The busy farming season of summer double-tracking has passed so dullly. Time has entered July in a blink of an eye, and it has survived the hottest days.

Whether it is the areas controlled by the court or the areas controlled by the thief, they all pay attention to restoring production in peace, otherwise they will starve to death on a large scale in winter.

The thieves in the 13th year of Chongzhen have not generally shouted the slogan "The King of Chuang will not pay food when he comes", and the fifth camp of the Left is not considered to be from the Li Zicheng faction.

They all know that food must be planted by the people in their occupied areas. They cannot support so many people by robbing alone, and they cannot support the war.

After more than a month of persuading farming, the green seedlings in Qizhou, Huangmei and other places, lotus roots sprouted and taro began to sprout.

Many swamp wetlands that were originally lazy to take care of by the locals also tried their best to make full use of the teachings of Suhu farmers brought by Shen Shuren.

Especially around Qi County, the lotus ponds and swamps that were directly managed by tenants from the Shen family were also placed in some Southeast Asian, Indian and even East African fish fry that Chen Shuren had just obtained from Zheng Chenggong a few months ago, plus some foreign chicken and duck breeds from India.

The maritime business routes in the late Ming Dynasty were already very developed, and European colonists had been traveling routes from East Africa to India and then to Southeast Asia for hundreds of years.

Although the Zheng family has run a few times, they can find some heroes and pay a lot of money to lead them, so they can also travel to Southeast Asia and India. Therefore, it is completely natural to obtain these species.

Chen Shuren also pays great attention to the pace of project coordination and arranges the priority of these reproduction work to be lower than that of summer double-tracking. Only after the busy farming is over, the free season will be arranged.

Breeding animals do not require seasonal climates like growing crops. They can be raised all year round, so there is no missed farming time.

The number of these alien species is still very small. Even if Zheng Chenggong sent nearly ten sea boats to various places to help Shen Shu people search for them and finally got them back alive, there were only more than a hundred live fish of each species.

Bringing freshwater fish back across continents has always been the most challenging transportation problem in ancient times, because it is necessary to set up a closed cabin in the sea boat and put it in freshwater for feeding. You have to dock every ten days and find a port to exchange for freshwater. There may be a lot of water quality changes, so you must fish it out and throw it away in time.

In short, Zheng Chenggong should have spent a lot of resources in the past six months. Sometimes a large sea boat can transport thousands of fish with fresh water, and in the end, only two or three hundred fish survived.

Fortunately, these fish will also produce roe on the way. The roe can be stored in the water of the cabin for a long time, and after returning, they can also raise some of them slowly.

Compared with fish, poultry such as Indian chickens and ducks have much higher survival rates. Those brought back by sailing for several months can survive several years. When the Zheng family merchants were looking for colonists to purchase, the mother poultry tried to choose the eggs that lay, so that part of the eggs laid on the way back could retain the hatching activity.

Because of the sparse number, the Shenshu people did not let local poor farmers raise them, but first gave them all the tenants from the Shen family's direct lineage to them carefully breed them—

Of course, even if you raise it to death, it is actually not completely helpless. At least Zheng Chenggong was very careful. When he asked someone to get these varieties back, he had already bred on his own in Fujian.

So even if all the Shen Shuren are raised to death, they can go to Fujian in a few months to get a batch of seeds.

The tilapia fish retrieved from East Africa and the Basha fish from Southeast Asia, which can survive in freshwater and low-saltitude salty water, soon survived tenaciously in the lotus ponds and taro grains around Qi County.

These two types of fish generally grow faster, produce high meat, and have fewer fish bones. They are also the most suitable species that people with sunken trees can get.

Others, such as the Longli fish in South Asia, although the meat is better than that of Basa fish, it can only be raised on the coast, and there is no way to inland freshwater. After Zheng Chenggong got the Longli fish, he mainly raised it himself in Fujian, and the part that was given to the Shenshu people could only be raised in Chongming County, the coastal area of ​​Suzhou, and it is not popularized in Huangzhou.

