1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 551 The Countryside
October 1645, 10, Hanzhou, New Huaian (now Palmerston, Australia).

For Zhu Yougen, who lives in Shiba Township, New Huai'an (now Palmerston, Australia), whether the Ming Dynasty in China collapsed or not is not at all what he wants to care about.

What he is most concerned about now is whether the fertility in the farmland is enough, the more than a dozen sheep that go out will not be taken away by thylacines in the wild, whether the hens in the house can lay more eggs, and how many eggs can be saved every year. How much money.Although life is much better now than when I was in Daming ten years ago, and I don't worry about going hungry, life is still very difficult.

His Johor wife gave birth to another son in June this year, which is already his third child.Almost all the burden of the whole family rests on him alone.Although the eldest in the family is seven years old, he can also help him with some light household chores on weekdays.But the officials in the village insisted on forcing every school-age child to go to school, otherwise they would cancel the agricultural tax relief for the family's land.

Of course, it is not without benefits for children to go to school to read and read. At the very least, they can learn something, and they can also have lunch in the school.In addition, for farmers with many children in their families, the township government will also provide some in-kind subsidies, such as grain, oil, milk, dried fish, etc.

As a traditional farmer, what Zhu Yougen valued most was the [-] mu of farmland allocated to him by the government. Even though about ten mu of land would fall fallow every year, it was still impossible for him to cultivate so much land by himself. .Of course, you can also ask those immigrants who have not yet allocated land in the nearby production villages to help with farming, but it will cost money, and he is not willing to do so.

However, he still spent all his energy and hard work on this land, carefully serving it, and intending to pass it on to his descendants.

"Your family now has two sons and a daughter. Who do you plan to pass on this land to?" Village head Yang Guangde squatted on the ground and asked with a teasing smile.

"Of course it's for the younger son." Zhu Yougen wiped the sweat from his forehead, sat down on the ridge, and looked at the many weeds emerging from the ground, frowning.

"Hey, your youngest son has not yet turned one year old, and now you have decided to leave him the family property?"

"Boss is not bad at studying, maybe he will be successful in the future." When Zhu Yougen talked about his own children, his face showed joy, "In the future, maybe he can be an official family member."

"That's not necessarily true!" Yang Guangde couldn't help but feel a little sour when he thought of his children's grades in school, "Nowadays, almost every child has to go to school to study for several years. When I was in middle school, my brain was not bright anymore. Besides, the development of our Hanzhou is getting better and better, and the population is increasing every year, so there must be more people who study. Who can guarantee that they must be Officials?"

"Hey, your kid's brain is not bright!" Zhu Yougen gave Yang Guangde a dissatisfied look, "Last month, when the female teacher from the school in the village visited her home, she told me that my youngest is a good seed for learning. It is possible to go to the Tiangong College of Jianye City to study in advanced schools if you can be promoted to middle school!"

"Then... your kid will really be successful in the future, so you have to help my kid. They are also good partners who grew up together and studied together." Yang Guangde was depressed for a while, then came over and patted Zhu Yougen on the shoulder , "And, in the past few years, I have taken care of you a lot."

"That's for sure." Zhu Yougen said proudly.

"Hey, your mother-in-law brought you food." Yang Guangde saw a woman from a distance, with a baby on her back, and a four or five-year-old girl by her left hand, walking slowly towards the field. .

Zhu Yougen looked up, and sure enough, it was his Johor wife who brought him lunch.

"All the sheep at home are penned?" Zhu Yougen took the rice bowl from his wife and gently placed it on the ground, then untied the baby from the strap behind his wife, hugged and teased the baby.

"It's all circled." His wife smiled at Yang Guangde who was next to him, and said softly, "However, there seems to be something wrong with the two sheep, probably because they are sick."

"Could it be that you ate something outside?" Zhu Yougen was taken aback, and said worriedly: "In the evening, please invite Lao Wan from the village to come and see."

The sheep raised at home are one of the few sideline businesses in their family that can obtain cash. In four years, they have grown from three sheep to eleven now. There will be more groups.

Although it is already spring in Hanzhou, the temperature in Xinhuai'an in the northern region is still very hot. There are more than a dozen farmers who are eating lunch in twos and threes in a forest on the ground. From time to time, stare at the toddler running around.The men ate their simple lunches and talked about the spring plowing.

With the increase of rice production in Timor Island and Weiyuan Island year by year, and the gradual realization of food self-sufficiency in Weihai, Yunyang, Daxing and other prefectures and counties in the east of Hanzhou, the grain planting area in Jianye Prefecture in the north of Hanzhou has become larger. As a result, the number of crops decreased, and commercial crops such as sugar cane, soybeans, soybeans, peanuts, pepper, fruits, and ramie were planted on a large scale.

And Shiba Township, Xinhuai'an, where Zhu Yougen and the others are located, began to plant ramie on a large scale according to the guidance of the county's agricultural administrators.

