Chapter 325 Agriculture!
In the era when European town revival in 1200 and had not officially begun, many markets were held in the year.
Even if the frequency is more frequent, it is just a quarterly model, with almost few monthly frequency.
But Baglasburg, a border town in the border region of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, has achieved a monthly gathering.
Farmers in the surrounding villages will come here to sell their respective agricultural products and buy handicrafts from merchants.
Its lively level has only surpassed that of most nearby small towns.
Of course, this kind of excitement will not last long, and when the people who are going to the market disperse, they will return to the lack of popularity again.
In Mohammed's view, this "small town" under Baglasburg will only be a market for a considerable amount of time in the future, and will not be able to fill too much population.
After all, although it is lively here, it is actually impossible to see the need to gather in a while.
After completing a brief investigation of the town, their delegation also embarked on the road to Antioka City under the escort of a team of "militia".
In Mohammed's opinion, the word "militia" is really inappropriate.
In this company that is now traveling with them, perhaps the number of soldiers is less than 120, but the sharp temperament they show and the excellent equipment make people question the original meaning of the word "militia".
Of course, this is indeed the case.
Because the Antioch region directly borders Anatolia, it has long faced the danger of the northern Turks going south to harass.
It is very inappropriate and expensive to prepare a large number of standing troops.
Therefore, regular training camps and ready to gather to siege the militias haunted by nomads are the main body of the Antioch army.
Similarly, because the border areas need to deal with nomads, the governance system of the Antioch Governor's District is also different from the local kingdom.
Under the Governor's Office is the county, under the county is the township, and further down is the village.
However, whether it is a county or a township, you must have your own militia team to facilitate immediate mobilization.
According to later standards, these militias naturally cannot be compared with active troops.
But at the end of the 11th century, even the so-called standing army can be trained throughout the year? Calculated according to the frequency of seven days of training, a year is at best only 52 days of training.
Antioch's rotation training time will definitely exceed these fifty-two days per year.
In addition, since the Antioch Governor's Office and the Antioch region were controlled, only 30% tax was imposed, and the agricultural output increased caused by the popularization of various agricultural technologies, the nutritional level of the people in the Antioch region has been directly raised to a higher level.
At least in Mohammed's view, these so-called militiamen are not fat and strong, but at least they have a solemn spirit when they are placed there and they have a chain mail.
Just a glance can make people feel that they are real soldiers, not civilians who pretend to be soldiers.
Moving forward with such a unit is naturally a different experience.
In addition to their mission, these militias actually had another responsibility, which was to escort the merchants who came from Antioch to hold a rally back to Antioch to avoid the dangers they might encounter on the way.
The merchants are not surprised by the existence of militias. It is not the first time they meet or the first time they have been with each other.
But at the same time, they are not particularly familiar with it. They are more like fulfilling certain obligations and responsibilities, which is the effect of the system operating.
It can be seen that this was not a whim, nor was it a arrangement made specifically to take care of their mission.
There was not much trouble along the way, but as we advanced all the way to the southwest, the number of surrounding rural areas began to increase at some point, which also means that their huge team has entered the essence of Antioch.
When night fell, the militia led the caravan and the delegation to a township government station, which was warmly entertained by the local government.
It was in this village that Mohammed met Reims, the governor of the Antioch Governor's Office.
In September, the scorching sun hangs on the sky, the golden sun shines on the earth, and the vast fields are dyed into a brilliant golden yellow.
However, Lance was with many farmers, waving his sickles to harvest the famous Syrian wheat.
When Lance noticed Mohammed and the others, he did not pretentiously, but chose to put down the farm work in his hands and come to greet him on his own initiative.
When I first met Reims, it was hard for Mohammed to imagine that a person who was no different from a powerful Emir in status could be so amiable.
Lance, who was originally a little rich, has been losing weight after Antioch for so many years, and often has a smile on his face.
It is hard to imagine such a person who issued the most exile or death orders in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Yes, Lance's reputation for rule over the Antioch region over the past decade was enough to move Assassin and others.
All kinds of nobles who tried to disobey his policies, or those nomads who tried to rob, the former was exiled and the latter was executed directly.
There may be more than a thousand people sentenced to death by his hand.
In actual contact with people who act so fiercely, Mohammed felt that the other party was easy to talk to and could patiently answer all kinds of questions.
For example, Mohammed noticed that the "fallen land" on Antioch was unique, and then Lance, who was the governor, was very easy to understand, and answered his doubts with professionalism.
Before using fertilizer in large quantities, most of the time and most areas will inevitably face the problem of excessive consumption of land nutrients.
After all, the ancients did not understand nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. If the ground capacity is insufficient, agriculture will reduce production.
In order to restore the ground force, the land can only be kept from planting crops for a period of time to restore the ground force, which is called fallow.
Falling can restore land and store organic matter while retaining moisture, while temporarily removing hosts can also disrupt the life cycle of pests and pathogens in the soil.
In the early years, this fallow was usually a second-cultural rotation in the first-class Mediterranean region of Europe, which is a 20-acre (120-acre) land of serfs. Only 10 acres are planted each year, and there are ten acres. They just put nothing there to make them grow grass.
This is actually very inefficient.
Therefore, between the 9th and 11th centuries, people began to transform into the three-cultural system.
In the three-beds, the arable land in a manor or village is divided into three fields, one of which is planted in winter wheat or rye in autumn; the second field plant other crops such as peas, lentils or beans; the third field is fallow (not planted). Cereal crops consume nitrogen on the ground, while legumes can fix nitrogen, thereby fertilizing the soil.
