Daqin: Compared with his sons, Ying Zheng is jealous

【After a few words, it was decided that the Western Rong and Northern Di would pay tribute to the oxen for farming. Then Prince Fusu's eyes fell on the farming again.】

【Thinking about the scene just now when a group of farm boys were there, one was in front of them digging a furrow with a hoe, and the other was following closely behind them sowing seeds.】

【Then Prince Fusu picked up the branch again and drew on the ground. Not long after, everyone saw that Prince Fusu had drawn a strange device with one leg on the ground.】.

【Then Prince Fusu looked up at Zhang Han beside him and ordered:"Go and find the Mohist disciples from the Ministry of Works and ask them to bring their tools. I need them to develop a new tool."】

【Zhang Han immediately accepted the order, then turned around and asked a secretary behind him to pass on the imperial edict.】

【Seeing this, Xu Zi at the side couldn't help but ask,"May I ask, Your Highness, what kind of tool is this?"】

【Prince Fusu simply replied:"Let's call this thing the plow cart."】

【"Just now I saw one of you digging the furrow in front and the other sowing in the back, which is very inconvenient, so I was wondering if we could use one tool to do both tasks at the same time."】

【Then Prince Fusu pointed to the design sketch on the ground and explained one by one:"This is the plow frame, which is mainly responsible for supporting the entire plow cart~frame"】

【"This is a hoe, mainly used to hold seeds."-】

【"This is the leg of the hoe. The leg is hollow and connected to the hoe bucket. It allows the seeds in the hoe bucket to flow down the leg into the soil."】

【"This is a hoe, which is mainly used to dig furrows and sow seeds on the leveled land, and also to cover and compact the crops......."】

【"In this way, as long as there is one person or an animal in front to pull the hoe, and someone behind to hold the hoe, the two tasks of trenching and sowing can be completed at the same time."】

【"Compared with the original furrowing and sowing, it will save a lot of time and effort."】

【After hearing the general explanation given by Prince Fusu, the farm boys present, including Xu Xing, were all enlightened.】

【Again, they have been farming for almost their entire lives, although many things may be due to the authorities' ignorance, they did not think that they could make such a thing to assist them in farming.】

【But when Prince Fusu proposed it, relying on their own years of farming experience, they almost instantly realized that what Prince Fusu said about the plow cart was feasible.】

【Therefore, all the farmers present were not ready to wait for the Mohists, and immediately started to make their own plows according to the style of the plow that Prince Fusu had mentioned.】

【Unfortunately, the ability of the peasants in making tools is not as good as that of the professional Mohists, and they don't have professional tools at hand.】

【Therefore, before the arrival of the Mohist disciples, Xu Zi and other farmers had not yet made a truly usable plow.】

【When Xiangli Ji, the Minister of Works, came here with a group of Mohist disciples and listened to Prince Fusu's idea about the plow cart,】

【He immediately demonstrated to everyone what it meant to be a disciple of the Mohist School who specialized in researching and inventing equipment. In less than a moment, he had produced the first plow that looked usable!】

【"We left in a hurry, and we didn't bring any suitable iron sheets with us, so the hoe shovel that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince mentioned should be made of iron. This point cannot be perfected for the time being."】

【"However, we have specially sharpened the hoe shovel. If used for a short period of time, its efficiency should be not much different from that of an iron hoe shovel."】

【"Now we can use it to verify whether this plowing cart is usable. If it is usable, our Ministry of Industry will go back and specially produce the iron plowing shovel needed for the plowing cart."】

【Xiang Liji held up a newly made plow and introduced it.】

【Prince Fusu nodded and said that he could try it out first.】

【So the farmers, who couldn't wait any longer, immediately picked up the hoe cart and loaded the hoe bucket with seeds.】

【Then one person imitated the oxen pulling the ox in front, while the other person held the plow cart in the back to dig furrows and sow seeds.】

【Although when I first used the plow, due to my lack of experience, the furrows it made were sometimes deep and sometimes shallow.】

【However, the children of farmers are worthy of being children of farmers. They also showed the Mohist children their decades of experience and ability in professional research on farming.】

【However, in just a short while, the two farm boys in charge of the demonstration mastered the use of the plow.】

【Afterwards, the crowd watching saw the two farm boys who were in charge of the demonstration sowing seeds at an almost lightning speed, and soon they had sown a large area.】

【At the same time, another group of farm children followed the hoe cart and turned over all the seeds sown by the hoe cart to see if they were up to standard.】

