Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 149 Food! Food!
Seeing that Hu Yisheng was in high spirits, wearing the uniform of a centurion and smiling from ear to ear, Zhu Shenzui patted him on the shoulder happily.

"It looks good, not bad!"

“Hehehe…” Hu Yisheng scratched his head embarrassedly.

"Take me for a walk?"

"Yes, yes, Sixth Master, please come this way. Be careful with your steps. The road here is not easy to walk on." Hu Yishen nodded quickly and led Zhu Shenzhu forward, giving him attentive advice as they walked.

This is how this person has changed. In the past, Hu Yisheng followed Li Hu and became a bandit. At that time, he was in danger of losing his life at any time. He could only survive. But now he is different. He has transformed from a refugee to a centurion, and he has also changed back to his original name openly. He no longer needs to hide under an alias.

The change in identity also changed Hu Yishen's mentality. Zhu Shenzui could see that he had not yet fully adapted to this change. In addition, his attitude towards him had changed from respect to more respectful, and even a little deliberate flattery.

Zhu Shenzhui smiled secretly at this, but said nothing. Such a change was normal. To put it bluntly, Hu Yisheng was just an ordinary person before. Even if he became the second in command of Yangtou Mountain, he was still a refugee who could not be put on the stage. But now it is different. He is a real centurion. Although the civil officials are respected and the military officials are despised in the Ming Dynasty, for ordinary people, a centurion is a military officer of the sixth rank, and a "master" in the eyes of ordinary people.

The change of identity leads to a change of mentality. It is normal for Hu Yisheng to have such a reaction now. But it doesn't matter. As time goes by, he will gradually adapt to this change, and everything will be fine after adaptation.

Besides, Hu Yisheng was put in this position because he was reliable. Zhu Shenzhui didn't have many people available at the moment, and he was short of people everywhere. Hu Yisheng had been the second in command of Yangtou Mountain, so he was capable and reliable. Zhu Shenzhui always rewarded his people for their merits and punished them for their faults. He trusted people and didn't employ them if he doubted them. This was Zhu Shenzhui's principle. In addition, he was not stingy in giving opportunities to capable people, so Zhu Shenzhui had carefully considered putting Hu Yisheng in this position.

As we went forward, we saw that many flat areas in the valley had been reclaimed into farmland, and some military households were busy working in the fields.

These military households were migrated from various places, and because the Hundred Households Office was newly established, there were many things to do. In addition to building houses for resettlement, the most important thing was farming. Now that spring had just begun, it was the time for farming, and the daily lives of so many people could not be taken care of by the garrison. Most of them had to solve the problem on their own.

This kind of work is not unfamiliar to Hu Yisheng. He was responsible for these things as early as when he was in Yangtou Mountain. The land reclamation and self-sufficiency in Yangtou Mountain have already formed a scale, but it is not so good in Zhaowuling.

Except for the original fields in Zhaowu Village, all the fields here were newly opened. Although due to the problems of soil and water sources, not much wheat and other real grains could be grown, some grains could still be grown, including sweet potatoes, corn and other crops that Zhu Shenzhu had finally obtained through channels.

Sweet potatoes have been around since the Wanli reign. In fact, not only sweet potatoes, but even corn was introduced to the Ming Dynasty as early as the Jiajing reign. However, these crops have not been planted much. Most people do not know about their high yield and functions. After they were introduced, they were only used as a supplement to regular food or as ornamental crops without any substantial promotion, which led to many ordinary people not knowing about their existence.

Zhu Shencui was different. He had been secretly looking for these crops a few years ago. When he led the people of Wangjia Village to smuggle salt, Zhu Shencui spent a lot of money to get the seeds of these crops through channels and tried to plant them in Wangjia Village.

After about two years of trial planting, the harvest is still very gratifying, and the yield of these crops is not low. Both sweet potatoes and corn are drought-resistant and suitable for the climate in Shanxi.

When they were at Yangtou Mountain, Li Hu led people to open up wasteland and cultivate the land. Zhu Shenzui asked the people sent from Wangjia Village to teach them how to cultivate these crops. So this time when Zhaowuling set up a hundred households, it also needed to open up wasteland and cultivate the land, so it was natural to move these crops over.

The Ming Dynasty has not yet reached the Chongzhen period. Although the weather has begun to change, the winter is getting colder, the summer is getting hotter, and natural disasters often occur. But after all, life can still go on, it's just that the harvest in the fields is not as good as before. But Zhu Shenzhu knew very well that the real test was still to come. After a few years, natural disasters will become more severe. At that time, the long-term drought will cause a thousand miles of harvest. Coupled with the continuous war in Liaodong, the Ming Dynasty's finances began to go bankrupt, and troubled times were about to come.

Once troubled times come, no one knows how many people will die, and most of them will starve to death.

People were eating their own children and there were starving people everywhere. The common people could not survive any longer and had no choice but to rebel in order to stay alive.

At that time, those who have food to eat will die! For food, hungry people can do anything. Zhu Shenzhui had to prepare in advance. He asked the 100 households, including Wangjia Village, to plant these crops not only to make them self-sufficient, but also to secretly store food in this way to prepare for disasters.

