Si Nongqing Liu Xiangdao took good care of Li Xiao, a seconded subordinate, Li Xiao only said that planting corn needed some horse manure, but Liu Xiangdao immediately went to greet the Taifu Siqing in person in the early dynasty. The next day, a hundred carts of horse manure were transported from Taifu Temple.

Sinong Temple only needs to be in charge of grain, while Taifu Temple is mainly in charge of horses.

There are countless horse herding supervisors in the Taifu Temple, which is in charge of the world's horses, and there are many horses, and there is naturally a lot of horse manure.

The ancients also recognized the help of manure for crops very early, and in the book of agriculture written during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the animal manure production method of cow dung was used, which was called the manure method.

Before the Tang Dynasty, livestock manure was already widely used for fertilization.

As for human manure and urine as fertilizer, although it began to be recorded in the Western Han Dynasty, until this time manure was still mainly animal manure, and human manure and urine were still rarely used.

Because of the management of horses in the world, Taifu Temple has many horse supervisors, so Taifu Temple has a large amount of horse manure, and even in the various yamen of Chang'an, Taifu Temple has become the richest yamen because of the management of horse supervisors and a large amount of horse manure.

Every year, the money from the sale of horse manure alone fills the small treasury of the Taifu Temple, and the officials of the Taifu Temple can get a lot of additional income every year.

To put it bluntly, there were no fertilizer factories these days, and even human manure was not fully used, so animal manure became the main way to help restore the fertility of the land.

Taifu Temple has a large amount of horse manure, which is equivalent to having the largest fertilizer factory in the country.

A hundred truckloads of dry horse manure is naturally a lot for trying to grow corn now, but the more the merrier. A lot of horse manure has been applied to the small plots of land where corn is to be planted, and the rest has been applied to the remaining fields, and corn cannot be planted this spring, but it can be planted next year, and even in the second half of the year.

Seeing that Taifu Temple still had such resources, Li Xiao invited Liu Xiangdao to have a meal, and then generously gave him two corn seedlings.

"These two seedlings are not included in the number of corn seeds registered by the imperial court, they are privately owned by a certain institute, although Liu Sinong takes them back and raises them, this corn is actually a very good-looking ornamental object at home." As soon as Li Xiao's two corn seedlings made a move, Liu Xiangdao's eyes immediately narrowed.

In Li Xiao's eyes, two corns are two corns, but in Liu Xiangdao's eyes, this is auspicious.

"It's really not among the number of seeds registered by the imperial court?"

"Not there."

Liu Xiangdao accepted it with a smile. "Supervisor Li is saying something straight." The old fritter is very smart, and he knows that Li Xiao must have something to ask for.

"There are two things, one is that I want to ask Liu Sinong to help lead the line, I want to find Taifu Temple to buy some horse manure, you know that I also have more than 1,000 acres of land at home, and I have just been knighted, and I have hundreds of acres of land. However, the land in Lanxi is too thin and the fertility is not enough, if you can have a little horse manure, you can also greatly improve the ground power. ”

"Oh, such a small thing, of course it's fine." Eating people with a soft mouth and short hands, Liu Xiangdao agreed very painfully, anyway, it was a trivial matter. With his status, it is not a problem to find a line with the Taifu Siqing.

"Thank you Liu Sinong, I still came here for the market price of horse manure, but I need someone to help me pull a line."

"It's easy to say, but there's another thing that I can help with."

The second thing Li Xiao did when he found Liu Xiangdao was to buy grain, and the 1,500 yuan bond had been printed and sent to Lao Wang. Lao Wang's 1,500 yuan in cash was also sent, and it was piled up into a copper mountain and a silk mountain in Li's house. After raising the money, it is natural to hurry up and buy grain and put it into the warehouse.

And in this Chang'an City, who has the most food?

Of course, it is Sinong Temple, Sinong Temple is in charge of grain accumulation and Baiguan Lu rice, and the grain in the major warehouses of the Beijing Division is in the hands of Sinong Temple.

The grain in the management of Sinong Temple was responsible for supplying the emperor and the court, as well as the soldiers of the garrison, as well as the officials of the hundred divisions, etc., and of course, they were also responsible for selling grain to the people of Jingshi. It's just that they generally don't make a small fuss, they all sell to those big grain stores, and they are considered wholesalers.

"You want to buy food? How much to buy? Liu Xiangdao thought it was a big deal. The result is to buy grain, Sinong Temple does not have much else, only food is the most lacking, it is the same as the countless horses and horse manure in the Taifu Temple.

"How about buying 5,000 stone millet?" Li Xiao asked tentatively. Now that grain prices are rising, many grain merchants have begun to sell them in limited quantities, and they can't buy too much grain even if they have money.

"Isn't it just five thousand stone millet, Li Jianzheng is also our own family member of Sinong Temple, of course there is no problem. In this way, I will call the shots and give you the lowest price, twenty wen per bucket, this is the price of my own family, how about it? ”

Now the price of Chang'an millet is 30 Wen, but this is the retail price. The price at which the major grain stores can get grain from Sinong Temple is actually lower, and Liu Xiangdao gave Li Xiao a face, and the price was lower.

However, in this way, Li Xiao was saved one-third of the grain purchase money at once.

Twenty wen a bucket, five thousand stones only cost a thousand yuan.

"Liu Sinong, I have 1,500 guan in my hand, 5,000 stone millet and 1,000 guan, and there are 500 guan left, do you think you can sell me some more rice bran?"

Rice bran is the bran with broken rice, which is the one that is crushed when Sinong Temple processes the rice, and some relatively small bran, some are rice husks, generally this kind of rice bran is for the palace horses and the war horses of the Praetorian Guard to make feed.

