Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 317 "Golden Juice"

On March 12, 1636, before the chill of spring had completely dissipated and the first rays of dawn appeared, the slightly grating creaking of wooden carts could be heard on the bluestone road outside Shixing City.

At this moment, the entire city was still shrouded in tranquility, fast asleep. The patrolman on duty at the city gate tower, fighting off his drowsiness, yawned and glanced listlessly down at the city below. He then wrapped his slightly worn but warm woolen overcoat tighter around himself, stamped his feet to ward off the chill, and then slowly strolled down the stone steps.

"You're here early today!" The patrolman tapped the wooden shaft with his baton, the sound particularly loud in the quiet morning.

"If we arrive late, the 'golden juice' might be snatched away by someone else!" Chen Wangquan stopped and subconsciously looked back at the wide cement road behind him.

Well, apart from a few farmers carrying vegetable baskets, there were no other wooden carts vying for "golden juice" on the road.

"Hey, you guys came into the city so early to steal 'Golden Juice,' you probably haven't even had breakfast yet, have you?" The patrolman shook his head and said, "I really don't know if you can still have an appetite after working so hard all day and stealing a whole truckload of 'Golden Juice'!"

"Hehe..." Chen Wangquan grinned upon hearing this. "This patrol officer, you've probably never done farm work before, haven't you? We farmers, let alone hauling a cartload of 'golden juice' to the fields to compost, can still eat our meals just by squatting by a manure pile and smelling that stench. Crops need fertilizer to grow well; without this stinky stuff, where would we get the food to fill our stomachs? Don't you think so?"

"..." The patrolman stopped, paused for a moment, then, both amused and annoyed, he banged his baton against the wooden shaft again. "Alright, alright, hurry up and grab your 'golden juice'! The things you're saying make me feel nauseous."

"Haha..." Chen Wangquan laughed heartily, and with a little effort, pulled the wooden cart into Shixing City.

These days, industrial fertilizers are still a thing of the past, and human and animal excrement is more precious than sesame oil.

Chen Wangquan still remembers that when he was a child, the farmers in the village would exchange three liters of white rice for a load of manure from someone else in order to fertilize their own fields.

Even in Guangzhou, there were pawnshops and night soil shops that used silver scales to weigh manure, with such meticulous care as if they were weighing gold and silver treasures.

There's an old saying among the people, "A thousand catties of grain, ten thousand dan of fertilizer," which speaks to the farmers' longing for manure.

The book "Miscellaneous Stories of Jinling" from the seventh year of the Chongzhen reign records that two gangs of dung bullies in the east of the city fought a brawl in the street with more than 30 people wielding carrying poles and dung pitchforks over the dung from the pleasure boats on the Qinhuai River. The brawl was so startled that the officials of Yingtian Prefecture came to quell the disturbance with fire and water sticks.

In his hometown of Panyu County, Guangzhou Prefecture, the local government was even more ruthless. The six clerks colluded with the runners to issue "manure tickets" to every household's outhouse. Without these tickets, the manure collectors couldn't even touch the door of the outhouse.

The land on Qiming Island is not very fertile, and many farmlands were converted from forests and meadows after burning them down, which makes crop yields not very high.

Previously, they had just immigrated to the New Continent and worked in government-organized colonization teams. The output of the land was not of much concern to them; they only needed to complete the daily labor quotas set by the colonization managers.

But things are different now. The forty acres of land allocated to us are the hope of the whole family, and we must take good care of it.

On weekdays, whenever he has free time, he is busy leveling the land, filling in the potholes, removing mounds, and cleaning up any remaining tree roots and grass stems.

They were extremely attentive to the fertility of the fields, and they would carefully pile up all their excrement and urine near the fields to compost, not wanting to waste a single bit.

Whenever he had free time, he would inquire everywhere and search for manure, hoping to collect as much as possible and fill his own farmland with it.

Of course, in his village, there were only fifty or sixty households, and the amount of manure produced was extremely limited. Moreover, every farmer, like him, regarded this filth and grime as a precious treasure.

With no other option, many farmers turned their attention to Shixing City.

As the first city in Xinzhou, Shixing's population has grown rapidly to over 8,000, accounting for almost one-fifth of the entire Xinzhou population.

