A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 154: Auspicious Omens for Li Yi's Family

"Take care on your journey, Senior Brother,"

On the eastern outskirts of Chang'an City, at the foot of Changle Slope.

Li Yi waved goodbye to Wei Zheng, "Don't worry about having no friends on the road ahead, everyone in the world knows you!"

"Thank you," Wei Zheng said. He was wearing a scarlet robe and a gold-plated belt around his waist. He wore a wine gourd filled with Li Yi's persimmon wine. Next to the saddle, there were several more gourds hanging.

In Chang'an these few days,

Wei Zheng didn't like anything else, but he really loved this persimmon cake.

Li Yi patted Xiao Shisan and said, "Secretary Wei's safety is now in your hands."

Xiao Shisan carried a bow and a sword on his back and said confidently, "Don't worry."

Li Yi had a long conversation with Xiao Shisan yesterday, asking him if he would be willing to pursue a career in the imperial court. He recommended that he accompany Wei Zheng to Hebei, a mission that would surely not be easy.

But for Xiao Shisan, this is also an opportunity. If he is lucky, he can even make a contribution.

Xiao Shisan discussed with Yu Youniang. Although Yu Youyu was willing to stay with him in Chang'an, it was obvious that Xiao Shisan was not willing to live this kind of life of hiding from place to place, or even serving as a bodyguard under an assumed name.

"Help me take care of my daughter,"

"Do not worry,"

Wei Zheng kicked his horse's belly and headed east with his full ambition. Xiao Shisan, who was thinking about restoring the glory of his ancestors and wanting to ennoble his wife and children, also went with him, carrying a sword.

Liu Heizi looked at their receding backs and felt a little envious.

"Xiao Shisan is the one Alang spent two hundred strings of cash on, and now he's gone just like that."

Li Yi smiled,
He turned around and mounted his horse to return to Beijing.

The weather is cold and the wind is chilly.

Thousands of acres of land have been planted, and the battle can be considered over.

However, this winter, Li Yi had hundreds more mouths to feed, so he was very happy to recruit people, and he recruited hundreds of people at once.
Now this group of people have become his followers, and every family, young and old, men, women and children have to rely on him.

Fortunately, the bean curd skin workshop, soap workshop, persimmon wine workshop, and a plow workshop have all started operations and are very busy, which has absorbed a lot of people.

"Ah Lang, Wuji Castle is finished, when can we go back?"

This time, the Big and Small Wuji Forts were built by imperial decree and were constructed very quickly. With the help of Li Yi, Liu Heizi also dug three new cave dwellings. In any case, he had his own new home.

For Liu Heizi, there was more good news: Cao Yanxiu was pregnant.

"Come back in two days,"

Li Yi had already handed over the job of making the plow. It made no difference whether he was there or not. He supervised the production of several batches of plows, which the emperor rewarded to many royal relatives, ministers, and even the imperial guards. The reputation of the Wude plow had already been established.
Nowadays, government and private workshops across the country are also imitating the Wude plow.

Before returning to the countryside, Li Yi had something important to do.

That is to accompany Shi Niang home to worship the ancestors.

Du Ruhui will be returning from Changchun Palace in the next few days. As soon as he comes back, Shi Niang will rush back to the Du family.

Of course Li Yi had to go and support him.

When I got home, I saw Shi Niang gathered with Ji and the others, looking very anxious.

"what happened?"

"Alang, the potatoes, the potato seedlings are all withered. Are they going to die?" Hongxiao girl said a little anxiously.

Li Yi went forward and took a look. He saw that the green leaves of the potatoes planted in the eight clay pots had turned yellow and curled, and the plants had fallen over.

It really looks like you are about to die.

"Hahaha, don't worry, these potatoes are ripe and can be harvested."

"what?"

Shi Niang and the others originally thought that he was going to die, but unexpectedly he was cooked.

“It hasn’t been planted for long, has it?”

"It was planted in July, and it's late October now, so there's plenty of time."

These pots of potatoes were moved from Wujiyuan in Yusu Township to Chang'an, and they experienced war in the process. Fortunately, Xiuzhi's mother and others brought potatoes and onions with them.

