Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 51 Ming Dynasty Agricultural Prosperity Plan
In the past few days, by searching for information online and asking Ji He to help consult some friends in the Agricultural Bureau, Zhu Yunfeng roughly understood the specific operation procedures.

The first thing is that he plans to register an agricultural company, there is no doubt about that.

Only in this way could he obtain a large amount of seeds and fertilizers legally and rationally, and then find a way to transport them to the Ming Dynasty.

But there's a problem.

That is, some conventional rice on the market has been added with technology and rigor by seed companies, and the subsequent yield will be greatly reduced if the seeds are kept.

So he had to find conventional rice seeds that were not modified with technology or hard work.

There are actually a lot of these seeds.

Because technology and hard work are, to some extent, conspiracy theories, but they do exist, and there is technology in this area.

However, it requires huge technical support and cost considerations, which means that ordinary seed companies, except for large seed companies with their own scientific research teams, have no ability to do so.

And the most important thing is that seeds also come in different varieties, and even new varieties are launched every year. It is impossible to apply this technology to every variety.

Therefore, in real life, seeds that have been enhanced with technology and hard work are often the highest quality and most advanced conventional rice seeds developed by large seed companies.

For example, high-yield rice with an output of more than 1,500 kilograms per mu, and whether this level can be achieved also depends on climate, soil, fertilizer and other conditions.

The yield of ordinary conventional rice is about 1,200 kilograms per mu, and there is no such thing as technology and hard work.

If the costs can’t keep up, the seed companies will suffer huge losses.

Therefore, there are many conventional rice varieties that can be saved for seeds, but they cannot be saved for commercial purposes.

For example, there was news some time ago that a large grain grower with more than 1,000 acres of land kept seeds for himself and was sued by a seed company. He was eventually ordered to pay the seed company 100,000 yuan in compensation.

The logic behind this is a legal question.

Farmers keep seeds for their own breeding and use, so it is allowed.

However, large grain growers and agricultural companies saving seeds have "commercial purposes" and violate the law.

Zhu Yunfeng runs an agricultural company and rents a large amount of land, which will definitely be classified as commercial use, and he will not be allowed to keep seeds.

But this is good for Zhu Yunfeng.

After all, the place where he wanted to leave his offspring was in the Ming Dynasty, where modern laws had no influence. So it naturally didn't matter, he could leave his offspring however he wanted.

In this way, Zhu Yunfeng has enough reasons and excuses to purchase large quantities of seeds and fertilizers every year.

Conventional rice developed with current technological levels can ensure that its yield will not decrease for at least three or four years even after being kept as seeds.

He rented tens of thousands of acres of land and found a way to get seeds from those acres and send them to the Ming Dynasty. Soon the Ming Dynasty would be able to produce a large number of second-generation seeds, which could be quickly promoted to the southern region.

He just needs to find the most advanced and highest quality conventional rice seeds without any added technology or hard work. This is the problem he wants to solve.

Secondly, when purchasing seeds in bulk, you must comply with the National Seed Law and obtain a business license, and you must report how much you use.

As the operating party, agricultural companies’ purchasing channels basically come from seed companies.

Seed companies are often subordinate units of county, city or provincial agricultural departments. For example, the seed company in their county belongs to the county agricultural bureau.

The Agricultural Bureau has the final say on how much to buy, so he has to negotiate with the government.

But in Zhu Yunfeng's opinion, this is not a big problem.

Although it needs to be reported, how can one refuse money that is delivered to his door?

In fact, seed companies are in business at a loss.

Zhu Yunfeng rented 10,000 acres of land, but wanted seeds for 30,000 acres. Only a fool would not want to do this if the seed company could turn losses into profits.

As for its use, they basically turn a blind eye.

Anyway, we are all doing things for the development of the county. As long as it is not illegal, many things can actually be negotiated.

So in Zhu Yunfeng's view, the seed problem is not a big problem.

It is entirely possible to store them in warehouses under the pretext of stockpiling.

As long as he can settle the land lease issue, the county would be happy for him to buy more seeds and create revenue for the county's finances.

The last question is the key point, that is fertilizer.

Based on the opinions given by agricultural experts that Zhu Yunfeng consulted on Bihu.

