Before you know it, it's autumn harvest time.

The autumn grain in the north is ripe, and the corn and sweet potatoes in the north are ready to be harvested, and the scale of the Huangzhuang that guarantees the harvest in drought and flood has also expanded a lot.

This year's climate is still good, so that in autumn, the autumn grain of Beizhili Huangzhuang has once again obtained a bumper harvest.

Corn was introduced to the Ming Dynasty earlier than sweet potatoes, and it has been more popular in the north. Most of the land in the Huangzhuang is planted with corn after the summer harvest.

The summer corn was ripe by this time, and the farmers happily broke it down and shipped it all back with the straw.

The yield of these corns is also considerable, most of them reach more than 150 catties per mu, and a small number can reach 200 catties. The average yield per mu reached 1 stone, and these autumn grains are also very important for farmers.

Zhang Shishi's family planted 25 acres of corn, harvested 22 stones, after some hard harvesting, all these corn were sold to the grain bank, the price of each stone was 0.5 yuan, Zhang Shi's family entered the account of 11 yuan, Zhang Shi returned 20 yuan to the bank during the summer harvest, and then 11 yuan was recorded at this time, and there was 15 yuan in hand, and the family was very enough for the New Year.

The corn stalks transported home, under the guidance of the technicians of Huangzhuang, cut these straws, put them into the cellar for silage, which is an important feed, the cattle, sheep, donkeys, horses, and horses of the whole Huangzhuang are these corn stalks for the winter, and the livestock in the Huangzhuang can not eat so much corn stalks, and they can also be sold to the farm.

The autumn harvest is the busiest time, and Zhang Shi is busy harvesting the corn. He also worked hard to dig sweet potatoes. The yield of sweet potatoes is somewhat scary. The average yield per mu has reached thousands of catties.

In the case of a certain amount of manpower invested in management. It is obviously very normal to reach a yield of 1,000 catties per mu.

However, this kind of output can be too busy for the farmers in Huangzhuang, so they have to invite a group of workers to come and help with the digging, and if it is any later, there will be storage problems.

A large number of sweet potatoes are harvested, and the farmers put these sweet potatoes into the prepared cellars, which barely last more than half a year.

The 5,000 catties of sweet potatoes in Zhang Shishi's house are obviously inexhaustible. Even if you eat it with every meal, you can't eat all these sweet potatoes.

Some of these sweet potatoes can be used to process starch, and most of them are used to feed pigs. Pigs can't eat corn stalks, they mainly eat sweet potatoes, wheat bran, and water. The pig farms in Huangzhuang will cook these pig feed and then feed, which is easier to digest.

Huangzhuang's sweet potatoes are also purchased by farms, or some workshops specializing in processing sweet potato starch and sweet potato vermicelli will come to buy. You can also make sake from sweet potatoes, but the wine is not very tasty. But it's also a low-cost shochu.

At this time, the economy of Beizhili was very prosperous, and not only many factories appeared, but also a large number of workshops. The sweet potatoes in the hands of farmers are not marketable at all.

Workshops for making sweet potato starch, sweet potato vermicelli, and dried sweet potatoes also appeared in the second year of the Tianji period.

Starch is also a practical and common commodity, in the south is generally to dig fern roots, kudzu to make starch, the quality is relatively good, but the yield is not large enough, farmers are self-sufficient enough, so these sweet potatoes to make starch, the market is still very good, all can be marketed to other provinces.

Sweet potato vermicelli is also a good food, and the storage time is relatively long, and the dry goods are not easy to spoil, as a food, it naturally has a broad market.

The most important thing is that there are a large number of fresh sweet potatoes on the market, and almost all of the reclaimed sandy land in Beizhili is planted with sweet potatoes, so the number of commercial sweet potatoes is still quite a lot. The yield of sweet potatoes per mu in these sandy areas is even more terrifying, some even reach 2,000 catties, and generally have more than 1,500 catties, and each sweet potato is very large.

In order to reduce the consumption of more flour and wheat in order to increase the stock of grain. The Jimin Grain Store, which had a monopoly on grain retail in Beizhili, directly raised the price of flour and rice, and recommended cheap sweet potatoes to the urban people who came to buy grain.

Because the price of sweet potatoes is cheap enough, it is still popular with ordinary people, and the price is lower than that of flour and rice, and corn is also selling well. The marketing of a large number of sweet potatoes and corn has reduced the consumption of flour and wheat. After the autumn harvest, it is autumn sowing again. The land is planted with winter wheat, and it can be said that autumn is also the busiest time for farmers.

After some agricultural construction, the grain produced by Beizhili this year was enough for the consumption of Beizhili Province, and a part of the grain began to be exported. These grains are mainly sold to the cotton-producing areas in the triangle of Shandong, Henan and Jiangsu in exchange for local cotton.

In this year, the cotton output was not very high, but the Ming Dynasty was still exporting cotton cloth, which was one of the important reasons for the lack of grain production.

