The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 546 Returning a Favor
Having received the highest honor of her career (the title of Prince, a posthumous honor traditionally bestowed by the previous dynasty), Gan Minglan knew how to reciprocate.

Potatoes that were successfully cultivated were discovered by the youngest son, Fu Bao.

Tiger Head and his team brought back high-yield coarse corn from Europe;
She reported on all the crops, including tomatoes and peppers.

Of course, the main attraction is beets!
After searching through many videos and books online, I finally came up with a traditional method for refining white sugar.

It was written in great detail, with both pictures and text.

Fearing the other party might not take it seriously, she even took a 500g bag of white sugar from her meager savings from her previous life and put it in a ceramic jar.

Gan Minglan was unaware of the power of white sugar that was white, fine, and sweet.

It almost gave the emperor's favorite, the bearded man, a real fright.

The bearded man looked at it again and again, and after carefully tasting a little, he couldn't help but exclaim:
"Wow, this is so much sweeter than the cane sugar from Nanyue! It's top-quality icing!"

Sugar is dozens of times more expensive than salt.

It is an imported product!

Upon learning that the sugar beet cultivation would be successful next year and that he would be able to eat sugar freely, the bearded man couldn't stay any longer and braved the heavy snow to turn around and head to Shangdu the very next day.

This year is colder than last year.

As the year draws to a close, the cold wind howls.

Emperor Qianwu was very pleased to receive such a generous gift in return from Gan Minglan!

"My lord, the Duke of Zhenxi said that she accidentally discovered this technique of making white sugar from beet roots. She inquired with European merchants and found that they still eat beets as a vegetable, and they are also in dire need of sugar!"

Is Europe lacking sugar?

That means it's a unique skill.

Exclusive items are bound to be the most profitable!
"I need to think carefully about who would be most suitable to send to Guanzhong to establish a sugar mill. Ideally, someone who would be compatible with the Duke of Zhenxi."

The two of them ate the less than one pound of white sugar dry, then mixed it with water, savoring it again and again.

It took a long time before they turned their attention to the potatoes.

Emperor Qianwu still had some doubts about the yield of this vegetable:

"Can it really yield over twenty shi per mu? Can it be used as a vegetable or a staple food?"

"Master, I guarantee it! The soil in Ganluchuan is fertile, and this year the average yield per mu is thirty-two shi!"
Ang brought back a chef who is very skilled at cooking potatoes, and he's already busy in the royal kitchen.

In a moment, you can try eating it as a dish or a meal.

The Duke of Zhenxi said that the biggest drawback of this potato is that it's not easy to store. It sprouts very easily, and eating sprouted potatoes can cause poisoning.

Fortunately, the chefs in Kansai have found a solution.

They boil the potatoes, slice them, and dry them in the sun. After drying, they soak them and stew them with meat. The chewy texture is absolutely delicious.

There are also potatoes that are sliced ​​thinly, deep-fried, sprinkled with cumin powder and salt, and crunchy. Adults and children alike eat them without making a sound.

Ang believes the most valuable way to prepare it is to make it into vermicelli.

One hundred pounds of potatoes can make fifteen pounds of dried vermicelli. As long as they are stored in a well-ventilated and dry place, they will spoil in one or two years.

Moreover, one pound of dry powder can be soaked to yield four pounds of wet powder.

Add some meat and broth to the simply blanched glass noodles, and they taste amazing!

Ang can eat as much as he wants, but he can only eat a pound of noodles at most.

"Oh, 'potato' is the affectionate name that people in the Kansai region use for potatoes. They say it's a bean that grows in sandy soil, so they all call it 'potato.'"

The more the bearded man described the potatoes, the more interested Emperor Qianwu became in them. Using the bearded man's formula, one hundred catties of potatoes could yield sixty catties of refined grains, and these were the kind with a shelf life of up to two years!

He asked eagerly:

How many potato seeds are left in Kansai? How many acres can these seeds plant next year? After the harvest, how many seeds can be supplied to the rest of the country?