Experts believe that in my country, of the 1949 kilograms increase in average yield per mu since 300, about 30% is due to fertilizer alone, about 20% to improved varieties alone, and about 10% to water conservancy alone.

Other factors alone (including farming system reforms including high-ridge farming, no-till rotation, intercropping between reserved rows, fertilizer and water management, and pesticides, agricultural films, agricultural machinery, etc.) 10%.

The combined effects of multiple factors (including chemical fertilizers, improved varieties, the fertility or barrenness of the soil itself, water conservancy, agricultural films, agricultural machinery, pesticides, reforms in fertilizer and water management and farming systems, etc.) account for about 50%.

In general, fertilizers play a huge role in increasing grain production, and their contribution rate to increasing production even exceeds that of seeds.

Good seeds may only increase production by 10-20%, but chemical fertilizers can increase production by more than 30%. Even for some poor lands, the contribution rate can reach more than 50%.

Because chemical fertilizers are used to fertilize crops, the contribution of fertilizers to black soil is less than 20%, while for those soils with insufficient fertility, the importance of fertilizers is very high.

However, in recent years, the rate of fertilizer use in my country has been declining year by year, and the country has begun to shift from using large amounts of chemical fertilizers to using a combination of chemical and organic fertilizers.

The reason is that the long-term use of chemical fertilizers has seriously overdrawn the land, making the originally fertile soil become barren.

The most typical example is the problem of black soil degradation in Northeast China.

Therefore, farmers in many areas choose to use chemical fertilizers and organic fertilizers when growing staple foods, but when growing vegetables, they have begun to switch to traditional farmyard manure.

The land in the Ming Dynasty should not be as overdrawn as it is today. The effect of the first use of chemical fertilizers will be amazing. By combining it with high-yield seeds, it is possible that the yield increase can reach a very high level.

However, fertilizers are not like seeds that can be saved. As much as you use, it will be consumed, so the demand for fertilizers is very large.

Even if Zhu Yunfeng monopolized the fertilizers in the entire county, he could not supply the entire Ming Dynasty market.

Therefore, Zhu Yunfeng's plan for Zhu Yuanzhang was to get seeds and a small amount of fertilizers first, and then he would learn the technology of traditional fertilizer refining from modern times.

Although traditional fertilizer making is certainly not as effective as industrial fertilizer, it can at least increase grain production significantly.

Later, when Zhu Yunfeng's agricultural company becomes bigger and stronger, he can open his own fertilizer factory, or find a way to get some equipment to Daming and build a fertilizer factory in Daming. This should be able to solve the problem.

In fact, according to Zhu Yunfeng's idea, he wants to expand and become stronger in the future and build a large-scale agricultural company and fertilizer factory.

The agricultural company itself has the ability to operate a seed company. Once it grows in size, it no longer needs to get seeds from the county seed company, but can operate seed sales on its own.

The same is true for fertilizer plants.

For example, the popular Jinkela in the two-dimensional world was a private fertilizer factory, but it later went bankrupt.

After all, whether it is an agricultural company or a fertilizer plant, it is very difficult for private businesses to compete. If they cannot open up the market, they will face the risk of bankruptcy.

But Zhu Yunfeng is not worried about this problem, because his market is not the modern era, but the Ming Dynasty.

Basically, once he has made the agricultural company bigger and stronger, he will be able to build various processing plants and thus provide industrial capacity for the Ming Dynasty.

"In general, as long as I expand the agricultural company and the fertilizer factory, then supplying the Ming Dynasty will not be a problem. In the future, I will build a fully automated equipment and a conveyor belt to automatically deliver things to the cellar. You, ancestor, just need to arrange for people to move them."

After Zhu Yunfeng explained his plan to Zhu Yuanzhang in detail, he finally said, "The only problem is that with such a large production capacity, where will it go when it enters the market? It is definitely not okay to disappear without a reason, so I must keep some of the production capacity and find a way to sell it myself, and I have to pay taxes. According to the information I found online, if there is only input tax but no output tax, the tax bureau will definitely check it."

