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

Chapter 156 The King of Qin’s Gift

Eight basins of potatoes were brought into the palace.
When he returned home, he took with him seventy-two ingots of gold.

There was no loss in this deal, and the emperor actually left him a pot.

Seven basins of potatoes for seventy-two ingots of gold.

The large ingot weighed three taels each, weighing more than two hundred taels. When Li Yi took over the small box full of gold, he felt it was very heavy, weighing more than ten pounds.

He had been right when he told Xiuzhi that those were gold nuggets.

Seventy-two potatoes turned into seventy-two ingots of gold.

There is also a fifth-grade casual job,

Even the sixth-rank deputy supervisor of the palace gardens had the title of "inspector" removed and was officially promoted to a regular position.

The potatoes will stay in the palace for now. Tomorrow he will start preparing to plant them in the greenhouse. He has seen the greenhouse of the agricultural supervisor. Although it is heated indoors with a stove,

But there are also many tiles on the roof. These tiles are made of clam shells and polished into square thin slices with four rounded corners. They are inlaid on the window lattices or placed on the roof. During the day, some sunlight can pass through, emitting a faint warm light, and even at night, a faint moonlight can pass through.

But this thing requires a lot of labor. Of course, it can also be made from natural mica sheets or even sheep horns.

The process is extremely complicated. From clam shells to finished tiles, they have to go through many processes such as brushing, drying, trimming, polishing, etc. The final product is very small.

Therefore, wooden lattice windows had to be made of wood to inlay these tiles.

This kind of Ming tile can only be seen in the palace and the homes of top aristocratic families, and ordinary nobles cannot afford it.

But compared with glass, its transparency and light transmission are very average.

Li Yi wanted to remove two pieces of window glass from his house.

However, this greenhouse has many oyster-shell windows, a stove inside, and the room temperature and lighting are sufficient to grow potatoes.

Li Yi felt a little regretful that he was not able to be promoted to a higher rank and be granted the title of marquis.

The imperial court has the title of Cucumber Duke and Cucumber Marquis, so you can make yourself the title of Golden Potato Marquis, Potato Marquis, or anything else.

It is estimated that Li Yuan wanted to wait for this auspicious sign to appear before planting on a large scale and judging the achievements only when the real effect was seen.

Now he has been rewarded with seventy-two ingots of gold, promoted to the fifth rank of casual position, and also been given a permanent position. It is also a huge reward. One pound of potatoes is rewarded with three taels of gold.

In front of the palace gate,
Li Shimin and Fang Du were waiting for him.
"This box of gold is quite heavy, isn't it?" Fang Xuanling said jokingly.

"I have to thank the king and Lord Fang and Lord Du for bringing me here to offer auspicious signs. This is how I can be rewarded. How about we divide this gold?"

Li Yi said that they broke up, but he didn't take any action.

"Hahaha, this is earned through auspicious signs, we can't share it." Li Shimin patted Li Yi's shoulder with his big hand. "Today's potato feast is indeed delicious, but unfortunately we have to wait until your greenhouse potatoes are planted and harvested next year before we can eat it again."

"Okay, after the harvest next spring, I'll make a potato feast for the king and serve him dozens of dishes."

Li Shimin shook his head and said, "After harvesting, we should plant seeds first. One begets two, two begets three, and three begets all things. If we eat one, we will lose dozens of seeds.

If potatoes are drought-resistant as you say, they can be grown in fields, on hillsides, and on ridges. If every household plants a few acres, they won't have to worry about not having enough to eat."

Eating steamed potatoes or corn porridge to fill your stomach is common in remote, poor, and backward areas in later generations. In places with a little more conditions, people in the south eat rice and in the north eat white flour.
Steamed potatoes and corn paste are usually eaten occasionally as coarse grains. Eating them every day was quite difficult in the 1970s and 1980s.

But in Li Shimin's eyes, if one day, the poor people in the world can eat potatoes at home every meal, that would be a peaceful and prosperous era.

"You must grow those golden potatoes well. I will send a few people from my house to help you later." Li Shimin said.

Li Yi smiled,
This person is here to help, probably to learn skills.

After all, after this batch of winter greenhouse potatoes is harvested, they can be planted outdoors next spring. By then, Li Shimin should be able to harvest three to four hundred kilograms of potatoes from this batch. If the seeds are planted sparsely, it will not be a problem to plant two or three acres. If the management is good, it will be no problem to produce two to three thousand kilograms per acre.
It is even possible to harvest three times a year: plant in March, harvest in May; harvest the seeds and plant again, harvest again in July; plant again, harvest again in September. This is the information about potato cultivation left by people in the Qing Dynasty.

