I will make Qin Shi Huang immortal in the Great Qin Dynasty.

The locals immediately knelt down.

Men, women, young and old, all knelt down.

Their bodies were lying face down on the ground, their foreheads pressed against the dirt, and they were making strange, indistinct noises, babbling and wailing, completely unintelligible.

Some people were trembling, some were crying, and some were desperately kowtowing, their foreheads covered in mud and bits of grass.

"What are they talking about?" Ying Zheng frowned slightly and turned to look at Qin Tian.

"I don't know," Qin Tian said honestly. "Anyway, they're either nice things or begging for mercy. It doesn't matter if I don't understand them."

Meng Yi placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, scanning his surroundings warily.

The eight soldiers quickly spread out, protecting Ying Zheng and Qin Tian in the middle, with their long spears facing outwards and their swords drawn, ready for battle.

Although these indigenous people appear short and thin and pose no threat, their military instincts compel them to maintain the highest level of vigilance in any unfamiliar environment.

Ying Zheng didn't look at the kneeling natives much. His gaze passed over the low thatched huts and landed on the endless green vegetation in the distance. Then he looked back and swept over the interior of the thatched huts.

"Grand Preceptor, where is that rice you mentioned?" Ying Zheng got straight to the point.

His purpose in coming was very clear.

He didn't come to observe the people's conditions; he came to see the rice.

What exactly is that magical crop that yields three harvests a year and produces huge quantities?

Qin Tian strode toward the nearest thatched hut.

When the indigenous people kneeling on the ground saw him approaching, their bodies trembled even more violently, and they prostrated themselves even lower.

Several timid children started wailing, but their mothers quickly covered their mouths, leaving only sobbing sounds.

Qin Tian ignored them.

He bent down and crawled into the low thatched hut, his eyes scanning the inside.

The interior of the thatched hut looked even more shabby than the exterior.

The bed was made of dry grass and leaves spread on the ground; in the corner were some earthenware jars and bamboo tubes, which were probably cooking utensils and dishes; on the wall hung some unidentified animal hides and dried meat, which gave off an unpleasant smell.

Then he saw a small pile of golden grains in the corner, each grain plump and covered with a yellow husk.

Qin Tian walked over, squatted down, reached out and grabbed a handful of grains, placed them in his palm, and handed them to Ying Zheng.

"Brother Zheng, this is rice."

Ying Zheng took the grains and examined them carefully in his palm.

He first looked at it with his eyes. The grains were longer than millet, pointed at both ends, bulging in the middle, with a smooth and hard outer shell covered with a layer of fine fuzz.

Then, rub the grains between your fingers; they feel heavy and moist, indicating they are freshly harvested.

Finally, bite it with your teeth. The outer shell is hard, but once you bite it open, you'll see white rice grains inside with a faint, pleasant aroma.

"Once you remove the outer yellow husk, you'll find rice inside. Rice is one of the most important grains for humans in later generations. When steamed, it's fragrant and soft, much tastier than millet rice." Qin Tian's tone carried a hint of nostalgia. "You don't need to throw away the outer husk either. You can crush it and feed it to livestock. Chickens, ducks, pigs, and sheep all love to eat it."

Ying Zheng held the bitten grain of rice in front of his eyes, looked at it again and again, and then carefully put it into his sleeve.

He accepted it very carefully and solemnly, as if he were accepting a priceless treasure.

It is indeed a treasure.

A new staple food means that the empire's food security is further guaranteed, and hundreds of millions of people have more choices for their food supply. In the event of a famine, the people of Qin will not starve to death because they have no food to eat.

"Can we take these rice grains back with us?" Ying Zheng asked. His gaze fell on the pile of grains, his eyes greedy like a wolf that hadn't eaten for three days seeing a fat sheep.

"Of course." Qin Tian nodded with a smile.

He raised his right hand, and Yuan energy surged from his palm, slowly weaving in the air.

Those invisible elemental forces were like living threads, intertwining one by one to form a semi-transparent bag that was almost invisible to the naked eye.

With the bag open, Qin Tian gently waved his hand, and the grains in the corner seemed to be lifted up by an invisible hand, flying into the Yuanli bag without leaving a single one.

The bag, neither too big nor too small, held about two bushels of grain and floated bulging beside Qin Tian, ​​like a loyal dog.

"Is this enough?" Ying Zheng glanced at the bag, then at the empty floor in the corner.

"That's enough," Qin Tian said. "Taking it back is just to show the samples to the court officials, to let them know that this stuff exists. Rice cultivation is more complicated than millet and sorghum. There's a specialized set of agricultural techniques involved in paddy fields, seedling raising, transplanting, and irrigation. Right now, no one in the Great Qin knows how to grow this stuff, so taking more back wouldn't be of any use."

Ying Zheng nodded thoughtfully.

"When the Qin army comes to this area, we can take over the rice paddies here. We can plant, harvest, and supply the army with rations on the spot, which is much more convenient than transporting grain from the country thousands of miles away. It's not too late to promote it on a large scale then."

A hint of approval flashed in Ying Zheng's eyes. The Grand Preceptor not only understood cultivation methods, but also the art of war and the art of governing a country.

Before large-scale implementation, small-scale trials should be conducted first, and frontline troops should solve their food problems locally instead of relying on long-distance transportation from the rear. These are all extremely pragmatic and wise ideas.

"Let's go, to the next place." Qin Tian clapped his hands and stood up.

The group took off again.

This time, the direction is west.

India's plains are more expansive than those of Southeast Asia.

From the air, the entire Indian plains resemble a vast green carpet, stretching from the foot of the Himalayas in the north to the sea in the south, boundless and flat with almost no undulations.

The rivers are more densely packed than in Southeast Asia. The Ganges, the Indus, and countless tributaries form a vast network of waterways that fragments the entire plain.

Those rivers flow down from the snow-capped mountains, carrying large amounts of silt and minerals. They flood, deposit, change course, flood again, and deposit again on the plains. Millions of years of repeated erosion and siltation have created one of the most fertile alluvial plains in the world.

Ying Zheng stared intently again.

It's not that he lacks experience, but rather that what he has seen today is far beyond his imagination.

Starting from Daqin and flying south, you'll see dense tropical rainforests and plains with well-developed water systems.

Flying westward, one sees an even wider, flatter, and more fertile plain.

Why is the land south of the Qin Dynasty so fertile?

Why is the land west of the Qin Dynasty so fertile?

Why is the land of the Qin Dynasty not as fertile?

A complex emotion welled up in Ying Zheng's heart.

He once thought that the Qin Dynasty occupied the best land in the world, with the Guanzhong Plain being fertile and the Sichuan Basin being a land of plenty, and the Central Plains having abundant land. These were the assets he was proud of.

But look at these places now, what is the vast fertile plain of Guanzhong compared to that?

Their plains stretch as far as the eye can see, easily spanning thousands or even tens of thousands of miles.

What is the "Land of Abundance" in Sichuan and Chongqing?

Their rivers are even more numerous than the Dujiangyan irrigation system, so there's no need for manpower to build water conservancy projects; nature has already arranged everything.

"They all belong to me," Ying Zheng said firmly, gazing at the vast plain beneath his feet.

He wasn't expressing a wish, but rather stating a fact.

These lands, these rivers, these plains, from this day forward, belong to him.

It isn't now, but it will be in the future.

If not in the future, then his descendants will be.

In short, one day, this land will be adorned with the black flag of the Qin Dynasty and inscribed with the characters of the Qin Dynasty, becoming an inseparable part of the Qin Dynasty.

Qin Tian's lips twitched slightly upon hearing this, but he remained silent.