"Reporting to Your Majesty, by early summer next year, about 20,000 mu of land in Guanzhong will be able to be planted. The Duke of Zhenxi has promised that by autumn next year, he will provide enough potato seeds to plant 500,000 mu of land in Guanzhong free of charge."

Emperor Qianwu's lips curled into a smirk: "As expected of the Duke of Zhenxi, a master of planting!"

The bearded man also praised it highly:

"Potatoes are such a wonderful thing! They're not picky about soil at all; they can grow in all kinds of fertile and poor soil, including mountainous areas, woodlands, and sandy soil. Plus, you can save seeds indefinitely! Once you plant one crop, you'll have potatoes to eat every year!"

"Tsk, I admit, besides poisons like opium, those foreign lands do have some good products. Since these potatoes have already been planted twice, they must have been taken to Kansai a long time ago. What's the story behind this?"

Every now and then, the various garrisons in the Western Regions would send intelligence back to Shangdu.

Unfortunately, there was too much and too much information piled up.

Emperor Qianwu was a very busy man.

It's impossible to examine every single detail.

I only read the news that he cares about most each month.

Since the people started using high-yield rice and wheat seeds, they have never lacked food.

Potatoes grown in a garden in the general's mansion were not really within his scope of concern.

“My lord, speaking of which, the youngest son of the Duke of Zhenxi truly lives up to the nickname given to him by his parents, Fubao, Fubao, he is indeed a blessed man.”

The little guy ran to the clock workshop and was so tempted by the potatoes that the foreign children had brought from their hometown that they were roasting that he cried.

Later, he got into a fight with a foreign child. After the foreign craftsman's family learned of his identity, they gave him all the remaining potatoes as compensation!
To ensure his youngest son would have an endless supply of potatoes, the Duke of Zhenxi planted potatoes in the garden of the General's Mansion.

This is the second trial planting this year. I originally planned to plant it for three seasons and wait for the yield to stabilize before reporting to the court. It just so happens that I arrived at the time to deliver the imperial decree!

Your Majesty, this lucky little fellow is also a little money-grubber!

In recent years, so many students in Kansai have been learning foreign languages. They have made friends with foreign kids they had fought with, and within two or three years, they have mastered two foreign languages.

Didn't over ten thousand foreigners come to Kansai this year? This little money-grubber went off to work as a translator to earn some cash.

Regarding the incense smoke, the foreigners paid him a large sum of money to act as their translator. Fu Bao and his two elder brothers listened to the foreigners' various boasts about how beneficial the smoke was to their health. His two elder brothers, being scholars, were more prudent in their work, so they asked the former imperial expert to help them test the smoke's medicinal properties.

And so, the Duke of Zhenxi and his men discovered the foreigners' conspiracy!

"Haha, now that you mention it, the little guy has done two good deeds! Like mother, like son, he's truly blessed! It's good to be fluent in foreign languages! It would be best if he could learn several more, so that when he grows up, he can come to the Court of Colonial Affairs to serve the imperial court!"

“My lord, you don’t know, Fu Bao’s ambitions don’t lie in the Court of Colonial Affairs! Hmm, I suspect that this kid is not cut out for studying and taking the imperial examinations.”

Before Ang returned, he patted his chest and guaranteed that once Ang came of age, he would lead men to Europe and bring back several vassal states for the court.

"Hahaha, ambition knows no age! A strong youth makes a strong nation! I wish each generation could be stronger than the last!"

Six-year-old Fu Bao had no idea that he had merely made a boast in front of this bearded uncle, which had already caught the attention of Emperor Qianwu of Shangdu.

After that, Emperor Qianwu transferred more than a dozen great Confucian scholars from the Imperial Academy to Guanzhong to promote education.

Patriotic education must start from childhood.

Especially those with impeccable political backgrounds.

They need to be nurtured.

Nurture them properly!