My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 213 Moisturizing things silently

After listening to Zhuge Jin's analysis at the banquet that day, Liu Bei decided to remain calm and wait and see how the incident of Yang Chou killing Zhang Yang would develop.

He believed that this matter was definitely not over and would definitely affect the relationship between Cao Cao and Yuan Shao. He just needed to focus on farming and deal with it as it happened.

More than a month passed in a flash. During this time, Liu Bei himself stayed in Xia Pi, continuing to focus on appeasing the people in Xia Pi and the newly surrendered areas of Donghai, and discovering local talents that had not yet been promoted.

Guan Yu did not stay in Xiapi for long. He returned to Danyang County in August to hand over the military power to Taishi Ci and be responsible for guarding against Sun Ce in Jiangdong. Zhang Liao, who had just been assigned to Guan Yu, was also taken there. Although Zhang Liao was from the north and was not used to water battles, since he was assigned to Guan Yu, he had to adapt to the combat environment of Guan Yu's troops.

Zhuge Jin, Zhuge Liang and Chen Deng continued to stay at the front line in Xia Pi, accompanying Liu Bei to advise on overall affairs, and also to receive the latest news from the north as soon as possible.

From late July to early September, Zhuge Jin focused on tinkering with the seawater salting process when he had nothing to do. He relied on common sense from later generations and practical experiments to improve the construction techniques of salt fields and the skills of salting, concentrating and extracting brine. When he encountered areas where his basic skills were not solid, he would consult experienced local salt workers and make improvements bit by bit.

Zhuge Liang spent all his spare time on microbial screening experiments, which not only produced fermented dough, yogurt lactic acid bacteria, beer yeast bacteria, acetic acid bacteria, etc., with ever-improving quality...

He even wrote a book, a five-volume "Qu Jue Lun", in which he recorded the general experimental methods of microbial breeding, experimental ideas, inductive comparison principles, observed natural phenomena, and even conjectures on the principles of high-temperature sterilization, totaling more than 20,000 words.

There was no printing technology in this era, so a book was a long piece of paper rolled up into a scroll, and the length would not exceed four or five thousand words.

……

Time passed quickly and it was September 8th of the fourth year in Jian'an.

At this time of year in previous years, the autumn rice harvest in Guangling, Lujiang and other places in Huainan would have been almost completed, but the situation this year is very special.

Because this was the first year that winter wheat and summer rice rotation was widely popularized, the rice growth cycle was affected by the operations of pulling out and transplanting rice seedlings, and was delayed for more than ten days.

Compared with traditional rice that matures in the field at once without transplanting, transplanted rice will stop growing for a few days during the transplanting process, and the root system needs more time to restore its ability to absorb water and nutrients from the soil.

It is normal for the rice, which could have been harvested at the end of August, to be delayed until early September.

Zhuge Liang had been mainly responsible for persuading farmers to rotate rice and wheat in Huainan over the past year, so he was naturally very concerned about the harvest season. Seeing that Guangling County had begun to work hard on the autumn harvest, he could no longer sit still in Xiapi, so he asked Liu Bei to go south to Guangling for inspection.

Liu Bei waited and waited but received no news of the further deterioration of the relationship between Cao and Yuan, and he did not want to waste time in Huaibei any longer, so he said that it was a good opportunity to go together, first to Guangling, then to Lujiang, and then to Jiangxia via Lujiang for inspection and to take up his post.

Zhuge Jin was almost done with his work in Xiapi, so he followed along, at least they were on the same route until they reached Lujiang. Then they would go their separate ways, and Zhuge Jin would go south from Juchao to Ruxu, cross the river to Danyang and Wuhu.

The group did not need to pack any luggage as there were reception staff in various places anyway. They just needed to bring enough guards and set off at any time. As for the itinerary, it would be entirely arranged by Zhuge Liang, as it would be based on his autumn harvest inspection route. Liu Bei and Zhuge Jin would just follow him by boat.

In order to ensure that he could fully inspect the entire territory of Guangling County, Zhuge Liang chose to take a boat to Haixi County at the mouth of the Huai River, the easternmost part of Guangling, and then go upstream along the Huai River to inspect, and then turn into the Fei River and Rushu River. When passing through the Han Canal on the way, he might go to Sheyang for a detour. Liu Bei did not object.

The group was riding on the latest dual-purpose river and sea boats built by Guangling Shipyard in the fourth year of Jian'an. They were the kind with pointed bottoms and keels. They were more advanced than the boat Bu Zhi took at the beginning of the year to cross the sea to reinforce Wang Lang in Fujian. They were also better in terms of technology and quality.

However, the tonnage of the ship was larger, so it could not enter the Hangou Canal and could only sail in the Huaihe River or the Feishui River. If one wanted to go to Sheyang via the Hangou Canal, one had to temporarily change to a small boat.

In the past one or two years, Liu Bei did not have many opportunities to sail long distances. When he occasionally crossed the Yangtze River, he would just find some boats at random and would not specially requisition new ships from Guangling.

So when Liu Bei looked at the new keel ship under him, which was estimated to be five or six hundred tons and almost the same tonnage as the old-style building ship, he felt indescribably curious and gratified.

With such a light and strong warship, it is no wonder that Buzishan was able to protect Wang Lang in Minzhong and block Sun Ce in Dongou. And the Huaihe River defense line of his side can also be stabilized. Even if he falls out with Cao Cao in the future, with the quality of Cao Cao's navy warships, it is likely that they will not be able to break through the Huaihe River.

It was the autumn harvest season and the fleet was sailing on the Huai River. Liu Bei took out a telescope made of natural crystal from Donghai County with a magnification of only about two or three times and looked at the north and south banks.