In later times, it was common for land with abundant water and fertilizer to produce 5,000 kilograms per mu, and even with careful cultivation, it could reach 7,000 to 8,000 kilograms per mu.

Li Yi felt that with this kind of intensive farming on a small scale and guaranteed soil and fertilizer, it would not be a problem to produce 2,000 kilograms per mu.

But in the future, when large-scale planting is carried out, the people’s soil and fertilizer will not be enough, so 500 to 600 kilograms, or 700 to 800 kilograms should be no problem.

Theoretically speaking, if the twenty or so potatoes that Li Yuan rewarded to Li Shimin were planted for two more seasons next year, they would yield 10,000 to 20,000 kilograms.

One plant became two acres, two acres became ten acres, ten acres became a hundred acres, and a thousand acres. In a few years, Li Shimin could plant potatoes on any of his land as long as he wanted.

Fang and Du each received a golden potato today. They joked about sending two people to help.

"Okay, thank you very much, Mr.

"Wuyi, you married my sister, why are you still being so distant with me?" Du Ruhui held his hand, feeling a little guilty. "Last time, when your wedding was about to start, I left at the last minute, which led to such a big incident. I feel so guilty towards you and Shi Niang. This time, I came back to make amends."

"The old lady is almost eighty years old this year. As she ages, she has become a little confused, sometimes lucid and sometimes confused. I want to apologize to you on her behalf.

Pick an auspicious day for you and Shi Niang to come back and worship your ancestors. I will invite all the Du clan members and relatives and friends, and give the million-dollar dowry originally prepared for Shi Niang to her.

"Thank you, second brother."

"Why thank me? This is what I should do. The Du family owes Shi Niang," Li Shimin said to Li Yi. "I was unable to congratulate you at your last wedding in Changchun Palace. Also, you gave me the Clairvoyance in Jingzhou. This time I came back to bring you some goodies."

One thousand acres of land and a salt field.

Both are located in Yuzhou.

Yuzhou was located in the Hedong County of the Sui Dynasty. A river, the Weishui River, divided the Hedong County into two sides, east and west. Now the county has been changed to a prefecture, with Puzhou on the west bank of the river and Yuzhou on the east bank.

The thousand acres of land that Li Shimin gave to Li Yi was in Anyi, Yuzhou, which was one of the capitals of the Xia Dynasty and even one of the early capitals of the Wei State during the Warring States Period.

It houses part of the famous Yanchi Jiechi.

Jie Chi is actually two huge brine pools, one in the south of Anyi County and the other in the east of Jie County. The two pools are almost adjacent to each other, so they are generally called Jie Chi.

The circumference of the pool is about a hundred miles, and the most famous thing here is naturally the salt-dissolving water.

There is a salty south wind in Jiechi, which blows from Zhongtiao Mountain in the southeast of Jie County.

There are many strong winds in autumn and summer, which are called Yannan winds. Their force can blow off houses and uproot trees. But the strange thing is that this wind does not go beyond Zhongtiao Mountain in the east and south, does not go beyond Xizhangpu in the west, and does not go beyond Mingtiao in the north, and only covers a few dozen miles.

When Jie Pond encountered such a wind, the water surface surged like ice. People fished the water up to the bank of the pond, put it in baskets and bags, and drove donkeys and mules to transport it and sell it to various places. It was called a benefit from nature.

When there is no south wind, salt is obtained by sun drying.

In the past, most of the Jiechi salt was naturally generated salt, which was different from well salt and sea salt, which needed to be boiled and boiled, which was labor-intensive.
Without rescuing others, you can do your own thing, and it all depends on fate.

Starting from the Han and Wei dynasties, brine was artificially drawn from the ponds and fertile soil was irrigated and dried to form salt fields.

Starting from the Sui Dynasty, salt fields were operated on a large scale. It was even during the Sui Dynasty that the ban on salt from ponds was lifted, and it was announced that pond salt and well salt would be available and shared with the people.

Historically, from the third year of Kaihuang during the reign of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty to the beginning of Kaiyuan during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, there was a period of 130 years during which the salt ban was lifted and people could dry and sell salt without any additional salt tax.

Salt fields are divided into upper fields and lower fields. The imperial court dredged ditches in the salt ponds and set up salt depots. The state sent officials to organize manpower to produce salt. This was the official salt industry, and most of the official salt occupied upper fields.

