Zhu Pingjin personally opened the curtain of the reform of the left guard, and then rushed back to the Shu Palace, and approved the list of forty-five people for the third session of the Shu examination submitted by Master Shu.

It's just that Zhu Pingjin added one person to the list - Cai Shaoyun. Shu Lao'er blushed and protested roughly, but Zhu Pingjin shut him up with a light word, and he had to put down the dignity of the master of the world, and honestly admit that he was not thoughtful as a courtier-9545. Isn't the respect of the Ninety-Five a way to give people a handle?

Zhu Pingjin slapped Shu Lao'er and rewarded him with a piece of candy - he gave him an autograph inscription, which moved the old comrade to tears.

At the end of August, Zhu Pingjian, as usual, returned to the center of his cobwebs after exercising in the morning light, feeling the subtle vibrations coming from all directions, assessing the recent gains and losses, and arranging the next stage of work.

There was no new news from the imperial court. Arrived at Zhu Pingjin through official channels, and the new news is usually the old news from two months ago.

Did Qin Governor Fu Zonglong and Li Zicheng start fighting? How about the life and death tug of life between Hong Chengchou, the governor of Jiliao, and Huang Taiji? All the issues that Zhu Pingjin was concerned about, neither the Di Bao nor the Sichuan government had any information.

It's a bad feeling to be in an information vacuum. It's like racing in a thick fog, and you can't know when you will be violently rear-ended.

The general situation in the province is still stable.

First of all, there has been a bumper harvest of grain this autumn, grain prices have plummeted, and there should not be many Sichuan people who will starve to death this year and next. There are fewer people starving to death, and there will be many fewer Chen Sheng and Wu Guang who have risen up.

The news coming back from various localities shows that because the civil unrest was quickly quelled at the beginning of the year, the major incident of "eliminating the five beetles," which has spread throughout Sichuan, has little impact on agricultural production this year.

It is God who plays a decisive role in agricultural production, and this year's wind and rain have been smooth, and last year's severe drought did not appear, and this is the main reason for the bumper harvest.

Secondly, Chen Shiqi fell, and Liu Zhibo also shifted the focus of his work, and shifted his eyes on Zhu Pingjin to those corrupt officials. He cleared the accounts of the Yandao Yamen and immediately impeached several subordinate officials to the imperial court. Without waiting for the imperial court to issue an order, he raided the impeached official's home. According to official rumors, he also secretly sent the prison and the governor Fang Yaoxiang to visit Gongjing and Artesian Wells.

Liao won the political battle with Chen Shiqi, and his popularity soared, and it was inevitable that he would get a little carried away. He sent Master Li to impeach Zhao Jiawei (Note 1), a native of Zhejiang, the magistrate of Guan County, for embezzling officials from the Silkworm Yaguan Patrol Division. Who knew that although Zhao Jiawei was born as a tribute (prisoner), it was a strong order. Zhao Jiawei took a tough attitude and drove Master Li, who lobbied him, out of the county government, and then scolded Master Li in front of the people on the street, and even talked about Futai.

Master Li overturned in the gutter, and in order to avoid implicating Dong Weng, he had to resign from the errand of the governor's yamen. He didn't wait to leave the city, and immediately went to the Zunyi Gate of the Shu Palace, and submitted a cover letter. Soon, Master Li was assigned to Luzhou by Zhu Pingjin, and was about to become a member of the mighty army of immigrants going south.

In addition to these bullshit and bad things, what really worried Zhu Pingjin on the official side was the newly organized officers and troops who commanded Tongzhi Lu Yinchang and Cao Xun, the general of the Sichuan General Town, who had recently been trained in the Chengdu North School Field.

Lu Yinchang recruited 1,050 from among the households, and had to select 1,000 from the Chengdu Five Guards sergeants, barely gathering a battalion of officers and soldiers. But the sergeants of Chengdu Wuwei didn't give face to Shangguan. Hearing the news of the draw, those who might have been drawn ran away in an instant. Within a few days, there were more than 3,000 people on the left guard's territory. In addition to hundreds of sergeants, there were also their family members.

The generals of the Chengdu Five Guards were helpless, so they ran to the left guard to find Yin Jialin, who was in charge, and shouted. They took enough money from the palace and went out of the city to arrest the top number.