The fertile land by the river was covered with rolling waves of rice, which were harvested and tied up in large pieces by the people using long-handled sickles with net bags. Although Liu Bei could not see clearly up close, he judged from experience that this was definitely a good harvest.

"Although I had expected this, I still couldn't help but sigh when this day finally came. Kong Ming, you are really as good as Shennong! In one year, the same piece of land can really produce a season of winter wheat and then a season of rice.

We won’t have to live in such a tight spot next spring. If a war breaks out, the army can be fully mobilized without having to worry about missing the farming season.”

Liu Bei exclaimed with sincere admiration, his eyes actually moistened. He had known Ziyu for three years and three months. Although his personal life was not difficult before, the people under his rule were always miserable. Now it was completely changed.

It took more than three years to get out of the food and clothing trap, which was not easy.

The fleet continued to sail downstream and soon arrived at Haixi County. Since Haixi County had piloted rice-wheat rotation last year, it was obviously doing better than Huaipu and other places along the way.

The yield of autumn rice here is close to 90% of the traditional single-season rice! In Huaipu along the way, the yield is only 70% to 80% of the usual good years. It can be seen that the average yield per mu of land in Haixi is 30 jin more than that in Huaipu.

Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang were both very satisfied with the inspection results.

On this day, just as the fleet reached the mouth of the Huaihe River and was about to end its trip to Haixi County and turn back, Liu Bei suddenly noticed that there were some strange wooden structures and some square mud fields of different colors on the beaches on the north and south banks outside the mouth of the Huaihe River.

Liu Bei subconsciously asked: "Are those windmills? Why do they look different from the original windmills?"

Zhuge Jin, who had only been accompanying and observing secretly without expressing his opinion, finally spoke up: "It is indeed a windmill. Last month, when we were experimenting with drying salt fields on the seashore of Haixi County, we had nothing to do during those few days of waiting for the trial production results, so we had someone try to build a few for grinding flour.

Aliang improved the old dough koji and was able to make the noodles so fluffy. It would be a pity if the flour was not fine enough. However, the old windmill was unstable and the cow and donkey grinding was a waste of animal power, so I thought about this windmill. In fact, the fan blades are just based on the structure of the new furnace blower in Wuhu. "

There were traditional windmills in ancient China, and they appeared in the late Warring States period. But they looked completely different from the Western windmills, especially the Dutch windmills, that we are familiar with later.

The traditional Chinese windmill has vertically arranged blades and a vertical rotating shaft in the middle. To put it simply, the difference between a traditional windmill and a Dutch Western windmill is a bit like the difference between a ventilator and an electric fan. (Notes with photos)
Zhuge Jin also noticed after traveling through time that in ancient China, the application of wind power was particularly inclined to centrifugal fans, rather than axial fans, such as Western electric fans. Whether it was metallurgical blowers or windmills for grinding flour and rice, it was the same idea.

Since history has proven that the electric fan type is more efficient, Zhuge Jin did not hesitate to transplant the method that he had used once in the technological innovation of the metallurgical industry last year to the grain grinding process in parallel.

Anyway, the carpenters around him had already done something similar once, so this time it went very smoothly and they built a new experimental flour-grinding windmill in just a few days.

Liu Bei was intrigued by this new toy, so he ordered the fleet to dock so that he could go ashore and inspect it up close.

The fleet soon docked at a pier on the south bank. Liu Bei rode his horse excitedly to the windmill, looking as excited as Don Quixote.

He even did what Don Quixote did. When the windmill blades turned, he lightly supported them with his hands to feel the wind resistance. Then he realized that the windmill had a huge torque and quickly withdrew his hand.

"I didn't expect that the wind force could be stronger than the pulling force of several cows. When I pulled the horns of the cows, I could at least pull the strong cows aside, but these windmill blades can't slow them down at all."

Liu Bei, who has always been confident in his arm strength, has to admit that this kind of mechanical force is not something that human power can contend with.

Then he walked into the windmill and saw that it was a huge windmill with only a laborer doing corvée service guarding it.

The laborer only needs to pour the new wheat into the mill trough at the right time, and then promptly take out the bran from the filter sieve below that receives the flour, and pour it aside separately.

Liu Bei grabbed a handful of flour and took a look. It was much finer than the roughly debraneated wheat grains they had eaten before.

Liu Bei was very satisfied. He asked people to keep an account and pack a few bags of flour, saying that he would eat cakes made of this fine flour on the road in the next few days.

He already disliked the broken wheat pasta that was not ground sufficiently.

Seeing that the flour mill was working so well, Liu Bei became more confident in Zhuge Jin's method of drying salt. Dusting the flour off his hands, Liu Bei waved his hand proudly:

"Let's go and see what kind of salt fields Tzuyu has created in the past month. After seeing this windmill, I'm even more excited about the salt fields."

　PS: That’s all for the three updates…Last month, I was diagnosed with some issues with my blood lipids and electrocardiogram. After the holidays, I will go for a cardiac angiography to see the exact extent of my coronary atherosclerosis. I hope it hasn’t reached the level of coronary heart disease…

　　A few months ago, I often woke up at 4 a.m., and I felt something was wrong. From now on, I won’t check the backstage when I write books, and don’t give me tips. I can’t see it and can’t thank you. (It’s good for a writer’s mentality and mental health not to check the backstage. When I wrote Guoxing Qieming last year, I was in a very good state of mind because I was playing badly. I didn’t check the backstage for half a year, and I didn’t need to take melatonin to prevent early awakening.)

　　
　
(End of this chapter)