In the middle of the first month of the twenty-sixth year of Chengtian.

Just after the New Year, a sudden cold air swept across Guangzhou, the highest temperature in Qiongzhou for three consecutive days was below 20 °, today's temperature plummeted, the temperature in the early morning was close to 10 °, even at noon the temperature was less than 15 °.

It gave countless indigenous people here the first taste of what is called 'cold'.

However, at this time, in the Qiongshan County Trade Market, the capital city of Qiongzhou, there was a lot of traffic, and the crowds were surging, and one after another cars were lined up directly from the market gate to the sidewalk, stretching for hundreds of meters.

No one cares about the weather changes, and if it drops a few degrees, it won't kill anyone, just add a hurdle. Selling the cut sugar cane early for money is the right thing to do.

Although many of today's merchants have gone directly to the fields, after negotiating business with the growers, the sellers themselves find someone to cut the sugarcane and find their own carts and horses. But there are still many people who cut sugarcane in order to make a little more money, and then pull it to the market to buy it.

At the same time, the villages and fields outside the city are also full of people.

This is the official day of the sugarcane harvest. This is the main cash crop of the people of Qiongzhou, although planting sugarcane is very labor-intensive, and if you want to ensure the fertility of the field, you have to spend money to sell bean cakes and bird droppings, but you can make money by growing sugarcane.

Sugar is a favorite thing for countless people. Of course, when living conditions improve, the consumption of sugars skyrockets. According to statistics, in the three years of Chengtian, the country's sugar consumption is only 2 million quintals, and one quintal is 100 catties.

Compared with Europe, this is a large number, but if you completely convert it, put it on China, with a population of 200 million, the per capita consumption of sugar is only one catty. This figure compares to a 25 kilogram of sugar per capita in 2011, compared to 33.1 kilograms in industrialized countries, according to a United Nations survey in 2011. China's original data was pitiful!

And what about China today?

In a previous statistical survey, Chinese mainland alone consumes tens of millions of quintals of sucrose and so on every year. Although compared with the data of the 21st century, it is still small and pitiful, but it has made great progress that is gratifying.

There is only one main source of these tens of millions of quintals of cane sugar, and that is the sugarcane forests in the south. From the beginning of China's native south, to later this range included the entire South Seas. Patches of sugarcane forests are the main source of sugar in China. Nowadays, sugar beet in the northeast and other regions is beginning to expand the planting area, and its proportion is still very small.

At this moment, thousands of Qiongzhou farmers wielded sharp machetes, cut down the grove-like sugar cane one by one, and then bundled it onto the roadside wagon, one carriage had just been pulled away, and the other was ready for the end of the farm path. Like a long line, a series of horse-drawn carts loaded with sugar cane continued to flow towards the sugar mill in the north of the city.

This truckload of sugarcane is too laborious to transport outward, and since ancient times, all the sugarcane that has gone out has been finished sugar and sucrose, but there is no sugarcane to be transported outward.

The sugar mill in Qiongzhou Mansion was almost entirely controlled by the Li family. Due to fate, the relationship between the Li family and Qiongzhou is inextricable. Li Kun was not ready to enter the sugar extraction industry at first, because the profits were not too high. But after a long time, Li Kun also 'understood'. To put his precious nephew on the throne, it is not just money that can be done, and it is more important to hold the lifeblood of some industries.

Even when things are too late, it can be used as a talisman.

Li raised money from the Kyushu Chamber of Commerce and set up a modern enterprise in Hainan Sugar by himself. Lee's sugar mill used a steam engine from the beginning, and it was no longer the animal-powered press of the old-fashioned sugar house. Not only is it fast, but it is also more efficient. The pressed bagasse can also be used to make paper, and even some of the bagasse is sent to food processing plants after it is thoroughly crushed.

Anyway, it only took three years for Li's Hainan Sugar Company to unify the entire Qiongzhou sugar industry and turn the entire Qiongzhou capital into its own raw material planting base. It only took three years to earn back the capital, and the name was changed, from a company to a group. The output value of sugar in Qiongzhou Island has also reached 700,000 quintals. It can be said that it has also gained a foothold in the entire imperial sugar industry.

Since the era of Wang Huizu, Hainan Sugar has experienced the 'darkness' of the Liu Dezhao era, and began to attack Guangxi, Annan and Nanyang on a large scale, but although God is not dark, sugar enterprises in other places have also completed technological innovation, Hainan Sugar has no technological leadership, and the expansion effect is naturally not as strong as they expected.

Up to now, five years have passed, and the total output value of Hainan Sugar Group has just exceeded one million quintals. However, this is enough to make Hainan Sugar Group a giant in the industry.

The Kyushu Chamber of Commerce doesn't care so much, all they want is the prosperity of Hainan Sugar Group. The funds invested in that year have now been paid back several times just in dividends.

……

"Be careful, don't crush the car, it's no trouble to pull a few more trips!" Today, a middle-aged man with a thick robe greeted back and forth in front of a large sugarcane field, for fear that the farm workers under his command would be greedy and carry a few more bundles of sugarcane, so that the already overloaded carriage would directly break up.

"Manager Li, this year's sugarcane is in very good condition, and it can at least be rated as Grade A." An old farmer with a deep ravine crisscrossed on his face naturally stood by the middle-aged man's side, touching his gray beard and smiling.

This is a master of farm technology, and he is invited to give lectures in the workshops held by the town's agricultural and animal husbandry station. Although I don't know a few big characters, I am definitely good at growing sugarcane.

Li Xuanming doesn't look like he is the number one on the farm, but in the eyes of the owner, this old man's weight is higher than that of him Li Xuanming.

People like Li Xuanming are everywhere, and it's not easy to find a 'technical master' like Lao Han.

