Go back to the Ming Dynasty to be a thousand households

Chapter 262 Sweet potatoes are not as good as wheat?

It snowed a few days ago, making the courtyard of the General Military Mansion a little slippery and wet, but Steward Yang has ordered his servants to clean up the courtyard, shovel off the snow, and sprinkle some fine sand on the bluestone boards to make the courtyard clean. Freshen up.

In this kind of cold winter season, Huang Laifu, who was cheering from front to back, led some servants back to the general's mansion in Wuzhai Fort. Everyone was naturally happy to meet each other.After entering the hall, wives, concubines and children flocked up to see him. Huang Laifu hugged Gu Yunniang first, and said with a smile: "Young lady, you don't have to be polite, come, let me give you a kiss!"

While Gu Yunniang was happy and angry, Huang Laifu also said to Liu Yumei, Meiyue, Liu Huan, and Qu Xiuhe: "Come on, second wife, third wife, fourth wife, fifth wife, come here and let me kiss you. hehe!"

Amidst the shy reproaches of the girls, Huang Laifu laughed out loud, feeling very relaxed, feeling like a happy family.And the girls are also sweet in the center of embarrassment.Perhaps some men of the Ming Dynasty disapproved of Huang Laifu's lack of respect and dignity, but in private, many women in Wuzhaibao or other military fort counties were very envious of Gu Yunniang and others, and husbands like Huang Laifu knew about it. Know how to be interesting, know how to love others, this kind of life is interesting.In fact, the Huang family is very eager for Huang Laifu to come back. Every time he comes back, he always makes people relaxed and happy, and brings a lot of laughter to the family. The children also like Huang Laifu very much. Unlike many families with many rules, they are strict and lifeless. .

After Gu Yunniang was coquettish, she ordered her servants to prepare hot water for Huang Laifu to bathe and change his clothes. After cleaning up, Huang Laifu sat back comfortably in the hall. Seeing some flowers in the hall, he looked around again. He couldn't help being curious and said: " Ma'am, where did these flowers come from? There are such flowers in winter."

Gu Yunniang smiled and said, "I don't know, but it was grown in a paper house in a greenhouse in the suburbs. It's thanks to Director Han and the others. Do you like it?"

Huang Laifu patted his head and said: "So that's the case. Of course my husband likes it, but my wife still cares about it!"

When Gu Yunniang heard this, she couldn't help smiling. With her husband's praise, all the fatigue disappeared immediately. She asked Huang Laifu, "Sir, what are you going to do when you come back this time!"

Huang Laifu smiled and said, "Look at you guys!" He stretched out his hand, held Gu Yunniang's little hand and said, "There are other things to do!"

In fact, Huang Laifu came back this time to set up a magic game. He felt that his expenditure was getting bigger and bigger, and he needed to open up more and more sources of income.Right now, Huang Laifu has done all the things that can make money. It is said that no work does not make you rich, so Huang Laifu turned his ideas to technology. Many inventions are very profitable, so Huang Laifu hopes to mobilize the people to come up with some profitable things.

However, he has a lot of work to do every day, even if he has a lot of relevant scientific and technological materials, how can he have so much time to do these odds and ends? It took Huang Laifu so much time and energy to make a cement back then. Now he is the general manager. Soldiers, it is even more impossible to spend precious time wasting on these things.Furthermore, he didn't want to interfere too much with the scientific inventions of the people of Ming Dynasty, but also wanted to let nature take its course and see how far Ming's science would develop.So this strange skill bureau that encourages folk inventions came into being.

So he held Gu Yunniang's little hand and explained.Seeing Huang Laifu being so affectionate, and seeing Liu Yumei, Qu Xiuhe and other women watching, Gu Yunniang was a little shy, besides, she was the mistress of the mansion.However, he still let Huang Laifu hold his hand.In fact, to be honest, Gu Yunniang likes Huang Laifu just like that. In the past few years of marriage, Gu Yunniang has become more and more infatuated with Huang Laifu.