【After half an hour, the farmer who was in charge of demonstrating the use of the plow came back excitedly and said,"The plow is fine. It is very simple and easy to use it to dig furrows and plant seeds!"】

【"With this plow cart, even without livestock pulling it, relying solely on human traction, it is enough for two people to sow ten acres of land a day!"】

【"If there were livestock such as oxen to pull the crops, I estimate that it would not be a problem for one person and one ox to sow twenty to thirty acres of land a day!"】

【The farmer who was in charge of checking whether the seeds were up to standard also ran back excitedly and replied:"Except for the seeds that were sown at the beginning, which were not up to standard because of lack of experience,"】

【"The seeds sown after a while are basically qualified."】

【"Moreover, compared with our previous manual sowing, the seeds sown by the plow are more evenly and reasonably spaced."】

【"I strongly suggest that we officially use a plow to sow this summer!"】

【Hearing the answer from the farmer's son who was using the plow and checking the sowing, even the Qin King Ying Zheng, who had been listening, was stunned.】

【Although he didn't know how many acres of land an ordinary person could sow in a day, he found out while listening in.】

【If one person used a hoe to dig the furrows in front and one person followed behind to sow the seeds,】

【Two people can dig ditches and sow seeds on two to three or four acres of land in a day.】

【The plow cart just invented by Crown Prince Fusu directly increased the efficiency of trenching and sowing by three or four times!】

【If it were possible to use an ox to replace one of the human workers, the efficiency of trenching and sowing would be increased almost tenfold!】

【No, no, no, this also saves a man, if this man can also use oxen and plow carts to dig furrows and sow seeds】

【So with the same two people using oxen and plow carts, the efficiency of trenching and sowing can be increased by nearly twenty times!】

【Twenty times the efficiency, this will allow the Qin State to reclaim so much more arable land!】

【There is a little-known fact that the current Qin State, or the other six states, do not lack land.】

【After all, during the entire Warring States period, the total population of the people of Guizhou was only about 30 million.】

【Logically speaking, even if all these 30 million people were granted titles and land, based on the current land area occupied by Qin and the other six countries,】

【Even if a large part of the land was occupied by nobles, there should still be a large part of the land that could be used to reward soldiers.】

【Why is there no land to reward soldiers who have made military achievements?】

【The fundamental reason is that a lot of other land is wasteland. These wastelands need to be cultivated and cared for with great effort before they can slowly become a piece of land that can be used for farming.】

【Wasteland and arable land are two different things.】

【Otherwise, if it was just wasteland, why would the Qin soldiers need rewards from the Qin State? They could just find a piece of wasteland and reclaim it.】

【The Qin State was very encouraging about reclaiming wasteland.】

【As long as you reclaim a piece of wasteland, it will be yours.】

【It's just that compared to the two or three years of time and energy that it takes, it may even take three or five years of time and energy to turn a piece of wasteland into a arable field.】

【The Qin soldiers wanted the cultivated fields more, which could save them several years of hard work.】

【Now that there are plow carts, if there are also a large number of oxen, then the efficiency of Qin's land reclamation can be increased by nearly twenty times.】

【In this way, the Qin State would not have to worry about having no land to distribute to its soldiers who had made military achievements for a long time in the future.】

【The drawbacks of the military merit system mentioned by Prince Fusu and King Ying Zheng of Qin were also kept in mind by King Ying Zheng of Qin, and he also privately thought about how to solve the future drawbacks of the military merit system.】

【Although he had not yet come up with a solution to the military merit system, at least from the invention of the plow cart by Prince Fusu and the promotion of ox-drawn plowing, the farming efficiency of the people in Qianshou was improved.】

【He saw a temporary solution, which was that as long as I reclaimed enough farmland, I could continue to receive farmland rewards.】

【In a flash, King Ying Zheng of Qin decided to have Qin officials vigorously promote the use of plow carts.】

【As for oxen, it won't be too late to promote it after the Western Rong and Northern Di pay tribute to them.】

【Just as King Qin Ying Zheng was thinking this, Xiang Liji, who had been busy with other Mohist disciples since the first plow was made, raised his head and said,"Sowing ten acres of land a day?"】

【"How can it be so little!"】

【"If this gets out, people will laugh at us Mohist disciples for being incompetent!"】

【"Try these two plows. We added a few more plow legs based on the plow designed by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."】

【"Temporarily named it two-legged plow, three-legged plow, four-legged plow."】

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【"The method of use is the same as before, but you can open two, three, or four furrows at the same time, and sow two, three, or four seeds at the same time"】

【"If there are no problems with these plows, the efficiency of furrowing and sowing can be increased by at least two, three, or four times."】

