Xu Yuan did not reveal what the new weapon was specifically, but said that it would be known after a while.
After the seamless steel pipes, processing machine tools, potassium nitrate, sugar and other equipment and raw materials he purchased from Modern Society all arrive, he can gather a group of craftsmen to carry out the next step of the work.
Before that.
The recruitment of village guardian team members can be carried out. The recruitment quota of 1,000 people will be selected within the scope of 11 manors. Priority will be given to those with good families, those who are honest and honest, and those with families. In addition, the minimum monthly salary for the village guardian team is 10 yuan.
The salary is silver dollars, and there is plenty of meat and fish every day. Even if the training is harder, there is no need to worry about not being able to recruit people.
"It's the owner of the village. I'll recruit all the people first and conduct basic training for three months. When the new weapons are in place, the combat effectiveness will be formed soon."
Zhao Yang nodded and saluted.
…
The inspection of the Police Training Department has ended.
Arrange the recruitment of 1,000 new team members to protect the village.
After handling these matters.
the next period of time.
Xu Yuan's focus is on the spring plowing work in each manor, and he personally participates in the deployment. He must invest all available resources before May to complete the spring sowing of all lands.
Because food is the most important thing for the people, food security issues are at the top of all issues.
As long as there is enough food, enough people can be fed.
With the surplus grain, a large number of poultry and livestock are raised to obtain enough meat, eggs and milk.
It can also feed a large number of workers, off-duty troops and management personnel, thereby improving overall production efficiency, higher combat effectiveness, and better organizational and mobilization capabilities.
On April 20, spring sowing in Xujiazhuang was completed first.
In order to support the spring plowing work of other estates, Xujiazhuang's thirty tillage seeders were divided into three teams and went to support the No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 new estates closest to Xujiazhuang to speed up the progress of spring sowing in these estates.
Amidst the loud rumbling noise.
The tiller was spitting out black exhaust fumes.
Under the horrified eyes of countless farmers, they began their work in the flat fields.
Manor No. 3.
Zhang Gufeng, an ordinary farm worker, is 38 years old. Not only has he become a grandfather, but he has been farming for most of his life. He is an old farmer. There are few people in the village who can farm better than him.
Taking rice as an example, someone else's field can produce at most 300 kilograms of millet per acre, while his family's field can produce at least 350 kilograms.
The same low-grade thin land can be transformed into a medium-quality land after five years through his care. And if the cultivation level is poor, even the top-grade fertile land can be turned into a low-grade thin land.
Farming is really a technical job, and it is not a job that one can simply do.
To cultivate a piece of land well requires intensive cultivation, brain and effort, rich experience, and most importantly hard work.
That’s right, hardworking!
Zhang Gufeng is a very hard-working farmer.
During the growth period of rice, others only pull weeds three times, but he will pull weeds five or even seven times, two or three times more than others.
During the rice jointing period, if there is drought and water shortage, others will only carry water during the day and rest at night, but he will be busy until midnight.
During the rice filling period, others would apply 100 kilograms of manure to the fields, and he would apply about 200 kilograms. For this purpose, he would collect human and animal excrement everywhere.
In addition, his family also raises more than 50 chickens and ducks. He often drives these chickens and ducks to eat pests in the fields and reduce the damage of pests to crops - this is where his smart mind is, and it is very effective.
Tips for increasing production.
But even if he is an outstanding representative of farmers in China, even if his family has twelve and a half acres of high-quality fertile land, and can produce more than forty shi of millet every year, it should be enough to feed a family of ten, but in the past few years, his family's
The days are becoming more and more difficult, and the rice vat at home is never full, only getting emptier.
The days of full meals are becoming fewer and fewer, and the days of semi-hungry are increasing.
Why does this happen?
He is obviously very diligent. At only 38 years old, he has already worked so hard that half of his hair is gray.
There are mainly three reasons.
One, the climate has been abnormal in recent years, with frequent droughts, and field yields have indeed been affected.
Secondly, the imperial court is increasing its allocation. In the past, the summer tax for one acre of high-quality fertile land was said to be only one-thirtieth. It was enough to pay a tax of one dou and two liters, but in reality it had to be at least two liters.
There are unwritten rules such as fighting for five liters and kicking dendrobium with the tips. The actual burden is about one-tenth of the harvest. This does not include the Ding tax (i.e. head tax) and the official corvee showdown. The burden is already very heavy.