Both sweet potatoes and corn are high-yield crops. Although they are not as tasty as wheat and rice, they are still food that can keep people alive. When famine comes, not to mention food, even the leaves on the trees are eaten up. Starving people even eat Guanyin soil and human flesh. At that time, even the most unpalatable food is like a delicacy to them.

The sweet potatoes were dried in the sun and made into sweet potato jerky. The same goes for corn, which was dried and stored, and could be used to survive famine years.

Not only that, Zhu Shenzhui had already started to store grain. He built granaries and dug many cellars in Wangjia Village and Yangtou Mountain to hide the grain. Many people did not understand his actions, because there was no shortage of grain at all, so why did he get so much grain?

Zhu Shenzui did not give much explanation for this. He just found an excuse of trading with the grassland and continued to do things step by step.

Zhu Shenzui was led by Hu Yishen along the way, walking and stopping from time to time. From time to time, he would stop for a while at the reclaimed fields, squat down to look at the planted seeds, and then chat with the military households who were farming, asking about their farming situation.

Hu Yisheng accompanied them and helped explain a few things. It took them more than half an hour to walk a short distance of less than a mile. Many military households saw Hu Yisheng accompanying Zhu Shenzhu so attentively. Although they did not know Zhu Shenzhu's identity, they knew that this young man must be an important figure.

Zhu Shenzhui dusted off his hands, looked around, and asked, "How much wasteland has been reclaimed here?"

"Not counting the land on Zhaowu Mountain, this area now has more than 130 acres. There are more hills on this side. Fortunately, we grow the coarse grains that you brought us. If we grow regular grains, we won't be able to cultivate so much land." Hu Yisheng raised his hand and pointed to the west, "After we finish this side, we can probably cultivate a few dozen acres over there, but it's too late now. Reclaiming wasteland is much more difficult than farming. Now is the time for farming again. We can only cultivate wasteland over there after we finish this side. But don't worry, Sixth Master, after this year is over, next year will be much smoother. By then, we will be able to cultivate at least 300 acres of land."

After careful calculation, I found that the current sweet potato yield is about 1,000 kilograms per mu of land, but in fact it cannot be calculated based on this weight because it contains water. After removing the water and making sweet potato jerky, according to the ratio of 5 to 1, it is about 200 kilograms, which is not much compared with the main grain such as wheat.

Wheat is grown in the north, while rice is grown in the south. Shanxi is located in the north, and wheat is the main food, so most of the crops are wheat. The current agricultural output is not high. The average wheat yield is only about 70 to 80 kilograms per mu. If the crops are well taken care of, the yield is only about 100 kilograms at best. In this regard, the yield of sweet potatoes is only twice that of wheat, but in terms of taste, sweet potatoes are far inferior to wheat and other staple foods.

The same is true for corn. The yield of corn is slightly higher than that of wheat, about 120 kilograms. Like sweet potatoes, its taste is not as good as wheat.

Compared with the later generations' sweet potato and corn yields of more than 6,000 kilograms per mu, the current yields are not even a fraction of that. There is nothing we can do about it. First, the high-yield sweet potato and corn varieties of later generations have been improved and cultivated for a long time, and their yields are definitely much higher than today's. Second, the farming methods of later generations are more scientific and refined, which is also incomparable to today's.

But even so, based on the current output, if we can reach 300 acres of land, and plant half sweet potatoes and half corn, the annual harvest of sweet potatoes will be about 30,000 kilograms, and the annual harvest of corn will be about 18,000 kilograms.

This is only the output on the Zhaowuling side, and does not include the output of Wangjia Village, Yangtoushan and Zhaowu Village. Even the grown grains such as wheat are not included.

In addition, the cultivation of sweet potatoes and corn did not occupy good farmland, but only reclaimed the original wasteland in the hills and valleys, so most of these harvests were extra. Although the total amount was still lower than Zhu Shenzhui's expectations, it was a good start anyway, wasn't it?
"Well done, thank you for your hard work!" Zhu Shenzui smiled and nodded in praise.

Hu Yisheng rubbed his hands together and said with a smile that it was not hard, it was what he should do. Seeing him like this, Zhu Shenzhui also smiled, patted him on the shoulder and encouraged him a few more times, and then asked about the situation of the mines and workshops in Zhaowuling.

There are iron mines and coal mines in Zhaowuling. This is one of the reasons why Zhu Shenzui decided to send people to settle here after solving the problem of Jiang Shuishan. He also helped Wang Rong to become the commander and asked him to set up a hundred households in Zhaowuling (Zhaowu Village).

After taking over Zhaowuling, they settled Hu Yisheng and others here and had the idea of ​​opening a mine. In addition, Zhao Da and others from Wangjia Village also moved here under the favorable conditions given by Zhu Shenzhui. These things were already being done when Zhu Shenzhui went to the grassland. It has been more than two months, and no one knows what the situation is now.

Wish you all a happy New Year 2024! May everything go well in the new year! May all your wishes come true!
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(End of this chapter)