Qin Chuan was very interested in Huang Taiji's peace talks.

It's not about peace talks, but about wanting to know how much concession Huang Taiji can make.

He knew that the battles between Datong and Ning Wuguan had hurt Huang Taiji.

Therefore, on the day Feng Yilong returned to Tuenogou, Qin Chuan only took a hundred red-clothed attendants to leave Tuiwogou and go north to the Qingshui River.

But he was not in a hurry, because Du Du did not bring a gift.

He asked the herald to bring a message to Du Du: If you don't give a gift, you don't need to talk about it.

At the same time, he asked Liu Youzhu, who had just changed guards with Feng Wubao, to lead two thousand Wudang battalions to Qingshui River in case Jiannu suddenly attacked Qingshui River.

After the arrangements were made, Qin Chuan began to slowly inspect the prefectures and counties along the way, inspect the administrative system established by Wencheng, and see how Wang Jizong's agricultural development and water conservancy projects were doing.

The defense along the Yellow River was handed over to Feng Yilong.

Hong Chengchou did not dare to cross the river, even if the Yellow River froze, he did not dare to come.

Marching on the Loess Plateau, where there is no supply, in the cold winter, is purely looking for death.

……

In the middle of October, the temperature difference on the plateau in the northwest of Shanxi Province is very large, the day is warm, the night is cold and the wind is biting, and the loess under the feet begins to enter the continuous cycle of freezing at night and thawing during the day.

The ditches that crisscross the area from Xingxian to Baode Prefecture are full of people toiling with iron balls wielding hoes, digging more deep pits and building more ponds before the land freezes completely, so that more water can be stored when the snow melts next year.

Qin Chuan's one hundred red-clothed attendants are like a dazzling fire dragon, which is very attention-grabbing, and everywhere they go, the people who are working all put down their tools, kneel down towards Qin Chuan, and respectfully shout "Meet the general".

Before, Qin Chuan was not very comfortable being kneeled by so many people, but now, he will not stop these people from kneeling anymore.

There should still be rules, and the thinking of the monarch and his subordinates must still be maintained.

Wang Jizong was originally in charge of the distribution of corn, potatoes and sweet potatoes in the area of Sanchacheng, but after hearing that Qin Chuan was inspecting from south to north, he rushed from Sancha City to the area of the Zhujiachuan River in Baode Prefecture to report to Qin Chuan.

Both Qin Chuan and Wang Jizong attached great importance to new grains, especially corn.

Although the yield of potatoes is much higher than that of maize, too many seeds are consumed to grow potatoes, and all the potatoes grown in the past two years, except for those that are too small, sick or deformed, are reserved for seeds to expand the planting area.

However, in two years, the area of potato cultivation has expanded to less than 2,000 acres.

The main reason is seeds.

One is that the number of seeds is insufficient,

The second is that the seeds are not easy to store in winter.

Potatoes are very delicate, they will get frostbite when they are cold, and they will sprout when they are warm, and the total number of potatoes rotting in the cellar in the past two years must be hundreds of stones.

Wang Jizong had people dig more than a dozen cellars with different depths, orientations, wetness, etc., and after a round of experiments, they found the most suitable cave for storing potatoes.

Even so, the problem of seed numbers cannot be solved.

Wang Jizong roughly calculated that it would take at least four years to expand the potato planting area by 200,000 mu, and this was still the case of leaving all healthy potatoes for seeding.

Hearing Wang Jizong's report, Qin Chuan understood the reason why high-yield potatoes were introduced to the Ming Dynasty at the end of the Ming Dynasty, but they could not be promoted until the beginning of the Qing Dynasty.

Food is for eating, and it is impossible for the common people to use it all for farming.

The reason why sweet potatoes, which are also high-yield grains and can be eaten all over the body, cannot be popularized in a short period of time is also seeds.

It wasn't until people found a way to overwinter sweet potato vines that it became widely available.

Qin Chuan knows how to overwinter sweet potato vines, and he worked every year in the countryside when he was a child.

The method is very simple, that is, the sand storage kiln, cut the sweet potato vine into a piece of rattan, cut off the leaves, bury it in a deep pit, spread it with fine sand, spread it layer by layer, and cover the top with bellflower to keep warm.

Compared to tuber seedlings, this method of overplanting rattan can save a lot of seeds.

Relying on this method, the planting area of sweet potatoes has expanded to more than 5,000 acres, more than twice as many as potatoes.

In two more years, the planting area can reach more than 100,000 mu.

However, sweet potatoes can only be used as a coarse grain, while corn is one of the world's three staple foods in later generations, and its importance is much higher than that of potatoes and sweet potatoes.

The most important thing is that the promotion of corn is not limited by seeds, only three or four catties of seeds are needed for one acre, but the yield per mu can reach more than two stones, and the cultivated land with sufficient water sources and manure can produce three or four stones.

In addition, corn seeds are easy to store, so they can be left casually after drying.

After two years of breeding, the amount of corn planted has reached more than 40,000 mu, more than 10,000 mu of fertile land in the Loufan Valley, and a lot of cultivated land in the small plain of Lanxian County have been planted with corn.

After the autumn harvest this year, nearly 10,000 stone corn seeds have been stored in the seed bank built by Wang Jizong, which can grow 200,000 acres of land.

When Wang Jizong came to Sancha City, he came to promote corn.

The number of seeds has been bred enough, and it's time to roll it out on a large scale.

Qin Chuan is already a god-like existence in the hearts of the people of Jingle and Lanxian County, and in their opinion, General Qin, who has been enlightened by the fox immortal, is omnipotent and omniscient, as evidenced by the impregnable Black Mountain Fort.

Therefore, when the Department of Agriculture issued an announcement that there was a new crop that was not only very drought-tolerant and cold-tolerant, but also could yield more than two stones, and asked the people who wanted to cultivate it to sign up with their respective village heads, the doors of the village chiefs of each village and town were quickly broken.

These new crops of grain will be lent to the people without interest, but each household is limited to three buckets, and these grain seeds must not be used to eat, and eight acres of corn must be planted, otherwise they will be fined three times the grain seeds.

This is to exhort the people to cherish the grain seeds, which has taken two years to carefully select and breed the good varieties of corn, and it is a pity to eat them.

Despite the strings attached, the people of Kejingle and Lan County were still enthusiastic, and almost every household signed up to borrow grain.

However, the enthusiasm of the people in Lanzhou, Xingxian, Baodezhou, Hequ and other places is much lower, because the time for these people to take refuge in Qinchuan is still short, and many people are still skeptical and even vigilant.

Wang Jizong had been in Lanzhou for more than half a month, and the grassroots officials of the Department of Agriculture had to pay a lot of attention to the majority of the people to receive the grain back.

In addition to the progress of the promotion of new grains, Wang Jizong also reported to Qinchuan on the increase in population.

Before Qinchuan attacked Taiyuan, there were originally 300,000 people under his rule, and in the past month or so, more than 20,000 hungry people from all over the country were accepted, and Qinchuan brought back more than 30,000 people, and after occupying Yongning Prefecture and Linxian, he obtained more than 20,000 people in these two places.

Today, the total population of the province is more than 380,000, 80,000 more than before.

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