(New books for collections, recommended votes, please, please!) Your attention is the motivation for my writing, thank you! ）

For a while, things have kept the Mawei Group busy, Li Guangdi and Yao Qisheng have not been on Geng Jingzhong's side these days, and they really have no idle time. Geng Jingzhong presided over the issuance of vouchers, and by the way, supervised and inspected the construction and operation of the bank, and it took more than half a month to finally complete this matter. This non-stop doing one thing after another really made him feel haggard.

But even though I feel tired, I still work hard, and I get used to being busy while sitting, and I gradually feel that my days are very fulfilling, but I ignore the tiredness. Just after this busy time, he didn't have anything important on his hands, and the things that Yao Qisheng and Li Guangdi were responsible for were being carried out in an orderly manner, but there was no need for him to interfere. In his spare time, he took Gu Ping's guards out of the city alone and went out to play.

It's March, and the scenery is the most beautiful time of the year. Although the four seasons in Fuzhou do not change much, this spring is still different. Especially now stop in the suburbs, standing in the spring of March, the rhythm of green interprets the meaning of life, the spring sunshine cracks the fresh brightness of March and its secrets, giving people a beautiful temptation. Delicate willows and flowers, green mountains and streams, lavender wind and drizzle...... The artistic conception that does not need to be rendered is full of beautiful words and sentences in the fragrance of birds and flowers, and the paragraphs are affectionate and harmonious. After a tour of the mountains and rivers, Geng Jingzhong's fatigue over the past few days was swept away, and his mental state was unprecedentedly good.

"Uncle Gu, what kind of boundary is this?" Geng Jingzhong asked Gu Ping beside him. I've never been in this direction before. Head west along the Min River. It should belong to Minhou County, but I don't know which town it is.

"Back to the prince, let's go out of the west gate of Fuzhou City thirty miles, this belongs to Jingxi Town, Minhou County, and it is less than twenty miles away from Minhou County." When Gu Ping first arrived here, he had already instructed the guards to find out, so he already knew about this side.

"Oh, we've come this far. It doesn't seem to be long. Geng Jingzhong looked around and said with a sassy smile.

"That's the prince, you have so much fun! You're really busy these days, and it's worth it to relax. Gu Ping responded with a slight smile. Although he is called a guard, he is actually equivalent to an elder, but he has watched Geng Jingzhong grow up, and he is also very concerned about Geng Jingzhong's body.

"This Uncle Gu I know, I have a sense of proportion, so a little thing, it won't tire me out! It's not, take a day off. The spirit is slowing back! Geng Jingzhong said with a smile. This kind of work intensity is indeed not excessive. A young and strong person like him can't hurt his body even if he's busy. "Well, Uncle Gu, look over there, what are those people planting? Vegetables? Geng Jingzhong asked, pointing to dozens of people who were busy on the side of the hill not far away.

"I don't know much about this, it seems that all kinds of crops have already been busy this season, I guess I am planting vegetables!" Gu Ping didn't know what these people were doing, it looked like they were growing vegetables, but it didn't look like it. If you grow vegetables, why do you dig such a deep trench in the field?!

"Let's go, go over and have a look." Anyway, Geng Jingzhong and them were all in civilian clothes, and ordinary people couldn't recognize their identities, so Geng Jingzhong walked directly to say hello and talk to the old farmers.

"This brother is invited, the younger brother is not a local, I feel very strange to see you draw this ditch, may I ask what you are planting? That doesn't seem to be the case when it comes to growing rice! Geng Jingzhong first said hello, and then asked politely.

"The guest is foreign? That's no wonder. We're planting sugar cane! To grow sugarcane, you have to dig a cane ditch! The reply to the dark Chinese character said abruptly.

"Sugar cane?" Geng Jingzhong is interested, he often eats sugarcane, but he doesn't know how sugarcane grows, and it's a little strange, the origin of sugarcane seems to be in Guangdong, is there also Fujian? But looking at the scene of these people now, it should be true, Fujian also has sugarcane planting, but I just don't know whether the planting is wide, and the rock sugar made from sugarcane is a good thing.

