Medicine Girl Jingjing

Chapter 584 Touring the Mountain and Meeting a Little Evil Monk (2)
"Such a good potato has a higher yield than wheat and tastes better. God damn it, I haven't hoeed it once."

"There was a locust plague a few years ago, and so many people died of starvation. If there were a few catties of potatoes, fewer people would die."

The mood of the villagers changed from the joy just now to the incomparable regret now.

Dozens of women cried like Li Zheng's wife, and a few men slapped themselves several times in guilt.

An official who was familiar with Yexing Village saw Li Jingjing's serious face, fearing that she would make the villagers cry, so he knelt down and said, "Princess, Yexing Village is next to the Yellow River. In the past, there was a drought in Jincheng, and the villagers jumped into the Yellow River to irrigate the fields five miles away. , all relying on hard work to keep the wheat in the field. They are not lazy, but they do not believe that sand can grow food."

Another official knelt down and said, "Princess, there was a plague of locusts a few years ago. The sky was full of locusts. They ate all the wheat, vegetables, leaves, and grass. Every family in a village with a radius of [-] miles starved to death at least one person."

Li Yunxiao suddenly realized, and murmured: "No wonder the old lady is so guilty. It turns out that this village has experienced a plague of locusts and the villagers have starved to death."

Li Jingjing thought to herself: The villages guarding the Yellow River in the outskirts of Jincheng are like this, but the villages in the barren mountains and ridges are plagued by drought and locust plagues in turn, and the life of farmers is more miserable than that of Huanglian.

Li Zheng knelt down with red eyes and said, "Princess, Granny Caomin's two younger brothers starved to death during the locust plague that year. Please don't blame her."

"You all get up." Li Jingjing said loudly: "My princess makes a promise to you, as long as you listen to the Longbei government and plant crops well, you won't starve to death even if you encounter a plague of locusts!"

A few days ago no one would have believed such a statement, but now that the sandy soil has a good potato harvest, the villagers of Yexing Village believe it.

Qin Er knelt down and shouted: "The princess is a thousand years old!"

All the villagers knelt at Li Jingjing's feet, and said the same voice with great respect and gratitude, "The princess is a thousand years old!"

The news of the great potato harvest in Yexing Village spread quickly, followed by the good news from the villages in Jincheng, Wuwei, Jinchang, Zhangye, Jiuquan, Yumen, and finally Dunhuang.

As long as the farmers in Longbei planted potatoes, they all went into a carnival.

Dozens of ignorant farmers living in the deep mountains did not believe the words of the Longbei government. They ate the potatoes as seeds before. Now that they heard that the farmers who planted potatoes had a good harvest, they regretted that they had no place to cry. .

The male owner of one household even boiled a few catties of potatoes for seeding in the pot at that time, resulting in a thousand catties of potatoes being missed in the family. Under the great guilt, he hanged himself and left his lonely wife and children.

Lizheng in the village did not dare to hide it, so he had to report this tragedy to the county. The county magistrate summoned all the Lizhengs in the village and asked them to keep an eye on families with the same situation, so that no more people would be killed.

This incident gave farmers hundreds of miles a warning that they must listen to the words of the Longbei government.

An average of 100 to [-] catties of potatoes per mu is produced on sandy land, and more than [-] catties of wheat per mu is harvested in summer, and the output of the former is [-] times greater than that of the latter.

After this data came out, not only Longbei, but the entire Ding Dynasty was boiling.

The officials who were waiting to impeach He Jingyan and Li Jingjing on the basis of potato production were all dumb, and even more than a dozen officials couldn't stand the voice of praise in the court, and lied that they were sick and were resting in the mansion to sulking.

The largest and most authoritative agricultural official in the Ding dynasty——Lin Bian missed the potato harvest, and was so angry that he didn’t eat two meals. He wrote a memorial and resigned from office. go north.

Master Dong Qi is an official in Longbei, and Lin Bi'an thought that if he took him to Longbei to meet Li Jingjing, he would never be turned away.

He Dong thought that Lin Bian was old, and for the sake of his health, he never approved him to go to Longbei, who knew that the old man was so angry that he just quit.

"Sir, Lin Sinong went to Jingniang's place. How do you think he should be invited back?"

Li Bing said slowly: "Your Majesty, do you think that after Lao Lin left, even if he was willing to come back, Jing Yan would let him go?"

He Dong smiled bitterly and said, "Jing Yan has poached a lot of talents from me."

Li Bing comforted: "Your Majesty, you are so sympathetic to Lao Lin that you have not allowed him to leave Chang'an these past few years. He knows in his heart that you treat him well. He is in poor health and went to Jincheng. Maybe Jing Niang can heal him. , live for another few decades, and contribute to the farming affairs of this dynasty."

The melancholy in He Dong's heart was gone, so he decreed that Lin Bi'an's Si Nong was dismissed, and he was canonized as Doctor Jin Ziguanglu, the third-rank prose official, and his son Lin Tiansheng was appointed as Si Nong.

Within a few days, the potatoes from Longbei arrived in Chang'an.

He Jingyan and Li Jingjing gave some to the empress and relatives and friends, and the rest were sold at a high price. Because it was a rare item, it was sold for fifty copper coins per catty, which was actually more expensive than mutton.

Li Jingjing was the first to do it, and arranged for people to buy potatoes from Jincheng villagers at a price of five coppers per catty, and mainly transport them to Chang'an and places south of the Yangtze River for sale.

The merchants behind started a step later, so they couldn't sell it for fifty copper coins.

Li Jingjing planted potatoes on the sandy land and had a bumper harvest. After the great victory in Yumen, Longdi once again made Longdi famous in the Ding Dynasty and even in the world.

These days Li Jingjing is very busy, and He Jingyan is not idle for a moment, leading five thousand tigers to patrol the local army in the fief, and to eliminate the sanctioned army in a big contest.

Since the establishment of the Kai Dynasty and the Ding Dynasty, the biggest enemy of the two dynasties was the Xiongnu Dynasty, and all the most powerful troops in the dynasty were placed in the north.

The army officers and soldiers in the Northland are highly skilled in martial arts and military, and the armor and weapons they are equipped with are also the best.

The army in Longdi is far inferior to the army in Northland. Thirty percent of the military camps stationed on the outskirts of the city are old, weak, sick and disabled, and [-]% are military ruffians who steal, rape and play tricks. Without a little enthusiasm, the whole day is just dawdling.

The Tubo, Xiongnu horse bandits and Huiyi tribe outside Longbei captured the villages of Dingchao every now and then, and even dared to attack the county town and city mansion, because the army stationed in Longbei was too weak to fight.

At dawn on this day, the sky and the earth were extremely quiet, and everyone in the military barracks in the outer suburbs of the Dunhuang City Mansion slept like dead pigs, and even a group of sergeants standing guard and patrolling sat cross-legged on the ground, leaning back to their backs and squinting.

Suddenly, thousands of people roared with murderous intent from all directions, shaking the ground of the barracks.

The Tiger Ben Army pretended to be the enemy and raided the garrison in Dunhuang Mansion. First, they "killed" the patrolling sentries, then tied up dozens of comatose officers, and then arrested all the sergeants. They didn't even let them wear trousers. All brought to school.

(End of this chapter)