Chapter 64 Summer Planting
The important affairs of the country lie in military service and sacrifice, but in the eyes of all the common people, this is all nonsense.
Only the ribbons pursue passionate wars and luxurious sacrifices. The common people know that there is only one big thing in life.
That’s food!
Therefore, after Zhang Chong finished fighting the battle and recounting his achievements, the first thing he did was to take his troops and prisoner camps to a few docks outside the mountain to help plant millet.
Summer has arrived, and it is the time to plant millet. It is related to farming, and Zhang Chong does not dare to slack off even a little bit. As the saying goes, "People mislead the land for a while, and the land misleads the people for an autumn." After a little rectification, he handed over the general affairs to Duman. , and then led everyone down the mountain.
Previously, after a series of high-intensity battles, Zhang Chong successively eliminated Zhang Suo's tribe in Diaotiao Mountain, seven Gongsun tribes in Wangqinfeng, and seventeen Zhou Zaoshan Lao tribes.
After the war, statistics showed that a total of 2,000 Dingkou were captured, of which 1,200 were brave. These were the brave warriors among the people of Mount Tai, and they were elite soldiers that could be considered among the entire Han Dynasty.
In addition, there were forty-six leaders of two villages and sixteen Shanliao, including Na Changxi and Yu Jin, who all surrendered.
Yes, Yu Jin also surrendered to Zhang Chong.
At first, Zhang Chong was naturally shocked when he heard that the man hunted by the Shanliao people was called Yu Jin.
He never expected that one of Cao Wei's five best generals, who was also Cao Cao's number one general with a foreign surname, would kneel in front of him and ask for surrender.
Zhang Chong recalled it carefully and thought that the first time this person appeared on the stage of history was as one of the 20,000 Taishan soldiers recruited by Bao Xin, the powerful Taishan hero. Later, Bao Xin was attacked and killed by Qingzhou Taiping Road, and this person belonged to Cao Cao. Then he rose to prominence through military service.
According to this, it is reasonable for Yu Jin to be a Taishan bandit. Otherwise, how would he know Chang Xi, who is also a Taishan bandit.
After accepting Yu Jin, Zhang Chong was also a little happy. After all, it was the first time that a historical heavyweight joined his army. It was worth being happy. When he was happy, Zhang Chong rewarded Yu Jin with a big cloak and asked him to work hard.
Yu Jin is also full of bitterness, what can he do!
When he was hunted by the Shanliao people, he felt bitter when he saw that the Shanliao people only wanted a good meal. He thought that I, Yu Jin, was the leader of fifty thieves and was only worth a few bushels of corn.
sad.
And when the man named General Shi asked him if he was willing to surrender?
He was angry in his heart, but he replied in a strange way:
"Wish to surrender!"
Gongsun Qi is dead and he is still alive, so he will follow Gongsun Qi to death? It can't be like this.
Gongsun Qi's martial arts career is over, but his journey to the ban has not yet begun.
Therefore, it is not shameful for him to surrender to Jin, right?
At this moment, Zhang Chong was listening to the instructions of his father, Zhang Gouzi, on the field ridge of Heshibi, forty miles north of Wangzhou Peak.
"Even though you are leading thousands of people now, you think it's amazing. When it comes to farming, you are still a male! Come and see how I do it!"
After saying that, Zhang Gouzi picked up the hoe and dug it into the ground skillfully.
He taught Zhang Chong while planing:
"The soil dug out will be piled up into ridges. Don't look at this small step, it is wonderful! Otherwise, your ancestors would not have secretly imitated their old Zhang family.
That year, in order to secretly learn this skill, Qin Zuweng crouched beside the fields all night and taught the three brothers all the work in the fields, but he was not exhausted to death.
Let’s not talk about this anymore. Come on, let me tell you what’s wonderful about this.
You see, now a furrow has been plowed, and we will put millet seeds in this furrow later. When the time comes, the millet seeds will germinate into crops.
But this grass is most afraid of the wind, and will fall over when it blows, and the ridges of soil we piled on both sides are just the right protection for the young grass from the wind. Do you think it's wonderful? ”
"Wonderful!" "There's something even better! Look, we're planting millet in the ditch now, right? When we plant beetroot later, we'll plant it on the ridges. Look, it won't hurt in one round of planting like this. Land, isn’t it wonderful?”
"Wonderful!"
Now Zhang Chong really feels that this method is good, because the beauty of this method is that it does not increase the workload, but can increase the yield per mu through coordination, so why not!
Zhang Chong was not a farmer in his previous life, nor had he cultivated land, but he knew that if he wanted the people to have enough to eat, there were two ways to do it, one was to increase the yield per mu, and the other was to increase the cultivated area.
Zhang Chong has been spending time with his father these days and knows that in this era, methods such as composting and planting rotation can be used to increase the yield per mu. But the effect is not ideal!
Zhang Chong asked his father, and he said it was because what he was growing was not good enough. If he planted wheat as he did before, he would get half as much as if he planted millet, and twice as much as if he planted rice.
Zhang Gouzi recalled to Zhang Chong that the best days when he was a child were the days when his family grew wheat, but it is a pity that he can no longer do so.
Zhang Chong asked why?
Zhang Gouzi said what else could be the reason, lack of water.
This kind of wheat requires more water than growing millet, but where can they get the water? In the past, there were water conservancy ditches built by the official temple, but no one took care of them anymore. They had to go all the way to Pitang to get water. After all this trouble, they could not get wheat.
Moreover, even the pond was later surrounded by Zhang Hong and his family, who said they wanted to raise fish and would not provide water to everyone. Or you can use water, and pay ten shi of grain to their family every year.
Therefore, Dasangli switched to planting millet. Although the yield is not high, it can grow in dry land. It is a good life!
Zhang Chong understands, the root lies here:
When the country is strong, water conservancy projects are built to allow more people to use water. But once the country declines and there is no money and food to maintain public water conservancy projects, it will be difficult for the people to use water. In this process, powerful people can monopolize water resources because of their power. , to carry out secondary exploitation of the poor people.
After thinking about this one, what about the second one, increasing the area of cultivated land?
This also has some dilemmas. First of all, if you want to increase the farming speed of Yiding, you must rely on oxen and horses.
After all, if you have to cultivate more land by yourself, how much more can you plant if you work so hard!
But the cost of raising cattle and horses is not low. It even requires more food than raising people. This is not something every household can do.
In addition, despite the fact that there were only 50 million people in the Eastern Han Dynasty and there was a lot of land, the contradiction between man and land was not tense.
But in fact, most of the population in this world is concentrated on both sides of the Yellow River. This place is prosperous, but the land is no longer enough.
On the contrary, the vast south has fewer people and fewer people. The feasible idea is to let the people from the north go south to develop, and the subsequent population explosion in the Tang and Song Dynasties will depend on this.
But this kind of immigration does not just rely on the spontaneous formation of the people. Let’s not talk about where to eat and drink along the way. It is said that there is no food in the first year of land reclamation. Without food storage, they cannot survive for a year.
This is also the reason why the poor people on both sides of the Yellow River would rather starve in their hometown than leave for the south. Therefore, this kind of large-scale project can only be led by the government.
At this point, Zhang Chong seemed to have grasped the general trend of the world.
There are six characters for peace in the world, which are "Destroy the powerful and equalize the land."
There are also nine characters for governing the world, which are "promoting water conservancy, selecting good seeds, and opening up the south."
The former reshapes production relations, while the latter improves productivity. Only by combining them can we break the historical cycle of the Little Ice Age.
At this point, Zhang Chong felt that he had thought it through.
(End of chapter)