Chapter 467 An Account
The discovery of corn is undoubtedly a good thing for Zhou Xu.
Their current staple food in Dazhou is potatoes. Corn can also be counted as a staple food, but it is not the same as potatoes.
Potatoes mainly provide them with carbohydrates, while corn can provide rich dietary fiber.
As long as corn can be grown in large quantities and added to the diet of the people of the Great Zhou Dynasty, it can effectively improve the dietary nutrition in the daily diet of the people of the Great Zhou Dynasty.
In addition, the most important thing is that this thing is good! The output is still high!
For Zhou Xu, who had only expanded his population by recruiting a large number of mountain tribes a few years ago, he came at the right time!
The planting task was immediately assigned to the Minister of Agriculture, Zhao Geng.
After finishing the instructions here, Zhou Xu turned to look at the soldier who presented the corn.
"Thank you for your hard work on this journey. I will reward you with a hundred coins. Shi Lei found out that corn has merit, and will reward you with five hundred coins and a piece of silk."
"Thank you, Your Majesty, for the reward!"
The successful weaving of silk really saved Zhou Xu a lot of trouble in his reward work.
At this stage, silk production is still very small, and it will not be sold on the market at all. If you want to obtain it, you can only get it through Zhou Xu's reward.
This greatly increases the value of the reward.
At the same time, underwear made of silk is far more comfortable than linen and animal skins, which makes it practical and prevents the things he rewards from being useless at all.
After the court meeting, Zhou Xu, who was still unclear about the situation on the front line, continued to work on his rear development. After harvesting the corn, he was in a pretty good mood and even hummed a little tune along the way.
From the time the expeditionary force set out until now, Zhou Xu’s mood can be said to be rarely so light.
Although the battlefield is in the opposite world, from the current point of view, it will not affect them at all. They can develop as usual.
But this is not the case.
Since the expeditionary force set off, the resources of the entire Zhou Dynasty have been tilted towards the front line.
Various departments in the rear, such as the agricultural department and the ordnance department, are providing services to the expeditionary forces.
The tilt of resources directly caused the actual development efficiency of their rear area to be very slow and impossible to improve at all.
Seeing that summer is about to pass and the season is about to enter autumn, there is basically not much development within their big week, which is incomparable to the rapid changes last year.
There is no doubt that this is the disadvantage of war. It has a huge impact on the development efficiency of the rear.
But at the same time, Zhou Xu also knew in his heart that facing the potential threat of the lizard people, he did not have much choice.
In this wave, there were rat men on the opposite side holding back the large lizard man army, which was already a great blessing for him.
Otherwise, based on the lizard man's strength, he would have been forced to abandon many villages long ago and take all the people to take refuge in the mountains.
Once it reaches this point, half of his Da Zhou foundation will be destroyed.
Furthermore, the steep mountain forest environment can only impose certain restrictions on big guys like the armored dragon, and has basically no effect on the lizard infantry or even the velociraptor cavalry.
To put it seriously, the lizard people who live in the rainforest environment all year round will most likely be able to adapt to fighting in the mountain forest environment.
When the time comes, facing the threat of lizard men, it's really hard to say whether he can develop under the pressure while hiding deep in the mountains.
Zhou Xu felt that there was a high probability of being cool. Cheering up and throwing away some unnecessary worries, Zhou Xu, who was in a good mood today, quickly threw himself into a new day's work.
While sending back corn, a newly discovered crop, Shi Lei also asked Zhou Xu for instructions on whether to continue exploring deep into the mountains.
Obviously, there are still places that can be explored in the continuous mountains.
Now it seems that the main component of the fragment of the world they are in is the mountain area! The Gobi and grasslands outside the mountains are actually just a corner of this fragment of the world.
This corner may only occupy one-third or even one-quarter of this fragment of the world. Who can say for sure?
After thinking about it for a while, Zhou Xu approved Shi Lei's request.
Zhou Xu believed that in this fragment of the world, they, the Great Zhou Dynasty, should already be the strongest force, and no primitive tribe could be their opponent.
So this decision is not that risky for him.
Under this premise, annexing other primitive tribes is his current main means of increasing population.
At this moment, for Da Zhou, who needs to continue recruiting troops and more labor force to maintain internal development, the recruitment work must not stop.
As for the method of increasing the population through internal fertility, it has been said earlier that the efficiency is too low. At this stage, it is simply unable to keep up with their pace of development. They will even lose part of their labor force due to childbirth.
This also made Zhou Xu, who was in urgent need of labor, not advocate this.
Of course, he didn’t stop it either.
After all, people in this era, apart from working, eating and sleeping, the only thing they do every day is give birth to children.
It would be somewhat contrary to nature for him to prohibit childbearing in order to keep women in the labor force.
In this way, Zhou Xu has always maintained a let-it-take-it attitude towards this matter.
Before, they had very few women, so this problem was not obvious.
The situation is different now. Last winter, they obtained a large number of women by recruiting other tribes.
Counting the time, almost half a year has passed.
During this period, every village reported that someone was pregnant. The one with the biggest belly right now is probably almost five months old, right?
During this period, just as Zhou Xu predicted, pregnant women experienced a decline in the labor force and lost their labor force, and many miscarriages occurred. The fetuses in the belly were not saved, and some even became pregnant. of women almost died due to miscarriage.
Even in the latest report sent, there is a new case.
Zhou Xu was helpless about this, he had no choice, this was the way it was in this era.
Let alone a primitive era like theirs, even if you develop a few eras later, it is not uncommon for pregnant women to miscarry and their children to die.
Why did everyone have so many babies in the past?
To put it harshly, isn’t it just betting on probability?
If you have three children, one of them will survive; if you have three children, one of them will grow up healthily; if you have three children, one of them will be able to make a living.
If it sounds good, it's called blooming branches and leaves, but if it sounds bad, isn't it just an account?
Sighing, Zhou Xu responded to the report that the pregnant woman had a miscarriage, asking the village chief to send the pregnant woman some food and grant her a period of leave to recuperate.
Materials are consumed, but the labor force is reduced. Why do you think he doesn’t advocate it?
(End of this chapter)