Sky Curtain: My Great Qin must have an aircraft carrier!

Zhu Yuanzhang sat on the dragon throne, staring blankly at the few lines of text on the sky.

"A yield of a thousand catties per mu? Even weeds growing in the ground wouldn't produce such an exaggerated result! Are these potatoes and sweet potatoes really that miraculous?"

He's been farming since he was a child. In Fengyang, that saline-alkali land, if you could only harvest fifty or sixty catties of grain per mu, you had to burn incense and pray to Buddha.

There are many times when there is no harvest at all during drought years.

A yield of 1,000 catties per mu, one mu of land is equivalent to more than ten mu?

Then wouldn't the more than 20 million hectares of arable land in the Ming Dynasty be...?

After the initial shock came an overwhelming envy.

Disasters struck one after another: the north suffered a severe drought, the south was flooded, and starvation was rampant.

How could the Qing Dynasty possibly catch up with such a divine object?

Which dynasty after the Ming did the Qing Dynasty come from? It seems to have encountered all sorts of good things!

If the Ming Dynasty had such a treasure, why would it worry about the stability of the country?

"Guards!" Old Zhu shouted, "Send word to all the maritime trade offices to inquire about that place called America!"

"If he can bring back these high-yield crops, we'll reward him with a fiefdom of ten thousand households!"

The eunuch responded and ran out. Zhu Yuanzhang took a breath and sat back down on the dragon throne.

High-yield crops are important, but soil fertility is fundamental.

Plants need to absorb a large amount of nutrients to grow, the most crucial of which are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.

In ancient times, agriculture relied mainly on farmyard manure, wood ash, or green manure, which was extremely inefficient and the yield could not meet the needs of large-scale planting.

This is precisely why, in ancient times, excrement was an extremely scarce strategic resource.

Upon hearing this, the elderly farmers nodded in agreement.

"That's for sure! The manure from my pigs is nowhere near enough!"

"My family owns a lot of land, so I have to go to the city to buy manure from the manure dealers. The price there is more expensive than meat."

"Recently, there have been people stealing manure, which has forced me to build a fence around it. It's so annoying."

The young man next to him scratched his head: "Isn't there enough manure? Isn't there plenty in the outhouse every day?"

The old man glared at him: "You think taking a dump is enough to fertilize an acre of land? Dream on!"

"If you don't use several loads of fertilizer to maintain a poor plot of land, you won't even be able to recoup the cost of the seeds in the fall. Do you think crops grow on air?"

Everyone showed expressions of agreement and began to look forward to the sky.

If a method for large-scale fertilizer production were to actually be found, it would truly be a miracle.

Inside the Ming Dynasty palace, Zhu Yuanzhang wholeheartedly agreed.

"When we were kids, we herded cattle for landlords. People would even come and steal the cow dung in the middle of the night."

"It made us afraid to sleep every day; we could only squat in the cattle pen and guard them."

Just then, Zhu Biao walked in and heard Zhu Yuanzhang talking about cow dung, and he immediately looked embarrassed.

He's already the emperor, why is he still talking about these trivial matters?

Upon seeing Zhu Biao's expression, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately raised his eyebrows.

"What are you looking at? What's so embarrassing?"

"Your son is not—"

"Are you ashamed of your father's humble origins, and saying these things is disgraceful to your status as the young master?"

Zhu Biao quickly waved his hand: "Father, what are you saying? I had absolutely no such intention!"

"Hmph." Zhu Yuanzhang glared at his eldest son. "What's there to be embarrassed about? If it weren't for these farmers, we would have starved to death long ago!"

"If you become emperor in the future and don't know the knowledge of agriculture, how will you govern the country well?"

Zhu Biao was so scolded that he couldn't lift his head and kept saying yes.

The image on the screen changed again, revealing a man with a beard.

There is a physical limit to food production, just like people can't work if they don't have enough to eat, and plants naturally need to be fed as well.

In 1918, German chemist Fritz Haber was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his invention of ammonia synthesis.

Haber's research has transformed nitrogen into a nitrogen fertilizer feedstock, potentially multiplying grain yields.

From 1900 to 2025, the world's total population increased from 16 billion to 80 billion.

[Of these, ammonia synthesis technology supports at least 30 billion people.]

Without a doubt, this is the greatest invention in human history—turning air into food.

Eight billion!

