Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 375 The Bay Area (Part 3)

In July, in Hua'an Town (now Edmunds), the morning mist had not yet dissipated, and the golden sunlight had already bathed the rolling wheat fields of Guantun.

The barley in the field was growing very well, the heavy ears of barley bending the stalks, rustling in the breeze as if whispering the joy of a bountiful harvest.

Agricultural official Zhang Shouye stood on the ridge of the field, squinting at the wheat field that stretched for hundreds of acres, feeling both gratified and anxious.

Thankfully, thanks to favorable weather this year, coupled with the application of a large amount of bird droppings in the fields, the barley is plumper than in previous years.

The worry is that this year's planting area is twice that of last year, but the manpower has not increased by that much. Moreover, the harvest period is short. If we rely entirely on manpower as in previous years, we may encounter unexpected rain, which could delay the grain harvest.

Several days ago, he had repeatedly suggested to Mayor Wu Yongnian that all the labor force in the town be mobilized, including officials, clerks, staff, craftsmen and workers in factories and workshops, and even teachers and students in schools, to stop what they were doing and go down to the fields in various villages to harvest the barley as soon as possible so that it would not be ruined by the sudden rain.

However, the young mayor said that with the help of the "magic weapon," the harvesting speed of barley could be greatly accelerated, and the grain in the fields would surely be brought to the granary in the shortest possible time.

Zhang Shouye knew that the so-called "miracle machine" was nothing more than two horse-drawn harvesters manufactured by Xinhua Machinery Factory.

However, this thing is somewhat unreliable. Last year, one was introduced, but when it was used in farmland near Xuanhan County, it broke down in many ways. It could only harvest half a row of wheat before it broke down at the edge of the field. The several craftsmen who came with it were sweating profusely, but they still couldn't get it to play its proper role.

As a result, the hundreds of officials and ordinary people who witnessed the event were deeply disappointed with this "miracle device".

Tell me, for thousands of years, whether it's millet, sorghum, rice, or wheat, harvesting has always relied on manual labor. What kind of shortcut or labor-saving tools are available?
At most, some harvesting tools were slightly modified, such as widening the blades and lengthening the handles of the sickles to make them into scythes, which could be used to cut and harvest wheat in large areas, increasing efficiency by about 30% compared to the previous short sickles.

For example, combining a wooden handle, a metal blade, and a net (or winnowing basket) to create a shovel can make harvesting 3-5 times faster than using a sickle.

However, these improved tools still did not escape the limitations of human labor. During the wheat harvest season, a large number of people still had to be mobilized to work in the fields from dawn till dusk.

Therefore, during this summer harvest season, it is still necessary to mobilize the entire town, as in previous years, and rely on a large workforce to harvest all the barley, as this is the safest approach.

“Sir, look…” Tang Erniu, the garrison official beside him, pointed to several carriages slowly approaching on the official road in the distance. The carriages were covered with tarpaulins, and the reflection of some kind of metal equipment could be vaguely seen.

"Am I going to test this 'magic weapon' here today?" Zhang Shouye said with a wry smile.

Hopefully, it won't embarrass itself by lying in the field.

The carriage stopped by the field, and several craftsmen jumped off, lifted the tarpaulin, and revealed a peculiar wooden and iron structure machine—a horse-drawn harvester.

This machine will be pulled by two strong draft horses. The main body is a large platform with sharp reciprocating blades at the front and dividers on both sides to neatly separate and cut the wheat stalks.

"What is this...?" The villagers who were harvesting wheat in the fields stopped what they were doing, straightened up and looked back, whispering to each other, their eyes full of doubt and curiosity.

"It seems to be something used for harvesting wheat."

"This thing can replace people to harvest wheat?"

"It's hard to say. We brought in a seed planter during the spring planting season, and it did the work of more than a dozen of us in a day!"

"That's right, and there are also those big machines that can plow the land. Two horses pull them, and they can plow dozens of acres of land in a morning. Look at that thing at the edge of the field, it can probably move around too and help us harvest wheat."

"Tsk tsk, I doubt it. Barley has to be harvested by hand with sickles, how can it be so easily replaced by machines?"

"..."

The craftsmen skillfully adjusted the machines, harnessed the horses, and adjusted the blades to the appropriate height.

The groom gave a shout, and the horse began to move forward.

As the gears meshed, the harvester's blades clicked and clacked, the sharp iron blades slicing through the wheat stalks like a comb, and rows of barley fell down, neatly laid out on the wooden platform behind the machine.

"Good heavens!" A new immigrant exclaimed, his eyes wide. "This...this is faster than ten strong men could cut it!"

"This iron lump... could it be Lu Ban reincarnated?" Another villager was also dumbfounded, gripping his sickle tightly, and it took him a long time to utter a sentence.

"Then...with this thing, do we still need to harvest wheat?"

The two craftsmen following behind the machine seemed quite pleased with the surprised looks coming from all around them, holding their heads high and showing a hint of disdain on their faces.

Hmph, a bunch of bumpkins!

This machine can harvest just a hundred or two hundred acres of land in two days, which is equivalent to the workload of dozens of your people.

This horse-drawn harvester, named "Guangfeng-10" harvester, was developed over many years and underwent repeated improvements before finally being finalized and put into production last June.

It is pulled forward by horses, and the internal mechanical structure is driven by the rotation of wheels. As the wheels rotate, the power is transmitted to the cutting and conveying devices through a gear transmission system.

