The bundles of things that Heifu put on the ridges, called "Zhuzhe (zhè)", were accidentally discovered in the field when Heifu went to the "Pinghuli" on the bank of Yunmengze to handle the case a few days ago.

At first, he thought it was a small bamboo forest, but when he got closer, he found that its stems were like bamboo, each with a thick wrist, a knot, and a blue-yellow epidermis, about a foot high.

Tingzu Yuliang 1 locals, he flattered and said that this thing is called Zhuzhe, which is very common in the wilderness, and fishermen often use it to quench their thirst.

As he spoke, Yu Liang immediately drew his sword and cut off one and handed it to Heifu. But he saw that under the hard skin was a white stem and flesh, and he smelled some sweet smell, and then put it in his mouth and tasted it, and Heifu was immediately happy.

"Isn't this sugar cane!"

It turns out that this Chu State Yunmengze is one of the origins of sugarcane, which was once loved by the nobles of Chu State, and was once planted in the garden to extract juice and use it as a summer drink. Song Yu, a Chu man, said in his "Conjuring": "The turtle cannon lamb has some ...... pulp"

In his previous life, Heifu was a person who liked to chew sugar cane very much, and he often used it as a fruit to quench his thirst in summer, and one person could nibble on two! However, the sugarcane he eats is mostly black and purple with its skin, which is slightly different from the blue-yellow "Zhuzhe" in front of him.

Heifu was greedy for a while, so he pinched a peeled Zhuzhe in his hand, and he ate this thing in the same way as Gu Kaizhi's eating, from beginning to end, so that he could gradually get better.

First taste the tip of the stem, there is only a faint sweetness, and then taste the root of the stem, and find that it is not very sweet, and there is some bitterness......

I thought it was just a matter of this one, but even if he cut a few roots in this wild field, it was the same, its taste was as light as water, and even a few of them were bitter......

Heifu couldn't help but be disappointed, he thought that he had found a good raw material for squeezing sugar, but who expected the sugar content of these Zhuzhe to be so low.

"If sugar cane is not sweet, what is it called?" He complained secretly.

But when I think about it, Heifu is relieved, he is really spoiled, and most of the crops in later generations are actually the result of thousands of years of artificial breeding.

Not only livestock are domesticated, but so are plants. For example, wheat and rice all started from wild weeds and wild grasses, and were slowly domesticated into crops with higher cultivation value. The ancestor of corn is the dog's tail grass that can be seen everywhere on the ridges!

Under the conscious cultivation of farmers, they gradually survive the fittest, becoming larger, easier to peel, higher yield, shorter growth period, and even the spicier the taste, which is the result of artificial breeding.

Cash crops are no exception, and the sugarcane of later generations is also the descendant of sweet cane carefully selected for more than 1,000 years, and the sweetness has increased dozens of times. And these wild sugarcanes in front of them are like children without fathers and mothers, with thick skin, astringent taste, thin stems, and solid hardness, how can they compare? Heifu remembered that when he watched "Robinson Crusoe" when he was a child in his previous life, he seemed to have encountered wild sugar cane in it, because it was wild and uncultivated, so it was not very delicious, and he didn't understand it at the time, and it seemed that he had encountered something similar.

Heifu threw away the half-chewed Zhuzhe in his hand, but after thinking about it, he asked Yuliang to help collect all the Zhuzhe that could be found near Pinghu and hire an ox cart to help him transport it home.

In the last book robbery case, thanks to Heifu's blessing, Yuliang also got a reward of more than 1,000 dollars, which made his family's life improve a lot, Yuliang is now obedient to Heifu, although the pavilion chief let the collection of worthless Yezhe, it sounds weird, but he didn't ask much, and immediately complied......

In addition to Pinghu, Heifu also asked the people in the pavilion to pick the sweetest ones from the wild Zhuzhe near their homes.

So after a few days, Hei Xiumu went home, and the people in the sunset watched dumbfounded, and Heifu pulled a truckload back......

This is the scene when Heifu and the eldest brother are standing in the field arguing at the time of spring ploughing......

……

I didn't understand my brother when he pulled a cart of Zhuzhe back, and said: "This Zhuzhe can be seen everywhere on the bank of Yunmengze, just eat and pull one if you want to, why do you have to plant it in the ground......

In his opinion, these good fields that have been cultivated with great difficulty, of course, must be planted with millet, rice and other grains that can save lives and bear hunger and rent, at most add some beans and hemp, how can they be wasted on the wild trees!

"Uncle, I only plant ten acres, ten acres!"

Heifu couldn't explain it clearly for a while, but he finally persuaded him to give him ten acres of land that should have been fallow this year and let him grow sugar cane.

Hefu knows very well what the sugarcane with high sugar content can do, it can be eaten, and it has become a favorite fruit for the children in the family; You can squeeze sugar, at first it may be just brown sugar, and then maybe there will be white sugar rock sugar; It can even be used to make wine!