Touching the section of fresh sugar cane, the tip of his nose seemed to be able to smell a sweetness that penetrated his heart, and the sticky feeling of his fingertips made Li Xuanming smile on his face. This is indeed a first-class product that can enter the first class. Even if it is under A, the price is better than that of B.

This year's sugarcane is full of juice, and the yield per mu has reached 6,000 catties, and the whole farm is planted with sugarcane, and the entire 1,200 acres of land are all sugarcane, which is a new high.

Li Xuanming was already calculating his income in his heart, in addition to his daily salary, he also had 3% of the farm's dry shares.

And what is the total input to the farm? The salary of him and Lao Han and other employees, there are only 22 workers in the sugarcane of 1,200 acres of land, and it is not difficult to plant sugarcane. This is also the largest cost of sugarcane planting. In addition to these, the wages of the twenty-two people on the farm itself are not high, because twelve of the twenty-two people are slave laborers, and there are ten free people like Li Xuanming, and the monthly salary expenditure is about 1,000 yuan, and the total expenditure in a year, including the rewards of the Mid-Autumn Festival and the New Year's Festival, is only 15,000 yuan. The biggest expense of sugarcane fields, in addition to short-term labor, is fertilizer.

Cutting sugarcane requires a lot of labor, not counting the cost of carriages and horses, just one acre of sugarcane requires five to six people a day's working hours, 1,200 acres of land requires six or seven thousand people's labor days, and if it is converted into a month, it is a monthly salary of 223 people, which is not cheap. These people are all high-intensity labor, and the monthly salary of more than 200 people, plus the cost of food, lodging and tools, is at least 20,000.

Combined with the cost of carriage and horses and the annual use of fertilizer, the operating cost of the farm is definitely more than 55,000 yuan. And what about the income of the farm in a year?

How much does a pound of sugar cane cost?

Grade C sugarcane can only have a sugar yield of one percent, that is, one pound of sugarcane produces one or two sucrose. The sugar yield of sugarcane that can be included in Grade A can be half higher than that of Grade C, and the quality is better and higher.

And how much does sucrose cost in the market? 2.5 yuan/catty. This price is not low, but it is not high either, and it is by no means outrageously expensive.

Sugar can buy a pound of 100 wen when Kang Mazi is a catty, and a tael of silver at that time can only be exchanged for 800 wen. By the time of Qianlong, the price of sugar had risen to 300 wen a catty, although most of the silver taels at this time could be exchanged for 1,000 to 1,200 wen. And what is the exchange value of one or two silver dollars, one and a half silver dollars and Chinese dollars? Let's count it at 14 Chinese dollars. What is a quarter of 14 Huayuan? 3.5 Chinese dollars. In fact, the price of sugar in China has fallen a lot compared to the Manchu Qing Dynasty. And now the sugar in the domestic market no longer appears brown sugar, brown sugar.

- The brown sugar and brown sugar here do not mean the brown sugar and brown sugar in today's sucrose types. It refers to the fact that in the past, due to backward technology, even intentionally, the sugar industry made the color of sucrose not correct, especially brown sugar and red sugar, and the color changed.

But now the quality of domestic sugar is more than one grade higher than that of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

In a word, sugar was also reborn in the Chen Han Dynasty. The price has come down, and the quality has gone up. But the vast majority of this interest is not in the hands of the plantation owners, but in the hands of the sugar industry owners.

The price of a pound of sucrose is 2.5 Chinese yuan, and if it is high-quality white sugar and rock sugar, the price will be higher, and it is normal to have three, four, and five pieces. And Grade A sugarcane is officially the raw material of this high-quality sucrose product. In this case, what is the price of a pound of high-quality sugarcane with a sugar yield of more than 15%?

Not a triangle, not two corners, not a corner, but just two points, and the top height will not exceed three points.

The planting area of the farm is 1,200 mu, and the output of one mu is about 6,000 catties, and the total output value is 7.2 million catties. The price of each catty of sugarcane is only two cents, so the total output value of the farm in a year is 144,000 yuan, and its total income is more than 85,000 yuan.

A sugarcane plant can be harvested three times, that is, planted for three years. After three years, the roots are pulled out and replanted.

In fact, farms need to rest for a year.

Sugar cane is super earth-intensive, and even if you sprinkle bean cake and bird droppings every year, you can't grow it every year, and you have to let it rest in between.

When digging roots and planting cane seedlings, you also need to hire short-term workers to help.

In this way, the production capacity of the fourth year is close to zero, at most it is focused on pasture, land cultivation, and continued fertilization. The income has not been invested much, so the income of this farmer in four years is about 23400000 yuan - this still needs to produce Grade A goods every year.

Li Xuanming's dry stock is 3%, and his dividend this year is around 2,500 yuan. That's not a small number!

For the owner of the farm, one acre of land can earn 200 yuan in four years, which is 50 yuan per year, which is quite good. It's much stronger than growing rice.

China's grain prices have fluctuated several times, and now the price of rice hovers between one and a half cents a pound to a dime and a half cents. This is the market price, and the price at which the grain company collects grain from the farm will definitely not exceed a pound and a dime. And only late rice is harvested, and early rice is another price, very low.

And how many catties of rice can be harvested in one acre of land?

It is normal for late rice to yield 300 catties per mu, 400 catties is a bumper harvest with good wind and rain, and 500 catties have not been heard of. At the same time, it is necessary to plant rice and harvest so much energy, as well as ploughing the fields, storing water, and so on.

Growing sugarcane is more cost-effective than growing rice.

Especially after the imperial court was able to supply bean cakes and guano in time, the islands in the South China Sea also had bird and animal dung stones.

There are many examples of such cash crops encroaching on grain fields in China. And what does that mean?