Prime Minister Bizen

Faced with the Xiu family's inquiry, Zhong's family reported to Xiu Jiahui, "The son of the Changchuan family is really capable. Before I left, I really entrusted him with full responsibility for everything in Ezo."

The person Ukita Tadashi’s family mentioned was Osafuna Tsunao. He should have served as a criminal inspector in the Ezo Governor’s Mansion, and he was in charge of the supervision, criminal prosecution, and robbery of the Ezo Governor’s Mansion.

And the chief envoy of the Eizo tutelary government at this moment should be Akashi Quanto, who will issue and issue government orders.

It stands to reason that Akashi Zento should inherit the post of governor of Ezo after the Ukita Tadaka family, but the Ukita Tadaka family handed over this authority to Osafune Tsunao, which aroused Hideka's curiosity.

Hideka took the initiative to ask Ukita Tadaka, "Oh? Why is it Osafune Tsunao, shouldn't it be Akashi Sabu? He is the chief political envoy in Ezo."

Ukita Tadaka said with a smile, "Your Highness, you may not know that the boy from the Osafune family is quite capable.

My biggest problem in Ezo was the sectarian conflict.It’s not me complaining, that boy Akashi is obviously partial to Che Chitan in his dealings with the world. Ordinary people don’t necessarily really believe in religion, but they can tell which religion can bring them more benefits.

In the past, Akashi alone had the final say on administration and law enforcement. After the long ship arrived, he had a judicial basis. Although he could not interfere with the affairs of the administration, he had his own ruler in enforcing the law after an accident.

Qiezhidan was originally the leader in the collar, but Qiezhidan was arrested and sent to labor camps because of disturbances in the past two years.The people are not fools, and it can be seen that the newcomer Feng Xing does not like Qiezhidan, which naturally effectively reduced the speed of Qiezhidan's preaching. "

After listening to Ukita Tadakaya's report, Osafune Tsuna has curbed the disorderly expansion of Ezo Kiritan, Hideka nodded in satisfaction, but then asked strangely, "No, even if Osafune is in charge of judicial and criminal proceedings, he is in charge. Akashi Sobu is in the formation, if he favors Kiritan a little bit in terms of policy, Tsunao won’t be able to organize it, right?”

"When I arrived in Ezo and reorganized the execution office, Osafune was in charge of criminal proceedings, and Akashi was in charge of administrative affairs, but Akashi was only responsible for the implementation of policies, and I was in charge of all policy arrangements.

Without favoritism in policy formulation, the original part of criminal proceedings was decentralized by Osafune, and Akashi was only an executor in Ezo.

To tell you the truth, when I landed in Ezo, according to incomplete statistics, there were more than 5 Chechidan people under the Governor's Mansion of Ezo, and when I left, it had been reduced to less than 4. "

"After I left, the reason why I handed over the power of acting governor to Changchuan was because I valued his ability in this area and asked him to continue to implement it.

If Akashi, the chief envoy, is promoted according to the rules, I am afraid that Ezo will return to the scene of the barbaric growth of Qiezhidan in the past. "

After hearing Ukita Tadaka's explanation, Xiujia touched his nose helplessly and guilty.

According to Ukita Tadakaya, Akashi Zento is actually not suitable to be the next governor of Ezo, but a few days ago Hideka promised Nasafune Sadakin that he would bring his son back as soon as possible.

After the meeting was adjourned, the Xiu family left Changchuan Zhenqin alone: ​​let him last for another year, and after a year, bring Longchuan Zhenqin back, inheriting his position as the governor of Changchuan and the position of the elder of the family.

But according to Ukita Tadashi's family, even if Akashi is released, Osafune Tsunao may not be able to come back, which makes him feel helpless to break his promise in front of Osafune Sadakin.

"How are those Shinto guys doing preaching?" The helpless Hideka could only deliberately change the subject, and talked about the Tosho Kwonen God that he had let the big shrine of Okayama Shrine create in his own image.

Ukita Tadashi's family heard about it and said, "According to His Highness, the county will grant 2% of the land to the converted people regardless of their nationality. They will also offer grain and cattle, and each family will also be allowed to plant sugar beets. ,cotton."

The most important foreign trade income of Ezo has always been the income from sugar beet cultivation, but this business has always been monopolized by the Ezo Monarch, and it is the main source of administrative expenses of the Ezo Monastery.

Cotton is not unique to the Americas. Asia has its own cotton species called tree cotton. This cotton was originally produced in India and spread to China during the Tang and Song Dynasties, and later to Japan through the Song Dynasty.

In the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, the imperial court set up cotton cloth as the head of the summer tax (cloth, silk, silk, cotton), and set up a kapok lifting department to collect cotton cloth from the people. According to records, as many as 10 pieces per year, it can be seen that cotton cloth has become the main Textile clothing.

The Ming Dynasty also expropriated cotton cloth, published books on cotton planting techniques, and persuaded the people to plant cotton.From the records in Song Yingxing's "Tiangong Kaiwu" in the Ming Dynasty that "cotton cloth is available in every inch of land" and "looms must be found in ten rooms", it can be seen that cotton planting and cotton textiles had spread all over the country at that time.