Of course, the last item is illegal, but the Qin State banned alcohol because it was afraid of wasting food by brewing wine, and what if it could make wine with a relatively high degree without consuming food?

Although those things are quite exciting to think about, they are still far away, and what Heifu has to do now is to complete the first artificial breeding.

He had to plant the sugarcane, which tasted a little sweet, into the ground, and maybe with careful fertilization, they would grow sweeter. After a few selections, he may be able to get the real thing he wants. Sugar cane too.

Maybe, maybe...... Unless you use the science and technology of later generations, you will never be able to hit the luck, but the good food that the future generations eat in the mouth is not all planted by generations of farmers like luck?

This is the greatness of agriculture, hard hands, spring planting and autumn harvest, in a silent place, change the world, on this basis, human civilization can go step by step.

According to the scene of planting sugarcane in the village in later generations, Heifu asked the help to cut the Zhuzhe into one foot and one by one, soaked in the water for half a day, and then put the sugarcane seedlings horizontally in the ground with the muddy water in the fields and ditches, and then buried half of them with soil...... And so it was repeated, like a seed, that ox cart was scattered on ten acres of land......

While they were busy working here, they were still driving the yellow-haired ploughing ox that Heifu had newly bought, stepping on the plow, and ploughing several plots of land for the whole family one by one.

Speaking of which, as Heifu became a Shangzao and Lu became a public scholar, they were all rewarded with new land, because Lu and his sister had moved to the county seat, and the family's land was taken care of. As a result, the family's land increased fourfold to more than 400 acres.

He is really good at farming, he can grow grains well, and he can control the cattle well. But Heifu was afraid that his eldest brother would be tired, so he still paid for it, and hired four mediocre cultivators in Ben Luzuo, and let them help his family work for a year with one-third of the grain harvest.

It's a pity that it's really not called "Chen She" in it.

Originally, others suggested that their family buy a few subordinate concubines, but Heifu couldn't accept it, and his mother was kind and kind, and felt that his family really didn't need slaves.

"Fortunately, I bought a ploughing cow, otherwise there is so much land, and I can't rely on people to plow it."

When I was resting, I couldn't help but sigh that their family also had cows, but then they fell ill and died.

After carefully inquiring about his neighbors, Heifu learned that there were very few oxen ploughing in Anlu County, and the people had never even seen a plow, and it was not until the Qin State ruled Anlu that it became popular.

This is precisely the horror of the Qin state, the extreme emphasis on farming, so that the government will do its best to spread the advanced technology. The power of the official will always be much faster than the imperceptible spread.

It is said that some officials in Zhao did not want to fight the Changping War with Qin, one of the reasons was that Qin used cattle to plough the fields and multiply the grain, but Zhao did not have such conditions......

Because only the Qin State can extend the tentacles of the government to the township and li level. In Zhao, Chu and other countries, the countryside is still controlled by the feudal nobles, extremely closed, and water cannot be splashed.

The same is true of the stepping mill made by the black husband, in just one month, Anlu County Cang has already replaced all the pestles and mortars with stepping on the mill, not only the subordinate concubines are overjoyed because they have become more relaxed, but even the rice produced has increased a lot.

"Maybe in a few years, it will spread all over the north and to Bashu, just like the Qin State did when it promoted agriculture to Nanjun."

Thinking like this, Heifu felt in his heart that he had really done a great thing, not only improving his productivity a lot in the matter of Chunggu, but also indirectly liberating half of the heavens of the Qin State......

The chatter in the fields always passed quickly, and the peasant men soon had to get up and get back to work.

Anyway, Heifu has already planted Zhuzhe in the ground, so he can't let it go, and he still has to take good care of it. As he spoke, he asked Heifu and Zhen to shovel the dung of his own cattle in the past few days.

As early as more than 100 years ago, fertilizing with animal manure has become a thing that every farmer knows, Mencius said: "In the fierce year, the manure is not enough in the field", Xunzi also said: "Covering the surface of the earth, thorning grass and cultivating grains, and manure the field, it is the land of the farmers."

But Hefu saw that he had picked up the fresh cow dung with a wooden shovel and was about to put it on the edge of the freshly planted sugar cane seedlings. When he looked back at his neighbor's field, he also used fresh cow and horse manure as fertilizer.

So Hefu cried out to him and said, "Brother, just fertilize like this? ”

"What else can you do if the dung field is not like this?" Zhen looked at his younger brother strangely, wondering if he was in the habit of being a pavilion chief these days, and he couldn't even do farm work.

"I heard from a merchant from the north who talked about the method of farming and fertilizing the land in the customs, and I heard that it can increase the yield per mu a lot!"

Heifu smiled and said, "Do you want to try it?" ”

"What did you learn from Guan? Tell me about it. Guanzhong is a famous granary of Qin, and its production capacity per mu is two or three times that of Nanjun.

"It's simple."

Hefu pointed to the blackened fresh cow dung in the shovel and said, "Compost!" ”