The Leshan Uprising has been put down, and there will be no more wars in the short term. The arsenal, salt wells and other places are also going on smoothly, and the soldier training does not need Wang Hengyue to worry about. For a while, Wang Hengyue became a big idler.
Seeing that the weather was good that day, Wang Hengyue was in high spirits and called three locals, Li Yifeng, Xu Mu and Deng Xia, to accompany him for a walk.
"Everything is fine. Since you want to go out for fun, you might as well go to Leshan to have a look." Deng Xia suggested on the side: "Rong County recognizes many adults, so I won't be able to enjoy the trip to the fullest."
Wang Hengyue thought about it and realized that this was also the case. After the Leshan Uprising was put down, he didn't know what it would be like now. He had been in and out of Leshan several times, but he had never seen the famous Leshan Giant Buddha, which was really unreasonable.
Suddenly I remembered something: "Yu Lei is from Leshan, right? I'll call him up. I went to Leshan several times but didn't call him up. He can be considered a conscientious person, so I asked him to go home and have a look."
After calling Yu Lei, Yu Lei was silent for a moment and then nodded in agreement.
Just as he was about to set off, Wang Hengyue felt a little headache when he saw the expectant look on Xingmeizi beside him: "Xingmei, you will change into men's clothes, I will take you with me."
Xing Meizi cheered and hurried back to the house to change clothes.
"Your Majesty's treatment of Xing Meizi is indeed unusual." Deng Xia said with a wicked smile: "My subordinate has done a small job in bringing Xing Meizi here. Your Excellency should reward this subordinate."
"I'll reward you for digging for salt!" Wang Hengyue scolded with a smile.
After a while, Xing Meizi came out in men's clothes. Wang Hengyue shook his head repeatedly. In his time, there were always women disguised as men on TV, but this big girl put on men's clothes. If you pay a little attention, you wouldn't recognize her.
reason?
This is the best time to go out and play, with green grass and boundless scenery all the way.
Riding on his horse, Wang Hengyue suddenly pointed to the distance and said, "What is that? So beautiful?"
I don’t know what kind of crops are being planted in the fields in the distance, but looking at them, they look alluring.
Wang Hengyue just finished speaking when he suddenly realized: "That's a poppy?"
"Yes, those are poppies." Li Yifeng said from the side.
Wang Hengyue frowned: "Poppies are so openly planted there and no one takes care of them?"
Several subordinates looked at each other. Your Excellency has come back from "overseas" and he probably doesn't know much about things in Sichuan: "Your Excellency, there are more than 140 prefectures and counties in Sichuan, except for a very few places.
The reason why we don’t have much opium in Rong County is because the Zhao family hates it deeply and is not allowed to grow it; secondly, salt production is extremely profitable and there is no need to rely on opium.”
Li Yifeng pointed to the poppies in front and said: "There is a bamboo poem saying this about Sichuan opium. 'There are tens of thousands of houses on the edge of the cliff, and the ground is full of fat. Don't plant mulberry and poppy. The east encourages the blooming of early spring flowers.'"
It’s just that opium is grown everywhere in Sichuan.”
"Sir, you don't know the extent of opium cultivation in Sichuan." Xu Mu sighed: "Everyone regards opium cultivation as the first priority, and even the vegetables have to be brought in from other places. They are not even seen in the vegetable market.
To local dishes. Except for tung oil, adults, all the oils used in daily use are poppy oil!"
Wang Hengyue felt chilled when he heard this. Although he had known about the power of opium cultivation in Sichuan before, but when he came to this era and saw it with his own eyes, he realized that the opium here was far more abundant than anyone imagined.
"Poppy cultivation is a legitimate industry." Deng Xia said with a wry smile: "Market vendors, child workers, and female workers all beg for a few acres of land to grow this thing, especially after the autumn harvest, when the ground is full of poppies!"
Wang Hengyue was silent, and Li Yifeng said: "Everyone knows that opium is harmful to people, but no wonder these planters. Firstly, the land in Sichuan is the most suitable for growing opium. Secondly, after the opening of machine ships, transportation is convenient by relying on the Sichuan River and the Wujiang River.
, can directly transport opium to the eastern provinces. Third, growing opium requires no skills. It is planted in winter and harvested in early summer of the following year, which coincides with the busy farming season. There is another very important reason..."
He paused and continued: "One acre of land can harvest about fifty to sixty taels of opium, two hundred and twenty kilograms of corn, sixty kilograms of soybeans, twenty kilograms of red beans, and ten kilograms of snow peas. So sixty kilograms of opium can be harvested.
According to the ten-liang plan, you can sell seven to eight taels of silver after the winter. Even if the price is not high that year, you can still sell it for six taels of silver. Two hundred and twenty kilograms of corn can only be sold for one or eight taels of silver, and sixty kilograms of soybeans can only be sold for one or eight taels of silver.
It sells for 648 cents, and red beans and snow peas cost two cents each. After calculating this, it is clear at a glance what is cost-effective to grow, so naturally everyone is rushing to grow opium!"
Wang Hengyue pursed his lips.
Do you think you can blame the common people for this? The income from growing opium is several times or dozens of times that from growing other crops. Who would grow anything else?
The large-scale cultivation of opium also brought an unexpected surprise:
After the Qing Dynasty failed in the Opium War, China's local opium achieved a "decisive" "victory" in the "war" against foreign opium.
It’s not just Sichuan. Poppy cultivation has spread all over the country. There is no province without a large amount of poppy cultivation. There is a large amount of land in all provinces from Mongolia in the north, Gansu and Shaanxi in the west, Fujian and Guangdong in the south, and the prosperous Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong in the east.
It is used to grow opium poppies and has even become the main business of many farmers.
The expansion of domestic opium cultivation area and the improvement of opium quality directly led to the year-by-year decrease in foreign imported and smuggled opium. By 1880, the quantity of domestically produced opium had long exceeded that of imported opium. The national opium self-sufficiency rate reached more than 80%.
By 1881, not only had all imports of Persian opium ceased, but according to the trade report submitted to the country by the British consul in Shanghai that year: "In Sichuan, Yunnan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu and Guizhou provinces, almost all Indian opium has been driven out
After entering the market, it is almost no longer transported to these places, and the consumption there is entirely supplied by Chinese-produced opium."
The development of opium in China was astonishing. In just one year, in 1882, local opium not only fully met domestic needs, but could also be exported.
Foreign opium is gradually giving way to Chinese opium not only in western and southwestern China, but also in coastal areas. Just as opium from western China is flowing into Burma in large quantities, Taiwan and other islands to the east now receive part of their opium supplies from the mainland
.
It seems to be only a matter of time before Chinese opium will completely drive foreign opium out of China.
But such a "victory" can only make people smile bitterly.
Especially after the Manchu and Qing government levied the "opium tax", growing opium no longer had to worry about anything, and it actually became an upright "business".
It’s just that this is to enrich the country at the expense of “strengthening the people”!