The Sui Dynasty's chess game

Chapter 803 Agriculture First
That morning, Xiao Xia inspected the Agricultural College located in Yique County, Luoyang Prefecture. This place was originally an imperial estate covering eighty hectares, with fertile land, mountains and water. Xiao Xia donated it to serve as the location of the Agricultural College.

School buildings and various living facilities have been built, and nearly 500 students are studying agriculture here.

Throughout history, all dynasties have attached great importance to agriculture, and Xiao Xia was no exception. Agriculture was related to the revival of the Sui Dynasty and also to his goal of supporting 100 million people.

Historically, the population did not exceed 100 million until the Northern Song Dynasty. The root cause was agricultural progress, with the introduction of superior rice varieties, such as Champa rice, which greatly increased grain production. Xiao Xia would certainly not let this opportunity pass.

In fact, as early as the fifth year of Xiao Xia's rule over Jiangnan, he ordered people to bring rice seeds from Rinan County for planting. Rinan County was adjacent to Linyi Kingdom, which later became Champa Kingdom.

Early rice from Champa had been successfully cultivated in Wu and Jiangdu counties and promoted throughout Jiangnan. It was this initiative that led to Jiangnan Circuit's grain output surpassing that of Hebei Circuit in the eighth year of the Daye era, making it the number one grain-producing region in the land.

By the tenth year of the Daye era, the grain output of Jiangnan Circuit accounted for 30% of the total grain output of the country, laying a solid foundation for the successful northern expedition of the Sui army in Jiangnan.

Now all he needs to do is promote early and late rice varieties throughout the southern region and the Jianghuai region.

But that's not enough. Xiao Xia established the Agricultural College to cultivate more and better agricultural products.

Currently, the department in charge of education in the Sui Dynasty is the Imperial Academy, under which the Imperial College is responsible for higher education. After the reform, the Imperial College is no longer a school, but an administrative institution, under which are eight higher education institutions: the Imperial College, the Hongwen Academy, the Mathematics Academy, the Law Academy, the Agriculture Academy, the Engineering Academy, the Medicine Academy, and the Naval Academy.

At the same time, the College of Agriculture was under the administration of the Ministry of Agriculture, which was a dual management system: the Imperial Academy was in charge of student admissions, while the Ministry of Agriculture was in charge of teaching.

The head of the Agricultural College is named Sun Shaonian, a native of Jingzhao. He was originally the Director of the Agricultural Bureau of the Sui Dynasty. He is over fifty years old this year and has devoted his whole life to agriculture.

Sun Shaonian also has a cousin named Sun Simiao, who is currently employed as a doctor at the Sui Dynasty Medical College.

Emperor Yang Jian once offered Sun Simiao the position of Imperial Academy Doctor, but Sun Simiao declined. Thirty years later, Emperor Xiao Xia once again offered Sun Simiao the position of Medical Doctor, and he readily accepted. One of the most important reasons was that Sun Simiao saw the importance the emperor attached to medicine, and that the emperor had established a medical college and upgraded it from the Imperial Medical Bureau to the Medical Department.

Sun Shaonian welcomed the emperor into the Agricultural College. Apart from the newly built school buildings and other facilities, the Agricultural College basically retained the appearance of the original imperial estate.

"I heard that the greenhouse has been completed, so I came here specifically to see it!"

"Your Majesty, this way please!"

Before long, they arrived at a greenhouse covering an area of ​​one acre. The greenhouse was radiant and shimmering with fluorescence. It was made of inlaid seashells, which were thinned to allow light to pass through. This type of greenhouse was used by wealthy families in Jiangnan.

One of the main goods imported from Japan to the Sui Dynasty was large seashells.

However, the College of Agriculture is already preparing to build a second greenhouse, which will be constructed using newly developed crystal glass, which is actually just glass and was developed by Liulifang a few months ago.

Xiao Xia walked into the greenhouse. It was warm inside, and the temperature was much higher than outside. The agricultural college mainly used it for breeding. There was a small paddy field inside, where rice seedlings were growing.

Sun Shaonian introduced, “Your Majesty, this is Champa rice. It is actually an early rice, sown in spring and matures in May. After harvesting, it is planted with late rice. Therefore, the Jiangnan region now has double-cropping rice. I would like to try to see if we can take advantage of its short growing season and cultivate it to promote the cultivation of wheat and rice in the Central Plains.”

