There are more than 100,000 people in Pingyang County at this time, more than 10,000 households, excluding the squires, Lizheng, and Jiashou, and the remaining more than 9,000 households are basically struggling under the food and clothing line, that is to say, to solve their food and clothing, at least 900,000 catties of potatoes and sweet potato seeds must be bought.

900,000 catties is not something that can be purchased in a moment and a half, as soon as Zhang Bin and Tang Xian finished discussing, he immediately allocated 4,500 taels of silver and asked people to send it to the Dajin Institute, and asked his father Zhang Chengde to buy potatoes and sweet potato seeds on his behalf, and send a batch when he bought a batch, so as not to sow seeds when the time comes.

Immediately afterwards he ordered twenty ovens and twenty flatbed carts, and let the blacksmiths and carpenters do the work first, and the remaining two hundred taels were kept for printing.

In the next few months, Zhang Bin basically ran at both ends of the county government and Dongmen Mountain.

If there is any government affairs to be handled, he will stay in the county office, handle the government affairs, and read the military book by the way.

If he didn't have any government affairs to deal with, he would go to Dongmen Mountain to see the rise of potatoes and sweet potatoes, and practice painting by the way.

Reading the military book is naturally to prepare for leading the troops to fight in the future, as for this painting, the main reason is that he wants to add illustrations to the "Potato and Sweet Potato Planting Minutes".

After all, most of the people who read this book are ordinary people, and it is good to be able to recognize the words, but to fully understand the meaning of the whole article, I am afraid that few people can do it.

If you can illustrate the whole planting process with a picture of the situation, then there will be no deviation in understanding.

Also, he doesn't have time to study the industry and weapons of the Ming Dynasty now, and he will definitely start to study it in the future.

Qinqi, calligraphy and painting are the skills necessary for ancient literati, often used to measure a person's cultural accomplishment, painting, the original county order Zhang Bin was naturally learned, however, he did not paint much, can only be regarded as a little skill, far from both form and spirit.

Wu Shiqi is a good painter, just to teach Zhang Bin, these months of practice, Zhang Bin's painting skills can be said to have improved by leaps and bounds, the painting can basically be called vivid, and the illustrations on the "Potato and Sweet Potato Planting Minutes" he also drew almost.

It was June, the season when potatoes and sweet potatoes were ripe, and on this day, Zhang Bin came to Dongmen Mountain again, and after taking a turn in the field, he returned to Chen Yingying's house and began to practice painting.

At this time, his painting skills have almost caught up with Wu Shiqi, Wu Shiqi and Xie Zhenggang stayed outside chatting with each other, did not disturb him to practice, in the room, only Chen Yingying was accompanied, grinding ink for him, and fanning the wind for him, so that he was adoring and loving, full of happiness.

Zhang Bin also wants to open it now, he is not obsessed with women, nor does he refuse people thousands of miles away, he does not bother to restrain himself, nor does he think crankily, he will not refuse if he is destined for fate, he will not force it if he has no fate, everything will go naturally.

At the moment he is copying a painting of flowers and plants, this painting is a gourd vine, with flowers, fruits, leaves, that flower is a bit like a potato flower, that leaf is a bit like a sweet potato leaf, copying, is helping him to paint potatoes and sweet potato plants.

Since his painting skills reached the level of resemblance, Wu Shiqi went to Wenzhou Mansion and selected some flower paintings for him, most of which were similar to potato and sweet potato plants.

After copying for nearly an hour, he finally finished copying this gourd vine, and there was almost no difference between the two.

He nodded in satisfaction, then put down the brush and stretched.

Chen Yingying leaned up obediently and said softly: "My lord, it's almost, don't be too tired, Mr. Wu also said that painting is not something that can be practiced in one or two years." ”

Zhang Bin gently hugged her into his arms, felt the warm fragrant nephrite, took two deep breaths of fragrance, and then smiled: "Well, I'll practice here today, you go cook first, and I'll check the manuscript." ”

When Chen Yingying heard this, she shyly got up from his arms and jumped away, while Zhang Bin picked up a pile of manuscripts on the table and checked them.

In fact, the potatoes and sweet potatoes in the field are almost ripe at this time, and the reason why Zhang Bin didn't let people harvest them is mainly to let them absorb some water and nutrients in the land and increase the yield.

After checking the manuscript, he breathed a sigh of relief, it was almost over, and the final harvest remained.

In fact, he has already completed the text part, only two final and mature illustrations have not yet been drawn, and his painting skills have not yet reached the level of vivid images that can be drawn out of thin air, and he still has to draw on the real thing.

After thinking about it, he decided to dig up a potato plant and a sweet potato plant in the afternoon, firstly, to draw the final illustration, and at the same time, he could also weigh them separately to estimate the yield.

After lunch, he took Chen Zhi and others to the experimental field behind the house, and asked them to first dig up the soil next to a sweet potato plant, then pull out the roots and stems together, and then dig out the whole potato plant.

The newly dug potatoes and sweet potatoes are already larger than the original seeds, but they are not as big as the later generations, Zhang Bin let people weigh them, and then roughly calculated them according to the number of plants, and came to the conclusion that the yield of 2,000 catties per mu should not be a problem.

Then he came to the room with the sweet potato and potatoes he had dug up, and drew them carefully.

After an afternoon of painting, he finally finished the illustrations of the potatoes and sweet potatoes after they were ripe, which meant that the "Potato and Sweet Potato Planting Notes" that he had painstakingly recorded and sorted out for two months was finally completed.

Early the next morning, after the morning hall, he summoned the only four printers in Pingyang, discussed with them for a while with the manuscript, and finally set the price of five cents of silver for a copy, two hundred taels of silver, and exactly four hundred copies to be printed.

The price is a bit high, mainly because it is the first time he has printed, and there are many illustrations, and there are many woodblocks to engrave.

Two hundred taels of silver is a huge income for the four printers, they have not received a new book for a long time, if it is an old book, they will earn a few dozen wen at most, and they can't compare with new books at all, let alone four hundred copies this time.

At this time, everyone didn't have much money, and even old books were rarely ordered, and their lives were quite difficult.

It can be said that this time alone is almost enough for them to eat for a year.

Therefore, they were quite active, and under their division of labor and cooperation, the "Potato and Sweet Potato Planting Minutes" was printed in less than ten days.

Holding the newly printed "Potato and Sweet Potato Planting Minutes", Zhang Bin couldn't help but read it with love.

The more he flipped it, the more excited he became.

I actually published a book, I actually published a book, I actually wrote a book in the Ming Dynasty, what a great achievement.

He didn't know that his book was even more remarkable than he imagined, because this book saved countless ordinary people!