There are also many middle and lower fields where crops are grown and dried privately.

The salt-making method, except for the salty south wind in autumn and summer when salt can be directly collected, the rest of the time it is made by solar salting. Brine is injected into the fields beside the pond to a depth of one foot. After five or six days of sun exposure, it naturally evaporates into salt.

The area surrounding Jiechi, which is ten miles from east to west and seven miles from north to south, is all like this salt field.

About one-third of them are government-run salt depots, and the rest are privately owned salt fields.

Li Shimin, the Grand Marshal, Minister of the Chancellery, Minister of the Grand Secretariat of the East Shaanxi Road, and General You Wuhou, was rewarded by the emperor with a large salt field and many grain fields in Jiechi.

Li Shimin then gave Li Yi a thousand acres of grain fields and a salt field as a gift for Li Yi's telescope and a wedding gift.

This gift is very important.

Although there is still a war in Hedong,

When Li Yuan first started his army, Qu Tutong, the general of the left guard of the Sui Dynasty, followed the King of Dai to guard Chang'an. When Li Yuan went south, Chang'an sent Song Laosheng to guard Huoyi, and Qu Tutong was stationed in Hedong. The two armies responded to each other and blocked Li Yuan.

As a result, Li Yuan lured Song Laosheng out of the city, defeated him, and then went south.

When he arrived in Hedong, Li Yuan did not attack the fortified city guarded by Qu Tutong, but directly sent part of his troops to besiege the lesser-mannered Hedong city, and crossed the river to Guanzhong.

Qu Tutong had no choice but to let Tongshou Yao Junsu stay behind and he led an army to rescue Chang'an. As a result, he was defeated by the Tang and Tu coalition forces led by Liu Wenjing in Tongguan. After refusing to surrender several times, he was finally persuaded to surrender.

However, Yao Junsu, who was once Yang Guang's guard, has been defending Hedong City and has refused to surrender until now. Even when Li Yuan sent his wife to persuade him to surrender, he shot her to death with an arrow.

Yuzhou Governor Wei Yijie and the Minister of War and the Imperial Consort Zhao Cijing also failed to capture the city after a long siege.

Yao Junsu was trapped in an isolated city, but he was determined not to surrender. He made a wooden goose and floated it down the river to convey the message that he was still holding on.
Unfortunately, the imperial court in Luoyang, the eastern capital, was completely unable to provide assistance.

The continuous war almost destroyed the areas of Puzhou and Yuzhou, and even Jiechi was greatly affected. Zhongtiao Mountain was full of bandits.
The population of the old Hedong County had dropped sharply, and large areas of land were barren. In this situation, Li Yuan waved his hand and rewarded large areas of land to Li Shimin and others.
Li Shimin was also generous and directly gave Li Yi a thousand acres of grain fields and a salt field.

The fields are cultivated in February, the ponds are drained for salt production in April, and the work ends in August. The salt fields can be operated for five months a year, and a lot of salt can be dried.

It is said that the entire Jie Chi was at its most prosperous during the Kaihuang period of the Sui Dynasty, with the annual salt production of one million dan by both the government and private sectors.

Li Shimin directly gave him a salt field, which was really a treasure trove for him.

Although there is also salt in Jiechi that is salvaged by the salt south wind, the quality of this salt is average and it is usually used to feed livestock. It is bitter and loose, which is not suitable for long-term storage, and the output is also unstable.

Therefore, salt fields are more stable and are also known as salt farming. People praise it as the best.
"There are 513 salt fields in the Yuzhou Anyi Salt Pond, covering approximately 500 mu. Your Majesty has granted me 13 salt fields."

Li Yi was a little disappointed after hearing this. There are more than 500 salt fields, which only account for 500 mu. The average salt field is about one mu.

Li Shimin was awarded thirteen pieces, and he gave himself one piece.
That means I only have one acre of salt field?
"Don't underestimate this salt field. It can produce salt for five months a year. If the weather is good, we can harvest a batch of salt every five or six days. Each time, we can harvest more than 100 stones of salt. In total, this salt field can produce at least 2,000 stones of salt a year!"

A dou of rice and a jin of salt, Li Yi suddenly found himself in a treasure trove. Although it was only one acre of salt field, it contained two thousand stones of salt. Even if one stone of salt could be sold for one or two strings of cash, it would be three or four thousand strings of cash.

After deducting the cost of salt production, there is still a lot of profit.

"Thank you, Your Majesty, for the reward of the salt fields." Li Yi hurriedly expressed his gratitude.

(End of this chapter)