When Xiuzhi was around, she took good care of them, using wood ash, rapeseed cake, and some dry manure as fertilizer. Later, when Xiuzhi entered the palace, the eight pots of potatoes and six onions were taken care of by the maid Hongxiao.

"Are the onions ripe?" Yu Shu asked.

"It's still early for onions. They're planted in the fall and won't be harvested until next summer."

Li Yi looked at the potato sprouts and saw that they were indeed ripe.

"Harvest potatoes."

"How many potatoes can we harvest?" Ji remembered that when Li Yi first planted these potatoes, he cut two potatoes into eight pieces and planted one piece in a pot.
"This plant should yield at least ten potatoes, about five pounds."

"We take good care of our potatoes. We use straw ash to grow potatoes, and they produce a lot of them. We also add manure to the potatoes, so they grow well and produce a lot of big potatoes."

Li Yi couldn't wait to dig potatoes.

"One plant can yield five pounds? At eight yuan, wouldn't that mean we could harvest forty pounds? The two potatoes we had back then didn't even yield a pound."

Several women chattered and found it incredible.

Forty kilograms.

“Isn’t that a lot?”

"Ah Lang, this isn't much. We harvested 40 kilograms of potatoes from just eight plants. How many plants can we grow on this acre?"

Li Yi thought about it and thought that as long as there was enough fertilizer and good management for potato cultivation, it would be common to plant four to five thousand potatoes per acre and produce four to five thousand kilograms per acre.

But the Tang Dynasty certainly couldn't grow so many.

"It should be possible to plant a thousand plants per acre." Li Yi thought about it and said a lower number.

"One thousand plants?" Several women raised their voices at the same time, their voices breaking.

"More is fine." "More than a thousand?"

"A lot?"

"Alang? One thousand plants, five kilograms per plant, that means the yield per mu is five thousand kilograms, five thousand kilograms!" Even Du Shiniang screamed.

"This isn't wheat or rice. Potatoes are also very watery. It takes five or six kilograms of potatoes to produce one kilogram of starch."

"That can still produce thousands of kilograms of starch, while one acre of wheat only produces about a hundred kilograms of flour!"

Several women were so excited that their faces turned red and their eyes were wide open, not looking like ladies at all.

"If we plant this in the fields, the yield per mu may not be that high, after all, the fertilizer cannot keep up."

Du Shiniang said excitedly, "Even if we reduce it by half, we can still produce 2,500 kilograms, which means we can produce 500 kilograms of starch. Oh my god, I never thought that these green seedlings placed under the corridor every day are actually money trees!"

"Let's dig it out quickly and take a look," Li Yi thought they were making a fuss out of nothing.

At this time, a voice came from outside.
"What about green seedlings and money trees? One acre can produce 5,000 kilograms and 1,000 kilograms of starch?"

The woman from Ah Fu's family ran in in a panic, "Ah Lang, my wife, the King of Qin, His Royal Highness the King of Qin is here."

Li Shimin walked in with a smile, "Originally, it was not easy for me to enter this inner house, but at the door, I heard screams and exclamations coming from inside.

When I heard that the yield per mu was 5,000 kilograms, which could produce 1,000 kilograms of starch, I couldn't help but rush in.
Lord Du, I am sorry for being disrespectful."

Du Shiniang stepped forward and bowed, "It is we who are being rude."

Li Yi saw Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui also coming.

"King Qin, Lord Fang, Lord Du,"

Li Shimin came over quickly and asked, "Wuyi, what about the green seedling money tree you were talking about that can produce 5,000 kilograms per acre?"

Li Yi did not expect that Li Shimin would come to his house suddenly after returning to Chang'an, and he did not expect that his potatoes would be ripe at that time.
"Your Highness, these are potatoes. They were obtained from the barbarians on the ship from Haidong when my master and I were traveling in Lingnan. The onions you ate in Jingzhou before were also potatoes."

"Potatoes? Beans in the soil?" Li Shimin became more and more curious.

"It's a kind of potato in the soil,"

The potato in the Tang Dynasty generally refers to yam.