The Qingjiang fish native to the Americas cannot do it for the time being to cross the Pacific Ocean to transport live fish back in fresh water, and the Spaniards cannot do it either.

At the same time, the Indian large XIONG chicken, which has some of the later generations of white-feathered chicken paternal genes, also began to be breeded freely in the forests of farmers around Qi County.

(It is a chicken with a very thick chicken breast and a high meat production rate. It is close to the white-feathered chicken in terms of its meat structure. However, without the rapid growth genes of the later white-feathered chickens that grow in six weeks, it still needs to be raised for several months or even half a year before it can grow. During the same period, domestic native chickens will have to be raised for one year.)

Seeing these strange-looking chickens, ducks and live fish, local officials and squire were skeptical at first. After a few months, they saw that Chen Tongzhi was able to support him and seemed to grow fat quickly, and they all began to convince him.

"The talent of the adults to persuade farmers is no less than that of Xu Ge Lao and Song Changgeng back then. The subordinates admire him. This is really omnipotent." After Zhao Yunfan and Jiangcheng, two magistrates, personally visited the "demonstration farm" of Chen Shuren, they exclaimed from the heart.

Chen Shuren did not show off his airs and sincerely released his kindness:

"As parents, you can do more things for the people, and do as much as possible. This is the duty. As long as you make it clear to the gentry below, work together with me to overcome difficulties, don't stare at the little bit of profit, everyone will be happy in the end.

I happened to have a few of the earliest batch of old hens here, and I can no longer lay eggs. In just a few days, I killed the gentry in the surrounding three counties to have dinner, so that they could know who would cooperate with the government, so I would give these good varieties to them first."

Although there is no protection of patents and biological varieties in this era, these high-quality varieties will eventually spread to the people for free. But now there are still fewer numbers, and there is still a big difference between who gets first and who gets later.

If you can grow high-yield crops and breed high-yield poultry and fish one or two years earlier, you can make a profit first. I believe anyone with a discerning eye knows what to do.

...

The day when the Shenshuren holds a banquet in Hongmen was finally scheduled for July 15th, Zhongyuan Festival.

The gentry from all counties in Huangzhou received notification five or six days in advance and rushed to Qi County to listen to the instructions of Tongzhi.

Of course, these gentry would not be eager to see the new Tongzhi occupying the deserted fields of the gentry, or forcibly levied military rations to help donate. On the way to the banquet, everyone naturally formed a group to inquire about the news from each other.

On July 13th, the Wharf of Huangqikou Town at the mouth of Qishui River.

Several teams of ships from Huangmei, Guangji and other counties in the south came to the dock one after another. Many well-dressed and luxurious gentry got off the boat and lingered in the town to rest, but were not busy entering Qizhou City.

Qizhou City is on the bank of Qishui, about twenty miles upstream from the mouth of Qishui River entering the Yangtze River. Huangfengkou Town is a relatively prosperous trading town nearby, and river transportation is replaced here.

If it is a normal day, freight merchants will stop at Huangqikou and wait for loading and unloading. Passengers will usually enter Qizhou City directly. Anyway, they are only twenty miles away, so they will be able to walk a few more steps after being tired. There is no need to spend the night in the town.

But the situation today is very different. Yuan Zhongyi, a gentry who had just arrived in Jiangxi, took his servants to get off the boat at Huangqikou Wharf. He noticed that the inns in the town seemed to be full, and passers-by were stranded here, but he was not in a hurry to enter the city.

"It seems that the gentry in various counties in Huangzhou are a little confused and dare not go directly to meet the new Tongzhi. Are you planning to meet here first and make a speech?"

After all, Yuan Zhongyi is a tax-free major who has fought with the government for many years, and is very experienced in this area. Seeing that the inns in Hekou Town are full, he immediately judged that everyone was afraid of moving forward.

He sneered and slowly rode his horse through the town. Before he could walk a few steps, he was immediately surrounded by acquaintances who emerged from inns on both sides of the street.