The more she got in touch with Huang Laifu, the more she felt that Huang Laifu was mysterious, as if he knew everything.Gu Yunniang was also a little strange. Huang Laifu was not like this before. At that time, he was rough and uneducated, which made Gu Yunniang very annoying. She didn't expect Huang Laifu to change so much after returning from his travels.After the two got married, Huang Laifu not only became more and more promising, but also became more gentle to his wife. Many times, his unintentional but considerate and loving gentle actions always made her feel sweet and happy. She also enjoys this feeling very much.

Huang Laifu was talking with everyone, suddenly a servant hurried in and said a few words to Huang Laifu, Huang Laifu was overjoyed, he stood up all of a sudden, and said: "Ah Zhi is back?"

It's not easy to make Huang Laifu change his face like this, everyone immediately looked over.Gu Yunniang said: "Sir, who is Ah Zhi?"

Huang Laifu smiled and said: "Lady, you will know later!"

Soon, one person was brought in, seeing Huang Laifu, his eyes turned red, he fell heavily on the ground, knelt down and kowtowed to Huang Laifu, tears welled up, and cried: "Master...!"

Huang Laifu happily helped him up, looked at him again and again, and said, "Azhi, you have been away for several years, and you are finally back!"

The man in front of him was about 24 or [-] years old, with a resolute expression, his face was covered with wind and frost, and his face was pulled out by the cold wind. He was wearing a leather robe, covered with wind, snow and dust, and he looked like he had experienced many vicissitudes.Huang Laifu looked at him, and said with emotion: "You have worked hard these past few years, have you traveled a lot?"

Gu Yunniang asked suspiciously: "Sir, who is this?"

Huang Laifu smiled and said: "Lady, let me introduce you. This is Ah Zhi, who used to be my servant. A few years ago, I sent him to Fujian and Guangdong to look for high-yielding crops. He didn't hear from him. I didn't expect to come back now." !"

Ah Zhi knelt down and kowtowed to Gu Yunniang, saying: "Ah Zhi kowtows to Madam."

Gu Yunniang accepted a gift from him and said with a smile, "Get up, you have worked really hard these past few years!"

Ah Zhi stood up, couldn't help being excited, he looked at Huang Laifu, and saw that the young master had changed a lot, and his majesty was increasing day by day.A few years away, Azhi also heard a lot of rumors about Huang Laifu. When he went out, Huang Laifu was still a savior. He didn't expect that now he is the commander-in-chief. He has a lot of power in his hands. He couldn't help feeling that the young master has changed too much.

Huang Laifu asked Ah Zhi to sit next to him, and asked him some things about him in recent years. Ah Zhi also talked about his experiences and knowledge abroad in these years. Collecting various crops, he memorized the various crops that Huang Laifu asked him to collect, and he didn't come back until he had collected them all. He planned to bring back seeds of various crops such as peanuts, potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, and tobacco.

And he also talked in detail about a scholar surnamed Xu he met when he was in Zhejiang. He seemed to be very proficient in farming, and he wanted to sort out some of the same things as himself, studying potatoes, sweet potatoes and other things.Talking about this scholar surnamed Xu, Ah Zhi's words were full of admiration.And his rich experience also made everyone in the audience listen with gusto.

Huang Laifu asked suspiciously, "A scholar with the surname Xu?"

With a flash of inspiration, he thought to himself: "Could it be that this person is Xu Guangqi, a great farmer in the late Ming Dynasty?"

After talking for a while, Ah Zhi asked Huang Laifu to take out his luggage and showed some of the seeds inside. He said with a smile: "The young one once talked with Mr. Xu, and during his conversation, he was very impressed with the achievements of Wuzhaibao and the young master. Admiration! Some of the seeds I collected are thanks to Mr. Xu." Speaking of this, he felt a sense of pride in his words, his young master is well-known in the south of the Yangtze River, and as a subordinate, he is naturally happy.