This mechanical transmission method synchronizes the cutting and conveying actions during the harvesting process with the machine's forward movement, enabling continuous operation. The core device of the entire harvester is the cutting unit located at the front of the machine, which mainly consists of a cutting blade and a blade guard.

The cutting blade is driven by a transmission system and moves in a reciprocating linear motion along the blade guard, forming a cutting action similar to that of scissors.

The blade guard is fixed to the frame to support the crop and guide the cutting blade to complete the cut.

As the machine is pulled forward by horses, the crop is combed by the blade guard and pushed towards the cutting blade. The cutting blade moves back and forth rapidly to cut the crop stems, completing the harvest.

Compared to traditional manual cutting with a sickle, this design significantly improves efficiency, produces clean cuts, and reduces crop loss.

The Guangfeng-10 horse-drawn harvester was not designed to surpass the level of the McCormick harvester (which was put into use in 1831), and it could only harvest wheat straw and could not directly detach from the silo.

As the machine operates, the chopped wheat straw is pushed onto the conveyor belt by the reel and sent to the wooden platform behind. Then, the crops are bundled by hand and finally loaded onto trucks and transported to the threshing ground for the final step of drying and threshing.

Although the Guangfeng-10 horse-drawn harvester is technically very rudimentary and has poor adaptability to some complex terrains, such as hilly areas and fields with a lot of weeds, it is not fully mechanized and relies on horses for power, and to some extent, it even requires manual assistance.

But during this period, it was absolutely a revolutionary piece of agricultural machinery.

相比人工镰刀收割，“广丰-10”收割机每天可收割30-40亩（视土地条件和马匹状态而定），效率足足提升了8-10倍。

Traditional harvesting requires a lot of manpower, while harvesters only require 2-3 people to operate, greatly reducing agriculture's dependence on labor.

For Xinhua, where human resources are extremely scarce, this represents a tremendous liberation of productivity.

During their midday break, the villagers would sit together, eating their meals while frequently glancing at the wheat-harvesting "miracle machine."

"This stuff is good, but won't we all be out of work?" a thin new immigrant muttered under his breath. "Won't the officials above use this as an excuse to cut off our meals?"

"I don't think so," said an immigrant who had been here for two years. "Didn't you notice that this is the only machine in the surrounding fields? Does it mean that all those ripe barley fields are waiting for it to harvest them?"

"That's right. This thing can only speed up our wheat harvesting process a little, how can we be short of manpower? I'm guessing this machine must have cost a lot of money, they certainly won't buy too many so we can just put away our sickles and watch the show!"

"That's right. During the wheat harvest season, there's more to it than just cutting wheat. Threshing, drying, and transporting the grain all require manpower. Besides, the fields in these government-run farms will only expand, so why worry about not having enough work?"

"Exactly. When the seeders come to the fields in the spring, do you think we'll have nothing to do? Preparing the land, fertilizing, carrying water—everything requires human labor."

"Hehe, Old Wang's words are reassuring. If we didn't have work to do in the farmland, we might not have anything to eat. I think that no matter how fast this thing is, it's still an inanimate object. If it breaks down or the horse gets too tired, in the end we'll still have to fix it by hand!"

"Pshaw!" A passing craftsman scoffed, "What do you all know? Our machines are sturdy enough that they can cut continuously for ten days or half a month without breaking down. As for the horses getting tired, you don't need to worry about that."

"If the horse is tired, then change horses. After changing horses, oxen will also be fine. Let me tell you something else: the factory at Qiming Island headquarters is constantly testing steam engines. In the future, we might not even need livestock; the machines will run on their own!"

As he spoke, he took a bite of the steamed bun in his hand, a smug look on his face.

"A steam engine? What's that?" Li Ergen asked curiously. "Is it one of those big roosters that crow?"

"Fool! A steam engine is just a coal-fired iron ox, stronger than ten horses!" The craftsman glared at him disdainfully, gesturing wildly with his hands, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

The crowd listened with skepticism, but the harvester before them was so impressive that they dared not openly refute it for the time being.

As the sun sets, combine harvesters are still busy in the fields, with bundles of wheat stacked along the edges, far exceeding the efficiency of manual labor.

Standing on high ground, Chen Shouye gazed at the scene before him, his heart filled with a myriad of emotions.

Damn, farming can be this easy!

"Sir," said Tang Erniu, the official in charge of the agricultural settlement, excitedly, "Could you send over a few more of these machines? If we had three or five, we could harvest all these hundreds of acres of barley in less than ten days!"

"Do you think that if our Hua'an Town had so many machines, the town mayor would just leave them idle and not use them all for the wheat harvest?" Chen Shouye shook his head with a wry smile.

"Oh, that's a pity." Tang Erniu's face immediately showed disappointment.

"Let's wait until next year." Chen Shouye patted the straw and grass clippings off his clothes and turned to walk towards the town.

"Next year?" Tang Erniu murmured. "Will a lot of machines be delivered next year? If so, even if the scale of the land reclamation is expanded several times, there will be no shortage of manpower."

"Hey, do you think these tractors will be doing all the farm work from now on?" a villager asked in a low voice.

"I'm afraid... no way? No matter how powerful these things are, they still need people to manage them. But I think farming in this Xinhua area won't be so hard in the future... These powerful things will save us a lot of effort."

In the distance, the last rays of the setting sun dyed the stubble field red and illuminated the harvester standing quietly by the field.

Its shadow was stretched long, as if pointing to the future.
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(End of this chapter)