There are few displaced people during the autumn harvest season, and most of the displaced people outside the city have recently been organized by the royal government to ferry cities close to the Minjiang and Tuojiang rivers, such as Jintang County, Shuangliu County, Xinjin County and Pengshan County, waiting for the ship to be transported to Luzhou. As a result, even the Dongmen City became empty. These generals did not dare to go to the palace and the gentry's fields to spread wilderness, so they had to come back and complain to the Dusi Yamen, and reported that "the sergeant has escaped and found no trace".

The guards are not to be worried. But Zhu Pingjin, who had no sense of security, still took extremely cautious measures to deal with it. The Bureau of Intelligence and Communications has set up a permanent observation point near the Zhaozhong Temple in the northeast corner of Chengdu, from which it can monitor the training and movement of troops in the northern field throughout the process. Zhu Pingjin also decided that once the next batch of caravan soldiers was trained, he would immediately quietly transfer a few hundred people to the palace.

……

The external situation is generally controllable, and the internal situation is even better. The good news that really deserves to be mentioned is still the bumper agricultural harvest.

It was previously estimated that the autumn grain harvest of the Shu Wangfu this year was about 1.5 million stones. But when Luo Yuhong sent the preliminary summary table, Zhu Pingjin was taken aback. Because the sum of the figures reported by Wang Zhuang in various places was a full thirty percent higher than his estimate, and it had reached two million stones (Note 1)!

The figures reported by Wang Zhuang in various places will eventually be turned into real grain and handed over, so this number will only be low and not high. Why is this happening, is there something wrong with the statistics? His wife broke the mystery in one word. There are three reasons for this:

The original land area is falsely registered;

The area of cultivated land has been expanded through land reclamation;

Gradual spread of dry-fed high-yielding crops.

His wife, citing Renshou as an example, told him the reason for the sharp increase in agricultural output this autumn.

The land area is not properly registered, and in fact it is a hidden field (Note 2). Tax evasion by concealing land is the main reason for concealing land. However, if the land is barren and converted into acres, the number of seeds is converted into acres, or the estimated yield is converted into acres, and hidden fields will also occur due to conversion deviations. Renshou County has officially registered 280,000 mu of fields, but how many hidden fields are there? No precise measurements are known to anyone, but there are certainly a large number of hidden fields.

For example, Li Chongwen's classmate Guo Shiyu's family has 916 acres of paddy fields on the west side of Longquan Mountain. The palace cultivated on his behalf, with six skins and four bones, that is, sacrificed in disguise. Recently, Guojiazhuang harvested millet and found that the yield was high, so he used a bow ruler to measure the area of the field. After a survey, it was found that the Guo family's land was 1,327 mu, more than one-third more than the area registered by the government! Like the Guo family, the practice of hiding land and evading taxes was very common in the Ming Dynasty. Taxation according to the number of acres of land can conceal the land and evade taxes, but the collection in kind will immediately reveal its original form.

In terms of land reclamation, it is also the earliest in Renshou County, and the effect is the best. So far, it is estimated that 100,000 acres have been opened in Renshou County.

There are actually two kinds of wasteland, one is cooked land and the other is raw land, and the cost and difficulty of reclamation are very different. Cooked land is commonly known as abandoned land. Crops were planted in the past, but then people left, and the land was abandoned every few years. Because the land has been leveled, the infrastructure such as ditches and ponds is still there, and as long as the shrubs and weeds on the ground are removed and renovated, they can be planted and cultivated.

The place of birth is different, everything has to start from scratch. There are a large number of undeveloped raw land in shallow and deep hills in Renshou County. Remotely located from rivers and without infrastructure to store rainwater, such as ponds and cellars, these valuable lands have been abandoned for an unknown number of years. In addition, the work of cutting down trees, digging roots, clearing stones, preparing land, and protecting the land is very large. Once attacked by wild beasts, the lives of those who open up the wasteland are still in danger.

The experience of Renshou in land reclamation shows that it is very difficult to open up land, but there is still much to be done. There are two key points, one is policy, and the other is organization.

It is necessary to adopt policies to make it profitable for the peasants to open up wasteland. Li Chongwen originally planned to open up wasteland for two years without rent. Luo Yuhong went to Renshou for the second time, and on this basis, he added the provision that only half of the rent will be charged for three years of wasteland, that is, the so-called "two exemptions and three halves". After the implementation of the new policy, the enthusiasm of the farmers to open up the land was unprecedentedly high again. Everywhere you can see farmers cutting down trees and burning wasteland, and the sky is filled with smoke and flames, like a forest fire.

