Facing Miss Sila's clear gaze, although Zhou Zhong knew that telling the truth might hurt the other party's self-esteem, but he didn't want to bring trouble to the other party's future life because of his lies, so he nodded and said: "Miss Sila, although this is very impolite, but to be honest, this habit of yours is really unacceptable, and you will live in Shuangyu Port in the future, which will inevitably interact with people, if you don't change your original habits, I'm afraid it will really make others secretly laugh at you!" ”

For Zhou Chong's straightforward truth, Father John, who was in charge of the translation next to him, was embarrassed, firstly, he felt that these words were a little hurtful, and secondly, he had a selfish intention, that is, he did not want Miss Syrah and other believers to change this habit of expressing piety to the Lord, so for a while he did not know whether he should translate truthfully?

Seeing the expression on Father John's face, Zhou Zhong smiled at him and said: "Father John, you and Priest Nader have changed their original bad habits in order to preach, but if Miss Sira, these Catholics don't change their habits, then it will make the surrounding Ming people think that you Catholics are a bunch of filthy guys who never take a bath, do you think that if this continues, will you still be able to spread Catholicism out of the Ming Dynasty?" ”

"This ......" Zhou Chong's words pointed to Father John's greatest concern, which made him stunned for a moment, and then he had to reluctantly translate what Zhou Chong said to Miss Sila, and added some of his own words later, telling her that the concept here is different from that of Europe, not only do they usually take a bath, but also wash their bodies during some major sacrifices and other activities. It can be said that this is already part of the etiquette of the Ming Dynasty. Now even he himself has begun to observe this etiquette. Therefore, if Miss Siela wants to live a better life in Shuangyu Port in the future, it is best to follow Zhou Zhong's advice and change the habit of not bathing.

What Zhou Zhong didn't expect was that instead of being angry when Miss Ciara heard her words, she showed a happy expression and said a long sentence, which even Father John couldn't translate in time.

After waiting for a while, Zhou Chong saw Father John smile bitterly and said to him, "Master Zhou, Miss Siela said that she doesn't like the smell of herself. But her father and mother forbade her to bathe since she was a child, and in addition to religious reasons, the Chilawa couple feared that bathing would weaken their daughter's body and cause her to die of illness, and Miss Ciara said that her last bath was three years ago, when she deliberately fell into the river, and that time it should have been the most thorough bath she had ever washed. But now, if everyone in the Ming Dynasty takes a bath, it means that taking a bath will not weaken the body's resistance. In the future, she will be able to take a bath in the open! ”

When Father John had finished speaking, he turned and spoke to Miss Sila in Portuguese. It is estimated that he was teaching Miss Sira about the irresponsible behavior of deliberately falling into the water, but unfortunately Miss Ciara did not seem to be very interested in this kind of preaching of Father John, and the perfunctory expression on her face could even be seen by Zhou Zhong.

Zhou Zhong was also amused by Miss Sila's bold behavior, and at the same time felt a little emotional about the current Europeans, although a young person like Miss Siela was educated not to take a bath since childhood, but her love for beauty in her nature could not be extinguished, even if she thought that taking a bath would risk her life, but Miss Siela still deliberately risked falling into the water, in order to wash off the unpleasant dirt on her body.

It is also that Miss Siela is not like most Europeans who exclude bathing, which makes Zhou Zhong feel that this chat with the other party is quite successful, at least Miss Siara made it clear that she wants to change the bad habit of not bathing, which is equivalent to opening a gap among the new Europeans, and Miss Siela can definitely influence others to change their original habits in the future.

Then Zhou Zhong returned to the living room with Miss Sila and Father John, although they left for a while, but the lively atmosphere in the living room was not affected, after all, most of these people had been on the ship for a few months, and at this time, there was good wine and good food in front of them, naturally they couldn't control themselves, and they drank one by one with a red face and a thick neck, even the Europeans who were not very used to liquor in Chilava were the same, after all, they were not as keen as Sila, and they had not noticed Zhou Chong's abnormality before, Now they drink crookedly, and people are prone to sweating when they drink, which makes the taste of their side stronger.

Seeing that the people in the living room did not notice him, this made Zhou Zhong also breathe a sigh of relief, Miss Sira and Father John returned to their positions again, the two of them have long been accustomed to the smell of the surroundings, so there is no special feeling, Zhou Chong did not dare to go to Chirava again, please Father John to greet everyone on his behalf, he fled to Liu Tao's side, after all, he vomited his stomach just now, but now he is a little hungry.

