriculture has been more developed than that of the West for thousands of years, and countless technologies have been introduced to the West, but in the end it was the West that produced the Agricultural Revolution, which in turn promoted the Industrial Revolution, resulting in many world powers in the West, but China did not.No matter what the reason is, Huang Laifu appeared in this era, and history will be different.

Huang Laifu bid farewell to the people in the main room, and went back to his room to check the computer.He planned to do some preparatory work during this slack season, so that he could show his skills in spring.

Looking at Huang Laifu's back, Huang Sihao smiled with relief.Gu Qianhu also stroked his beard and smiled. His son-in-law is talented and self-motivated, so he is naturally satisfied.

Steward Yang smiled respectfully at Huang Sihao: "Young master has changed a lot since he went out for a trip. This old slave wants to congratulate the master!"

Huang Sihao said with satisfaction: "This is also the spirit of the ancestors. It seems that the prosperity of the Huang family in the future depends on Fu'er!"

Only Gu Yunniang curled her lips, thinking: "This Huang Laifu seems to be a different person."

(End of this chapter)