Of course, because this rice bran also contains a lot of broken rice and rice noodles, it can actually be eaten. In the year of famine, many people could only eat some wheat bran and rice bran mixed with wild vegetables and leaves.

They can't eat something as high-grade as rice bran.

"Is Supervisor Li going to buy it to feed the cows?" Liu Xiangdao asked, he knew that Li Xiao had bought a thousand cows, and he thought he was going to buy them to feed the cows. However, rice bran is not rice after all, and now the price of rice is fifty wen, and the price in Sinong Temple is cheaper, that is, about forty wen.

Rice bran is cheaper, and if you buy rice bran for 500 guan, you can buy a lot. Even if there are a thousand cows, they can't eat them all, after all, even if it is the war horse of the Praetorian Guard, it is not all rice bran, but a little dope.

"Don't hide it from Liu Sinong, it is bought to eat, this year's drought is great, the summer harvest will definitely be poor, and it is difficult to hold on to the autumn harvest. When there was a famine, it was also a good food. We in Lanxi Township will build a righteous warehouse for the people in the township to tide over the difficulties together. ”

"I can't imagine that Supervisor Li is so well-intentioned, no problem, I count you as ten dollars and one bucket, and one stone and one hundred words. Five hundred, I'll give you five thousand stones. ”

"Thank you Liu Sinong." Li Xiao knew that this was Liu Xiangdao to give face, and a bucket was only ten yuan, but it was only a quarter of the price of rice. This is really a very favorable price, 5,000 stones, although it is usually eaten by war horses, but this is life-saving food in times of famine.

With 5,000 stone millet and 5,000 stone rice bran, Li Xiao felt at ease.

"Let's keep a low profile, food is tight right now." Liu Xiangdao confessed.

"Don't worry, Liu Sinong, I will keep a low profile."

This means that it is not yet summer, and the food crisis has not yet really appeared, after all, many people are still waiting for rain. If we wait another month or two, many of the grain planted in the spring will wither in this great drought, and there will not be much left, and then the food crisis will appear. If we wait until the summer and autumn harvest, that is the time when the grain shortage is at its most serious, and then we want to buy so much grain, not to mention that it is impossible to buy it at such a low price, or it is difficult to buy it at a high price.

The Kunlun slaves are indeed very tame and diligent in their work.

It is said that these Kunlun slaves came from the South China Sea, and Li Xiao observed that these black uncles were not from the African continent, but should have come from those places in the South Seas, such as Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand later.

According to Liu Xiangdao, these Kunlun slaves are actually people who have taken root in China for several generations, and it is said that these Kunlun slaves were first captured in the Sui Dynasty.

In that year, the Sui Dynasty conquered Linyi, broke through its capital, took away countless gold, silver and gems, and many nobles and people of Linyi, and returned to Beijing victoriously.

Lam Yi is the southern region of Vietnam in later generations, and was also known as Cham in ancient times.

In the Song Dynasty, the very famous Champa rice came from this area, and the Champa rice is also a very powerful thing, with a very short growth cycle and yield, so that during the Song Dynasty, the grain output in the south increased greatly, providing great support for the development of the Huguang region in the two Song Dynasty.

Linyi, Zhancheng rice, this is also a fetish that is no less than corn.

However, the center of gravity of the Tang Dynasty in this era is on the line of the Yellow River and the Huai River, and the area south of the Yangtze River, except for Jiangling, Hongzhou, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou, the rest of the places are all wild places.

The Dabie Mountain area is still full of barbarians, not to mention Hunan and southern Jiangnan, and other places, which are barbarian lands. As for the two Guangzhous in Lingnan, although they are subject to the Tang Dynasty, they are almost those indigenous self-government.

"These Linyi people were captured by the Sui army back then, and they have been staying here all along?"

"Well, it's been generations." Liu Xiangdao said that the reason why there are a large number of Kunlun slaves in Sinong Temple is precisely because these Kunlun slaves are more good at growing rice, so they have stayed in the temple. From the Sui to the Tang Dynasty, it has been multiplied for several generations for decades.

"However, it is also a lie to say that they can grow rice, in addition to being diligent and powerful, these people are actually very stupid, and the rice they grow is not as high as the yield of our Han farmers." Liu Xiangdao pouted.

Li Xiao was helpless, and said in his heart that you don't understand the reason. The high yield of rice planted by people in Linyi is because the climate in Linyi is good and the rain is sufficient, so there can be three kinds of rice a year, so even if you scatter some seeds casually, you can harvest a lot of grain a year without raising seedlings, transplanting or even management.

But when I came to Chang'an, there was drought and little rain here, and the climate was not as good as Linyi, so I could only plant one season a year.

"When they came, did they bring rice seeds from Linyi?"

Li Xiao is very concerned about Zhancheng rice, which is a high-yield rice.

"I brought it, but Linyi rice was extremely unpalatable, and no one wanted to eat the rice that was grown, and the yield was low, so I naturally stopped planting it later. Now I don't know if there are any seeds saved in the temple, it is estimated that there is not, it is useless to save that thing, it is unpalatable and has no yield, what is the use of planting? ”

Li Xiao almost fainted, he really hugged the gold bricks and asked for food. Saying that the yield is low, it is not knowing management, as for saying that it is unpalatable, Zhancheng rice does taste a little, after all, the growth period is short. But yield, yield is the key.

"Xiaguan is very curious about this Linyi rice seed, I don't know if Liu Sinong can help find it when he is free, if he can find some Linyi rice seeds left before, Xiaguan wants to study and study, it seems that he can't cultivate and improve it."

Liu Xiangdao agreed, anyway, it's not a big deal.