The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Chapter 51
Xu Xueju pointed to a young man next to him and introduced: "This is Chen Jinglun, the eldest son of Chen Zhenlong in Changle."

As a child from Fujian, Wang Wenlong's impression of Chen Zhenlong came from the geography books he read in his hometown when he was a student.

Chen Zhenlong was originally a scholar with a reputation as a scholar. Later, when he failed in the imperial examination, he abandoned his business and went to Luzon to do business.

He discovered sweet potatoes in Luzon and thought they could alleviate the famine that often occurred in Fujian. However, the Spanish colonists did not allow the sweet potato vines to go to sea. In order to bring back the potato seeds, he twisted the sweet potato vines into absorbent ropes and brought them back to the Ming Dynasty.

Six years ago, Chen Zhenlong brought sweet potato vines back to Daming, and he began to try growing sweet potatoes at his home that year, which was very successful.

The next year there was a severe drought in Fuzhou. Chen Zhenlong asked his eldest son Chen Jinglun to submit a "Report on the Method of Providing Potato and Vine Seeds" to Fujian Governor Jin Xuezeng. After repeated requests, he was finally allowed to try planting sweet potatoes in the disaster-stricken areas of Fuzhou. The experimental planting results were excellent, which alleviated the disaster relief that year. effect.

Thinking that Shen Yourong in front of him was also a confidant of Jin Xuezeng, Wang Wenlong knew that these two people were probably here for disaster relief.

After everyone saw it, Xu Xueju said to Wang Wenlong: "Please Jianyang tell us about the current situation."

Wang Wenlong has been doing secretarial work with Xu Xueju these days, and has clearly recorded the drought information in Fujian at this time.

He then introduced to a few people: "The rain in the whole province this year is bad, especially in Zhangzhou and Quanzhou. From the twelfth lunar month of the 26th year of Wanli to February 27th, there was no rain in the two places for more than 100 days. After the summer, there were only two typhoons." This time, there was a severe drought in the spring, and the typhoon in the summer brought less rain than in previous years. The second season of rice was also affected. The situation in Zhangzhou was slightly better, especially in Quanzhou. Luojiang, Quangang, Jinjiang, and Nan'an were also affected. There is no rainfall in autumn, and it is about to develop into a drought in summer and autumn."

"The autumn harvest will begin in mid-October. This season's autumn harvest will definitely reduce grain production. The harvested grain will be enough to last for two or three months at most. If the situation continues, there will probably be hungry people next year."

Shen Yourong asked: "How is the grain storage situation of the local large households?"

"The farming conditions in Quanzhou are mediocre. Most of the local people go to sea trade. There is a lot of gold and silver stored in the city, but there is not enough food. The drought for half a year has consumed almost all the people's food reserves. Although the big households in the city have food, they don't have enough food. I am willing to let it go, but the price of food in Quanzhou Prefecture has risen to one stone, one liang, and five cents, and the government’s announcements have limited effect in calming the situation.”

Jin Xuezeng and Xu Xueju were on the same front. Wang Wenlong knew that it would not matter if he told the truth in front of Jin Xuezeng's people, so he said directly: "According to my calculations, even if all the grain in the warehouses of these large households is released, they will not last until next summer's harvest."

Xu Xueju was also shocked when he heard this, "Is this really true?"

Wang Wenlong has been calculating the remaining food and grass in the city these days, and the results he got are very pessimistic.

"Even if the granaries of all the landowners in the city were full at the beginning of this year, less than half of them have been consumed by now. If this drought continues past autumn, there will definitely be a grain shortage in Quanzhou City before the grain harvest season next year."

Seeing Wang Wenlong's categorical conclusion, Xu Xueju was shocked, and Shen Yourong and Chen Jinglun also became serious.

They came to inquire about the situation on behalf of Jin Xuezeng, but they did not expect that the situation in Quanzhou was so serious.

Xu Xueju then looked at Chen Jinglun with hope. A few years ago, the sweet potatoes donated by Chen Jinglun and his son helped Fuzhou survive the spring drought and greatly reduced the number of victims.