The entire land of Kyushu fell silent at that moment.

The mere mention of the Qing Dynasty's 400 million population has already astonished emperors throughout history, leaving them beating their chests in disbelief and utterly astonished.

Now the sky tells them that there are eight billion people in the world.

And that thing called synthetic ammonia has single-handedly supported 3 billion!

This is no invention; it's practically a divine intervention of the universe!

Weapons of death are ultimately inanimate objects; food that can save countless lives is the stabilizing force of a vast land.

Whether emperors and generals or ordinary people, everyone was deeply moved at this moment.

That kind of impact on the number of lives, that kind of subversion of the limits of human capabilities.

In the end, all these shocks turned into an endless yearning.

How on earth did they do that?!

"Hey, that's interesting."

Lu Li chuckled and then opened the comments section.

(In my opinion, this thing is comparable to penicillin and ranks among the top five greatest inventions in history.)

(However, more than a hundred years later, looking at the world, only four countries—China, the United States, Russia, and Germany—are capable of independently producing nitrogen fertilizer.)

(Dude, what do you think nitrogen fertilizer is? Germany was able to fight a world war precisely because it produced nitrogen fertilizer on a large scale. A fertilizer plant could be a bomb factory if you changed its name!)

(The conditions for synthesizing ammonia are 500 degrees Celsius and 200 atmospheres of pressure. If you can make this kind of tank, you can also put it underwater to transport intercontinental ballistic missiles [doge])

"Speaking of which, I remember we only managed to get fertilizer sorted out in the 1970s. It really wasn't easy."

Lu Li sighed and sent the message out.

In the cave dwellings of northern Shaanxi, the teacher smiled knowingly after seeing this sentence.

"It seems we've ultimately won this world."

Hearing this, the men nearby grinned and said, "Our base area is expanding rapidly; those Japanese devils are like grasshoppers in autumn, they won't last long!"

The instructor waved his hand and stubbed out his cigarette in the rough earthenware bowl: "I'm not talking about winning against Japan, I'm talking about us winning against Chiang Kai-shek."

Upon hearing this, the faces of the cadres in the cave dwelling were filled with astonishment.

"Chairman, how did you determine that we would ultimately win?"

The instructor picked up the fire tongs and poked at the charcoal fire in the basin a couple of times. "Old Jiang, that's a seasoned comprador soldier."

"Can a comprador build an independent industry? Without foreigners, he can't even produce a fart."

"We are on the path of independence and self-reliance, and the sky has proven us right."

The instructor clapped his hands and said with a smile, "But the revolution is not yet complete; brave warriors must continue to strive!"

Everyone burst into laughter and threw themselves into their work with renewed vigor.

But the emperors of all dynasties could no longer laugh.

They don't even understand what industry is, let alone how to make nitrogen fertilizer. Isn't that nonsense?

Ambitious emperors shook their heads, choosing instead to find American crops first.

As for this ammonia synthesis?

Let future generations, those who are destined to study it, do so.

-

"We look at industrial stuff every day, but we also need to look at something light and relaxing."

Lu Li rolled over in bed and casually swiped to the next video.

"Hey, this is interesting!"

What would the founding emperor's reaction be if he saw the peak of his dynasty's territory?

Wow!

This instantly woke everyone up!

Especially the founding emperors, their eyes were wide open, bigger than copper bells.

Unable to contain his excitement, Ying Zheng loudly ordered, "Send for a painter to draw the map of the sky; I want to hang it in my bedchamber to admire day and night!"

Although he knew that the Qin Dynasty did not last, he thought that some remarkable figures would surely emerge from its descendants.

If a great ruler like Zhu Di were to emerge, he would be laughing in his sleep.

Several cartoonish figures appeared on the sky, each with Zhu Yuanzhang's name on its head.

Upon witnessing this scene, Zhu Yuanzhang's heart pounded; he felt both nervous and expectant.

Surely the descendants of the Zhu family wouldn't be too bad?

At least that Zhu Di kid is definitely not a peaceful person, and he might actually do something big!

[Zhu Yuanzhang: Hiss... Over nine million square kilometers, not bad, not bad, much larger than when I was in power. Which holy grandson conquered this empire?]

[Zhu Di: Replying to Father Emperor, I am the third emperor]

[Zhu Yuanzhang: Oh~ Yunwen is not bad, it's all thanks to my good teaching.]