Falling fields quickly grew weeds and were used to herd farm animals, and their excrement fertilizes the soil of the fields to restore nutrients.
Crop cultivation is rotated every year, so every field is planted for two years in every three years.
This somewhat complex model undoubtedly requires a certain large-scale agricultural coordination capability and mutual assistance. If you cultivate alone, it is relatively risky.
Therefore, the manor economy was strengthened during this period.
The unexpected occurrence of Gerris further promoted the process.
The Sipe system, which originally appeared in the early 16th century, was launched three hundred years in advance and was facilitated to be piloted in the Transjordan area ten years ago.
Now that the talent reserve is sufficient, it has begun to promote it to various regions under the rule of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Whether it is the second or third garden system, Mohammed has a little understanding of the fallow land.
But this "fallow" in the Antioch region is a little wrong. Because on those cultivated lands, weeds did not grow randomly, but all of them grew a kind of "weed" that Mohammed had not noticed in the past.
"What is this?" Mohammed was a little curious.
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"Three-leaf clover."
"Grass?"
"Yes, we planted grass specially."
Reims answered Mohammed in this way, and the merchants who walked with him showed with their actions what the grass was used for.
The merchants in the caravan each came to this "fallow" land with their own horses.
Then the beautiful and majestic horses gentlely lowered their heads and began to chew the forage on the fallow land.
Although the expression of the horse is difficult to understand, the horses like the taste of this grass very much because of Mohammed's instinctive feeling.
"I told the price with the farm here. They paid the forage for the past two days, and we had to pay a certain amount of silver coins."
A businessman on the side added, of course, he didn't have much money to pay, because in addition to silver coins, their caravan also paid another kind of reward to this cultivated land, namely the feces of livestock.
Mohammed was not aware that the land management method, from the original extensive model, has become increasingly pursuing efficiency, which is itself one of the characteristics of the agricultural revolution.
This pursuit of efficiency is not similar to the intensive cultivation of the Celestial Empire, and in essence it does not rely on the investment of manpower to increase production.
Instead, it is more "scientific" to distinguish the work content.
Take the UK as an example. In the early 16th century, people still implemented extensive management of the forage on villages or manors, relying on the weather to make a living.
But starting from the 17th century, the English gradually transplanted crops such as clover to fallow land, combining them with the Sanpu rotation system.
In addition, Britain had already begun to cultivate livestock at that time. After a stable supply of forage, mutton could be produced by land that could not produce economic benefits.
At that time, Beckville even called the "Inuit sheep" he had bred "a machine that turned grass into mutton."
And the farm they are in is a four-bed system, which goes a step further.
It first divided the thousands of acres of land on the farm into four parts: Plot one: planting wheat or rye, Plot two: planting radish or beets, Plot three: planting barley or oats, Plot four: planting clover or alfalfa.
The crop of Clover was deliberately introduced by Gerris from Spain with the help of Arab merchants.
Therefore, it is actually normal for Mohammed to not recognize this "weed" before.
After all, the Spanish have only "just" to domesticate clovers for two hundred years. For people in other regions, this is still a novel crop.
In these four gardens, wheat or rye is the main food crop, providing food for people; radishes and beets are mainly used to feed livestock, and partly for human consumption; barley or oats can be used to brew beer or feed livestock; as for legumes such as clover, nitrogen fixation, and livestock provide feed.
It can be said that nearly half of the land on this farm produces crops that have nothing to do with staple food.
This farming method seems to provide not much staple food, but it can convert a large amount of land nutrients into protein, providing sufficient meat for the militia.
As a legume, clover has the effect of fixing nitrogen. While eating radishes, clover and even the stems and leaves of various crops, livestock can also produce a large amount of manure to supplement land nutrients, so as to increase soil abilities and increase grain yield.
The Sipu system is based on the Threepu system, and takes advantage of the opportunity to fallow, and plant crops such as clover, alfalfa, radish, and hemp.
Although crops such as radish, alfalfa, clover, etc. cannot be directly turned into human staple food, they can quickly restore ground abilities while falling down and provide additional protein output.
Mohammed spent some time and gradually understood the farm's farm's farming method.
When he heard about the output of wheat planting on this land, he couldn't help but open his mouth and grin, and was quite surprised.
After all, the wheat yield per unit area on this land is almost 1.5 times higher than the arable land near their Masyaf Castle.
This is just one aspect of the superiority of Antioch, and the other hand, simply turning the land cultivation method into a four-crop rotation system will not actually increase the output of staple food, but will instead reduce the output of staple food.
The real advantage of four-crop rotation is that it can get more output with fewer farmers, and in addition to obtaining staple food output, it also provides a large supply of meat.
These meat supplies meet the physical consumption needs of farm workers and can also be used to make the militia stronger.
This unified change of crop planting on large-scale land determines that the unique self-cultivated farming families are difficult to complete.
During the period, the characteristics of different crops and the coordination of production tools all require a relatively systematic management team with certain professional skills.
This is also why Garys or Lance are trying to transform a manor that originally had certain collective production characteristics into a more systematically managed collective farm.
As far as Gerris knows, many people have some misunderstandings about the production model of collective agriculture.
The so-called collectivized agriculture is actually inconsistent with the intensive farming model and may not be compatible with the opposite.
(This chapter ends)