Xiao Xia nodded repeatedly. In the Central Plains region, the current system is three crops every two years plus half a year of fallow. The main crops are winter wheat and millet. Millet, also known as foxtail millet, only yields a little over 100 jin per mu, and wheat yields a maximum of 300 jin. The grain yields are not high. But rice is different. Rice yields 500 to 600 jin per mu, which is much better than growing millet.

Moreover, the Sui and Tang dynasties marked the beginning of a warm period in the Earth's climate. As a result, by the Song dynasty, the practice of double-cropping rice and wheat had been successfully promoted in the Central Plains, greatly increasing grain production in the region. Starting from the Song dynasty, the practice of eating two meals a day was changed to three meals a day.

Therefore, simply encouraging childbirth and reducing the tax burden is not enough. Grain production must increase for the population to grow rapidly. Otherwise, like the Tang Dynasty, which was stable for two or three hundred years, the population still did not surpass that of the Sui Dynasty. The key reason was insufficient grain. Once there was enough grain, as during the Kangxi and Yongzheng reigns, high-yield crops such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn were widely promoted. Coupled with tax reforms such as the integration of land tax and poll tax, the population surged to 400 million in just a few decades.

Once the population becomes too large and the land cannot support it, the ruling class begins to use various means to restrict the population. For example, the rise of Neo-Confucianism in the late Southern Song Dynasty, the prohibition of physical contact between men and women, and the erection of chastity arches for widows, etc., all stemmed from the fact that the population was too large.

During the Han, Sui, and Tang dynasties, the ruling class needed to increase the population, so the relationship between men and women was very relaxed, and widows were required to remarry.

These restrictions or relaxations on human nature stem from very real economic issues.

The same applies to Europe. Without the introduction of potatoes to Europe, which led to a surge in population, there would be no incentive for people to migrate to the New World.

As the supreme ruler, Xiao Xia also urgently needed a rapid increase in population so that he could have a basis for overseas migration. This is why he made shipbuilding a separate academy.

Only when shipbuilding technology improves can we find truly high-yield crops in the Americas.

"How is the yam cultivation going?" Xiao Xia asked.

Before the arrival of crops from the Americas, yams were the only high-yield crop in China. They were called Dioscorea opposita and appeared thousands of years ago. They have always been a delicacy on the tables of nobles and also a very good tonic.

Unfortunately, it has never been widely promoted in history. Although many local officials have long used it for disaster relief, the imperial rulers have not paid attention to it. Although eating too much of it can cause bloating, it is still much better than eating grass roots and tree bark.

For example, poor families might not have enough to eat, but if there were extremely cheap yams available, they could eat them with grains, just like how potatoes and sweet potatoes are eaten in later generations.

Ultimately, it's because the yield per acre of yam is too high, which affects grain prices, and grain prices involve the vital interests of countless powerful and wealthy people.

This is the fundamental reason why sweet potatoes had been grown in the south for decades, but the Ming Dynasty never paid attention to them, which ultimately led to the peasant uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty due to the food crisis.

Sun Shaonian quickly replied, "It's already being cultivated!"

Sun Shaonian led Xiao Xia to a large expanse of land. "Your Majesty, we have planted more than a dozen kinds of yams from various regions here. Among them, the yam tuber is the most popular and is suitable for planting in the Central Plains."

Sun Shaonian then laughed and said, "Actually, we've also discovered quite a few high-yield crops."

"What else?" Xiao Xia immediately became interested.

"There are also kudzu root, lotus root, water chestnut, water caltrop, etc., which can yield several thousand kilograms per mu. The main problem is that they are not easy to preserve. However, if they are dried, ground into powder, and sealed in jars, they can be stored for many years."

Xiao Xia nodded with pleasure. These powders were indeed quite good, but Xiao Xia wasn't very interested in them. Yams were just a transitional crop. Once he found the high-yield crops from the Americas, that would be the beginning of a food revolution.

Yam is also doing well right now, and it's being sold alongside salt in official salt shops, which helps poor families have enough to eat.

After all, people only think about having children when they're well-fed!

This is the role of agricultural colleges: to cultivate successful crops and then promote them, thus filling a crucial gap in the food chain.

(End of this chapter)