When Li Shimin saw the eight pots of potato sprouts in front of him, he looked incredulous.

How can such a yellow seedling produce five kilograms of potatoes?
Li Yi simply stepped forward, pulled out the dead seedlings, dug the soil, and finally turned the pot upside down.

The potting soil is relatively loose.

The pale yellow potatoes are looming.

Li Yi pulled out one, and they counted it one by one.

"One, two, three, four,"

The potato has a regular shape, smooth skin and bright color.

Li Yi was also surprised. The potatoes grew better than expected, even bigger than the ones his wife had grown on the terrace before.

Maybe wood ash, dry manure, and fermented vegetable dregs are good to use.
Twenty-one potatoes.
The big ones weigh more than half a pound.
"Do you have a scale? Weigh it quickly. I estimate it is more than five kilograms, at least six or seven kilograms." Li Shimin was extremely excited.

Find a scale,
After wiping off the dirt, there were only twenty-one potatoes left, weighing more than eight pounds.

Du Ruhui said with a smile, "This seedling actually produced a nest. If I hadn't seen Wuyi pull out the seedlings and remove the pots with my own eyes, I would have suspected that they were buried in advance.

Just like an old hen sitting on brood, a big brood."

Fang Xuanling was also surprised. "Twenty-one, more than eight kilograms, one seedling, hiss!"

"Can this thing be used as food?"

"It can be eaten as a grain or a vegetable. It can be steamed directly, made into mashed potatoes, or cut into shredded potatoes, potato slices, and fried.
It can also be made into potato starch, and starch can be used to make potato vermicelli..."

Li Shimin held a potato in one hand, placed it in front of him, and stared at the round lump with his eyes wide open.

"It can be used as both a grain and a vegetable. Each plant weighs eight kilograms, and one acre can grow a thousand plants. Hiss!"

"This isn't just a potato, this is a sign of good fortune!"

Fang Xuanling also nodded vigorously, "Auspicious signs from heaven, great auspicious signs from heaven!"

"If potatoes can be grown in large quantities, will there still be famine in the future?"

Li Yi thought, Brazil in South America, the hometown of potatoes, is known as the world's second largest grain exporter, but more than 100 million people still fall into famine every year.

Unequal distribution will also lead to famine.

"How about making a few dishes with potatoes tonight, such as beef stew with potatoes, spicy and sour shredded potatoes, braised small potatoes, black pepper mashed potatoes, potato chips, and potato pancakes..."

Li Yi was still reading the menu, and he was almost drooling.

Li Shimin yelled, startling him, "You are not allowed to eat.

Can’t eat.”

Everyone was shocked, and Li Shimin realized that he had lost his composure, so he quickly said: "How can such an auspicious sign be eaten? We must immediately report it to the emperor and offer it as a gift. These auspicious signs must be kept for seeds, so that more auspicious signs can be grown next year."

"Wuyi, you have planted so many potatoes. If you use these eight pots for seeds, wouldn't you be able to grow ten thousand kilograms of potatoes? Then, with these ten thousand kilograms for seeds, you can grow hundreds of thousands of kilograms..."

"Hurry up and dig out the other pots. No, dig out just one more pot. Don't dig out the others yet. Bring them to the saint and dig them in front of him," Li Shimin said excitedly.

Li Yi smacked his lips, feeling a little helpless. He had originally planned to keep one or two pots to present to the emperor, but he didn't expect Li Shimin to not leave him a single pot.

"Stop digging! Take these seven pots of potatoes that haven't been dug yet, and this pot of dug potatoes, and pack them all up, including the seedlings. Then follow me to the palace to see the emperor and offer auspicious gifts!"

Li Shimin patted Li Yi on the shoulder and said, "Wuyi, you are really a lucky star. You have made another great contribution."

Faced with such an excited King of Qin, and Du Ruhui and Fang Xuanling who had also lost their composure, Li Yi had no choice but to do as he was told.

"How about I bring a wok and cook a few dishes with potatoes, so that everyone can try out whether potatoes can be used as both food and vegetable?" Li Yi said.

"That makes sense, okay."

No matter how productive the potatoes are, they must be edible.

(End of this chapter)