The banquet lasted until the afternoon, and almost all the people in the fleet were drunk, after all, they had been nervous on the ship for several months, and now they urgently needed to use alcohol to relax themselves, fortunately, Zhou Zhong and Liu Tao were not drunk, and finally called many people from the Chamber of Commerce to send back the drunk people inside and outside the living room.

For those of them who have just arrived at Shuangyu Port, Zhou Zhong has already prepared a place for them to live in before, and it is in Nanyang Town, the nearest residential area to Father John's church, because Zhou Zhong did not expect Father John to be able to recruit more than 50 people at once, so the house is prepared a little, but it doesn't matter, temporarily arrange a courtyard for every two of them, in addition to the three main rooms in each courtyard, there are kitchens and wings on the left and right, Not to mention two people, even the Chilava family feels very comfortable living together.

By the time the place where these people were arranged, it was already dusk, but Zhou Chong didn't have time to rest, because Liu Tao brought back some things from Nanyang, and these things were specially told by Zhou Chong to pay attention to before he left Shuangyu Port, but he didn't expect Liu Tao to be easy to find in India's Grape Man Port, so he took some effort to bring them back.

In the side hall next to the living room in the front yard of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce, Zhou Zhong and Liu Tao sat in the dim light, and several people from the Chamber of Commerce went in and out of the side hall, moving some things from Liu Tao's boat, the number of these things is not much, just an ordinary big bag, and a few pots of half-dead green plants.

"Owner, you told me to keep an eye on a few crops at the Franco, and I easily found two of the crops you mentioned in their port, namely corn and sweet potatoes, and this bag contains the corn seeds I bought, and there are several large bags on the ship, as for the sweet potatoes, because they are very difficult to preserve, so I let people plant them in pots, but I didn't expect them to really sprout, but because of the lack of water on the ship, the growth is not very good." Liu Tao stood up at this time and pointed to the bags and green plants that had been moved in.

Zhou Zhong also stood up excitedly when he heard this, since he got the pepper from Priest Nader, he has been thinking about the various crops or cash crops that the Europeans brought back from the Americas, so Liu Tao Before leaving, he drew some of the American crops that may have been brought back by the Europeans into graphics, and asked Liu Tao to pay attention to it, if he found that it was best to find a way to bring it back, but he didn't expect the other party to really live up to his trust and bring back two things at once.

I saw Zhou Chong walking over excitedly, first opened the cloth bag and looked at it, and sure enough, he found that it contained a bag of corn seeds, golden seeds the size of a finger, in Zhou Chong's eyes, they were actually more valuable than real gold. Although there is no chemical fertilizer in this era, the yield of corn is certainly not as good as that of later generations, but corn is a very drought-tolerant crop, and all kinds of soil can grow, now the Ming disaster is repeated, the north is more drought, if you can promote corn, then it can undoubtedly make the grain output much more stable.

Compared with corn, the half-dead sweet potatoes next to it are more carefully valued, although corn is drought tolerant and does not choose the soil, but it is very troublesome to manage, and in several key growth periods, the demand for water is also very large, and the later harvest also requires a lot of labor, and without chemical fertilizers, the yield of corn is also very limited, not much higher than wheat.

But sweet potatoes are completely different, this thing is not only drought tolerant and does not choose the soil, but also very resistant to acid and alkali, many crops can not grow in the saline-alkali land, sweet potatoes are not too affected, which makes the utilization rate of land greatly increased, if it is popularized in Daming, it is equivalent to adding countless more fields.

In addition, the yield of sweet potatoes is not small, the yield of sweet potatoes in later generations is about seven or eight thousand catties per mu, and even some varieties can reach tens of thousands of catties, but it should be noted that the yield at this time is the yield of fresh sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes with a lot of water, if the sweet potatoes are cut into slices and dried sweet potatoes, it is estimated that the yield will shrink by half, but even so, the yield of two thousand catties per mu is still there, if it is replaced by the land of the Ming Dynasty, it will drop some more in this yield, but it is far higher than the yield of wheat and corn, Moreover, the disease resistance and disaster resistance of sweet potatoes are much higher than those of ordinary crops, and it can be said that in the era of Daming, which was affected by the Xiaoice period, sweet potatoes are undoubtedly the most ideal crops!

It can be said that corn and sweet potatoes for the next hundred years of disasters and disasters in the Ming Dynasty, is definitely a crop that can change the fortunes of the country, think about it, if you can promote the two crops in the Zhengde years, then the entire Ming Dynasty's grain production will definitely increase greatly, the most disaster-prone areas in the north, Shaanxi, Henan, Hebei and other places, grain production should also be self-sufficient, and then there will be no great uprising due to famine, I believe that the future generations of Li Chuang King who destroyed the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid there will be no place for it! (To be continued......)