"Huh? What kind of rake? Miao Peilan asked.

Zuo Shaoyang said: "It's a kind of farm tool similar to Zhu Bajie's five-claw nail rake." ”

"Zhu Bajie?"

Zuo Shaoyang slapped his head, Zhu Bajie is a character in the Ming Dynasty novel "Journey to the West", and the people of the Tang Dynasty naturally don't know, so he said: "It's just a kind of ......, this, you will know it when I make it!" With that, Zuo Shaoyang stuffed the cow rope in his hand to Bai Zhihan, and ran back to the Qu family's old house quickly.

Li Dazhuang, a carpenter, has been busy moving the houses in Laohuai Village to Hetan Village with a few brothers these days, he is a carpenter, and two months ago he followed Zuo Shaoyang to kill the officials and soldiers, and received a reward of the usual money, so he used the consistent money to repair the home. So these days, he has been busy building a house in Hetan Village. However, the house has not yet been built, and the family temporarily lives in the old house of the Qu family, and it is just dawn at this time, and he has not yet left the city to build a house on the construction site.

When Zuo Shaoyang found Li Dazhuang, Li Dazhuang had already drunk a large bowl of wild vegetable porridge, patted his bulging belly, packed up his knife and saw and took his three brothers to prepare to go to the construction site, and bumped into Zuo Shaoyang head-on.

Zuo Shaoyang only said: "Brother Li, can you help me make an object this morning." It is for arable land. ”

"Okay." Li Dazhuang didn't even ask Zuo Shaoyang what he wanted to do, he turned around and told the three brothers to go and build a house first. After it was over, he asked Zuo Shaoyang what he was going to do.

Zuo Shaoyang found a pen and paper and drew two sketches, a zigzag plough pattern, and a farm tool for crushing mud, called a rake, similar to Zhu Bajie's five-claw nail rake, but the rake teeth are more, and they are relatively large, there is no rake handle, instead of two ropes, set on the ox, one person in the back to master, and the plough is a bit similar, used to rake the mud in the paddy field, is a common agricultural tool for spring ploughing and land preparation, first appeared in the Song Dynasty, and now many mountainous areas are still in use in the more backward rural areas.

On the other hand, he gestured to explain the specific details and production requirements to him. Li Dazhuang quickly figured it out. He promised to make two curved plows and two rakes before noon.

Li Dazhuang is just a carpenter, so naturally he can't make the iron plough part of the curved plow, Zuo Shaoyang drew a sketch again, and ran to find the blacksmith shop that used to customize the pressure cooker.

The blacksmith's family was miserable, and several people died of a famine for two months, but fortunately the blacksmith himself survived, although he almost didn't die.

Zuo Shaoyang asked him to make the iron plough was not complicated, after explaining the requirements clearly, the blacksmith immediately began to make it, and before noon, he sent the iron plow parts of the two curved ploughs to the Qu family's old house.

At the same time, Li Dazhuang's Quyuan plough was also done. Zuo Shaoyang immediately assembled it, exactly the same as the used plough he had seen in the countryside in modern society.

After eating at noon, the two plows had already been prepared and installed, and the Li brothers and others were very surprised to look at this strange thing for them, and they didn't know what it was. Including Li Dazhuang, who made them, didn't know if Zuo Shaoyang could really plow the field with this thing. So after lunch, I didn't go to build a house, and followed Zuo Shaoyang and them to the ground to watch the excitement.

Master Zuo Gui didn't believe that Zuo Shaoyang's strange thing could plow the field, and he was not interested in farm work. After all, if it weren't for Zuo Shaoyang's selling of drugs to treat and save people in the past few months, he was stunned to break out of Guizhitang's fame, and he also got so many fields and real estate, the family was afraid that they would have been swept out of the house by the landlord Zhao Sanniang at that time.

The gratitude in his heart does not mean his support for Zuo Shaoyang to do farm work. So although he heard that Zuo Shaoyang had invented a new plough that could be cultivated by a single ox, which could double the efficiency of ploughing the field, he was still not interested. In his opinion, these are all bad jobs. Even if he could double it, he didn't want to see it.

After the irrigation elevated tube is erected, the water continues to be diverted to irrigate the soaked fields, and the 20 acres of fields have been irrigated and soaked.

Plough the field first, and then break the mud to level the field. So Zuo Shaoyang didn't take the plow, just led the two cows, and the Li brothers helped carry the two curved plows, and took Bai Zhihan and Miao Peilan out of the city to the field.

The weather has been nice and sunny these days.

In the past few days, the officials and soldiers have cleaned up before leaving, all the dead bodies inside and outside the city have been buried, and the streets and alleys have also been cleaned, and it is no longer obvious that this place has suffered a great famine that starved to death of tens of thousands of people. All the corpses in the mass graves outside the city were also buried, and the miserable scene of corpses strewn across the field for two months was no longer visible, except for countless new graves that had risen up.

The more than 100 acres of land of the Zuo family is on the upper river beach of the Shijing River in Dongcheng, and the 20 acres of fertile land that Zuo Shaoyang asked Miao Peilan to select for their own cultivation are also in this cultivated land, close to the barren slope.

They got off the official road and walked along the Shijing River.