What now?
Liao Xiang added one cent and two cents of silver per acre of land, which may not seem like much, but during the autumn harvest season, the small amount of silver offered by unscrupulous merchants could buy two measures of grain.
Coupled with various miscellaneous taxes, apportionments, and miscellaneous taxes, one-third of the farmers' total harvest does not belong to them.
Third, since Zhang Juzheng implemented the "One Whip Law" during the Wanli Period, the land levy was changed from grain to silver. The government no longer directly collects grain tax, but only collects silver to offset the tax. This gives profiteers an opportunity to take advantage of the loopholes. Once the grain arrives,
During the ripening season, prices are reduced aggressively, and when food is in short supply, prices are increased tenfold or hundreds of times.
In addition, due to the Chongzhen period, the inflow of overseas silver into the Ming Dynasty decreased significantly, resulting in the scarcity of silver circulating in the market, deflation, and higher costs for farmers to obtain silver.
A combination of various factors.
Farmers like Zhang Gufeng, who used to live a pretty good life, saw their burden increase from one-third to at least half.
In addition, the family has a relatively large population, and life has become increasingly difficult in recent years.
Although since the establishment of Xujiazhuang, he also managed to buy a high-quality rice seed called "Lazy Rice 80" last year and just sow the seeds directly in the field. Out of caution, he only planted one acre of Lazy Rice.
Rice, he harvested 540 kilograms of rice that year, setting his personal record for yield per mu.
But the extra 100 kilograms of rice harvested not only did not allow him to eat for two more days, because last year several villagers in the village entrusted their fields to Zhang Juren. In order to complete the collection task, the government increased the allocation to his family.
, and as a farmer, he did not have any capital to compete with the Juren master. As a result, his family ran out of food in October last year.
They sold all the more than fifty chickens and ducks and replaced them with grain and wild vegetables, but they could barely survive until December.
I had to go to Xujiazhuang to borrow a few buckets of rice and managed to survive.
Xujiazhuang expanded this year. Zhang Gufeng joined Xujiazhuang without much thought or hesitation. The reason is very simple. He has worked so hard, but the end he faces is still starvation. What else can he do if he doesn't join the collective estate? At least the drought and floods here guarantee the harvest.
Very likely to starve to death.
But after joining the collective estate.
Zhang Gufeng could see the good aspects of the manor's business model and thought it was very advanced.
For example, comprehensive land leveling, eradicating field ridges, demolishing some village houses, and merging villages together have increased the effective cultivated land area by at least 25%.
But he also used one-third of the precious land as pasture for livestock purposes. This really made him unable to understand. Nowadays, there is not enough food for people to eat, and there is no land to grow feed for livestock. This is not a waste of land.
What?
What kind of work point system is there? Every day from 8 am to 5 pm, you only work nine hours a day. As long as you complete the workload, you can get 10 work points equivalent to one penny. This is simply a charity.
How can such a little work be worth a penny? You have to work at least 14 hours a day, otherwise if this continues, the manor will collapse sooner or later, because the manor owner doesn't know how to settle accounts.
Thinking of this, Zhang Gufeng became worried. He felt that Xujiazhuang was really good, and the owner of Xujiazhuang was a good man like a Bodhisattva. If he continued to spend money like this, he probably wouldn't be able to last long, and he wouldn't know what to do by then.
.
Buzz buzz~
A rumbling sound reached his ears.
Immediately afterwards, in the paddy field full of weeds not far away, he saw huge steel monsters spitting black smoke, moving on several huge wheels, and the metal rotary cutting device behind them was also
With rapid rotation, the weeds on the surface of the paddy field were chopped up by their roots, and the soil one foot below was turned up to the surface and beaten into yellow mud, thus completing the plowing.
Then sow the lazy rice seeds evenly.
Go all the way.
Plowing all the way.
Complete sowing all the way.
At the speed equivalent to a human jogging, the plowing and sowing work of more than half an acre was completed in a short time.
A rough estimate is that the working efficiency of one such steel monster is at least equivalent to 300 factory workers!
"this……"
"What a terrifying farming monster this is?"
Zhang Gufeng was stunned, his legs shook, and he almost knelt down in front of these tillers. Some farm workers with narrow knowledge and had never seen such agricultural machinery were already kneeling on the ground, or kowtowed incessantly, as if watching