At the end of September, Fushan City, the autumn breeze is cool, and the rice ears are fragrant. The rice planted in the spring is almost harvested. Looking at the waves of golden rice ears, constantly rising and falling rhythmically in the breeze, Zhang Zhun's mood is naturally very good. Of course, the mood of other people in Fushan City is also very good. Everyone's faces were filled with the joy of an imminent harvest.

On 23 September, early in the morning, Zhang Zhun took Lao Tiantou, the manager of the Department of Agricultural Sciences, and several other farming experts of the Department of Agricultural Sciences, to inspect the surroundings of the Fushan Institute. The full name of the Department of Agricultural Science and Technology is the Department of Agricultural Science and Technology Development, and as the name suggests, the task is naturally to develop agricultural science and technology and increase grain production. Lao Tiantou is the most famous farmer in Fushan, famous far and wide, so Zhang Zhun nominated him to be the manager of the Department of Agricultural Sciences. In fact, according to Zhang Zhun's original meaning, Song Yingxing should be the most suitable manager of the Department of Agricultural Sciences. It's a pity that Song Yingxing hasn't arrived in Fushan City yet, so someone else can only take over first.

When sowing seeds in spring, Fushan has a total of more than 50,000 acres of rice fields. Among them, 30,000 acres of original fields and 20,000 acres of newly reclaimed fields. The fields that were later cultivated were temporarily unable to be sown because of the missed season. Now, all the 50,000 acres of paddy fields are about to be harvested. According to the estimation of Lao Tiantou, the average yield per mu should be about 350 catties. According to the calculation of this mu yield, Fushan will receive more than 17 million catties of rice during the harvest. Converted into stone, it is about 90,000 stone.

This grain output has never been seen in the previous Fushan Institute. Before Fushan, when the grain output was at its highest, it was only about 40,000 stones. This fully shows that after the division of land to each individual, the active work has been greatly improved. Everyone tries to make their own fields as well as possible and strive for the highest possible food production. After all, the tax rate is fixed, and the higher the grain production, the greater the amount of its own commission.

Of course, Zhang Zhun invested a lot of money, built a large number of water conservancy facilities, drilled a large number of deep wells, actively promoted scientific farming, and organized everyone to use farmhouse fertilizer rationally, which is also an important reason. In the future, as more wasteland is reclaimed as fields, the sown area continues to expand, and the grain yield per mu continues to increase, this grain output will continue to be refreshed.

I have food in my hand, and I don't panic in my heart.

Zhang Zhun's heart was beautiful all the way.

A tax of forty catties per mu is collected, which is about two million catties. Save a little and use it for a long time. The food consumption of the escort team in a day is about 1,500 catties. Now I must always pay attention to whether the food supply is sufficient. It is important to keep an eye on where you can buy large quantities of relatively cheap food. As a result, a large amount of silver was used to buy food. Maybe in three or four years, I won't have to worry about food anymore.

In the hands of the people, there is plenty of food, and there are many benefits. The surplus grain can be used to sell for money, can be used to feed livestock, and greatly strengthens the supply of various meats in Fushansu. In an era when there was not enough food to eat, it was impossible to promote the raising of domestic animals. Raise chickens at most. Raising pigs is very food-intensive. Without food, livestock grow at a slow rate and are far from meeting the needs of the market. The current pork costs 50 yuan per catty, which is too expensive.

Of course, the tax income of Fushan is not a big one. The tax of 40 catties per mu can only barely maintain food and clothing. Lingshanwei's farm income is the real big one. Thinking about Lingshanwei's farm, Zhang Zhun immediately came to Lingshanwei after inspecting the fields around Fushan City.

Speaking of which, Lingshanwei is really a freak existence. Lingshanwei and Aoshanwei are actually separated by a Mawan, but the psychology of the people is completely different. The military households here did not dare to divide the land into their own hands, for fear of retaliation from the imperial court. However, working on the farm under Zhang Zhun's name is very active. Zhang Zhun's big farm plan was implemented very smoothly in Lingshanwei. Most of the local people have been successfully transformed into Tunting.

According to the report of Fang Yu and Dou Shanbai, the development momentum of each of the 20 large farms is quite strong. Thinking of the year-end rewards, Tunding's motivation is unprecedented. If you want to say who is the most relaxed person in the management of every farm, it is naturally those overseers. Basically, there are no tundings that they need to drive to work.

The military households of Lingshanwei are not very interested in planting rice, and they still grow traditional winter wheat. September is the time for winter wheat planting. After the winter wheat is sown, it will not be harvested until the summer of the following year. Therefore, in Lingshanwei in September, there is no grain harvest to harvest. As for the winter wheat harvested before, Wang Jian was allowed to deal with it. Zhang Zhun took Lingshanwei, and the grain seized was actually not much.

