Not only were the landlords resistant to the Jingyang Merchant Gang's policy, but even people within Zhu Youzhen's clique had great misgivings about land reform.

Among them, the most worried is Princess Rui'er, although she is obedient to Zhu Youzhen's decision, she is always worried these days.

Zhu Youzhen has explained to her many times, including the improvement of production efficiency brought about by the division of labor, the increase in yield brought by preferred crops, and so on. Ke Ruier couldn't believe that the production capacity per mu has been increased several times as Zhu Youzhen said.

Zhu Youzhen had no choice but to give up his useless preaching, thinking that he could only let the facts give the answer. You must know that in the previous life, the yield of crops per mu was hundreds of catties, which were less, and it was not uncommon to see more than 1,000 catties or even tons of grain fields. Some high-yield crops, such as potatoes and sweet potatoes, can even reach 10,000 catties per mu.

In contrast, the average yield per mu is too low and too low, and the potential for increasing yield is still very large. The reason why Zhu Youzhen dared to give twice the average yield per mu was precisely because he had the bottom in his heart: after the land was in his hands, it would never be possible for the yield per mu to still be more than 100 catties.

Of course, many of the high-yielding crops in previous lives, such as corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, were exotic species from the Americas. It is now the fourth year of the Apocalypse, and the year 1624 in the Gregorian calendar. Columbus discovered the New World in 1492, just over a hundred years ago.

For more than a hundred years, Europeans frantically rushed to the New World, but mainly to the gold and silver mines there, and did not have much knowledge of the high-yield characteristics of local crops. Therefore, these crops are far from being widely planted, anyway, Zhu Youzhen walked from Liaodong to Shaanxi, and he didn't see a single such crop.

Of course, Zhu Youzhen wants to introduce these high-yield crops immediately. Not to mention the yield of 10,000 catties per mu, even if it can reach 1,000 catties, it is equivalent to an increase of seven or eight times in production, and the grain problem that plagues Shaanxi can be solved at once.

But he also knew that he couldn't eat hot tofu in a hurry, and now he was planting new crops immediately, and the conditions were not yet ripe.

First of all, the origin of the seeds is a problem. He had asked Li Zicheng and Li Zhenyan before, and businessmen like them who had been in business for many years, and even engaged in maritime trade, were supposed to be well-informed, but they had never seen corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes with their own eyes.

Only Li Zhenyan has ever heard that in the Fujian area, someone has brought back some seeds of new crops from Luzon, that is, the Philippines, for small-scale trial planting. As for what kind of crop it is and what the effect of the trial planting is, I don't know.

Secondly, even if there are seeds, there is a process of selective breeding. The reason why the yield of crops in the previous life was high was because the sown varieties were high-yielding, which were cultivated by agricultural scientists from generation to generation. Now, if you take the seeds of these crops directly, let alone the high yield, it is a question of whether they can survive, because the climate in China is different from that in the Americas.

Of course, Zhu Youjian will never give up on introducing high-yield crops. He has already planned to go to sea with Li Zhenyan when he is not busy, and it is best to go to Fujian and even Luzon to have a look, and bring back the seeds of corn and other crops. Even if you breed slowly, it will not work for one or two years, but it will always be effective in ten or eight years.

But far water can't quench the thirst of the near, and the immediate priority is to sow the existing crops. Today, the main crops in Jingyang County are winter wheat and millet, both of which are crops that are cropped once a year. Winter wheat is sown in autumn and harvested in early summer, while millet is sown in spring and harvested in autumn. Coupled with the barren land, many farmers choose to fallow after the harvest.

But Zhu Youzhen will never allow the land to be idle, which is a great waste of resources! The summer crop he chose for Jingyang was cotton, because cotton was sown in April in the previous life, but now it is in the "Xiaoice River" period, and the temperature is colder than in the previous life, so it is just too late to sow cotton at the beginning of summer.

The harvest time for cotton is autumn, just in time for winter wheat sowing. Both crops are drought-tolerant and are well suited to the water-scarce Shaanxi region. If it is arranged properly, it can be done twice a year. In fact, in previous lives, many regions did just that.

Moreover, cotton is a cash crop, and its price in the previous life was much higher than that of grain, and it is even more expensive in this time and space. In previous years, the market price of cotton was about six cents per catty of silver, but in recent years, there have been disasters in various places, and the price of cotton has also soared, and now it has risen to one or two cents. Folded into one stone, it is more than 140 taels of silver, which is dozens of times the price of grain!

Although we all know that cotton is of high value, there are very few cotton growers in Jingyang County, and only large landlords plant a little. Because in this era, farmers grow crops, mainly for their own food, and if they don't eat enough, how can they take care of clothing?

Besides, the tax system of the imperial court is also very rigid, and in Shaanxi, it is to collect grain. Although there is also a whipping method, which can be handed over with silver in grain, the conversion ratio is one stone of grain into six taels. Of course, the common people will feel that it is inappropriate, so they still mainly hand over the goods, and if they plant cotton, they will not be able to hand over the grain.

But in Zhu Youzhen's case, this problem is not a problem. Because he had reached a tacit agreement with the local officials in Shaanxi, he obtained all the land endowments in Jingyang County at the cost of voluntarily giving up the mining of the other two counties. In this way, the Jingyang County Government and the Jingyang Merchant Gang are equivalent to the relationship between the left and the right, and they are all Zhu Youzhen's property anyway.

Therefore, as early as a month or two ago, Zhu Youzhen asked Li Zicheng to help buy a lot of cotton seeds, and tried every means to invite some farmers from other places who are familiar with cotton planting technology to be technicians to specially tutor local people in planting cotton. Now that the winter wheat harvest has been completed, and the Jingyang Merchant Gang has obtained the right to cultivate tens of thousands of acres of fields in Jingyang County through a lease contract, Zhu Youzhen can finally implement his large-scale agricultural production plan.

In addition to cotton, Zhu Youzhen also set aside thousands of acres of contiguous land to grow vegetables. In the past, farmers also grew vegetables, but only in their own houses or in front of their homes, the quantity was small, and the varieties were relatively simple, basically only enough for their own food.

But Zhu Youjian is well aware of the importance of vegetables to people, many people in this era are malnourished, especially susceptible to plague infection, one of the important reasons is the lack of vitamins, and the main source of vitamins is vegetables.

In the past, farmers could not even have enough to eat, and of course they were reluctant to grow vegetables in the fields. Now Zhu Youzhen can make overall planning for the field and plant a large number of seasonal vegetables. It's a pity that he can't make up a plastic greenhouse, otherwise he can grow out-of-season vegetables to enrich the people's tables.

Now that everything is ready, the land is available, the seeds are available, and the farm workers are also available, just wait for Zhu Youzhen's order, and they can sow the seeds immediately. But Zhu Youzhen's next behavior once again made everyone scratch their heads!