In addition, Luo Yuhong also popularized the experience of Renshou in concentrating displaced prisoners of war in cultivating land in a row and building water conservancy facilities on a large scale. She even gave the prisoners a policy, such as good behavior during the labor camp, allowing them to enjoy the treatment of farm households after three years, and they could divide the land and land.

Dry-fed crops were first promoted on a large scale with maize and sweet potatoes were successfully planted.

Corn is called "bud valley" in Shudi, likes moisture, likes fertilizer and high temperature, has a short growth period, and can be planted on deep hills and thin sandy soil. Corn is also sown in spring and harvested in autumn, which basically coincides with the growth period of rice, but because it can be planted on steep slopes, it does not compete with rice, the main crop, and is most suitable for planting in the southwest mountainous area. In Renshou County, most of the newly cultivated deep hilly land is planted with winter wheat and bud grains. Harvesting winter wheat in summer and breaking buds in autumn yields are astonishing – one stone and five can be produced on the barren fields on the hillside!

However, compared to sweet potatoes, the yield of corn is completely insignificant. Sweet potatoes are called "red lotus" in Sichuan. Renshou County did not have a history of cultivating red lotus before, and farmers did not know anything about the preference of red vetch. Li Chongwen took a copy of "The Complete Book of Agricultural Administration" collected from Liu Hongting's father's study, drew gourds in the same way, and tried to plant a few acres around the county.

A few days ago, Ding Yuan, the little eunuch of the new head of Renshou Village, gave Zhu Pingjin a report, and also brought a red worm tied to a red rope, saying that the yield of this thing is extremely high, and it is estimated that the yield per mu can reach seven stones! He requested that the cultivation of red vetch be promoted on a large scale in Renshou County. Zhu Pingjin chewed the peeled raw red lotus and dictated his important instructions to the little eunuch beside him: One acre and seven stones, which is very little! When you grow up, SA is also ordinary! The quasi-planting is 5,000, and the land is divided into various places. Neijiang Jianzhuang, plant it 50,000!

Red lotus is a lump of starch. The chemical composition of starch is a polysaccharide, and if you eat too much sugar, the stomach will naturally reflux acid. It is said that after eating red lotus for four or five days in a row, people want to vomit when they see it. Zhu Pingjin's father in his previous life was from Neijiang, and he studied in a local primary school when he was three points natural disasters and seven points man-made disasters. Later, his father jumped out of the dragon gate and entered the city, perhaps because the past experience was too painful, his father was never allowed to eat red lotus in his own house, and he was not even allowed to cook red porridge. When Zhu Pingjin wanted to eat, he could only secretly buy a roasted red lotus on the street corner, and only after eating it did he dare to go home.

Now that the Ming Dynasty is in turmoil, the biggest problem is to eat enough rather than eat well. Therefore, Zhu Pingjin had to be forced to give up his personal preferences and plant red lotus against his will. The biggest advantage of red lotus is that the yield is amazing, and a slightly fertilized field is not much of a problem with four thousand catties per acre. Ding Yuan had never seen the yield of red roots, so he shouted for a few hundred catties.

Red vetch is also very convenient to eat. After slicing and steaming, the water is dried to become a ready-to-eat food. About four catties can be sunburned out of one catty, so the yield per mu is also more than 1,000 catties. This is compared to growing rice, where one acre is equal to two and a half acres.

There are also disadvantages to red molys. Not only likes fat, but also attracts insects. When the pest infestation is severe, it can lead to a large area of crop failure. Zhu Pingjin did not allow Ding Yuan to connect the red fields together and plant them separately, which is for this reason.

As for why a large number of red vetches are planted in Neijiang County? Because of the hills and mountains there, it is the most suitable place in China to grow red lotus and sugar cane. Others don't know, but Zhu Pingjin just knows, don't ask why.

How effective are all these measures? Zhu Pingjin's wife talked about her great contribution to the people of Renshou, and hummed in front of Zhu Pingjin with boast:

"In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, it was a spring!"

Note 1: This figure looks quite large, but in fact it is only equivalent to one-fifth or less of the average annual output of a large agricultural county in Sichuan.

Note 2: The phenomenon of hidden fields is not only in the Ming Dynasty, but also in the sky today. The mountainous areas are more severe than the hilly areas; The hilly area is more serious than the Pingba area. For example, in some mountainous areas of Chongqing, there are two figures for arable land. One reports and pays taxes, and the other knows it. So much so that the number on the land certificate issued to the peasants has to be followed by another bracket (from a recent public report by the land department of a district in Chongqing).