As mentioned earlier, cotton is widely planted in Echizen, Japan. However, the main use of cotton in Japan is as an ornamental plant. After all, the flowers and fruits of this plant are not edible. Before cotton was spun out, later generations didn't know what it was useful for.

Here it is important to explain that the varieties of cotton can be roughly divided into coarse staple cotton, long staple cotton and fine staple cotton.

Cotton: also known as Asian cotton, native to India.Due to low output and short and thick fibers, it is not suitable for machine spinning and has long been eliminated.

Long-staple cotton: also called sea-island cotton, native to South America.It is characterized by long fiber and high strength, which is suitable for spinning high count yarn.At present, China only produces in Xinjiang.

Fine-staple cotton: Also called upland cotton, it is native to Central America, so it is also called American cotton.Wide adaptability, high output, long fiber and good quality are its characteristics, and it can spin medium-count yarn.China's fine-staple cotton accounts for 98% of cotton production.

In other words, the cotton we use today is indeed imported from the Americas, but before these high-value cottons were imported on a large scale, Asian cotton, which was called tree cotton, was already used as warm clothing in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. for hundreds of years.

Now Xiujia has opened up the planting of sugar beet and cotton, allowing the excited Shinto people to grow sugar beet and cotton, two high economic value plants, which are recycled by the government into brown sugar or cotton clothes after the annual harvest.

Whether it is sugar beet or cotton, their economic value is far greater than that of wheat, the main food crop grown in Ezo. Much more than people of other faiths.

Beet aside, cotton coats and quilts are now the most important tools for the people at the bottom of Ezo to keep warm in winter. Without these two things, the animal fur obtained from hunting and animal husbandry every year is not enough for so many people. , let alone export.

Immediately, Xiujia asked Zhongjia a new question: "How much is the output of Ezo cotton, and when can it reverse trade with Japan?"

Xiujia has such an idea because the winter in Kanto this year is too cold. Not long ago, Osafune Sadakin came to report that people in Kanto were frozen to death. Reduce the number of people who die from cold.

"It depends on whether His Highness fully liberalizes the cultivation of cotton. Right now, in order to develop Shintoism, cotton and sugar beets are only used as exclusive crops for Shintoists, and the annual output in Ezo is not enough for the local area.

If His Royal Highness wants to feed back the skills as soon as possible, he can plant seeds on a large scale and expand the planting area. It is expected that the reverse output of skills will be realized after three years of production expansion. "

Cotton is planted in Echizen, Wakasa and other countries in Japan, but it has not been expanded because the Japanese at this time have not realized its economic value, and it is just a flower in the garden of the daimyo.

The Echizen seeds ran out, scattered in the wild, and were treated as worthless weeds by the people, who chopped them up for firewood.

With this kind of thinking, Xiujia didn't want to correct them so quickly, so it would be good to make cotton the exclusive product of Ezo. The place of Ezo is relatively isolated, and the secrets can be kept better.

In the future, it can even be used as a special product to make profits from Japanese trade.

If cotton is planted on a large scale in Kanto, people in neighboring countries will see the value of cotton, and they will inevitably start large-scale planting.

When the time comes to promote it on a large scale within one's own territory, it will be small for the Xiu family to lose a sum of income, but it will be a big deal to strengthen the power of other neighboring countries.

And Ukita Tadashi's family also said that the current sugar beets and cotton have become a card to encourage the Japanese, Koreans, Ainu and Jurchens in Ezo to convert to Dong Zhaoquan.

If cotton planting is opened up on a large scale, cotton will no longer be valuable in Ezo, and the gap between the people will narrow, and there will be no incentive to convert the people.

Cotton planting must be opened up, but it will definitely not be now. In any case, it will take a few years to expand the population of Dongzhaoquan's current believers.

"By the way, what happened to the potatoes and sweet potatoes that the Seto family was bringing back? Did they grow more in Ezo?"

Talking about these two things, Ukita Tadashi's family became excited, and he happily said to Xiu's family, "It's really amazing that His Highness gave these two little things, I didn't expect that so much food could be grown by burying them in the ground.

According to His Highness, I expanded the planting in Ezo Xuanzhu City, leaving half of it for natural pollination, and the other half was quickly planted according to His Highness's method. In just the first year, it has doubled by more than ten times!
(According to the fact that half a potato seedling is germinated and planted in the ground, 6~8 potatoes can be produced in one season, and the production of two seasons in a year is cold in Ezo)
But the number of potatoes is still a little less. Before I left, only a small area of ​​expansion was carried out. It is still only the people who convert to Dongzhaoquan that can be blessed. "

"It's also interesting to say, I originally planned to post it directly, but Kenjiro (Ikeki Kaneko) insisted on holding a ceremony of divine manifestation, and regarded this thing as a blessing from the gods.

Not to mention that it is really effective, the people guarded the sacred field of the shrine, watching it grow day and night, half a potato grew so much food, they asked the shrine for seeds, and the converted people There are too many. "

"However, there are some problems with the cultivation of sweet potatoes. Its expansion speed is not like that of potatoes, which can be grown by itself. Therefore, the expansion speed is a bit slow, and it is still being cultivated."