"Young Master Yuan! You're here. This year, I heard that the new Tongzhi Chen was going to collect the farm left by the fleeing gentry and rent it to the left-behind tenant farmers for free. How should this matter be handled? Everyone is counting on your leader!"

"That's right, Mr. Yuan is righteous. If it weren't for your family's support of the prefect Yan last year, our fields would have been white-bred by those mud legs. You have to make the decision for us. Whatever you say, we will do it all depends on your decision."

It turned out that this young master Yuan Zhongyi and Yuan were from Jiujiang Prefecture, Jiangxi Province on the other side. The local prominent family members were all in the three prefectures at the junction of Huguang, Jiangxi and Nanzhili. All the farms were exempted from taxes using family fame and fortune. The total area was definitely more than the court's laws.

Of course, if only a few Jinshi, Juren, and rich in land, then the Yuan family would not have been so popular with the gentry in Huangzhou. His family obviously had other backgrounds.

This Yuan Zhongyi had a distant uncle named Yuan Jixian.

Two years ago when Xiong Wencan recruited bandits, Yuan Jixian was appointed as the deputy military officer in Hubei, and was responsible for the defense of Xiangyang, De'an and Huangzhou governments—

The big cake painted by the Ministry of Personnel for Chen Shuren is that if he could destroy Liu Xiyao and Lin Yangcheng, his Huangzhou Tongzhi could be transferred to the prefect and appointed as the deputy commander of Hubei military personnel. Therefore, this position happened to be on the future rise of Shen Shuren and had great power in the local area.

The current Huanggang County, the prefecture of Huangzhou Prefecture, was built during Yuan Jixian's term. Yuan Jixian defeated Ma Shouying, the most powerful in the fifth camp of the Gleashu at that time.

Last year, after Zhang Xianzhong rebelled and Xiong Wencan was imprisoned, Yuan Jixian was also implicated at the beginning.

Fortunately, after Yang Sichang took office, he realized that Yuan Jixian was able to use his talents, so he transferred him to the Western Front to be responsible for the Yunyang and Xiangyang defense zones, which made De'an and Huangzhou empty. The new prefecture Yan, who had only worked for half a year, was taken over by the bandits in Huangzhou.

In the late Ming Dynasty, the imperial examination families in Jiangxi were very powerful because there were many Jinshi from Jiangxi, and they were also very experienced in occupying tax-free land.

This Yuan Zhongyi was behind the imperial examination gentry in Jiujiang, and also had a distant uncle who had just been a high-ranking official in De'an, Huangzhou two years ago. He wanted to resist taxes and plunder more tenants, so of course he had to follow his lead.

After seeing everyone's statement, Yuan Zhongyi was also very calm and promised: "Don't worry, no matter what the new Tongzhi is, he can't ruin the laws of the court and the gentry is decent.

We don’t cheat the court, but the court rules that allow us, so we will definitely get a lot of money! Otherwise, any foreign official will think that our Jiangxi gentry is easy to bully!"

"Young Master Yuan is mighty!" Everyone saw him speak generously and instantly had a backbone.

For a moment, the gentry either helped Yuan Zhongyi lead his horse or invited him to drink, and gave him the best guest room in the town to ask him to stay, and carefully discussed countermeasures together.

Of course, one must clarify here that Yuan Zhongyi's actions were not clear about Yuan Jixian's distant uncle. According to "History of Ming Dynasty", Yuan Jixian was a loyal minister of the Ming Dynasty.

In history, when Zuo Liangyu was treasonous, he was sent by the Southern Ming court to persuade Zuo Liangyu to surrender, but in the end, Zuo Liangyu died of illness. His son Zuo Menggeng surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and tied Yuan Jixian and presented it to the Qing court. Yuan Jixian did not surrender and was killed by Dorgon.

It can only be said that many ministers with integrity in the late Ming Dynasty had no choice but to be greedy for money. At that time, almost everyone was greedy. According to the salary of the Ming Dynasty, if there was no other legal source of income, it would be impossible to support a large family if they were not greedy.
Chapter completed!