Charcoal fires ignited.

Li Xiao stood in front of the barbecue grill, took a string of marinated kidneys from the prince's hand and put them on roasting. Lao Cheng stood aside and observed, he could only eat and not bake.

However, the young prince has already won a bit of Li Xiao's true inheritance, every time Li Xiao barbecues will let the prince start, he does not feel that the prince is noble and can not do it himself, but thinks that such a proper exercise will be better.

The prince lived up to his expectations, and soon became a snack with Li Xiao, and slowly progressed towards an excellent cook.

A handful of lamb kidneys were cooked, Li Xiao walked to the side of the stone table and sat down, beckoning Lao Cheng to drink together.

"Don't bake too old." Li Xiao asked the prince to take over his shift and continue to grill skewers, and he enjoyed himself first.

"Well, don't worry, master." The prince replied while stuffing the skewers into his mouth with one hand, the skewers are very interesting, and he is happy to do it for the master.

Lao Cheng held his string waist and was a little dumbfounded.

"You kid actually called the prince like this and ate the bear's heart and leopard gall?"

"What's wrong? The prince is my student, so what's wrong with me letting my students grill a few skewers of meat? Besides, this is also one of the contents of my teaching, in order to better train the prince, you can't let the prince be like many gentlemen, and he can't even tell the difference between leeks and wheat seedlings when he grows up, right? ”

"You're always like that, kid." Lao Cheng shook his head and sighed, he was ashamed of himself in this regard.

"Why did you remember that my house came up today? Now I'm not welcomed. ”

Li Xiao bit a string of waists, and with a twitch of his right hand, all the waists on the skewers entered his mouth.

The taste is delicious, not old and not tender, just right.

"It's still the most authentic lamb kidneys in Chang'an, and you can't taste such a good kidneys in Andong Road."

"It's really delicious, your kid is a palace guard, but he never forgets to eat."

"The people take food as the sky, who can leave the food? The army cannot do without food, and without food and grass, the three armies will collapse. The country is also inseparable from food, and without food, the world will be in chaos. Grain, in fact, is the first element of stability in the world. Li Xiao is telling the truth, after all, this era is still a relatively backward classical agricultural era, and having enough food is always in the first place.

The first pursuit of the people is to be able to eat all the time, and the emperor and the officials who govern the world have always been to be able to feed the mouths of the people of the world, so that no one will rebel.

'If you want to talk about this, you Li Sanlang is a great hero, do you know how many people in the people now set up a statue of your ancestral hall? ’

Since Li Xiao offered auspicious corn, the imperial court has spared no effort to promote corn planting in recent years, from south to north, from east to west, from the heart of the empire to the border of the dynasty, corn is sown everywhere.

The central government set up corn supervisors, and each prefecture and county also sent corn farmers to be responsible for teaching technology and promoting planting.

"Amazing, this corn. As far as I know, the household department reports that the harvest is 20 percent more for the land with corn rotation than for the land without corn rotation. For this alone, my Datang will have to collect countless more grains a year. ”

Li Xiao also knows about this report, and this report is still relatively accurate.

In the last years of Zhenguan, the Tang Dynasty had about 4 million hectares of cultivated land, and today, the area of cultivated land officially registered by the imperial court is 6 million hectares.

That's an increase of two million hectares, and in ten years, that number is somewhat exaggerated. However, because there were newly conquered Baekje and Silla, and the newly conquered land of the Western Regions, coupled with the defeat of the Eastern Turks during the Zhenguan period, the complete control of the Hetao land in the south of Yinshan, and the increase of tuntian reclamation, a large amount of land has indeed been added in recent years.

Six million hectares of arable land, a lot of it.

However, one mu in the Tang Dynasty was only equivalent to about 0.8 mu in later generations, and it was only more than 400 million mu, which was still much worse than the 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land in later generations.

However, for Datang, which now has a total population of less than 7 million households, this amount of cultivated land is still quite a lot, but considering the low yield per mu in this era, the actual grain output is indeed not much.

"Do you know how much corn is planted in Datang this year?" Cheng Yanjin asked.

"Twenty percent of the total arable land." Li Xiao replied with a smile, he knew this very well and was also very concerned.

Today, the total area of corn planting has reached 20% of the total cultivated area, which may not seem like much, but it is already a limit, after all, it has only been five years, and it is not easy to do it.

Twenty percent, one of them, about 600,000 hectares of corn, is the hillside dry land wasteland that was previously impossible to grow wheat and rice and other staple crops. These lands lack water and fertilizer, they are poor land, and they couldn't grow anything before, but now they plant corn, although the yield is not high, but they can also reach a yield of about one stone per mu, 600,000 hectares, that is, 60 million stones, although this is only an approximate number, but it is enough to shock countless people.

You know, that's almost entirely new production.

In addition, about 10 percent of the original 5 million hectares of land were interplanted with corn, and the output increased by 10 percent, which means that another 500,000 hectares of land were planted with corn, and the yield per mu was only increased by 10 percent.

This is another increase in the output of 10 million stones.

Now in the past year, just because of the promotion of corn, Datang's grain can collect an additional 70 million stones, although this 70 million is not the rent of the imperial court, but the people have enough food, and the imperial court is naturally abundant.

"This year's summer grain and autumn grain collection, many places are unusually smooth, the imperial court allows the people to pay corn rent, everyone is very happy, the grain is enthusiastic, everywhere the granary is full."

These Li Xiao also deeply sympathize, he has been in Andong for three years, and he has also vigorously promoted the planting of corn and cotton, corn planting has greatly increased Anton's grain production, and has become the granary of the East China Sea in Datang, and cotton planting has also made cotton cloth a specialty of Anton, and Anton cotton cloth is of high quality and low price, and is deeply liked by the people of Datang.

In particular, cotton made of quilts, cotton jackets, cotton shoes, etc., is the most cold-resistant, and it is deeply liked by the common people, and even the military department purchases a large number of them for the army, especially by the officers and soldiers of the northern border army.

After all, ordinary soldiers and ordinary people do not have the same conditions as nobles to use fur to keep out the cold, and the original silk cotton is expensive, not to mention the cold protection effect, how can it be as good as cotton.

"If our Western Expeditionary Army had enough cotton clothes and cotton shoes before, then so many people would not have frozen to death in Tuyuhun, and thousands of brave Tang Dynasty soldiers did not die in the enemy's confrontation, but they were frozen to death and frostbitten in vain."

Speaking of this, Lao Cheng sighed, picked up the wine glass, and drank the two taels of white wine in the cup in one gulp.

"I heard that because of that incident, the government hall has now decided to equip all border troops in the north with cotton clothes, cotton shoes, cotton blankets and quilts." Li Xiao comforted Cheng and bit Jindao.