Hearing that Ezo had planted both potatoes and sweet potatoes, Hideka nervously asked, "Is it all written according to the planting outline I wrote? The places where sweet potatoes are planted are all on the mountains, right? Is it separated from other species? "

Sweet potatoes grow at the root of the soil, and the fruit will loosen the soil during the growth process. It is easy for insects to settle in such soil and promote insect diseases.

Now that the science is advanced, after a season of sweet potatoes is planted, the industrial plowing equipment can go deep down 30cm or even 50cm, turn the whole soil upside down and dry the insects in the sun.

It should be noted here that the purpose of drying insects is not to let the sun heat the eggs to death, but to use the cold winter to freeze the eggs to death.

In addition, their respective chemical pesticides will be sprayed on the ground when replanting to reduce the impact of pests and diseases when planting other crops in the next season.

But that was all in later generations. Before the invention of these technologies, there were legends that only sweet potatoes could be grown in the land where sweet potatoes were planted, and what was planted with other plants died because of the damage of diseases and insect pests.

Xiujia now does not have the ability to name deep-plowing machines or invent biodegradable pesticides, so it can only strictly limit the planting range and area of ​​sweet potato land, and try to prevent the spread of sweet potato planting as much as possible.

Although Ukita Tadashi's family had never seen such a thing, they firmly believed in the "Sweet Potato Planting Outline" written by Hideka, and naturally knew what Hideka was worried about.

So he confirmed it to Xiujia: "Your Highness, don't worry about this, I have already told them that sweet potatoes are only grown in the Danzhen country, and there is a mountainous area over there. Originally, it is not enough to grow wheat, so it is just right to grow sweet potatoes.

At the same time, I also ordered to closely monitor the situation of the trial planting. The fields where sweet potatoes are planted should be kept away from the fields of other crops to prevent the spread of pests and diseases.

Moreover, the sweet potatoes in Ezo are also one type a year, and after the autumn harvest every year, a large-scale plowing is started to completely freeze the pest eggs in the ground to death.

It’s just that it takes too much care to grow sweet potatoes, and it is strictly limited to one kind of its production advantage a year. In this way, it does not have much advantage over potatoes, and the public’s willingness to plant them is not high. "

Xiujia nodded helplessly when he heard that, he knew that Ukita Tadashi’s family was telling the truth, and the common people are the most honest. three cooked.

However, Yicui is telling the truth about the cultivation of sweet potatoes, but the treatment of the land before and after planting is much more difficult than that of potatoes.

The key is that due to the lack of pesticides, Xiujia can only let people plow the land over and over again, and burn bellflowers on it to kill insects and replenish fertility, but it took so much effort for a year The sweet potatoes grown are similar to potatoes, so naturally everyone is willing to grow them.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the reason why sweet potatoes became the main food of the Chinese people was because of the population explosion. The people needed this kind of food that could fill their stomachs and produce a large amount of food.

The second is that the people at that time did not know the problems of sweet potatoes. After the sweet potatoes were starved, only sweet potatoes could be grown in the next year. It was widely spread in the Qing Dynasty.

However, energy in nature is always conserved. Planting sweet potatoes and potatoes will take away a lot of nutrients from the land. In the era of lack of chemical fertilizers, people can only think of ways to fallow to restore the fertility of the fields.

The sweet potato crop can be said to be the savior of our people in modern times, but also the nightmare of our country's food independence, which has always been hanging over our heads.

It wasn't until the grandfather surnamed Yuan came up with hybrid rice, which greatly increased rice production and solved the food problem of the people, that the planting area of ​​sweet potatoes began to decrease year by year, and finally became a multigrain dessert that satisfied the appetite of the people.

In many novels, the time traveler, when writing the story about sweet potatoes, only knew that he could solve the problem of feeding the population, but did not know the harm it might bring in ancient times. In essence, he had been away from the land for too long, resulting in a lack of relevant knowledge. caused by.

In fact, when Xiujia wanted to expand sweet potatoes, Xiujia was also thinking about the pros and cons. Now, the experiment in Ezo has at least confirmed that in a place where only one season can be grown in Ezo, the economic value of sweet potatoes does more harm than good.

But if it is possible to plant sweet potatoes in the same barren Southern Kyushu for two seasons a year, on the premise of ensuring summer harvest and replanting after winter harvest, will the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

In fact, the dimension of Ezo is similar to that of Northeast China, and because it is adjacent to the Pacific Ocean and far away from Siberia, the winter in Ezo comes later than that in China.

But don't forget that it is now the Little Ice Age, the earth's weather is getting colder, and the winter is lengthening and the summer is shortening.

At this time in the late Ming Dynasty, the Northeast is really not suitable for farming, and Ezo can only be planted throughout the year if it is slightly warmer.

Coupled with the particularity of sweet potato cultivation, before the invention of effective degradable insecticides that do not damage the soil, the eggs can only be killed by deep plowing, which requires one month to be set aside for drying. This will undoubtedly greatly reduce the economics of sweet potato planting in the northern hemisphere.