Chen Jinglun shook his head helplessly: "The planting season for sweet potatoes has passed. Even if you want to plant them, you have to wait until next year."

He was invited by Jin Xuezeng to come to Quanzhou, but what he could do was really limited. The most he could do was teach the local people how to grow sweet potatoes next year and increase the local food security capacity, but there was nothing he could do about the coming disaster.

Chen Jinglun blamed himself and said: "It's a pity that the promotion of sweet potatoes was too slow, otherwise the situation in Quanzhou would probably have improved this year."

Wang Wenlong also sighed in his heart.

In fact, if Quanzhou could promote sweet potatoes earlier, this disaster would not be a big problem at all.

The entire Fujian Province has a mountainous terrain, and the food that can be grown on the mountains is very limited. The most suitable supplementary grain crop is sweet potatoes that are suitable for growing in mountains. Wang Wenlong himself grew up eating sweet potato porridge in later generations.It's a pity that farmers need a long time to adapt to new crops these days, and the small-scale farmer economy has poor risk resistance.

If small farmers spend energy to grow new crops, they will have to reduce the management time of traditional crops. If the trial planting of new crops fails, the whole family will face a situation of reduced production and food shortages the next year.

What's more, most of the farmers in this era were illiterate, and no one promoted new crop planting techniques to them. Even the agricultural officials themselves didn't understand.

No one told these farmers about the benefits of new crops. Even if they knew the benefits, they didn’t know how to grow them. As a result, the promotion of new crops in one area took decades.

Sweet potatoes, which were only introduced to Ming Dynasty five years ago, were cultivated on a small scale in Fuzhou, but dozens of miles away, most people in Quanzhou at that time did not even know about the existence of this crop.

Shen Yourong also frowned when he heard this and said: "This year, the rain in the world is generally bad, either drought or floods. Even the two lakes in Jiangxi do not have enough food for Fujian."

Xu Xueju was even more worried when he heard that Jin Xuezeng had no good solution.

He was faced with such a difficult situation just after taking office as the right chief envoy of Fujian. It would be the best thing if the victims could be appeased and distributed some food on the land to survive the disaster year.

As an official of the Ming Dynasty, he didn't even care whether the price of food was high.

As long as there is enough food, no matter how high the price of food is, people can still borrow money to buy food, and at least people can avoid starving to death, which is enough for him.

But now the situation is that there is not even enough food, and people cannot borrow money to buy it. Then when the food reserves are used up, there will definitely be refugees in drought-stricken areas.

These days, the imperial court has almost no means of managing the refugees, and can only rely on big officials from various places to find solutions.

At this time, the victims often plant rice and flee the famine.

Wherever the refugees pass, the more responsible state capitals will block the refugees outside the city. Lijia Baozheng in the village outside the city will also organize large households to provide soup and relief, so that the refugees have the energy to walk to the next village or town.

The refugees just walk all the way begging for food. Most of the old, weak, sick and disabled people in the picture can't survive. Those who are lucky will go home to harvest rice during the harvest time.

If the rains this season are still generous, the famine will end like this. If the weather is not beautiful, then we will continue to flee the famine.

Food households fleeing famine all rely on food surplus wherever they pass.

But this year, Fujian was generally affected by disasters and production was reduced, and the disaster-stricken areas in Quanzhou were too concentrated. The refugees from several counties were killed and everyone was scared when they saw them.

If this situation develops, the disaster-stricken people in Quanzhou are likely to beg midway without anyone giving them porridge. At this time, the hungry and anxious refugees can only rob the local area. Once the robbery is sweetened, leaders will soon appear among these people. , with a leader, there is only a thin line between refugees and bandits.

In the final analysis, almost all banditry and chaos started from refugees. As the right-wing governor, Xu Xueju was most afraid of such an outcome.

"Quanzhou suffered from disasters this year and reduced production, but after all, the harvest is not dead. There are still three or four months left. It is better to ask the people to plant vegetables for autumn and winter in advance, so that at least there will be food when the food is most scarce. Use vegetables instead. Food can at least prevent some people from going to a dead end."

Hearing this, the three of them looked at Wang Wenlong in surprise.

(End of this chapter)