Chapter 148 Reasons for the bumper harvest of crops in southern Liaoning

Chapter 147

Gao Qiqian felt that he was very lucky to have met Cheng Shijie.

In just one year, Cheng Shijie first put down the rebellion of Kong Youde, and then restored the Jinzhou and Gaizhou guards. In February of the fifth year of Chongzhen, he effortlessly regained the Haizhou and Gaizhou guards in southern Liaoning.

Fuzhou Guard.

Under his guidance, Emperor Chongzhen was very satisfied and trusted Cheng Shijie, a courageous and capable employee.

Of course, Cheng Shijie did not live up to his trust, and Cheng Shijie was also a man of great luck. Guan Ning's army spent tens of millions of taels of silver and went through dozens of developments. If he wanted to win a battle that could kill a thousand people, he would have to do it.

very difficult.

As a result, they built tens of thousands of slaves and traveled thousands of miles to Haizhou to sacrifice their lives.

If Cheng Shijie was capable in fighting, that would be fine, but he was even more capable in farming. Now that the Ming Dynasty was full of chaos and the treasury was so empty that rats could starve to death, Cheng Shijie managed to produce such high-yielding crops in southern Liaoning.

Gao Qiqian also tasted the whole potato feast, and tasted more than forty sweet potatoes of various flavors. The taste was excellent. In this case, he looked at Cheng Shijie up and down.

Cheng Shijie was stared at by the eunuch, which made him a little nervous: "Eunuch Gao, why are you looking at Cheng like this?"

"Could it be that General Cheng has some help from gods?"

Gao Qiqian said in disbelief: "Otherwise, how could there be such a high-yielding thing? This kind of sweet potato was also brought to the palace as tribute in the early years. Not only did it grow poorly, but the yield was not very high, and it could not be grown well.

save!"

"How can any gods help me!"

Cheng Shijie smiled faintly and said: "It's just that you use the right method. For things like sweet potatoes, you don't need to pick up the land. As long as you use the right method, you can get quite high yields even in thin fields!"

"How do you know the right way to do it?"

"This is……"

Cheng Shijie originally did not want to take the credit for cultivating high-yielding sweet potatoes, and even wanted to give this credit to Xu Guangqi, thus making Xu Guangqi the god of agriculture in the Ming Dynasty.

But the problem is, it's too late now and I haven't had time to arrange it in advance.

After thinking about it, Cheng Shijie considered: "Back when Fenghuang Mountain was being defended by thousands of households, Cheng was rescued by his servants at the risk of death, and was about to take a boat to Shandong. As a result, the boat capsized during the voyage, and Cheng was holding a large wooden box.

Drifting with the waves, because my fate is wandering on an uninhabited island in the south!"

"Uninhabited island?"

"Yes, it is a small island with only a few dozen acres of land. There is water on it, but there is very little land and there is not much land for farming. Cheng ate sea fish for more than ten days in a row.

Only then did I realize there were some sweet potatoes in the box!”

While Cheng Shijie was thinking about it, he added to the content of Robinson Crusoe and transferred it to himself. Cheng Shijie stayed up late by himself for three years. During these three years, he had nothing else to do, so he just

The sweet potatoes were cut into countless small pieces with a knife.

After a few days, I discovered that these small pieces had actually sprouted. After being planted, these sweet potatoes grew very well.

Cheng Shijie concluded: "After more than four years of exploration, Cheng discovered that sweet potatoes cannot be planted in too hot seasons, and the climate in southern Liaoning is neither cold nor hot. Secondly, strict selection and breeding of seedlings must be carried out.

, just the opposite of ordinary wheat, rice, or sorghum, our traditional crops all require large, plump seeds, but sweet potatoes can only choose small ones!"

"Why choose the small one?"

Cheng Shijie shook his head and said: "Cheng doesn't know, because after the small sweet potatoes are raised, the seedlings will grow well and the fruits will be large, but the larger sweet potatoes will be deformed and smaller, which will affect the yield. The third

The reason is that fertilizers have to keep up..."

At this point, Cheng Shijie suddenly noticed that there were two people behind him who were writing furiously. After taking a closer look, he realized that it was Chen Zilong and Fang Yizhi.

Seeing that it was Chen Zilong, Cheng Shijie asked, "What are you doing?"

"We have always wanted to breed wheat, beans and rice that are cold-resistant, drought-resistant, disease-resistant and insect-resistant, but we have never been able to find a good way!"

Chen Zilong said: "Sir Cheng Jinglue has opened up a new idea for Chen..."

Gao Qiqian turned around and looked at the young eunuch beside him and said, "Have you written down everything Master Cheng said?"

"Replying to my godfather, the child has had the ability to look past his eyes since he was a child. He has memorized everything Cheng Shuai said!"

"Just write it down. Our family also needs to record this situation and compile it into a book and submit it to the emperor. Nowadays, several northern provinces are suffering from droughts for many years, natural disasters are frequent, and food harvests are lost. The emperor is very anxious. If we can follow the instructions

If you grow a lot of sweet potatoes this way, the Emperor will definitely be very happy!"

Unfortunately, the patent law had not yet been promulgated these days, so officials in the Ming Dynasty did not have to worry about being sued for infringing Cheng Shijie's patents. Plagiarism was a matter of course.

Chen Zilong listened to what Cheng Shijie said about choosing small sweet potato seeds, and his mind suddenly became enlightened. They had always been accustomed to choosing the seeds with the largest particles and the best appearance when cultivating seeds. What if they did the opposite?

Since ancient times, there has been an idiom in China that people should not be judged by their appearance. In fact, as early as in the Analects of Confucius, Confucius said: "To win people by their appearance, you will lose their feathers!"