"Yes, sugar cane! This thing is more difficult to serve than rice, and it takes a long time, but sugarcane can be used to make sugar, and the price of sugar is getting higher and higher, and we made a lot of money last year, otherwise we wouldn't have added so many plots of land to grow this thing this year. The swarthy Chinese characters showed a mouthful of big white teeth and said with a smile, it seems that they made a small fortune last year, and they want to expand the scale this year!

"You also make sugar?" Geng Jingzhong was surprised, in his impression, the sugar in Fujian seems to come from Guangdong and Guangxi, and after cooperating with Taiwan, the Zheng family will also sell sugar to the mainland every time, but he just doesn't know that Fujian can also make sugar.

Geng Jingzhong is indeed right, Fujian is not an important sugar-producing area. Judging from the current situation in the whole south, the sugar-producing regions are in Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan, and the real number one is Xuwen County in Guangdong. At this time, Xuwen County was also the Zhanjiang City of Guangdong in later generations, and until the 21st century in later generations, it was still the largest sugar production base in China, and Guangxi and Yunnan stood on a three-legged basis. Geng Jingzhong did not expect that the grain production in Luzon would be so high, so that the whole of Fujian will no longer be short of grain, and with the cultivation of high-yield crops, Fujian will no longer worry about famine again, so these fields can be considered for other purposes, and it is not necessary to grow grain. It also seems to be a good choice for growing sugar cane; Sugarcane is a cash crop that consumes a lot of water and fertility, and its promotion will severely affect local food production.

"The younger brother is very curious about sugar making, I wonder if the eldest brother can take us to see how to make sugar? Delay the eldest brother's farm work, and the younger brother is willing to pay you salary compensation! Geng Jingzhong said with a smile.

The dark Chinese character waved his hand and said: "Hey, what is this, the guest came to us This is also fate." Talk about what to pay. I'll just show you there. Don't waste time. It just so happens that my brother is still busy working in the sugar house, so you can just take a look at the whole process! As he spoke, he turned back to the middle-aged man on the side and said, "Uncle, I'll take a few guests to the sugar liao first, you guys will be busy first, and I'll come later!" ”

"Okay, here you go!"

"By the way, the younger brother's surname is Geng Mingzhong, and I don't know the eldest brother's surname Gao!" Geng Jingzhong asked as he walked. I haven't asked for anyone's name yet, which is a bit rude.

"If there is a high surname, my brother can call me a big cow!" The swarthy man replied with a smile.

"Hehe, Brother Niu!"

After a while, Geng Jingzhong entered their Zhuangzi under the leadership of Da Niu. In Geng Jingzhong's opinion, this is a sugarcane village, and he has seen a few sugar cane houses along the way, but that is also what the swarthy man in front of him pointed out to him. Soon, they arrived at Da Niu's house, which was a more elaborate farmhouse courtyard, outside the house. It also has a large yard dedicated to stacking the harvested sugar cane. Tutangliao is just outside the village wall: another building. Raised several cows.

It's also a sugar house here, it can be regarded as a private workshop, Geng Jingzhong thought that there should be stewards, craftsmen and other characters here, but there was no one under the question. This Zhuangzi even the sugar liao is the private property of the Da Niu family, and the planting, juicing, and sugar production are all arranged by their family. Sugarcane is typically labour-intensive, requiring a lot of manpower during the harvest season. Da Niu and his family are prosperous, and their family is quite wealthy, with dozens of acres of their own fields, and their lives are real.

"Come, brother, this is my sugar house, big brother! Guests are coming! Da Niu led Geng Jingzhong and the others to the gate of Tangliao, and immediately shouted loudly. As soon as the screams fell, an equally tall and swarthy man came out of it. "This is my eldest brother, just call him Big Tiger!"

"Big Tiger Brother!" Geng Jingzhong exclaimed with a smile.