Huang Laifu chuckled, he was also quite proud to be affirmed by Xu Guangqi, an agriculturist in the late Ming Dynasty. After a while, Azhi hesitated and said: "But Mr. Xu also said that the seeds collected by the young master are in the northern land. It may be difficult to survive!"

According to Azhi’s recitation of Mr. Xu’s words, after sweet potatoes were introduced to China from fanland, the planting effect in the south is not bad. Many people in Fujian and Guangxi rely on them to save hunger. Mr. Xu also believes that sweet potatoes and other crops are some good crops for famine relief, and he intends to introduce them to the north .

But here, he encountered great difficulties. When he was hiding the seeds, he planted potato vines in wooden barrels from Putian, Fujian. After the spring warmed up, the wooden barrels were transported to the Yangtze River for planting.Repeated several times, repeated failures in winter storage.It is so difficult to introduce sweet potatoes from Lingnan to the Yangtze River Basin, let alone to the north.The introduction failed, not to mention the planting survived, and the people depended on it to save their hunger.

Hearing this, Huang Laifu suddenly realized a problem. In the past, he only thought that sweet potatoes and other crops were high-yield crops that could live countless people, but he ignored that in this era, the varieties of sweet potatoes and other things are not perfect and cannot meet the requirements of the Northland. Compared with the fine breeds of later generations.It should be known that sweet potatoes themselves are temperature-loving crops, which require higher temperatures throughout the growth period and are extremely sensitive to low temperature and frost.The sweet potatoes of later generations are carefully bred varieties, so they can survive in the north.

The current sweet potato seeds have not yet bred corresponding seeds. When planted in the north, the survival rate is not high, and the yield may not be higher than that of wheat and rice. After all, the latter have been cultivated for thousands of years and have seeds that are very suitable for the geographical climate.Huang Laifu remembered that there was a civil unrest in Shanxi in the late Ming Dynasty, which was the result of officials forcing sweet potatoes to grow.

There are also seeds such as potatoes, peanuts, and tobacco brought back by Azhi, which is the same problem.In the north, there are no good varieties, and it is not easy to promote them. Huang Laifu remembers that in the west, potatoes were introduced in the early fifteenth century, but people have long regarded them as ornamental plants. King Louis XVI of France also let The queen put potato flowers (potatoes) on her head as a decoration, even when there was a famine, no one used him as food.

It was not until the eighteenth century that potatoes became one of the foods of the people at that time.This is 300 years later.The main problems are, first, people's doubts about new things, and second, the potato varieties were not good at that time, and the yield was not high, which could not meet the demand, so it could not be promoted.The situation in Daming is the same. If you want the common people to believe that this is a good thing, you must show the advantages of the good thing. Huang Laifu decided to breed both first. In the future, if you breed a variety with good adaptability, you can live countless people.

This is also the case with peanuts, which were introduced to China in the middle of the Ming Dynasty.Peanuts have been listed in the products of Jiajing's "Changshu County Chronicles", but the oil yield is not high at this time, not as good as flax and other oil crops.As for tobacco, maybe the fate will be better. Huang Laifu remembers that after tobacco leaves were introduced to China in the Wanli period, they were first planted in Fujian, Guangdong and other places, and then quickly spread throughout the north and south, such as Jiaxing.Emperor Chongzhen once ordered that tobacco planting was strictly prohibited, and violators were punished with death, but it still could not stop the expansion of tobacco planting, because planting tobacco could make huge profits, and one mu of harvest could rival ten acres of farmland.A powerful temptation for farmers.

Of course Huang Laifu knew that this tobacco leaf was a good thing, and if it was widely planted, it would be a source of wealth.He pondered in his heart, no matter what, in the future, the north and south of Ming Dynasty will definitely grow sweet potatoes, potatoes and tobacco leaves on a large scale.But now we should introduce and cultivate them first, and then we can plant them on a large scale after we have adapted good ones.And after Ah Zhiyong came back, Huang Laifu felt more stable in his heart. With good and high-yield crops in the future, Daming's future was guaranteed.

(End of this chapter)