Today is Han Huzi's first day at work at the Daming Railway Construction Company. He wears work clothes made of newly issued labor cloth and a wicker safety helmet. He carries a pickaxe and works hard to dig soil on the street.
His ancestors have been farmers in Texas for generations, planting crops with their faces facing the loess and their backs turned to the sky. However, in the past two years, there has been no rain at all. Seeing that the seeds planted have not sprouted, the year's harvest has been ruined.
The whole family had no choice but to escape from the famine. On the way out of Texas, he heard someone say that he could find a way to survive in Beizhili. There was a lot of construction work there to build reservoirs, dams, roads, and railways. There were also many mines recruiting miners.
There are many workshops recruiting workers.
The whole family rushed to the north. After traveling for a few months, it turned out that the situation here was indeed better than the surrounding areas. They did some odd jobs to keep the family from starving to death. They went all the way to the south of the capital and heard that the capital was recruiting a lot of people recently.
A month ago, their family came to the outskirts of the capital in ragged clothes. Seeing the scene here, the whole family opened their eyes wide and couldn't believe it. The crops in the fields here have been harvested, and the neat wheat seedlings in the fields are the stubble after harvesting.
.Indicates that this place has not been affected by drought. The harvest of the land is very good.
In some places, cattle are being used to plow the land, and winter wheat will be planted soon. After asking around, I found out that there are no farmers in the land for hundreds of miles around the capital. The land here belongs to the nobles in the capital. The manor is connected to the manor. There are many.
Some of the royal palaces were the fiefdoms of princesses and clans.
Some were the estates of the princes and uncles. Some were the land of the civil servants of the dynasty. A very few were the estates of big businessmen. These people also had extremely powerful backers. Many of them were the white gloves of the civil servants.
There is no rain in other places, but there are many machines and fires in the fields here. Many tenants are filling in firewood, mainly straw. The machines are rumbling, and a pole is moving up and down.
A machine that pumps out groundwater and uses it for irrigation.
Seeing an old farmer in tattered clothes pumping water for irrigation, Han Huzi couldn't help but asked: "Brother, what does this pumper do?"
The old farmer knew that he was a refugee who came to Beizhili looking for work. His family also came from Shandong the year before last. He worked here as a long-term laborer on the manor of the Chengguo family, and the family was able to earn a living.
Listening to the familiar accent of his hometown in Shandong, the old man asked Han Huzi and his family to sit down, and asked the old woman to bring out a few bowls of boiling water so that the family could have a rest.
Han Huzi's family quickly thanked them. Although society in the late Ming Dynasty was in chaos and bad people were everywhere, there were still many kind-hearted people. They received a lot of help along the way.
Han Huzi and his wife have three sons, two daughters, and my wife. One of their three sons is 13 years old, one is 11 years old, and another is eight years old. Their two daughters are five years old, and one is still alive.
Breastfeeding. Being carried on my wife's back.
"He escaped from Texas, right?" the old man asked.
"Yeah, judging by your accent, you must be from Texas."
"Yes, our family also moved here from Wuqiao Town, Dezhou City, Jinan Prefecture. (During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Wuqiao was under the jurisdiction of Dezhou City.)" The old man was very happy to see the fellow villagers, and continued: "Old woman, put the sweet potatoes roasting in the pit
Bring me a basin, this is from our hometown."
Han Huzi didn't know what sweet potatoes were, so he watched the old woman bring a pot of black pottery, each one as big as a large lotus root, covered in ashes by the ashes of the stove pit.
The old man saw that Han Huzi and his family were afraid to eat, so he smiled and picked up one by himself. He kept flipping it with his left and right hands. He blew it with his mouth to cool it down. He patted it down to see if there was dust on the outside. He broke it off with his hands. Suddenly, the golden candy remained.
The sweet potato was broken open.
A sweet smell came out.
The eyes of Han Huzi's children almost burst out with fire. They stared closely at the golden and amber honey flowing on the sweet potatoes. They had not eaten since last night, and the family planned to share the food with each other in the evening.
Half a wheat bran cake.
The old man smiled and distributed the sweet potatoes to several children. Although it burned their mouths and made them scream, they still ate them hungrily.
The old man handed it to Han Huzi again, one for each of his wife and his mother. They were all older.
He ate it with big mouthfuls. After finishing the sweet potato, he licked all the honey juice on his fingers.
Han Huzi smiled sheepishly, raised his hands and asked, "Brother, what is this sweet potato for? Why is it so delicious?"
The old man said: "This is a new type of crop brought by Uncle Dingyuan from America. It is drought-resistant and has high yield. It is said that the yield per mu is over a thousand kilograms. It is the best thing to use to survive famines. But no one believed it. Uncle Dingyuan gave it to him
Honorable ladies, I have given you a batch of seeds. But no one is willing to use good land to plant this. If the yield is not good, wouldn’t it be a waste of good land?”
Han Huzi nodded and said, "Yes, no matter how big the landowner is, he would not dare to take good land and plant random things."
"The great steward of Cheng Guogong sent all the sweet potatoes to us. I took some and planted them on the edges of the fields, on ditches, and in the cracks of stones. In the autumn, I saw that some were dead and some were alive.
The yield of this thing is indeed very high, one plant weighs more than ten kilograms. However, there must be water, and it will not survive without rain. The plants are planted next to the water and the ground is irrigated. Although I did not water it,
By irrigating the ground with water, the soil moisture is not bad."
Han Huzi said: "It would be great if our hometown in Shandong had something like this. We wouldn't have to go out to escape famine. This thing requires very little water. You can even use a ladle to water the ground. The yield is so high that it can be enough for a family to fill."
I’m full. It’s a pity that Uncle Dingyuan didn’t promote this thing in Shandong.”
The old man said: "I think the crops around Gyeonggi Province have a good harvest this year. Someone will continue to try planting next year. It will gradually be promoted to other places."
Han Huzi nodded and said: "This is a good thing. Uncle Dingyuan has done a great thing by promoting this drought-resistant and high-yielding crop. Brother, I saw you light a fire for this thing, and this thing can draw water out of the ground."
.What is this."
The old man said: "What is this thing called? What kind of steam engine is Newcomen's? There is also that round thing called a water pump, which is specially used for pumping water. This set of things combined can pump water to irrigate more than 500 acres of land a day.
.When there was a serious drought some time ago, this thing kept pumping water day and night, watering one side of the more than 7,000 acres of Zhuangzi's land, thoroughly watering it. The wheat in other fields was withered, and only this part of the land was watered.
There will be a good harvest of wheat in autumn. I heard that Duke Chengguo’s government has said that it will buy another hundred steam engines next year to turn all the fields into irrigated fields."
Han Huzi asked: "Is this expensive? The farmers can afford it."
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Please remember the domain name of this book: .Novel about Strange People of the Republic of China