Liu E has never been a short-sighted woman. On the contrary, she has been in the palace for a long time, and her political acumen is unmatched by ordinary people.
In her eyes, these yellow potatoes are no longer potatoes, no longer food for people to eat, but a good way to maintain their reputation.
The yield per mu is more than 3,000 kilograms. How many acres of land do these potato farmers outside Tokyo have? Thousand acres!
She was deeply shocked after receiving the joint statistical data from Sinong Temple and Sansi. Especially after seeing Fan Yong checking the numbers over and over again with trembling hands, she understood the significance of potatoes to the Song Dynasty.
A total of 3.28 million and 715 kilograms, more than 35,000 stones of potatoes. It’s no wonder that a mature and steady Third Commander like Fan Yong would sometimes be so excited that he trembles. This number is too scary.
.
This was just the yield from the summer harvest. If the autumn harvest was included, how much would it be? If all the land outside Tokyo was planted with potatoes, how much would the yield be? She couldn't imagine it.
The reason why we purchased these potatoes at a high price is because other places are in urgent need of food!
Every year, food is in short supply on the four roads of Sichuan and Shaanxi, and taxes are heavy, so many farmers flee into the mountains and become mountain people. The population loss is severe. If the imperial court reduces taxes in Shuzhong, it will worry about too many people in Shuzhong.
Being too powerful and increasing taxes will also drive people into chaos.
Therefore, the imperial court suppressed the Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces almost to death every year, not only not forcing the people to rebel, but also squeezing them out of much wealth.
Why are there so many merchants in Shu? Before she was forced, Liu E knew that this was a strategy to tire the people since Taizong.
But now her opportunity has come, the opportunity to win over people's hearts has come. The price of food in Shu is extremely high every year. The price of food per stone even exceeds 500 Wen.
This year, news came from Chengdu Prefecture that heavy rains have fallen in central Sichuan since spring, and there are frequent flash floods. The grain output will definitely be greatly reduced. The government has been requested in advance to provide relief and reduce taxes.
This is almost incomprehensible to Shu, which is often called the land of abundance, but Liu E knew that most of the food in Shu was monopolized by large households, and the backing of these large households was largely related to the imperial court.
Liu E knew very well that this was the policy of the country. The terrain in the middle of Shu was extremely dangerous and easy to defend but difficult to attack. Once the food was abundant, the merchants who left Sichuan could earn a lot of wealth. If one day there was chaos in the middle of Shu, the imperial court would probably have to spend more money to regain control.
Retake the middle of Shu.
But this does not affect his opportunity to be kind to Shu. After all, the people in Shu are still the people of the Song Dynasty. It is naturally a good thing to lend a helping hand and provide food at this time.
There is a shortage of food in Shu, but as long as the court transports enough food, it can curb the possibility of rebellion due to lack of food. In this way, transporting food to Shu every year will not only make money for the court, but also curb Shu. Wouldn't it kill two birds with one stone?
!
Potatoes were purchased for two hundred and fifty dan per dan and sold to Shuzhong for 400 dan. This price was already very cheap compared to the grain price of 500 dan and dan in Shuzhong.
Thirty thousand shi of potatoes would take two months or even longer to arrive in central Shu. In order to ensure that central Shu could survive the famine, Liu E issued an order to exempt Chengdu and nearby affected prefectures from summer taxes, allowing them to temporarily survive the famine.
, when the food from the imperial court arrives, it will naturally solve the urgent need.
Although 30,000 kilograms of potatoes are not much, it can greatly reduce the need for other grains!
These are just potatoes grown on a thousand acres of land. If there were more land to plant potatoes, what a spectacular sight it would be during the autumn harvest. Thinking of these, Liu E would laugh out loud in her dreams.
Liu E and Zhao Zhen left with satisfaction. The whole way back to the palace was filled with cheers from the people. The shouts of "Long live, long live" spread throughout the city of Tokyo. The auspicious things were planted in the land outside the city as quickly as possible.
The speed spread throughout Tokyo.
Zhuangzi outside Tokyo finally got the improved potato seeds from Sinong Temple. Liu E decreed that the land outside Tokyo was no longer restricted and he could grow potatoes by himself.
In the eyes of everyone, potatoes are a high-yielding crop and the basis for making a fortune. Only after Ye An returned home, he asked Puhui Company to prepare to purchase other grains besides potatoes.
Although potatoes are high-yielding and one of the alternatives to traditional grains, who can eat potatoes every day?! Wheat and rice are still staple foods!
The traditional food of the Chinese people is still rice and noodles. It is simply unrealistic to rely solely on potatoes to supplement carbohydrates without these things.
Ye An had never thought of using potatoes as the main ration. On the contrary, they were used as supplementary food, and potatoes could not replace the role of rice and noodles in addition to the ration.
The increase in potato production will inevitably lead to the decrease in rice and wheat, and many things are inseparable from these basic grains.
The most common way is to make wine. Traditional wine is almost all grain wine brewed from rice and sorghum. Although potatoes can also be used to make wine in later generations, it is not popular, let alone this era.
The emergence of potatoes, a high-yielding food, will inevitably lead to farmers planting them in large quantities, not to mention those official families who own a large amount of land. These families will plant potatoes and sweet potatoes in the land after the summer harvest to wait for the large harvest in the autumn.
On the contrary, ordinary farmers who had already planted potatoes and sweet potatoes started to plant wheat and rice in the fields under the guidance of the agricultural officers. The reason is very simple. Successive planting will reduce the yield of potatoes and sweet potatoes. This is better than anything else.
All principles apply.
Potatoes in Yangcheng County were also harvested, but Ye An did not let the potatoes be transported to Tokyo. Even if they could be sold at a high price, Ye An did not want to make the money. Instead, he stored these potatoes in the cellar.
stand up.
The city of Tokyo is currently celebrating a festival, and everyone knows how much potato production there is. Thousands of kilograms of grain produced per acre is already frightening.
As soon as they received the news, Dangxiang and officials from the Liao Dynasty's post office in Tokyo rushed to the outskirts of Tokyo to have a look. They were shocked when they saw the potatoes as high as a hill.
The population of the Song Dynasty was already large, and with such high-yielding varieties, they simply could not imagine how large the population would be in the future.
And under this situation, how can Dangxiang and the Liao Dynasty be the rivals of the Song Dynasty in the future? Apart from other things, the army always needs people. The army also needs food, right? That is the bulk of the cost of using troops, but these potatoes only need
It can be eaten after being roasted, and with a little salt, it will make the food even more appetizing. This greatly solved the problem of military rations for the Song people.
The Dangxiang and Liao Dynasty officials who were stationed in Tokyo were not stupid people. They had already started their endless "imagination" the moment they saw potatoes.
But the more I thought about it, the more I became afraid. The Song Dynasty spent a lot of money on disaster relief grains every year. If we had these high-yielding grains, we would save a lot of expenses. Where would this money be used?!
It must be military affairs! The Song people have always been afraid of the Liao Dynasty. This fear came from the failure of Taizong's three Northern Expeditions, which also led to the birth of the Song people's "fear of insufficient military forces."
They would spend their money on military affairs, and the year-by-year increase in the number of imperial troops in the Song Dynasty is the best proof.
But this will also lead to fear among the party members and Liao people...