There are many examples of people who cannot be judged by their appearance, such as Zuo Si of Zhigui in Luoyang, Zhong Kui, Pang Gun, and Tantai Mieming in the early Tang Dynasty. All of them are dragons and phoenixes among people, and there are countless examples of gold and jade being defeated on the outside.

Thinking of this, Chen Zilong ran towards the distance like a madman, shouting as he ran: "Thank you, Mr. Cheng, for reminding me!"

Gao Qiqian smiled when he saw this scene.

Cheng Shijie said: "Eunuch Gao, we are not in a hurry. There are several new crops here that will mature and start harvesting recently. Eunuch, you might as well wait a few more days. It's time for Cheng to go to Beijing to report on his work!"

Cheng Shijie's timing was very clever. After the autumn harvest, Jiannu would definitely send troops south. Facing Ning Haijun's harvest of more than 5 million acres of fields, it would be strange if Huang Taiji could sit still. As long as Jiannu moved, Emperor Chongzhen

Cheng Shijie will definitely not be left in the capital.

After two days and one night of harvesting, 120,000 acres of sweet potatoes have been harvested. Using the 120,000 acres of sweet potatoes to calculate the average yield per mu, we still have a yield of 3,700 kilograms.

Sun Yuanhua sighed: "If the storage time is longer, it will be enough to feed a family of seven for a year."

Sun Yuanhua held his chin and pondered, thinking about whether he should find an opportunity to ask Cheng Shijie for some potato seeds to bring back to the area under his control for planting.

Sun Yuanhua did not dare to expect such a high output. With half, no, even one-third, the people under his rule would be able to have enough to eat!

He also wants to learn planting techniques from Cheng Shijie. It’s not like no one has grown this before, but he has never heard of anyone with such a good yield. There must be a lot of tricks here and he must learn it!

Watching Fan Yongdou use 1,600 war horses to buy 6 million kilograms from Cheng Shijie. If the average price of war horses is 20 taels of silver per horse, the price of this sweet potato is equivalent to 187 and a half kilograms for every tael of silver.

.

Of course, Fan Yongdou actually spent only about 10 taels or even 8 taels of silver to buy war horses, so he actually made a lot of money, which is equivalent to buying more than 280 kilograms for every tael of silver.

This price is really not cheap. With an output of 3,700 kilograms per mu, you can earn more than ten taels of silver per mu. This is really scary.

Gao Qiqian and the other eunuchs looked delighted. Cheng Shijie was a very generous man. He would never treat himself badly when eating meat. This time, he would never go to waste.

Naturally, Cheng Shijie would not let Gao Qiqian be a freeloader. Many officials, including Sun Yuanhua, saw the high yield of sweet potatoes and wanted to buy sweet potatoes and take them back to plant.

Cheng Shijie is too lazy to deal with these officials. Let the eunuchs bite the civil servants.

"Eunuch Gao, these officials are just trying to get free food..."

When Gao Qiqian heard this, he raised his brows slightly and raised his lips: "Let's see who dares!"

Cheng Shijie smiled bitterly and said: "The first level of officialdom will crush people to death!"

"General Cheng, you are the biggest in southern Liaoning, and they are the governor...!"

Gao Qiqian said with a smile: "Let's go back and talk to Master Wan about dividing Governor Denglai's jurisdiction over Liaodong. Don't you have the right to do anything expediently?"

"Eunuch Gao, you are the supervisor of the Ning Navy. If they want to get benefits from Liaonan, they must get through you first!"

Cheng Shijie thought for a while and said: "Father, Cheng will let you know the details. The price of the high-quality seeds that shopkeeper Fan bought from here is one tael of silver and one hundred and eighty-seven catties. Of course, the relationship between shopkeeper Fan and Cheng has nothing to do with it."

Can it be compared to the relationship between father-in-law and Cheng? How about the sweet potatoes I have here, one tael of silver can buy two hundred and forty kilograms?"

Gao Qiqian's subordinates were capable, and they immediately calculated the profits and winked at Gao Qiqian, indicating that he could do this.

"As for how much my father-in-law sells...it all belongs to my father-in-law!"

Gao Qiqian smiled slightly: "How much are you prepared to sell?"

"Twenty-four million catties, how about one hundred thousand taels of silver?"

"Too little!"

"Then thirty million catties?"

"Thirty-six million pounds!"

Gao Qiqian silently calculated it. This was a business worth 150,000 taels of silver. Without his capital, if he sold it, he would earn part of it.

After initially reaching a cooperation agreement with Cheng Shijie, the eunuchs under Gao Qiqian actually contacted the officials in southern Liaoning at the first step. Instead, they wrote many letters to the eunuchs in charge of managing the imperial village. The second step was the officials in Shandong in southern Liaoning.

There are also officials from various prefectures in the Northern Zhili Province, and finally the merchants.

Cheng Shijie still underestimated Gao Qiqian's shamelessness and the financial resources of these officials.

In just half a month, Gao Qiqian sold more than 55 million kilograms of sweet potatoes, earning a total of more than 383,000 taels of silver.

In just half a month, I made a net profit of more than 153,000 taels.

Cheng Shijie did not envy Gao Qiqian's ability to make money, because the merchants were actually Gao Qiqian's own resources, and Cheng Shijie couldn't get in touch with the managers of Huangzhuang. If Cheng Shijie went to find them, they would probably ignore him.

Of course, the stewards of the small imperial village could not afford to offend Gao Qiqian. Even if Gao Qiqian sold them a pile of shit, they would still buy it.

This is not because we are not doing business, but because we are human beings.

Many merchants and officials purchased sweet potatoes. Of course, the quantity purchased by these officials was very problematic.
To be continued...