Moreover, the city has expanded several times in size, with more than 30 factories and workshops of all sizes scattered around, and numerous facilities such as restaurants, shops, markets, schools, and clinics have sprung up one after another, making it the largest industrial and commercial center on the west coast.

There is no curfew in Shixing City; anyone can freely enter and leave at any time.

Two years ago, after the war ended, several residential and industrial areas were built outside the original city walls, making this city, like many cities in the Ming Dynasty, have an inner city and an outer city.

However, since the Xinzhou forces were dominant in the region and had no fear of external invasion, they were not in a hurry to build a city wall for the outer city.

Chen Wangquan pulled his cart along the inner city wall, hurrying along, fine beads of sweat already forming on his forehead.

About fifteen minutes later, just as they were about to reach their destination, a loud clanging sound of a wooden barrel suddenly came from the alley ahead.

Chen Wangquan's heart skipped a beat, and he knew he was in trouble. He quickened his pace and couldn't help but curse.

After turning past a row of houses, I spotted a man with his buttocks sticking out, using a long-handled dung ladle to probe into the latrine.

"Fuck your mother!" Chen Wangquan roared in anger, grabbing a broom from the corner and throwing it at the latrine. "You shameless filthy rat! I reserved this outhouse yesterday, and you came to steal it! ...Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

This kind of grain needs to be fertilized during spring plowing, while vegetable growers need to fertilize every day. I don't know where this scoundrel came from, trying to steal our "golden juice".

Yesterday, thanks to the village chief's guarantee and after much pleading with the local patrol officer, I was finally allowed to come here early this morning to collect manure.

For this matter, he got up before dawn, not even bothering to eat a hot breakfast, just thinking about getting the manure out of the city as soon as possible, otherwise he would dirty the streets and if he was caught by the sanitation and epidemic prevention personnel, he would have to pay a fine.

But now, something terrible has happened: a manure rat has appeared and come to steal manure ahead of time.

This is clearly stealing his harvest!

Soon, the two started pushing and shoving each other, shouting and cursing. The noise grew louder and louder, attracting some early-rising residents who were going to use the toilet to gather around, arms crossed, watching the spectacle with amusement.

"Stop it, all of you! Fighting and arguing so early in the morning, are you trying to rebel?"

Just as the two were arguing fiercely, several patrol officers arrived after hearing the commotion. They brandished their batons and struck the two men repeatedly on the back before separating them.

A man who looked like a police chief, after hearing the two arguing, was both annoyed and amused. What the hell was going on?!

These two farmers actually threw punches at each other over a few buckets of "golden juice," causing such a commotion.

"This patrolman is bullying us!" The man who had been beaten by Chen Wangquan said aggrievedly, speaking with a slight Liaodong accent, "He called me... a Northern Tartar!"

Upon hearing this, Luo Congnan immediately frowned and glared angrily at Chen Wangquan: "Why did you insult him as... a Northern Tartar?"

Luo Congnan, who once served as a military commander in Dongjiang Town, was very averse to the highly insulting term "Northern Tartars."

Although we are Liao people, we are not some "Tartars"!
Moreover, the New South Wales government has always been wary of regional segregation among immigrants. While integrating immigrants from various regions into their resettlement, it also strives to eliminate each individual's regional identity through various means.

Once you come to the New Continent, you are a New Continent person!
Whether you are from Guangdong or Fujian in the south, or Liaodong or Shandong in the north, or even those local natives who have been naturalized, you all have only one identity: Xinzhou people.

However, regional disputes and cultural differences remain difficult to eliminate among many immigrant groups.

The Guangdong immigrants who arrived a few years earlier considered themselves the founding fathers of Xinzhou. They all felt they had senior "experience" and often spoke arrogantly to the later immigrants, especially those from Liaodong, even mocking them as "Northern Tartars."

This is both frustrating and heartbreaking.

"Tartars"—for every Liao people, that was a lifelong nightmare.

"This patrol chief..." Seeing the police chief glaring at him with displeasure, Chen Wangquan couldn't help but feel flustered. He stammered, "He stole my 'golden juice'... He broke the rules, and he even hit me!"

"A street brawl violates the public security regulations of Xinzhou," Luo Congnan said coldly. "Take them both to the police station and then notify their respective villages to come and pick them up!"

"Chief Inspector, you can't do this..." Chen Wangquan immediately became anxious upon hearing this, "Taking me to the police station will only delay my time of hauling manure."

