Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 2217, Agriculture that was washed away 1
In Liu Jin's study, Liu Jin is reading a large amount of climate information and data around the world.

"It's already March in Yangchun. I didn't expect the temperature to show signs of warming up. If the cold weather continues for another month, this year's farming season will be completely delayed."

"And in the second half of the year, if winter comes earlier than usual, there will indeed be a large-scale and large-scale reduction in production this year."

After reading the weather information reported from various places, Liu Jin also frowned.

The reason why the Little Ice Age had a big impact is that, in addition to all kinds of abnormal and abnormal weather, such as a sudden cold wave in summer, ice and snow, and frost.

This may sound unbelievable, and it feels like a fantasy, but this is what often happened in the Little Ice Age. There are many clear records in history, and they are not made up randomly.

During the most critical growth period of rice, a cold wave is enough to freeze the rice to death and frostbite, resulting in a substantial reduction in production, or even a failure of the harvest.

In addition, one of the biggest characteristics of the Little Ice Age climate is that the cold weather lasted for a long time and was intense.

The duration is easy to understand, that is, come early and go late, it may have started to snow and frost in August and September, and leave late is like the current situation, which has already reached the third day of Yangchun. It's been a month, but the weather still shows no signs of warming up, and it may continue,

The cold weather lasts too long, which is very colonial for agricultural production, because it means that the warm period left for agricultural planting will be greatly reduced. The growth of crops requires light and heat, and there is not enough time. If the growth time is not enough, the natural yield will be greatly reduced, and even the crop failure will occur.

Intensity is also a problem, the temperature is much lower than in ordinary years, and in addition, the scope of the impact is large, even Leizhou and Qiongzhou will snow, this is the scary part of the Little Ice Age.

Leizhou and Qiongzhou are already at the junction of the tropics and subtropics, and there will be snow here, which shows the power of this cold weather.

"If the production is greatly reduced this year, we can harvest a wave of leeks well."

"Places like Europe, the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and the Middle East have eaten cheap food for several years, and it's time to raise the price this year."

Liu Jin is not worried at all about the possibility of a large reduction in production. There is so much grain in the Daming granary that it is impossible to eat it all.

What's more, in the past few years, Ming Dynasty has focused on the development of grain planting in Guangdong, Guangxi, Nanyang, and Huangjinzhou. The agriculture in these places was much less affected by the Little Ice Age. They are located in tropical and subtropical regions, and grain production is guaranteed.

In addition, the Ming Dynasty also had colonies and vassal states on the Tianzhu side, and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the north of the Tianzhu continent blocked the cold weather from the north, so it was not affected by the Little Ice Age, and the land was fertile and arable. , future generations will be able to support more than one billion people.

If Daming's grain is insufficient, grain can be continuously transported from the Tianzhu mainland to Daming to ensure the food security of Daming in many ways.

Liu Jin is not worried about the food issue, but is thinking about the price increase of the exported food.

For a long time, the prices of the grains that Daming exported to Europe, Ottomans, the Middle East, and Persia were very cheap. Even if the grains were shipped to their local consumers, the price was cheaper than their local grains, and the quality was better than theirs. food is better.

Such a low price naturally has a deep meaning.

On the one hand, it is to dump the grain that is seriously overcapacitated in Daming. Daming’s grain output is too large to be consumed by itself. It is not only used to make wine and feed livestock in large quantities, but also needs a large amount of export to digest the grain. Farmers are motivated to grow grain.

Otherwise, if the grain is harvested every year but cannot be sold every year, the farmer will naturally not grow so much grain, and will turn to farming, growing vegetables and fruits and the like.

On the other hand, the most important thing is to use food to control the world.

Whoever controls the grain controls everything.

A large amount of cheap and high-quality grain is exported, and people in Europe, Persia, Ottoman and other regions seem to have taken advantage of it, and can buy more and better grain at a small price.

When there was a great famine in Europe, it was successfully survived by relying on the cheap food from the Ming Empire.

However, due to the continuous input of long-term cheap food, farmers in their own country will soon find that growing their own food seems to be a very uneconomical business.

Because the grain grown by oneself is not only not as good as that of Daming people, but also the price is much higher than that of Daming people.

People in the Ming Dynasty used large-scale mechanized farming to grow grain. A farmer planted thousands of acres to tens of thousands of acres. The detachment and grinding of grain also used machines, which were very efficient and fast, and the quality was good.

