A live-streamed Chinese language lesson under the sky—the ancients were taken aback.

Ying Zheng remained silent before the Xianyang Palace.

Four hundred and seventy kilograms, nine times.

He pondered those two numbers repeatedly, but what surged within him was more than just shock.

The Qin Dynasty was already doing its utmost to support its 20 million inhabitants.

Tianmu said there was no need to go hungry. Based on this ratio, the population of later countries would be at least ten times that of the Qin Dynasty.

What does this mean? It means that Yuan Longping and his comrades not only increased the yield of grain by a few hundred kilograms per mu, but they also shook the foundation of the entire world.

He picked up his vermilion brush and wrote another line on the bamboo slip: "In later generations, China will have a population of hundreds of millions."

It can be raised with a yield of 470 kilograms per mu.

Add another line: Seek agricultural scholars to research methods to increase production.

470 kilograms.

This number hit Liu Che hard, and his breath caught in his throat for a moment.

The yield per mu in the Han Dynasty was only a little over fifty kilograms, more than nine times that of Zhao Guo. (Zhao Guo only took office in Liu Che's later years.)

This is not just a number; it's the difference between one acre of land supporting nine people and one acre of land supporting one person.

This is the fundamental reason why the Han Dynasty was able to conscript so many laborers, support so many soldiers, and expand its territory so much.

He suddenly turned his head to look at Sang Hongyang.

Sang Hongyang was also calculating.

He calculated faster than the emperor: how much would the land tax in Guanzhong increase with a yield of ten shi per mu? How much more military rations would be available in the border regions? How much could be saved in the losses of transporting supplies from Guanzhong to Shuofang?

He calculated faster and faster, and the light in his eyes grew brighter and brighter.

On the ridge of Guanzhong field, Zhao Guo slowly straightened up.

He saw the curve, from seventy kilograms to one hundred and fifty kilograms, and his name was marked at that point in the Western Han Dynasty.

This is a production increase that he is very proud of.

He spent half his life increasing the yield per mu from over fifty kilograms to seventy kilograms.

Then Tianmu told him that in the future, it only took a hundred years to increase the yield per mu from 150 kilograms to 470 kilograms.

He lowered his head, his lips twitched, but he didn't say a word.

After a while, he said to the people around him, "Keep going. Our increased production may not seem like much in the eyes of future generations, but we have to do what we can do well."

Who was that person? Who pushed them over the mountaintop?

A photograph appeared on the sky.

A thin old man stood in the rice field, wearing a straw hat, his face covered with deep wrinkles, bending down to examine a rice plant.

His fingers gently cradled the rice stalks, as if cradling some precious treasure.

"His name is Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice in China."

Shen Moyan paused for a moment.

The classroom was extremely quiet, as was the area in front of Xianyang Palace. Everyone was extremely quiet, whether in the fields of Guanzhong, in the thatched huts of Lishan, under the eaves of Lin'an, or in the Fengtian Hall of Yingtian Prefecture.

"The text we are going to talk about today is about his story."

The author of the text "Delighted to See the Waves of Rice and Millet" is Shen Yingjia, and it is a biographical sketch.

It was a famous news article written in 2001 to celebrate Mr. Yuan receiving the first "National Highest Science and Technology Award".

"Daoshu" refers to rice and beans, while "Qianchonglang" describes the scene of a bountiful harvest where the wind blows through the rice paddies, creating a continuous, undulating wave.

This title comes from a poem by a great man: "I am delighted to see waves of rice and millet, and heroes everywhere as the evening smoke rises."

Using this poem as a title not only depicts the magnificent scene of a bumper harvest of hybrid rice, but also implicitly praises Yuan Longping, this "hero."

Shen Mo's tone became low and somber.

"This text was selected for the textbook in 2016, the year Mr. Yuan was 86 years old."

But by the time we were learning this text, Mr. Yuan had already passed away.

He passed away in Changsha on May 22, 2021, at the age of 5.

It was drizzling in Changsha the day he left.

At the entrance of Xiangya Hospital, someone placed three bundles of rice, covered in mud and raindrops.

What they gave him wasn't flowers, but rice—the thing he knew best in his life.

She looked up and opened her textbook.

"So today when I teach this lesson, I want to go a little slower."

It's not just about studying a biographical article; it's about getting to know a person.

A person who dedicated his entire life to ensuring we would never go hungry again.

At the foot of Mount Li, a Guizhou man who had been eating a wheat cake slowly stood up.

He couldn't understand so many numbers, nor could he decipher that steep curve.

But he understood the way the old man bent down to examine the rice ears.

He bent down like that, checking each millet stalk in the field for insects and for any that had fallen over.

He would straighten the fallen millet stalks, cover them with soil, and care for them like a sick child.

When he did these things, he never thought that he could increase the yield per mu eightfold.

He just wanted this year's harvest to be a little bit better than last year's, so that his children could have an extra bowl of porridge.

The screen above said that the old man had dedicated his entire life to this cause.

lifetime.

He looked down at his hands, which were as rough as tree bark.

He spent his whole life bent over in the fields.

But he never imagined that bending over could yield 470 kilograms per mu.

He suddenly felt a tightness in his throat.

It wasn't envy, but a feeling I couldn't quite put my finger on: that long, long afterward, there were others like him, bending over in the fields.

But that person bent over his whole life, so that countless people no longer have to bend over.

"A biographical feature is a news genre that uses real and specific examples to showcase the character and moral qualities of a person."

When Shen Yingjia wrote this report, he did not use flowery language, but rather a lot of details.

Yuan Longping's figure in the rice fields, his words, and his choices.

Use these to create a realistic and relatable character.

Today, we will start with the details in the text to understand the spirit and qualities of Yuan Longping that are worth remembering.

Shen Moyan opened her textbook, her tone softening.

In the early 1960s, China experienced a three-year period of hardship, with severe food shortages across the country and tens of millions of people suffering from malnutrition.

At the time, Yuan Longping was a young teacher in his early thirties, teaching at Anjiang Agricultural School in Hunan.

He took his students to the countryside for an internship. On the way, he saw an old man who had starved to death lying on the edge of a field, still clutching a handful of withered rice ears in his hand.

The rice ears were empty husks, without any grains of rice.

He later told reporters that he would never forget that hand that held the rice stalks.

She paused for a moment.

"The text mentions that from that time on, the young Yuan Longping made up his mind to devote his life to using agricultural technology to fight hunger."

Inside the Fengtian Hall in Yingtian Prefecture, Zhu Yuanzhang's fingers tightened suddenly on the dragon throne.

He recalled the severe drought in Haozhou, where locusts swarmed and darkened the sky, resulting in a complete crop failure.

He was seventeen years old that year.

My parents starved to death, my elder brother starved to death, and my elder brother's son also starved to death.

He couldn't even afford a simple coffin. His neighbor gave him a piece of land, and he wrapped his loved ones' bodies in straw mats and buried them one by one.

He had never seen a starving corpse clutching ears of rice in its hand, but he had seen the look in his mother's eyes before she died—a numbness that couldn't even express hunger.

He killed countless people throughout his life, including corrupt officials, meritorious officials, and anyone he felt deserved to die.

But he never wasted a single grain of food in his entire life.

His meals were never extravagant; any leftovers from each meal were saved for the next.

Because every time he picked up the bowl, he would think of the time when he was called Zhu Chongba.

As he looked at the photo of the old man squatting in the rice paddy on the sky, and at Shen Moyan saying that he would devote his life to using agricultural technology to fight hunger, he suddenly felt something stuck in his throat.