In the autumn harvest of the second year, in the cotton-producing areas of Shandong, Henan and Jiangsu triangles, a 'cotton war' broke out between the textile industry of Beizhili and the textile industry of Songjiang Prefecture, which made the price of cotton rise by nearly 30% this year. This phenomenon has greatly stimulated the scale of cotton cultivation.

Beizhili has a huge demand for textile raw materials, which is an inevitable result. The planting area of commercial cotton in Beizhili is not large enough and needs to be purchased from other provinces. The establishment of tariff barriers, as well as the growth of the population of Beizhili, has greatly increased the income of workers and farmers, making the textile sales market very hot.

Royal Capital has occupied most of the textile market in Beizhili by operating textile factories in partnership with private capital, but the rise in cotton prices has also lowered the profit margins. This has caused the royal capital to generate market demand for cotton-producing areas, and Zhu Youxiao is also thinking about how to obtain a production area that can provide a large amount of cheap cotton.

Zhu Youxiao set his sights on the Xinjiang region and Central Asia in later generations. It is clearly an untouched cotton-producing area. It's just that it was occupied by nomads at this time, and there was no large amount of cotton produced at all.

After receiving the envoy of the Ming Dynasty, the Yarkand Khanate directly rejected the Ming Dynasty's request to purchase war horses. The annual purchase of 30,000 war horses made the Yarkand Khanate deeply wary of the Ming Dynasty, apparently aware that once the Ming Dynasty acquired a large number of war horses, it was likely to pose a threat to them.

This understanding is very correct, and the vision is also very long-term.

Unfortunately, the Yarkand Khanate could not stop the Ming from buying war horses. Therefore, the Yarkand Khanate was targeted by Zhu Youxiao first.

If the Mongols were willing to trade with the Ming Dynasty, the Hetao region was not in a hurry to recover, and it was obviously a better choice to attack the Yarkand Khanate first.

Although there are fertile pastures in the Hetao area, which can still become a commercial grain base after being reclaimed, in order to protect the environment, Zhu Youxiao will definitely not reclaim the Hetao to grow grain. The pasture was mainly a source of war horses for the Ming Dynasty, and since the Mongols were now willing to sell, there was no such urgent need for the pasture in the Hetao.

On the contrary, the Western Regions occupied by the Yarkand Khanate, where there are not only a large number of pastures, but also a large number of cotton fields, where the climate is very suitable for the growth of cotton, not only can provide a large amount of cotton, but also excellent quality cotton.

On the other hand, the envoys to Tibet negotiated the war horse trade smoothly. The Tibetan lamas did not care much about this kind of official dealing, because they controlled the power through religion and did not need to have the need to control the Mongol tribes through trade, as was the case with the Mongol Lingdan Khan. However, the Tibetan lamas were afraid that after the collapse of the talks, the Ming Dynasty launched an unequal trade with Tibet by cracking down on smuggling, and that they would have to pay a greater price to buy tea at that time.

And such an official trade, if it can be fair, they can also get more silver, and they can buy more luxury goods from the Ming Dynasty.

As for the number of war horses purchased, there is no restriction on the Tibetan side, the Ming Dynasty can buy as much as it wants, as long as the Ming Dynasty has silver, Tibet has so many war horses. In terms of price, it is slightly higher, and the price of a horse is agreed to be 30 taels per horse.

"Since both Mongolia and Tibet are willing to sell war horses to us, let's start forming cavalry immediately!" Zhu Youxiao decided, and Sun Chuanting asked, "Then how many war horses are we going to buy?" The Mongols were willing to sell us 30,000 horses. There is no limit to the number of Tibetans, which is a rare opportunity. ”

"Then purchase 60,000 war horses, form 30,000 cavalry, and configure one person and two horses." Zhu Youxiao made a decision very happily, the configuration of one person and two horses is definitely a luxurious configuration for a cavalry with national conditions like the Ming Dynasty, which means a more powerful mobility ability, such a cavalry unit, it is easy to maneuver 200 kilometers a day.

"Then it will require a procurement cost of 2 million yuan."

2 million yuan is a piece of cake for Zhu Youxiao, a 'nouveau riche' who has just made a windfall, and it is nothing at all.

One word - buy!

Moreover, this silver can still be earned back by exporting goods to Mongolia and Tibet, and nearly half of the expenses can be earned back just by exporting military equipment to the Mongols.

"As for the Yarkand Khanate, are we blocking them?" Sun Chuanting asked again.

"The blockade is not necessary, but since the Yarkand Khanate does not know each other, it will raise the price of commodity exports. When we have our hands free, the first one will attack them and restore the territory of the Western Regions of China. Zhu Youxiao said calmly. Sun Chuanting immediately realized that the Yarkand Khanate was about to suffer.

Not to mention whether the Ming can destroy the Yarkand Khanate, just after the current Ming crackdown on border smuggling, the Yarkand Khanate must trade with the Ming official, and then the Ming Dynasty will use technology and tea, iron and other essential commodities of the nomads to launch unequal trade with them, which is enough for the Yarkand Khanate to drink a pot. (To be continued......)

PS: The second shift is here, and there will be two shifts today!