In Fushan City in October, there was a bumper harvest of grain for the first time.

This harvest is mainly rice, and other miscellaneous grains are not counted.

When the rice harvest began, Zhang Zhun came to Lao Tiantou's house. His main purpose is to get first-hand information. It is better to listen to the report or something, than to see it with your own eyes. As a superior person, you must understand the situation at the grassroots level in order to make corresponding decisions.

As the manager of the Department of Agricultural Sciences, Lao Tiantou is a well-known farming expert in Fushan. His uncles and brothers together numbered seven, and together with their respective sons and daughters, there were forty-eight members in the whole family. Everyone was given five acres of paddy fields, for a total of 240 acres of paddy fields. Coupled with his own pioneering, the entire family's field exceeded 400 acres.

However, due to the missed season, the pioneer fields could not sow rice, and for the time being, they could only grow some miscellaneous grains, and the yield was not large. Winter wheat, which is planted in September, will not be harvested until June of the following year. Because there are so many fields and the harvesting task is heavy, the whole family, except for the two grandsons who joined the army, everyone else is busy.

"I won't bother you." Zhang Zhun came to the field and said with a smile.

"What are you talking about, sir? You can come and see for yourself, it's the glory of Lao Tiantou! Work harder! Lao Tiantou's mood was very happy, and his speech was actually a little official.

"With so many fields, can your family be busy?" Zhang Zhun didn't mean to greet politely, and asked bluntly.

Harvest is also a key part of the harvest. Only those who fall into their pockets are considered their own, and those who grow in the ground are not completely counted. Especially in such an unstable environment, it is the first priority to complete the harvest, dry and store the grain as soon as possible.

When it comes to the harvest season of grain in October, who is the most nervous? Of course, it's a warrior of the Tiger Army. During the war years, food was more important than gold and silver. The bumper grain harvest in Fushan has indeed aroused the covetousness of many people. If it weren't for the fact that the Tiger Ben Army had just cleaned up the Tartars of Tianheng Island, and the power was shocking in all directions, maybe there would have been some ideas for Xiaoxiao and wanting to fight for food in Fushan City.

According to Zhang Zhun's order, throughout October, the Tiger Army was in a state of combat readiness. Especially the first line of Xiongyasuo and Aoshan City. At the same time, the only warship of the navy has also stepped up patrols in coastal waters. The Intelligence Department and the Maoyan Division are also closely monitoring the movements of all parties.

"The whole family works hard, and in six days, the harvest should be completed." Lao Tiantou is fully mentally prepared for this.

"I'm waiting for your good news." Zhang Zhun also said happily.

The so-called good news is how much yield per mu is.

Due to the severe drought in Shandong for many years, the situation is turbulent, and the cultivation of rice has been seriously affected. Rice rice, without water, there is no rice. Compared with wheat, the growth and development of rice requires several times more water resources than wheat. Therefore, not all areas in Shandong can grow rice. In the Aoshanwei and Lingshanwei areas currently controlled by Zhang Zhun, only Fushansu can grow rice, and the rest of the places are planted with winter wheat.

In order to provide the necessary water resources for rice production, Zhang Zhun invested several thousand taels of silver to build water conservancy projects to ensure the supply of water resources. Basically, it can be said that the water source from Laoshan has been fully utilized by Zhang Zhun. Many of the main canals, even built with cement, are quite costly, and they cannot be replicated elsewhere. With such a huge investment, if there is no good harvest, Zhang Zhun will be disappointed.

Zhang Zhun wanted to see for himself how much grain Lao Tiantou, the most skilled farmer, could grow in the best fields. Then compare it with other fields, even if you have the most basic raw data. To be honest, the rice yield this year is indeed not very optimistic. According to relevant data, even in the best paddy fields in the south of the Yangtze River, the yield of rice per mu is five or six hundred catties. In Shandong, there are about 400 catties, which is very good.

Lao Tiantou naturally understood Zhang Zhun's thoughts, and specially picked a piece of field. This field is in the middle of a large field and is basically the best. Zhang Zhun went around the field and found that the growth of rice was normal, and the spacing of the seedlings was basically similar to his understanding in later generations, and there were no strange things during the Great Leap Forward.

