Golden Dragon: Six Thousand Years of Empire.

Chapter 35 The Book of Noah
"Let's go!"

Noah didn't want to say anything anymore. Nothing could motivate him more than calculating agricultural income based on seed yield ratio on such fertile black soil.

"Don't watch it?"

"I want to visit other nobles' territories."

"Fine!"

Although she couldn't understand why a pure-blooded golden dragon would be interested in such ordinary land and seemed angry about it, Selena was willing to accompany him since it was just a matter of convenience.

The airship began to rise again, leaving behind a group of people in the farmland below. They were wandering in complex emotions such as relief and confusion. It was not until a long time later that the lord who was denounced as a waste by Noah took his people away.

Selena was tasked with a political mission, inspecting the territories of the vassal nobles of the Augustus family. Originally, Noah followed her, but he was only responsible for food and drink. Anyway, anyone with a little bit of brains would provide him with good services.

But now it is different. Driven by a strong emotion and urged by an emerging sense of responsibility and mission, whenever Noah arrives at a place, he will visit the nearby farmland, watch the local farmers' sowing and planting methods, and ask about the harvest.

But after watching them all, Noah was not angry anymore, because they were all the same and there was no difference.

The output ratio of one to two in the territory of the knight he first called a waste was actually outstanding among many noble territories. The output ratio in many noble territories was even worse than this.

In the land that Noah could see, the level of agricultural development basically remained at the primitive stage of slash-and-burn agriculture. Farmers scattered seeds on simply turned over land, hardly applied fertilizer in the middle, had no concept of weeding, and didn't know how to water. They relied entirely on the weather for their livelihood.

In this case, the emergence of seed measurement is completely normal. If the great harvest in Noah's memory can still appear, it can only be that the gods are bored.

In fact, this is also related to the belief in gods. Many farmers like to pray to the gods they believe in. One of the most popular hymns is sung like this:
We work hard to cultivate the land and sow the best seeds. God is omnipotent, please water and fertilize the seedlings!

The kind Mother Earth provides us with the nourishing soil of life, allowing every seed to take root and sprout.

Generous Heavenly Father, please grant our crops the blessing of rain, so that it can nourish every inch of the land.

May our hard work turn into a good harvest, and may this land prosper forever!

To be honest, Noah was very silent. He did not weed or fertilize after sowing. He relied entirely on the gods. This has nothing to do with diligence.

Of course, these primitive people who used slash-and-burn agriculture were not completely useless. After all, they had some concept of fallow. They knew how to let the land rest, and thus developed the two-field system.

That is, the arable land is divided into two parts, and only one of the parts is planted each year, allowing the other part to accumulate the lost land fertility, and this cycle is repeated back and forth.

In some areas, Noah also saw the more advanced three-field system, which divided the land into three parts and rotated crops in a three-year cycle. Grass seeds could also be sown on the fallow land for grazing.

However, the so-called advanced is only relative. Compared with the ridge farming method in Noah's memory, the three-field system is simply rubbish.

Ridge farming is to plant crops in rows on ridges, keeping distance between ridges. Generally speaking, ridges are slightly higher than the furrows between ridges. Of course, they can also be level, depending on the crops.

This is a planting method that will definitely ensure high crop yields. Crops can grow independently without interfering with each other. Farmers can walk in the ditches between ridges to weed, fertilize and water the crops without damaging them.

The best part about farming is that the ridges and furrows can be rotated after a season of crops are harvested, achieving the effect of fallow, which is enough to ensure soil fertility.

However, after Noah conducted on-site inspections and visits to various noble territories, he came to a conclusion that the ridge farming method that had become commonplace in his memory had no room for development and promotion here.

The reason is very simple. The farmers here are so poor that they only have a few dozen copper coins and one or two silver coins. Ridge cultivation requires deep plowing and fine planting, which requires metal farm tools, livestock and matching plows to dig the soil into trenches and pile the soil into ridges.

However, such pre-requirements were simply too extravagant for the farmers who had been exploited by the nobles for generations. Almost all farmers could not own metal farm tools.

The metal in the smelting furnace will eventually only turn into armor for the nobles and swords in their hands, but will never become tools in the hands of farmers.

With all these conditions combined, it is no wonder that the farmers on this land have always been in such a primitive stage. Even if they want to, they are unable to make any progress.

The petty nobles were able to oppress and exploit the peasants, not to mention the extraordinary people at a higher level.

Noah's adoptive mother would not exploit the farmers. After all, she was willing to listen to Noah's opinions and even gave the purchased slaves the opportunity to gain freedom.

But the reason why she was willing was because she didn't care at all. That was something more terrible than abuse and oppression. It was neglect, or in other words, disregard!

Her position was so high that the farmers did not even exist in her eyes.

No matter how much grain the farmers grow, even if they improve the existing agricultural planting technology and increase grain production tenfold or a hundredfold, in her eyes it is nothing more than that, perhaps not as good as a single affectionate word from Noah.

This is the most terrifying thing!

Almost all of those powerful transcendent beings who can cause mountains to collapse and rivers to flow backwards, do not care about these most numerous weak creatures. To them, these low-level creatures are almost non-existent.

"Little Noah, have you seen enough?"

"Enough, should we go back?"

"Yes, we should go back. You have done a lot of good deeds during this trip. What reward do you want?"

"I want to write a book. After my book is finished, can you help me promote it throughout the territory?"

Noah replied.

"You want to publish a book? What kind of book? What's the content?"

Selena immediately became interested and asked with great interest.

“A farming book that teaches people how to grow crops.”

Noah replied.

On the one hand, he could no longer tolerate those primitive people called farmers who were destroying the black soil like this. On the other hand, he wanted to see what kind of feedback the golden tree would give him.

It is no exaggeration to say that once he popularized the ridge farming method, it would save tens of millions of lives. Such achievements and influence would be enough to make him famous for all eternity.

　If we use the seed output ratio for calculation, China reached 1:12 during the Qin and Han dynasties, and basically reached 1:20 during the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, before the Western Industrial Revolution, China had enough qualifications and confidence to look down on the West.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)