Ming Dynasty: Domination of the World from the Imperial Examination

Chapter 46 This is the answer given to Your Majesty by farmers all over the world!

Zhu Yuanzhang's face darkened.

He put his hands tightly behind his back, trying not to let his emotions get out of control, but the look he gave Xia Zhibai was getting colder and colder, as if he was looking at a corpse, a dead person, "Anything else?"

"If you have anything else to say, please say it all."

"Let's hear enough today!"

"We also want to hear what other unorthodox words you can say, and what unexpected things you can say to us."

"We'll let you speak!"

Xia Zhibai sighed in his heart, knowing that Zhu Yuanzhang didn't listen.

Zhu Yuanzhang didn't believe it at all, nor was he willing to believe it. The world was on the eve of change. He only wanted to believe what he had seen and experienced. Words were completely pale and powerless under Zhu Yuanzhang's strong self-awareness.

Xia Zhibai cupped his hands and said, "Since Your Majesty wants to hear it, I will tell Your Majesty."

"But words are already pale and powerless in front of your majesty. Your majesty is not willing to listen to it at all, let alone take it to heart or pay attention to it. So I will speak with facts."

"Your Majesty, don't you believe that there is a grain yield of 1,000 kilograms per mu in the world?"

"Then I will prove it to Your Majesty now."

“There are in this world!”

"And there's more than one!"

After saying that, Xia Zhibai strode to the front of the ox cart and directly lifted the straw mat covering it, revealing a vibrant "green plant" underneath.

Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao were shocked.

They also quickly looked towards the ox cart.

But when I saw the green plants above, I couldn't help but show a hint of disappointment in my eyes.

There is no food.

Just a bunch of weeds.

"This is the 1,000-jin grain yield per mu that you mentioned. Isn't this just a pile of weeds?" Zhu Yuanzhang said disdainfully. He had actually worked in farming and knew the condition of the crops and their yield.

It is impossible to produce 1,000 kilograms per mu.

Although he knew that what Xia Zhibai was talking about was most likely the part buried in the soil, how much food could such a small plant, only as high as the knee, produce?

Xia Zhibai didn't say anything.

He jumped onto the ox cart and pulled up one of the plants by its roots in front of Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang watched intently, wanting to see what Xia Zhibai was doing.

If you want to deceive him about the crops.

Xia Zhibai had made a wrong decision.

He knew much more than Xia Zhibai, and even more clearly and deeply than all the ministers in the court. He had truly gone down to the world to cultivate the land.

Wow!
Pulling out the green vines brings out the mud.

Many yellow things were also uprooted.

There are actually quite a few under one plant.

In the light of candlelight, they look like pieces of gold.

Shining brightly.

Xia Zhibai threw the "potato" in front of Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang's eyelids jumped and he looked over with a serious gaze, still in disbelief. After looking at it carefully for a few times, he stepped forward, took the plant full of "fruits" in his hand, and looked at it carefully.

Bang bang bang.

Xia Zhibai's hands did not stop.

A lot of 'fruits' were pulled out in succession.

Each tree is full of fruit.

Xia Zhibai stood on the ox cart and said in a deep voice: "Your Majesty, the thing in front of you is called potato, which is a natural thing of foreign countries."

"It's just like the decree issued by Your Majesty before, which strictly prohibits the exchange of gold, silver, copper coins, gunpowder, weapons and other items of the dynasty. Such food crops are also strictly prohibited from being circulated to foreign countries."

"According to the Hu people I met by chance, there are many other high-yield crops like potatoes." "There are many more, such as sweet potatoes and corn."

"And that Hu man only brought a potato with him, but I bought it for a large sum of money. After several years of careful cultivation, it has finally produced good results. Your Majesty can send someone to calculate it."

"If we take a piece of land the size of an oxcart and plant potatoes, and extrapolate the yield of one acre, the weight of potatoes would be a thousand kilograms!"

Zhu Yuanzhang lowered his head, a look of horror.

He couldn't hear what Xia Zhibai said at all now, and only the yellow potatoes were in his eyes.

He grabbed the potato in his hand and held it tightly, then quickly picked up the plants on the ground and compared them carefully to make sure that Xia Zhibai was not fooling him by falsifying the facts and inserting other things on them.

But it actually grows from a single plant.

After checking several plants in succession, Zhu Yuanzhang's expression changed completely. When he looked at Xia Zhibai, his eyes showed panic and miscalculation for the first time.

Zhu Biao was also incredulous. He looked at Xia Zhibai and said in amazement, "Is there really such a high-yield grain in the world?"

"How can this be?"

He still couldn't believe what he saw.

If he had not seen it with his own eyes, and had not really seen a full ox cart, he would never have believed it.

He finally understood why Xia Zhibai brought an ox cart with him. He was afraid that the father and son would not believe him, so he just moved the potatoes with the mud. He moved half a meter of soil from Kaifeng Prefecture.

Just to prove that I wasn't lying.

Xia Zhibai jumped off the carriage and shook his head, saying, "These potatoes weren't originally so productive."

"It's just that farmers in other places have cultivated it carefully over generations, and it has gradually become more productive, just like rice in the Central Plains. The foxtail grass that was once seen everywhere has gradually turned into rice under the cultivation of generations of ancestors, and the yield has become increasingly high."

"If your majesty does not believe it."

"I'm not actually going to take the potatoes out."

"What I want to bring out more is the high-yield rice cultivated by China itself."

"Although we can't reach such a terrifying yield of 1,000 kilograms per mu, it can still increase the yield of most places by 10 to 20 percent. However, Your Majesty only gave me one month, and the rice has just been planted, so I really can't see the final yield."

“That’s why we chose to bring early-ripening potatoes.”

"My move is just to tell Your Majesty one thing. Since the Qin Dynasty, China has pursued the path of centralization. However, centralization is not just to satisfy the desires of the monarch, but also to concentrate the country's strength to accomplish great things."

"The Great Wall of Qin, the Silk Road of Han, the Grand Canal of Sui and Tang, and so on."

“They are all products of centralized power.”

“And the world has benefited a lot from it.”

"You now own the world, you have everything, and you want everything. You want too much, but you give too little back to the world. You try to trap the world, but you can trap the people of the world, but you cannot trap the hearts of the people of the world."

"You have been to Huangjue Temple before, so you should have heard this saying."

"To let someone off the hook is a great merit."

"Your Majesty has accomplished great things, but you have always misjudged one thing. You are not the creator of history, you are only the executor of history."

"When times come, heaven and earth all work together to transport heroes without freedom."

“The people who truly influence the world are not you, Zhu Yuanzhang, but the old farmers who work hard in the rice fields, the merchants who travel on the official roads, the officials who actively make suggestions in the court and make great plans for the world, and the students who are still studying hard under the lonely lamp.”

"This world belongs to them."

"It's not a family empire."

Xia Zhibai went to the ox cart and took out a seedling from it.

Full of greenery and vitality.

He walked up to Zhu Yuanzhang, handed the rice seedling to him, and said with a smile, "This is a rice seedling that may have a high yield that some old farmers in Kaifeng Prefecture have cultivated after years of experimentation at the suggestion of me."

"Now I leave it to Your Majesty."

"This is also the answer given to Your Majesty by the farmers of the world."

(End of this chapter)