"Who are these?" Dahu was puzzled, he didn't know any of these people.

"Big brother, this is Brother Geng Zhong, I am very interested in sugar making, I want to come and see, you are just busy with this today, so I brought them here!" Da Niu said with a grin.

"Okay, come in and take a look, but don't mess with the stuff here!" The big tiger is also very grinning and hospitable, and immediately makes a gesture of please.

Geng Jingzhong didn't know anything about this, so he raised his feet and walked inside. The sugar house of the Da Niu family occupies a very large area, which is mainly used to store sugarcane and bagasse to be processed, and the main building is a conical shed and a large grass house. The whole structure can be said to be shabby, not to mention bricks and tiles, not even much wood. It is the so-called "grass watts wall". The thatched hut is about 50 feet at the bottom and about 30 feet high, and the interior is supported by hemp bamboo, and the roof is covered with thatch, straw, or sugarcane leaves, etc., which is a place where sugarcane is pressed. The boiling sugar house is lined up with Kong Mingding, which is the place where the sugar is boiled. There are all kinds of equipment listed in it, nothing more than wooden wheels, cauldrons, stoves, clay pots, etc.,

Now there are four people in the sugar house, plus Dahu is only five people, after some understanding, I know that Dahu is the master of sugar cooking, and the others are responsible for squeezing cane, managing cattle, burning fire, and handyman. These people are all from Honjo, but they are employed by the big cow family, and their skills are very good.

"I'm a sugar cook, not that I'm boasting, and the size is also a bit famous in our area. The most difficult thing to control in this sugar production is the heat, and how much ash is added to the average person can't eat, so how much sugar will make a big difference, now we are going to start, you have a few ideas to see! After Dahu said a few words, he told the others to get busy. One brought a cow from the cowshed and brought several bundles of sugar cane. The others hurriedly cleaned the utensils again, and then began to make sugar in earnest.

The worker first cut the sugar cane and tied it into a load next to the wooden roller, which was made of lychee wood and was extremely hard. One person puts the cane into the roller, and one person drives the ox to drive the roller to rotate, pulling the first roller first, and driving the second roller through the guò wooden teeth. The wooden reels squeezed each other, and it took three consecutive times to squeeze out the cane juice. For the third extrusion, the worker also has to adjust the roller inward and clamp it tighter to make the bagasse squeeze more dry. The pressed cane juice flows down the base groove along the reel, and flows into the large clay tank through the guò bamboo tube for precipitation.

Geng Jingzhong looked very carefully, the squeezing power of this wood reel seemed to be very large, but in fact, it couldn't get into Geng Jingzhong's eyes, Geng Jingzhong thought, this thing is better changed to iron, and at worst, it has to be stone, which is much higher in hardness. Geng Jingzhong curiously twisted the bagasse with his hand - the bagasse was still quite sweet after these three presses, and it seemed that there was still quite a lot of cane juice left in it. After about forty minutes of squeezing, the buffalo used to pull the rollers was already sweating profusely and slowing down. It seems that the labor consumption is very large, the workers began to change cattle, Geng Jingzhong asked again, each time the cane is squeezed four bundles. It takes 30 to 35 cattle to change cattle a day and night, so it's no wonder that this sugar house has to raise as many as four or five cows. Geng Jingzhong was still wondering before, what does this big cow do with so many cows, and one cow is enough for dozens of acres of farming!

Geng Jingzhong also ran to the yard and carried a few bundles of sugarcane by hand, tried the weight of each bundle of sugarcane, and then silently calculated in his heart, this kind of processing method, non-stop processing day and night, about 3,000 catties of sugarcane. And according to what the worker just said, this work is not always so smooth, and sometimes the Houmu reel is often damaged, and it needs to be stopped for repair, so the time lost is quite a lot.

"Can't this reel be made of iron, or the stone seems to be better than this wood!" Geng Jingzhong said to Dahu after a long while. (To be continued......)