I use traditional farming methods, which are not only inefficient, but also costly and of poor quality. They simply cannot compete with Daming people for food.

This kind of grain cannot be sold or sold at a price, which greatly discourages the enthusiasm of farmers to grow grain, and at the same time, it will also dampen the enthusiasm of some big nobles and lords.

Many great nobles, lords, etc., have a lot of land, and rely on the grain grown on the land as their main source of income and income.

When the price of food keeps falling and the income from food in their territory drops sharply, they will find ways to do other things, such as raising sheep. It seems that shearing wool and selling it is much more cost-effective than growing food.

Once such things happen on a large scale and on a large scale, and the proportion of locally produced grain in these areas is greatly reduced, the lifeblood of this grain will be in the hands of the Ming people.

When I am in a good mood, I will sell you cheap grain. Once there is a natural or man-made disaster, I can find an excuse to greatly increase the price of grain. At that time, no matter how expensive the price is, I will still accept the slaughter.

This is what Liu Jin has been planning since six or seven years ago.

Use food to control the world!
"Come here, send power to Europe, Persia, Ottoman, and the Middle East, let people investigate the food cultivation in these places."

After pondering for a while, Liu Jin also gave an order.

Let's take a look at the food planting situation in these places first, and then, if you have a grasp of their food planting situation, you will know when the price is raised.

If there is less grain planted in a place, the price of grain in this place can be increased appropriately, and if more grain is planted, the price can be raised less.

In short, the price increase this year is set!

With the large-scale and large-scale reduction in grain production around the world, when the Ming Empire tightens up on grain exports, they themselves will beg the Ming Empire to sell them grain, even if the price is higher, they still have to accept it.

The western territory of the Ottoman Empire, the Danube River Basin in Eastern Europe.

This was originally the land of Europeans. The Ottoman Empire went through westward expansion wars again and again, and finally occupied a large area of ​​fertile land in the Danube River Basin, and also occupied most of the Balkan Peninsula.

In the First World War in Vienna that year, the European coalition forces and the Ottoman army were tied. The two sides signed an agreement on this and ushered in a long period of peace.

This land was also occupied by the Ottoman Empire, and gradually became the most important granary of the Ottoman Empire.

The land here is fertile and flat, and the rivers bring abundant water, which is very suitable for the development of agriculture.

The Ottoman Empire also regarded this place as its important granary, and moved a large number of people here to develop agriculture here and consolidate its rule.

Even the Ottoman Empire planned to build a railway connecting here with the capital city of Istanbul, in order to strengthen its rule and facilitate the transportation of food and so on.

However, it is not an easy task to build a railway. All aspects of technology and materials need to rely on Daming people, and the quotations from Daming people are very scary, often hundreds of millions of taels of silver.

Such a railway is simply not what the current Ottoman Empire can build, so the railway plan has been stranded, but there are more and more fields here, and more and more food is produced.

However, this situation has undergone new changes and situations in the past three or four years.

In a vast plain area on the banks of the Danube, Ibrahim, the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, is riding a horse to inspect the granary of the Ottoman Empire.

As the confidant and childhood playmate of Suleiman, the current Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Ibrahim was deeply trusted and reused by Suleiman, and he achieved the position of Grand Vizier step by step in a very short period of time. , this position is the prime minister of the Ottoman Empire, with one person under ten thousand, holding great power.

At this moment, Ibrahim frowned, looking at the vast and fertile land in front of him, which was different from the image of a fertile field in his imagination.

The vegetation here is lush, the water and grass are abundant, and there are a large number of sheep grazing on the plain where you can vaguely see the ridges of the fields. These sheep are fat and strong, and each one has thick wool. It is obvious that this is a sheep, which is specially used to produce wool. Sheep are not pure meat sheep.

"what happened?"

"Why is it used to raise sheep instead of growing grain on such a fertile field?"

Seeing such a scene, Ibrahim immediately frowned and asked Governor Constance beside him. He is the Governor here, and he is very clear about the situation here.

The reason why Ibrahim came here is actually to investigate the fact that the food production here has been declining year after year.

The food collected by the Ottoman Empire here has been declining year after year, and it has dropped extremely sharply in the past three years.

(End of this chapter)