During the Great Leap Forward, dozens of fields of rice were crowded into one field, which was impermeable to the wind and layered on top of each other, thus fabricating satellite figures with a yield of several thousand catties or even tens of thousands of catties per mu. As a result, the central government made completely wrong decisions. This bloody lesson is not insignificant. Zhang Zhun didn't want the people of the Ming Dynasty to come up with such a crooked way in order to get a reward.

"Let's do it!"

After confirming that what he saw was real, Zhang Zhun waved his hand and ordered the harvest to begin.

More than a dozen members of the Lao Tian family worked together, and this acre of land was harvested in half an hour. All the paddy grains are stacked together, a total of nine baskets. In the end, they were weighed one by one, and the total weight was 633 catties. After drying, it is about 443 catties. Of course, this number cannot be compared with later generations, but at the time, it was very good. You must know that this is the ground of Shandong, not the rich Jiangnan.

Generally speaking, for every 100 catties of rice, 68 catties of rice can be milled. Four hundred and forty-three catties of dry rice can be milled three hundred and one catties of rice. In other words, the best field can harvest about 300 catties of rice per acre. After deducting 40 catties of dry rice as a tax, and 403 catties of dry rice, you can mill 274 catties of rice. These rice are completely at the disposal of Lao Tiantou's family.

"It's okay." Lao Tiantou is very modest.

"That's good." Zhang Zhun was very satisfied with this result.

The best fields can make 300 catties of rice per acre, and as long as two acres of land, after paying taxes, they will definitely be able to feed one person. In other words, the other three acres of land can also be used for other purposes. Even if it is a little bit of a field, three acres of land can feed one person. The cost of farming in this year is mainly the cost of labor, taxes, and seeds. The fertilizers are all farmhouse fertilizers. The cost is not too high.

Zhang Zhun helped Lao Tiantou's family and roughly calculated an account. According to the average yield of 400 catties per mu, 96,000 catties of dry rice can be harvested in 240 mu of fields. The annual consumption of each person is about 700 catties. Forty-eight people, that is, more than 33,000 catties. In addition, 9,600 catties of dry rice that need to be paid are deducted, and more than 50,000 catties of dry rice can be disposed of freely. If you sell it for money, you can sell it for about three hundred taels of silver based on one tael of silver per stone (about 188.8 catties).

In addition to the busy farming season, in other times, the labor force of Lao Tiantou's family often goes out to help work and earn wages. In addition, Lao Tiantou has a salary in the Department of Agricultural Sciences, and his two grandsons join the army, and they also have their own salaries. Those who do odd jobs also have about six or seven dollars of silver every month. Over the course of a year, the additional income of the entire family exceeded one hundred taels of silver. The income from the sale of rice was four hundred taels of silver. At that time, more than four hundred taels of silver could do a lot of things.

No wonder Lao Tiantou smiled from ear to ear. The income of four hundred taels of silver, if it had been placed in the past, the entire family would not have been able to earn it for fifty years, even if it was exhausted and tired. Maybe a few people will have to starve to death in the middle. In the past few decades, the military families who have been starved to death because of the lack of food to eat have long been numb to the eyes. As long as he thought that his family had 80,000 catties of grain, Lao Tiantou was full of energy.

With enough food, work will naturally be more energetic and production efficiency will be higher. At the same time, farmers raise more poultry and livestock in addition to cultivating the fields. Chickens, ducks, cattle and sheep cannot meet the needs of the market by relying solely on nature to raise them. In the usual feeding, a certain amount of grain must be added in order to make the livestock grow as soon as possible.

By selling these poultry and livestock, the farmer has more money and can do more. They can buy better production tools, learn more advanced farming techniques, and raise more poultry and livestock. It's a cycle of good surnames. As long as the grain is done well, there is no need for Zhang Zhun to worry about other downstream links. Trust smart farmers to make their own decisions. A hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend, which is also applicable in agricultural production.