At this moment, it is already the beginning of April, and it will be Qingming soon, it should be full of spring, the season of mountain flowers, but this famine has made the mountains on all sides of Hezhou become bare, not to mention the hungry wild vegetables on the ground, and even the trees have been peeled and cooked. The scene was bleak.

However, when they walked on the ridge, they found that at the edge of the field under their feet, small spring buds had emerged from the grass, and the wind also had a gentle fragrance of flowers.

The group came to the remaining fields that had not yet been ploughed, and a group of people put down the things in their hands and stood on the edge of the ridge to look at Zuo Shaoyang.

Li Sanzhuang said: "Young Master Zuo, your field is full of water, how can you use stone rollers to break the soil?" ”

"You'll see when you look back." Zuo Shaoyang pretended to smile mysteriously.

In the Tang Dynasty, the sowing of the fields was similar to the dry farming of wheat in the north, so the water in the paddy fields should be discharged in advance, and after drying the fields for more than ten days, the soil would be dried up, and then the ground would be turned over, and then the soil would be crushed with a stone roller and then sown. Now I see Zuo Shaoyang and their fields are full of water, although Zuo Shaoyang has said before that he will not release water and plow directly in the paddy fields, but this method is still different from the farming method they are used to, so they are all at a loss and worried.

According to the memory of living in the countryside before the crossing, Zuo Shaoyang quickly put a plow on a ploughing ox, pulled up his trousers, pulled the ox rope with his left hand, held the plow with his right hand, shouted in his mouth, and drove the ox to start plowing the field.

The Li brothers were stunned and watched Zuo Shaoyang driving a cow, plowing from one side of the field to the other side very easily and quickly, turning a corner, and then plowing back, instead of needing to lift the straight plow and turn the direction to plow back like them.

Li Erzhuang ran to the field, picked up the soil and looked at it: "Ouch, big brother, come and see, this guy is really good, look at this plow, how deep it is, look at this soil, he will be broken like this." If you drain the water first, then plough the soil with this plow, and then grind it with a stone roller, this plow is a good thing! ”

Li Sanzhuang said: "It's good, but this paddy field is plowed, what should I do with the broken soil?" ”

Zuo Shaoyang was driving the ox back to plow, and smiled when he heard this: "The paddy field doesn't need to be broken like a wheat field, the effect is not good, the farm tool I asked Brother Li to repair in the morning, the one called the rake, is specially used to break the soil and prepare the field." But you have to soak the fields first, and in a few days it will be almost over, and I will show you how to use a rake to break the soil and level the fields. ”

These people didn't believe that the crooked plough invented by Zuo Shaoyang could plough the ground with an ox, but now they have seen it with their own eyes, and it is indeed much better than the straight plough they used before, so they immediately believed it. All wait and see.

A group of people watched Zuo Shaoyang finish plowing this hill field in a while, almost half faster than they used the straight plow, and only used one ox, the plow was fast and good, and they sighed and praised.

Several brothers of the Li family also came up to take turns to copy the plow to experience it, Zuo Shaoyang explained the essentials on the side, and the brothers quickly mastered it, and they all felt that this thing was better to use and lighter than the previous straight plow, and the ploughing effect was also better.

The Li brothers have also seen the excitement and know the benefits of this thing, but the soldiers of the twenty acres of land rented by their family have already helped to plough the land and sow the seeds, which have already sprouted at this moment, and there is no way to plough it again, so they can only wait for the spring ploughing of the next year to make this new plough.

The Li brothers originally said that they wanted to help plough the fields, but Zuo Shaoyang said no, and asked them to hurry up and build the house while they were free, and they saw that Zuo Shaoyang's new plough only used one ox for cultivation, and the speed was fast, and there was not much land that needed to be ploughed, so they did not insist, so they left and went back to Hetang Village to continue building houses.

After they left, Miao Peilan said: "Brother, you can also teach me to use this method to farm, so that we can plough the fields faster, cough cough ......."

Miao Peilan was very happy to see that Zuo Shaoyang's new cultivation method was very effective. Whenever she is emotional, nervous, or happy, she coughs lightly. Zuo Shaoyang used medicine to recuperate for her, but she didn't see a significant improvement, but I was afraid that it had become an injury that was difficult to heal in that battle of life and death.

Zuo Shaoyang said with a smile: "Naturally, I want to teach you, and we have to focus on teaching, let's cultivate these twenty acres of land well!" Let everyone know about this new time-saving and labor-saving farming method. ”

At the moment, Zuo Shaoyang taught Miao Peilan to learn to plow a hill of fields, Miao Peilan was talented and intelligent, and soon mastered the essentials, and the two of them ploughed the land separately with a cow and a plow.

Bai Zhihan was responsible for wiping sweat and handing water to the two, and willow branches braided two straw hats for the two to wear on their heads to cover the sun.

The body of this little man possessed by Zuo Shaoyang is relatively thin, and after cultivating for an hour, he can't stand it, sweating, and drinking more than half of a bowl of water. Bai Zhihan said: "Young master, let's rest and do it again." ”

If Bai Zhihan didn't say this, Zuo Shaoyang could continue to cultivate for a while if he was stubborn, and after hearing this sentence, he felt that his whole body was sore, his back was sore, and his bare feet were also crooked in the field, and his hand in charge of the plough couldn't be lifted, so he had to put down the plow while panting, and walked to the edge of the field to sit down and rest.

(To be continued)