"Well, you have to find a way to hide this. You must not expose the existence of our Ming Dynasty. If modern people know that they can travel to our Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty will be in danger. I can only move the stone tablet and cut off contact with you."

Zhu Yuanzhang gave serious instructions and warned him in person that this was the issue he was most worried about.

Zhu Yunfeng smiled bitterly and said, "I can only think of ways to hide it, but I'm not very professional in this area, so I may have to ask my dad for help." "I don't think I need to trouble my uncle."

Ji He suddenly said.

"what happened?"

Zhu Yunfeng asked.

Ji He smiled and said, "Do you know what the country is mainly investigating?"

"What is it?"

"It's about concealing production capacity and tax evasion, so there is a big industrial survey. In many industries that require environmental protection, the policies above require reducing production capacity, but in order to keep workers' jobs, they have to conceal the information. If they conceal the information, it means they are involved in tax evasion, so people will investigate."

Ji He spread his hands and said, "The grain industry is not that strict in terms of environmental protection requirements. It only requires that burning of wheat straw is not allowed."

"But I also concealed my production capacity. If I produced 10 tons of grain and reported 2 tons, and these 2 tons were sold, then 8 tons were concealed. Wouldn't I still be investigated?"

"But you didn't sell these 8 tons. If there is no sales, you don't need to pay value-added tax. In addition, there is a tax exemption policy for agricultural products. You may not even need to pay tax on the 2 tons you sold."

"I see."

Zhu Yunfeng suddenly realized what was going on. He was worried that you would not be able to deliver the excess production capacity to the market and that it would be discovered by the state and its whereabouts would be unknown.

It turned out to be a groundless worry.

In fact, it’s normal if you think about it carefully.

There are now a lot of agricultural subsidies, in addition to tax exemptions, there are also various welfare policies.

The country would like you to grow more grain and will not suppress you.

Therefore, the relevant tax issues are very relaxed, and there is no inspection at all. As long as you are willing to contract land to grow crops, the green light for all convenient things will be opened.

"And even if some of your production capacity is missing and not flowing into the market, you can wait for the second and third generation production capacity of Ming Dynasty to catch up and then deliver it to modern times."

Ji He added: "To put it more intuitively, if you first send 10 tons of husk rice to Daming as seeds, Daming will grow 10 tons of rice and keep them all as seeds first, and then promote them to the second generation across the country. In this way, when the grain production in Daming increases, you can make up for it with your 10 tons of husk rice."

"That's awesome, Chisang. The two of us are as good as Zhuge Liang."

Zhu Yunfeng thought it made sense and said excitedly.

"It's more than that."

Ji He said proudly: "The production scope of an agricultural company is not only farming, but also animal husbandry and breeding. You can also open a pig factory or a cattle farm. The food produced does not need to be put into the market. It can be used directly as feed and sold by yourself. As long as you do not evade taxes, who will investigate you?"

"If that's the case, then there's basically no problem."

Zhu Yunfeng immediately said to Zhu Yuanzhang, "We can't supply the entire Ming Dynasty with one county, but it's okay to serve as a seed company for the Ming Dynasty for the time being. We can supply tens of thousands of tons a year, and keep the seeds after planting a crop. It should be able to be promoted throughout the country within one or two years. After that, we can replace the seeds every three or four years to ensure that the Ming Dynasty can use modern conventional rice. I'll also get you some hybrid rice seeds, which should be enough to double the grain output."

"Ah."

After listening to his entire plan, Zhu Yuanzhang was very satisfied and said, "Not bad."

"During the early Ming Dynasty, the economy was mainly in the south, so rice was the staple food, but corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes and the like also had to keep up, and these would also be arranged."

"it is good."

"That's the initial plan."

Zhu Yunfeng wanted to make a final summary, but he couldn't think of the words, so he looked at Ji He and said, "Chi Chi, you summarize it."

"In summary, it is to optimize the industrial layout, improve the collaborative mechanism for the orderly transfer of industries in Daming, and promote the sharing of benefits between the transfer-out and receiving areas."

"speak English."

"Get used to it, get used to it."