In fact, after the fields are divided into households, the harvest of each family will not be much different. After being assigned their own land, who doesn't do their best, get up early and fiddle with their own one-third of an acre of land. With such good conditions, if you are still lazy, even if you starve to death in vain, no one will be pitied. In addition, the "Juntian Order" also clearly stipulates that fields cannot be abandoned. Otherwise, it will be taken back. Therefore, in the area around Fushansuo, there is absolutely no abandoned field.

The most typical example is Yang Yinghan's mother Huang. In fact, the income of the Yang family is enough to buy rice, and there is no need to farm at all. However, she was unwilling. She is willing to work in the fields, and she is busy every day. On the day Yang Ruifeng got married, Huang also rested for half a day. Because of the lack of manpower, she also arrested Yang Kangsheng and Yang Lingxue, two and a half children.

The harvest of the Huang family's fields is also good, on average, 350 catties of dry rice per mu is definitely available. The Yang family also has a lot of fields, and dozens of acres of land before Zhang Zhun are also here. All the fields add up, there are also hundreds of acres. Therefore, the Huang family's annual harvest is also quite good, and there must be 30,000 or 40,000 catties of rice, which is enough to fill the small granary built by Yang Kaide.

Probably because they were hungry before, and after the villagers harvested, in addition to paying taxes, all the other rice was hidden. Originally, Zhang Zhun thought that after the grain harvest, there would definitely be many people who would sell grain. As a result, days passed, and there was not a single grain seller. It seems that people are too far away from starving in the past, and when they have food, they would rather put it in the cellar or granary than take it out and sell it.

Throughout October, the busiest people, in addition to the rice harvesters, should be the workers who build the granaries. Public granaries need to be repaired, and private granaries need to be repaired. Because of the large amount of work, these craftsmen are too busy, and their wages are also rising. It used to be 30 yuan a day, but now it will rise to 40 yuan. Some families who are in a hurry to build a granary even offer a high price of 50 wen a day.

At the same time, the sales of cement are also unexpectedly hot. The villagers accidentally discovered that the use of cement to build cellars, both in terms of safety and waterproofing function, is much better than ordinary materials. In addition, the sales of coal bricks, red bricks, and green bricks have also been driven. Since there were not enough stones, these bricks were mixed with cement and became the main material for the construction of cellars. Some clever craftsmen also invented tiles to lay the floor of the cellar, and it is said that the waterproofing can be very good.

In short, with the bumper harvest of grain in Fushan, all kinds of businesses here have been driven. In addition to the grain merchants who went door-to-door in the hope of receiving food, other traders also went door-to-door to sell all kinds of goods. During this time, even in the most remote corners of Fushan, there were the cries of merchants. For the arrival of the merchant, the most happy are naturally the children of each family.

The adults have enough food, and the requirements for children are naturally much more generous, and the new clothes and toys are very popular. Snacks such as maltose, lollipops, four-color dried fruits, persimmons, and muffins are also very popular. For example, Yang Kaide bought a lot of novelty toys in advance, and planned to give them to his grandson to play with when he was born. Yang Ruifeng has only been married for more than a month, and his daughter-in-law's stomach has not moved, and the old man can't wait.

There are still many old people like Yang Kaide in Fushan. Even, you can see a lot of old people, holding children's toys, nibbling on snacks that children eat, and playing alone. No way, when I was young, I had no conditions, I never played, but now that I am old and have conditions, I have to hurry up and make up for it, which is not in vain.

On October 28, the rice harvesting work in Fushan City has come to an end. More than ninety percent of the rice has been harvested. Part of the rice has been dried and put into storage. Zhang Zhun appeared at the Qianhu official hall in Fushan City to listen to the general report on the agricultural harvest.

Like Zhang Zhun, in the past few days, Wang Mingyu, Liu Hang, Liu Baoyu, Hou Shanping, Yang Liren and other internal affairs managers have all gone to the fields to supervise the harvesting work. What they have is first-hand information. There is no doubt that they are also full of excitement for the harvest in October.

Wang Mingyu diligently reported that the total amount of rice harvested by the Fushan Institute in October was 50,000 mu, and the average yield per mu was about 330 jin (all calculated according to the weight after drying), and the total output was 16.5 million jin. Converted into stones, it is more than 87,300 stones. The average yield per mu is more than one stone seven.

(To be continued)