【Looking at Xiang Liji and the other Mohist disciples holding two-legged, three-legged, and four-legged plows, both King Qin Ying Zheng and the other farmers were slightly stunned.】

【The next moment, all the Mohist disciples, including Xu Zi, rushed over to grab one of the plows and started to test it.】

【Xiangli Ji and other Mohist disciples continued to make five-legged plow carts, six-legged plow carts, and even seven-legged plow carts, hoping to increase the efficiency of the plow carts by ten times.】

【The Mohists either don't do it, or if they do it, they will maximize the efficiency as much as possible. This is their Mohist style of doing things!】

【Another hour passed, and Xu Zi and other farm children had just tested the one-legged to ten-legged plows made by Xiang Liji and other Mohist disciples.】

【Finally, the practice shows that if it is human-powered, then the two-legged plow is the most uniform in sowing, and the three-legged plow is the most efficient.】

【But if you use a three-legged plow or more, such as a four-legged plow, it will be more laborious to rely solely on human traction.】

【At this time, unless you use oxen to pull, it will not be practical.】

【Even if it is pulled by oxen, the best plow is a four-legged plow.】

【If it is larger than a four-legged plow, although the oxen in front can still pull it, it will be more difficult for the person in the back who is responsible for holding the plow to control it, and it is also not very practical.】

【So in the end, we came to a conclusion that if it is human-powered, a two-legged or three-legged harrow is the most suitable.】

【If livestock are being moved, a four-legged hoe is the most suitable.】

【Although it did not achieve what Xiangli Ji and other Mohist disciples had hoped, it did not increase the efficiency tenfold based on the original one-foot plow.】

【However, if we only rely on the current three-legged and four-legged plow carts, plus oxen and other livestock for traction, the farming efficiency can even reach the level of planting one hectare of land per day!】

【If you plant one hectare of land a day, that means you are planting one hundred acres of land a day!】

【Compared with the current efficiency of planting two or three acres of land a day, the sowing efficiency using plow carts and oxen is simply terrifying!】

【King Qin Ying Zheng looked at the two-legged, three-legged, and four-legged plows in front of him with an expression of disbelief in his eyes.】

【However, with the assurance of Xu Zi and other farm boys, King Ying Zheng of Qin had to believe that this small plow cart, coupled with the oxen, really had such a terrifying sowing efficiency.】

【Looking at the plowing cart in front of him, King Ying Zheng of Qin seemed to see the vast fields that would be continuously reclaimed and planted in the future.】

【To put it bluntly, if the person who invented the plow cart was not Crown Prince Fusu, then anyone else would be qualified to obtain a title in the Qin State just by relying on this plow cart!】

【In addition to being granted titles through military merit, the Qin State also granted titles through inventing tools, but only a few people were able to obtain them.】

【From this perspective, the Qin State also encouraged the research of equipment.】

【But the person who invented the plow was Prince Fusu, and it is obvious that Prince Fusu did not need the so-called title reward.】

【As for the Mohist disciples who helped transform Prince Fusu's ideas into reality, although they also made contributions, their contributions were not enough to earn them a title.】

【But if he didn't give a reward, it would also violate the principle of the Qin State that merits must be rewarded and faults must be punished.】

【So after thinking for a while, King Ying Zheng of Qin also said:"The officials of the Ministry of Works have made great contributions to the production of the plow cart. Each of them will be rewarded with ten stone of fine rice and ten catties of meat. I hope the Ministry of Works will continue to develop more convenient tools for the Qin Dynasty!"】

【"The officials of the Ministry of Agriculture have also made contributions by using the plow cart. Each of them will be rewarded with one stone of fine rice and one pound of meat. I hope you can find more ways to help the people increase their grain production."】

【"But if you gain anything, I will certainly reward you with a title!"】

【The Mohist disciples of the Ministry of Industry and the peasant disciples of the Ministry of Agriculture who received the reward from King Qin Ying Zheng all bowed and thanked him, saying,"Thank you, Your Majesty, for the reward!"】

【Then the Mohist disciples and peasant children who stood up all had smiles on their faces.】

【Although they didn't really care about these rewards, it was one thing for them not to care, and it was another thing for the King of Qin Ying Zheng not to take the initiative to give them.】

【If King Qin Ying Zheng took the initiative to reward them, they would naturally feel very happy. After all, the feeling of being recognized and rewarded for their efforts is still very happy.】.........

PS1: After the invention of the plow, one hectare of land was planted every day, that is, one hundred mu of land was planted. This is recorded in historical documents.