Damn it, I'm about to be taken away, who knows if another person will show up to steal the "golden juice" and take all the excrement from this latrine while they're gone.

"Shut up!" Luo Congnan ignored him, waved his hand, and ordered several patrol officers to push the two of them and take them to the police station to receive administrative punishment.

Although the administrative penalties in Xinzhou do not include torture such as caning, shackles, or standing in cages, there are still minor punitive measures such as admonishment, imprisonment, and fines.

If the crime is serious, such as causing injury, disability, or even death, the perpetrator might be sent to a mine or a remote settlement to serve several months or even more than a decade of hard labor.

Yes, very few people in New Zealand are directly sentenced to death. Generally, the death penalty is only imposed on those who subvert or undermine the New Zealand government, commit treason, riots, or heinous murders.

Some criminals who committed less serious crimes were basically sentenced to hard labor, to contribute their last bit of "residual value" to the development and construction of New Island.

However, New Continent had only been established for ten years. The vast majority of immigrants who had traveled thousands of miles to New Continent were starving people and refugees. In such a stable and peaceful living environment, they were almost all working hard to make a better life. Where would they have the extra energy to engage in petty theft?

Moreover, the New Continent government has a much tighter control over the local area than the Ming Dynasty.

Not to mention that the few counties, towns, and ports below have trained officials and clerks to effectively manage them, even the most basic villages and settlements are under the government's meticulous management.

During the winter off-season, village (hamlet) chiefs, land reclamation team leaders, militia squad leaders, and even resident agricultural technicians go to nearby counties and towns in batches for management training, report on local production conditions, and receive the latest instructions from the government.

Therefore, any disturbance below, before it escalates, will be quickly and effectively contained by the grassroots organizations.

For them, this is a real "achievement" and "merit," and they cannot afford to let a small oversight affect their future.

When the police are called in, it means the matter has escalated to a point where the village chief can no longer suppress it, and it usually involves violent crime requiring judicial intervention.

If the Ministry of the Interior is alerted and the rotating militia or even the military is mobilized, it would mean that a bloody battle is about to begin.

Therefore, although the immigrants in New Zealand already knew that these patrolmen were completely different from the yamen runners and constables of the Ming Dynasty and would never take the opportunity to torment the offenders, they were still extremely resistant to being taken back to the patrolmen's station and locked in a small dark room, and in the end, they would have to notify the village leaders to come and pick them up. They kept begging for mercy and saying nice things along the way, hoping to be let off the hook.

But Luo Congnan, with a stern face, completely ignored them, determined to teach them a lesson.

Who told one of them to be so foul-mouthed and insult the Liao immigrants as "Tartars"?

"Hey, I heard that a while ago, our Xinzhou bought two boatloads of bird guano from some small islands in western Mexico." A patrolman chatted casually with his superior as they walked, trying to get on his good side. "They say that this stuff is several times more effective than manure when applied to the fields. That should reduce the number of Xinzhou farmers scrambling for 'golden juice'."

"Pshaw!" Luo Congnan scoffed, glancing at the two farmers behind him scrambling for the "golden juice." "You're overthinking it! Even if the purchase price of bird droppings from Mexico is low enough, there's still a considerable transportation cost, right? Do the math, how much will this load, this ton of bird droppings, sell for after it gets to our Xinzhou territory? ... At least six or seven yuan!"

"This one acre of land would require at least several hundred kilograms, right? For twenty or thirty acres, that's two or three tons, costing... ten or twenty yuan! If you were farming, would you be willing to spend the money to buy it? This stuff hasn't even been proven to be effective yet, who the hell would want to waste money on it!"

"The manure from the latrine can be used as fertilizer without spending too much money, and it can increase crop yields by at least 20% to 30%. What do you think farmers should choose when using fertilizer?"

"Hehe..." The patrolman nodded repeatedly and chimed in, "What Luo is right. Although we've never farmed, we've often heard the older generation say that crops are like flowers, and they all depend on manure. Manure includes animal excrement and human excrement, but I've never heard of using bird droppings to fertilize the fields."

“But…” a policeman behind him asked timidly, “But if bird droppings are useless, why do we in New Zealand go to so much trouble to bring them back from Mexico?”

"Um?……"

"Ok?"

Luo Congnan and the patrolman were stunned upon hearing this.
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(End of this chapter)