Ramie may be the plant with the best fiber quality in the world.This economic crop, which originated in the southwest of Daming, has the longest cultivation history in China, more than 4700 years ago.Magu can be used as raw material for papermaking, or to make fiberboard for various purposes such as furniture and board walls.Ma Gu can also make wine and sugar.

More importantly, the husks of ramie can be degummed to extract fibers for textile, papermaking or ship repair filler.Furfural can be extracted from the hemp husk scraped off the fresh hemp husk, and furfural is a refining solution in the chemical industry and a resin plastic.In addition, ramie can also be used as animal feed.Ramie leaves are rich in vegetable protein, and the crude protein content is as high as more than 20%.In ancient China, there was a long history of feeding cattle, sheep, pigs, etc. with ramie leaves, and it has a good feeding effect.

Among the various medical books collected from the Ming Dynasty, there are many traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions stating that ramie root is a diuretic and antipyretic drug, and has an anti-total effect, and ramie leaves are a hemostatic agent to treat traumatic bleeding.The roots and leaves are used together to treat acute stranguria, urethritis and bleeding embolism.The seeds are used to extract oil for soap making and food.

It can be said that ramie is full of treasures and has extremely high economic value.If it comes to the ratio of income per mu, it is far more than ordinary grain and oil crops.Moreover, as a typical subtropical climate, northern Hanzhou is also very suitable for the planting environment of ramie.

After ten years of agricultural development in Hanzhou, agriculture basically follows the overall macro guidance and the small-scale independent choice of ordinary farmers, and arranges agricultural production according to local conditions according to the attributes of climate and environment in various places.

Because the immigrants who come to Hanzhou every year will not immediately divide the fields and households, but will implement centralized management in the new land or the original mature areas. Labor performance, within two to three years, the new immigrants will be divided into fields and personnel will be reassigned.

After two or three years of centralized management in the farming style, it can be said that all immigrants had a high degree of obedience and discipline in the early days of coming to Hanzhou.In addition, most of the immigrants who came to Hanzhou were hungry people or war refugees who had nothing. They were still full of gratitude for all the production and living materials provided by the Qi government.Therefore, they can obey and respond to various arrangements of the government to a certain extent.

In the evening, the farmers who were exhausted all day hurried to their small homes in the village, carrying farm tools or carrying a few bundles of firewood.

"Father, mother, the food is ready, you can wash it quickly, and then you can eat." Zhu Chongjin, the seven-year-old eldest of Zhu Yougen's family, heard the movement outside the courtyard, opened the curtain and walked out.He hugged his six-month-old brother from his mother's arms and greeted his family.

"What did you learn in school today? Have you reviewed all the courses?" Zhu Yougen saw the boss, his eyes sparkled, but he said seriously.

"On the way home in the carriage, I have already reviewed it." Zhu Chongjin shook his head and said softly.Even if he told his father what he learned in school, he probably wouldn't understand, but as a father, he still had to put on an appearance of majesty and control over everything.

"Well, I'm good at studying. My old Zhu's family will be prosperous in the future, and it depends on you."

"Yeah." Zhu Chongjin heard his father say this sentence no less than a thousand times, "Father, I want to shave my hair."

"Why do you want to shave your hair?" Zhu Yougen was stunned.

"Many students in the school have shaved their hair and look very energetic. ... I want to shave too."

"You...you kid is studying!...Why do you want to shave your hair?"

"Dad, didn't you shave your hair too?" Zhu Chongjin glanced at his father and said softly, "Many uncles in the village have shaved their hair."

"I have to do farm work and sweat all day long, so of course I have to shave my hair to make it look crisp." Zhu Yougen said anxiously, "How can you shave your hair casually, you book boy? Our hundreds of thousands of years of tradition are all It is the fact that we have hair buns, which proves that we are Han Chinese, that... that Chinese descendants, and those native barbarians are completely different!"

"Sir, the inheritance of the Han people is in the heart, not in the form." Zhu Chongjin said: "We only need to speak Chinese, practice Han rituals, inherit the Han system, inherit the civilization of the Han family, and show the prestige of the Han family. As for whether we have a head Hair, it doesn’t matter. Maybe thousands of years ago, our ancestors left a bun because they couldn’t shave their hair.”

"Ah?" Zhu Yougen didn't know what to say after being refuted by his son's set of arguments, but he always felt that the body, hair and skin of his parents should not be easily damaged, and it was also a tradition that has been passed down for thousands of years.In my own generation, I came to Hanzhou with nothing and couldn't get enough to eat, so naturally I didn't care about the bun on my head.

However, my son is a person who goes to school to study, and the husband also praised him for his future prospects, so he shouldn't look like himself.Scholars should not be like those talented scholars in the Ming Dynasty, with feather fans, scarves, crowns and so on.

In our country of Qi, some traditions of the Han people should be discarded easily?

(End of this chapter)