In fact, the entire Lingshanwei is very short of food at the moment. The daily food distribution of the farm tunding is completely paid in advance. No wonder they would choose to be a tunding. After becoming Tunding, the pressure of food was on Zhang Zhun's body. As long as Tunding works, he will have grain income, and he does not need to wait for the harvest season. If the land is divided into the hands of individuals, the pressure of food is passed on to themselves. If they want to get food, they will have to wait until next June, when the winter wheat harvest is abundant. When the harvest is scarce, it is still very difficult to obtain sufficient food.

In other words, before June next year, the food pressure on Zhang Zhun's shoulders will be very heavy. Lingshan City is extremely surrounded, and there are almost 30,000 people. A considerable part of them are tunding of the farm. The number of tunding is about 20,000. According to the calculation of two catties of grain consumed per person per day, the amount of grain that Tunding needs to distribute every day alone is about 40,000 catties.

Fortunately, the grain production around Fushan City can still support it for a while. Zhang Zhun can also seize part of the grain from time to time to fill the huge shortfall. At the same time, it can also transport a steady stream of grain from the south of the Yangtze River and continuously put it around Lingshan City. Basically, every three days, there are grain merchants who use large ships to transport grain ship by boat.

Although Shen Lingfei's business was blocked, she herself went to Laoshan Shuiyue Nunnery to do things for her mother, and temporarily put down the business at hand. However, Huang Shilang and Guo Mingtai took the initiative to take over some grain trading affairs. They bought part of the grain from Huai'an Mansion and transported it by land to the former place of Xiahe Village, and then transferred it to Lingshan City. In addition, they sent their right-hand men to Jiangnan to contact the grain merchants and ask them to transport the grain by sea to Mawan, where they would unload the grain.

Shen Lingfei's fleet was also temporarily placed under their name to carry the purchased grain. Yang Guohua's two pork belly boats also joined the army of transporting grain. The total carrying capacity of the five ships is about 4,000 stones, in other words, they can carry nearly 800,000 catties of grain at a time. Constant transportation to and from the city can basically meet the usual grain needs.

In fact, the grain output of Huai'an Province is also quite good. On both sides of the canal, there are basically fertile rice fields. To the south of Huai'an Mansion is Yangzhou Mansion. The area around Yangzhou has always been a well-known land of fish and rice. The canal passes through here, and the unique conditions allow Yangzhou to gather a large number of salt merchants and grain merchants. The grain transported from Jiangnan to Jingshi was also concentrated here. As long as you have money, you can buy food. The price of grain in Chongzhen's seven years has not yet begun to soar, and the price of each stone is about one or two or three yuan, which is far from reaching the sky-high price of four taels of silver per stone of grain later.

The only fly in the ointment is that the grain sent by Huang Shilang and them from Jiangnan is at least one penny of silver per stone higher than that sent by Shen Lingfei. There is no way, they rarely set foot in the Jiangnan market before, and they have no background and relationship in Jiangnan. Zhang Zhun couldn't reach out to the Jiangnan market for the time being, so he could only endure the pain and be slaughtered.

At the same time, Guo Mingtai and Huang Shilang also took over the glass business. Through their own sales channels, they sell glass to Huai'an Mansion in Nanzhili, as well as Yanzhou, Jinan, and Dongchang Mansions in Shandong Province, as well as Guide Mansion in Henan Province, and Daimyo Mansion in Hebei Province. There are quite a lot of large families in these areas. Their pursuit of glass is also quite strong. Therefore, there is basically no backlog of glass produced by Zhang Zhun. As soon as it came out, it was sold.

Due to technical and confidentiality reasons, Zhang Zhun's current glass production is not very large. The monthly shipment is about 20 boxes, half of which are half the size. The total income from the sale of glass each month was about 85,000 taels of silver, which was just enough to buy about 6,000 stone of grain. In fact, in Zhangzhun's jurisdiction, only 2,000 stone of grain needs to be put in every month. Therefore, only 30% of the income from glass needs to be used to meet the needs of buying food. As for the other seventy percent, as well as refined salt and other various incomes, they can be used for other things.

Of course, if he could be self-sufficient in grain, Zhang Zhun would be able to free up a considerable part of his financial resources to speed up the construction of other facilities. For example, shipbuilding. For example, study cannons. These are very expensive. Especially shipbuilding. The Navy is basically piled up with money. If we want to build a navy with a certain combat capability as soon as possible, we will never be able to do it without money.

"Yamabai, how is the winter wheat sown?"

After Zhang Zhun came to Lingshanwei, he asked Dou Shanbai straight to the point.

Dou Shanbai is the new manager of the Lingshan City Management Department. Fang Yu is mainly in charge of the military, and Dou Shanbai is mainly in charge of civil affairs. He had already moved to Fushan, and later moved back. They used to be the poorest group in Lingshanwei, and their support for Zhang Zhun was the highest, and their position to follow Zhang Zhun was also the firmest.

(To be continued)