Ji He said embarrassedly: "First, we will use modern industry as a foundation to continuously supply high-yield crops to Daming to ensure an increase in grain production. Then, through modern technology and traditional fertilizer production, we will help Daming establish a basic fertilizer supply. With the increase in grain production, Daming's productivity will expand, the cake will become bigger, and the country will be stable."

"Okay."

Zhu Yuanzhang heaved a sigh of relief and said, "When the Ming Dynasty was first established, there were constant natural disasters in the country. Sometimes the rain was late, insects and locusts swarmed, and there were heavy rains and floods, and famines occurred. Sometimes people died of lack of food. Now, at least no one will starve to death."

That's true.

The second half of this sentence is "But looking at those who die due to lack of food and clothing, aren't they just committing suicide in a leisurely manner!"

Hearing Zhu Yuanzhang's words, Zhu Yunfeng couldn't help but feel resentful in his heart.

The old guy is very bad.

After successfully rebelling and becoming emperor, he started welding the doors of his car and racked his brains to fool the people so that they would not follow his example and rebel.

The original sentence of the whole passage in the Imperial Edict is: Even if the supply is insufficient, or if the rain is late, insects and locusts will swarm, or if there is excessive rain and flooding and no harvest, or famine, sometimes there will be people who die from lack of food, but it is not the death of the weapons. If they are forced by the army, they will jump off a cliff in panic, rush into a fire or fall into an abyss and die. Looking at those who die because of the lack of food and clothing, don’t they think they are committing suicide leisurely?

What it means is that starving to death is better than being killed by others. If you are killed by others, you will either jump off a cliff in panic or throw yourself into a sea of ​​fire. It is so embarrassing that it is better to commit suicide leisurely.

In conclusion, even if you starve to death, don't resist his rule.

Now that he sees that the people have food to eat and will not resist his rule, how can Lao Deng not be happy?
But Zhu Yunfeng naturally wouldn't expose it.

He continued, "These are just the first steps of the plan, but we have estimated that if we want to grow bigger and stronger in a short period of time, we may need to invest a lot of money in the future. Because agriculture is a loss-making business, even if we invest money in it, it is still a loss-making business. We can only make up for the losses through the Ming Dynasty market. If the Ming Dynasty only takes in money but does not take out money, we will soon lose all our money here."

"Ah."

Zhu Yuanzhang pondered for a moment and said, "You guys do it first, and we'll talk about it when we run out of money."

Lao Deng won't release the eagle until he sees the rabbit.

Zhu Yunfeng rolled his eyes in his heart, but still said patiently: "I think we can use brass and silver to fill the gap first. We can buy up industrial copper and industrial silver, build factories, and make copper and silver coins for the Ming Dynasty on the pretext of making commemorative coins. We will replace the current Ming Dynasty treasure notes first to stabilize the economy. The official price of the Ming Dynasty gold and silver exchange rate is 1:4, but the actual rate is 1:6. The influx of a large amount of silver will increase the rate to 1:10 at most, or 1:20 at most."

"But the current gold-silver ratio is more than 1:80, which means there is a huge profit margin. In this way, you don't need to pay money, and you can directly exchange silver for gold from the people."

He continued: "And if we do this, silver will not become a tool to harvest gold. Because in ancient times, silver itself has financial and monetary value. This can not only provide funds for modern development, but also stabilize ancient prices and boost the economy."

This was also something Zhu Yunfeng had considered a long time ago. He had only talked about it with Zhu Yuanzhang in general terms before. Now that he was about to start his career officially, he naturally had to put it on the agenda.

"it is good."

Zhu Yuanzhang thought about it and decided that exchanging silver for gold was a profitable business, so he nodded and said, "Let's do it."

"Then I will go down the mountain tomorrow and first contact the town government to build the company framework."

Zhu Yunfeng said.

"Ah."

Zhu Yuanzhang agreed.

As the Ming Dynasty became more stable, he naturally became happier.

of course.

The most important thing is that the heir cannot be a fool like Zhu Yunwen.

When I get back I have to remind Biaoer to take care of his health.

From now on, whenever Biao'er falls ill, he must come to modern medicine for treatment immediately. Even if an accident happens, Biao'er cannot be saved. Passing it to the fourth brother is better than being a fool like Zhu Yunwen!

(End of this chapter)