Three Kingdoms: A Million Soldiers Grown from the Fields

Chapter 29 Military Preparations (Please continue reading)

The newly reborn Peach Blossom Spring is a scene of bustling activity.

The able-bodied men and women followed the village guards, led by Huwa, to build houses, using mud and dry grass for walls and thatched roofs.

A little further from the construction area are 180 acres of dark brown cultivated fields, where Zhang Xian is driving an old ox to plow. Behind him are a dozen children, each with a ceramic jar, burying seeds in the ground.

He has now split open all the pumpkins grown in his farmland and used all the seeds inside for planting in other fields.

However, the seeds from eight pumpkins would amount to at most five or six hundred, which wouldn't even fill one mu (approximately 0.16 acres) of land when used for cultivation in the outer fields.

But that's alright, it's fine to plant one acre as an experiment first.

He plans to cultivate these 180 mu of cultivated land in rows, dividing each mu into two rows, one for beans and the other for millet.

He plans to plant sorghum on the other 180 acres of wasteland after it has been reclaimed.

There's no other way; the virgin land can either be used to grow nitrogen-fixing beans, or it can be used to grow sorghum, which will produce some yield even if left unattended.

However, in this era, sorghum was not called sorghum, but "Shushu". In the past, not many farmers grew it, but due to frequent droughts and floods in recent years, Shushu has become widespread in northern Jizhou and other places.

Because this crop can produce a certain amount of produce regardless of drought or flood, unlike millet and wheat, which can yield nothing if a major disaster strikes.

Zhang Xian hesitated several times before finally deciding to plant it.

Although planting beans can improve soil fertility compared to millet, beans are less profitable.

He plans to use these 180 acres of millet to open up new avenues for wealth.

Half of it is used to boil syrup when it is half-ripe, and the other half is used to brew wine after it is fully ripe.

Sugar and alcohol are arguably the two fastest ways to make money in this era.

Only with money could he buy more land and support more people.

Now, half of his level-two farmland is used to grow sorghum. Although he knows that sorghum can be used to make sugar and alcohol, it's just a vague impression.

The wine itself is relatively easy to handle; the key issue is how to make the sugar.

We can only try it little by little.

The old ox bellowed, and once it started, the others joined in.

The Guo family bought about ten oxen for plowing. Because the area was in the north and not too far from Dai County, the price of cattle in Jizhou was not expensive. Each ox cost only 5000 coins, which was worth about two and a half acres of wasteland.

However, thanks to these ten oxen, Taoyuan was able to cultivate nearly 140 mu of fertile land in seven days.

Each person and one ox can cultivate about two acres of land per day.

It's not exactly fast, but it's still much better than the vast majority of farmers who can only cultivate the land manually.

These 140 mu of cultivated land have now been sown with bean and millet seeds. The children from Taoyuan help with watering every day, and they are quite busy.

After seven days of recuperation, the villagers of Taoyuan have improved considerably and are now able to eat dry rations.

Zhang Xian was not too harsh on them when it came to food, treating them the same as a normal farmer's family, with one breakfast and one lunch a day.

In the morning, we had a thick millet and pumpkin porridge, like rice. In the afternoon, we added water and some rice to the pot of porridge we cooked in the morning to make a soup-like porridge that was half dry and half thin.

Paired with the pickled chili peppers he had prepared beforehand, it was enough to meet his daily labor needs for the time being.

The farmhands ate with him, three meals a day: wheat cakes, pumpkin pickles, and eggs, with the occasional chicken soup.

poor.

They're still poor. But only Zhang Xian is saying they're poor.

"Brother Xian! I'm back."

As the old ox led the children to cultivate the last dozen or so acres of fertile land, Zhao Yun rode his horse back from the direction of the small mountain village.

The Taoyuan houses now number nearly ten, and if they weren't so close together, they would already resemble a village.

The children from the small mountain village have now all lived in Peach Blossom Spring and become true protectors, but Zhao Yun and Xiahou Lan have not yet; their skills still need to be taught.

So each person would stay in Taoyuan for a day and then take turns going back to Tongyuan, a small mountain village, to study.

Today, Zhao Yun has come again, but this time he is not alone on horseback; he is driving a carriage.

He pulled the carriage straight to the edge of the field, then jumped off the carriage and waved to Zhang Xian with a big laugh.

"Brother Yun! I've missed you so much! You're finally here again. I don't feel at ease without you around."

"Haha, Brother Xian is teasing me again. You're not thinking about your foolish brother, you're clearly thinking about these things!"

As he spoke, Zhao Yun lifted a corner of the tarpaulin on the carriage frame, revealing a hint of sharpness within.

"He got you everything you asked your master for; they were all good stuff that the county garrison had returned!"

"Ten hardwood spears, ten ring-pommel swords, ten leather-covered round shields, six longbows, and one hundred clusters of iron arrows (each cluster contains 12 arrows)."

"That's all. Master said you're not very brave but have big ambitions. You can't just openly buy crossbows, can you? So we didn't. We replaced them all with longbows for infantry."

As Zhang Xian listened, his sense of security gradually increased. Although he didn't have a powerful crossbow, a bow would suffice.

He first thanked Tong Yuan, and then asked, "So many things, it must have cost a lot."

Zhao Yun nodded: "It is indeed a large sum. The 90,000 coins you left at home have been almost entirely used up. It was only after Master personally went to persuade you that we were able to get this money."

"Good, good, it's good that you've spent it all. Keeping it won't generate any more money. We should thank Teacher Tong even more."

Zhang Xian didn't feel the slightest bit pain about the expense, which was thanks to the Guo family and Tong Yuan; otherwise, ordinary people wouldn't be able to obtain the military equipment under the jurisdiction of the county magistrate.

Judging from the pristine condition of the weapons on the vehicle, they were probably brand new, never even handled by the county guards.

At the current price of three or four hundred coins for an ordinary spear, this batch of military equipment only cost eighty or ninety thousand coins, so he really got a good deal.

That makes sense, though. New things are rarely used by ordinary soldiers; it's more common to use old things that have been around for several years or even more than a decade.

"Now that you're here, Lan-di should be heading back soon."

Zhang Xian patted the dust off Zhao Yun's clothes.

The latter nodded and said, "That's right. He has to go back soon, but Master Tong said that Alan has been a bit lax lately, so he will only be allowed to come over once every three days from now on."

"But Brother Xian, you don't need to worry. Alan's martial arts skills still need some time to be honed, but I don't need to. Master Tong said that I can just go back once a month to check them out."

Zhang Xian smiled helplessly: "That's all we can do."

He pointed to the bustling construction site and said, "From now on, the guards will have a stable instructor."

"Brother Yun, you'll be in charge of training the guards, but you must be patient. You can't expect everyone to be as gifted as you."

"Not everyone in this world can be like you; you have to temper your temper."

"Don't worry, Brother Xian, I thought about this a lot before I came."

(End of this chapter)