The army of the imperial court arrived on the second day after the retreat of the Japanese invaders. The leader of the army was the commander of Fang Da, who had gone to sea with the king of Yangjun, and was appointed as the general of Zhenhai, leading 10,000 elite soldiers to guard the coastal area of Jinwei Mansion.

Not only that, but in the coastal area, a hundred households are set up every ten kilometers, guarded by hundreds of soldiers, and a watchtower is required to be set up every hundred households, and two people take turns to look at the sea. There is such a 100-household house near Dongshan Village, and the watchtower is set up on a seaside cliff where Xiaocao and her often go to catch the sea.

When the group of soldiers passed by outside Dongshan Village, the villagers of Dongshan Village only dared to watch from a distance, for fear of getting into trouble. The village chief is worried that the Baihu Office is so close to Dongshan Village, and he is afraid that these soldiers will show off their power in the village from time to time and ask for money! If Xiaocao can see through his thoughts, he will definitely tell him: Grandpa, the village chief, you are too worried. Our village has the great god of Yangjun King with a pestle, and if you borrow a few of their courage, you won't dare to pluck the feathers on the tiger's mouth!

The 100 households were set up on the ruins of the next village, and the village had been sprinkled with plague herbs and lime. The soldiers packed up the surviving houses in the village and used them as camps. Every day, I went back and forth between the cliff and the camp, and worked hard to build the watchtower. The watchtower not only serves as a lookout, but when there is a situation on the sea, it will light a beacon fire to convey the message.

When Yu Xiaocao occasionally goes to the beach to dive, he looks at the cliff from afar, and the watchtower there is progressing rapidly, day by day. I don't know if it's her delusion, she always feels that there is a gaze chasing her on the cliff. Could it be that the soldiers of the Hundred Households took her as the object of surveillance? After that, Xiaocao didn't dare to dive near the cliff to catch the sea. Afraid that the soldiers who were always staring at the sea would discover their secrets, she would always let the little dolphin carry her to the deep sea after entering the water, so that she dared to show the sea.

This year, the amount of sea treasures paid by the Zhou family has increased, and Xiaocao has to take advantage of the gap to go to the sea a few more times. Every time she catches a good harvest, sometimes she brings back lobster and some deep-sea fish for her family to eat.

After living in Zhao's house, it was closer to the other courtyard. It is more convenient for Zhu Junyang to come over for dinner, every summer, he has a mouthful, and delicious seafood emerges in endlessly. What are you like: "Sea urchin lobster roll", "charcoal-grilled salmon", "tuna lettuce rice roll", "pan-fried yellow croaker", "grilled cod with oyster sauce", ...... These dishes that he had never seen before, he sighed again and again: If he left Xiaocao Ya, how would he live in the future. So, for his future appetite, King Yangjun wrapped Yu Xiaocao tighter.

The foundation of the house in Dongshan Village has just been laid, and the winter wheat on the Zhuangzi is ripe. Yu Hai handed over the task of supervising the construction of the house to the third uncle, and he took his eldest son and youngest daughter, plus the team of the king of Yangjun, and rushed to the front line of the harvest.

Of course, harvesting wheat does not require his own hands. The head of the village stood behind him, and with a happy face, he reported the growth of the wheat to the owner. This year, the wheat in the field is growing particularly well, and the ears of wheat are larger than the Zhuangzi next door, not to mention, and the grains are still full. Based on his years of experience, the yield of wheat is estimated to exceed 500 catties!

You must know that now is not the previous life of a thousand catties of output, and the yield of wheat generally ranges from 200 to 300 catties. More than 300 catties is already a high yield. If you say 500 catties, I'm afraid it's an unprecedented myth! Yu Hai, the owner of the field, expressed his satisfaction and praised Zhuang Tou verbally.

Before harvesting, Yu Xiaocao asked the tenants to cut the ears that were relatively long and particularly full in the wheat field, and put them together separately. When you plant wheat in the coming year, use these as seeds and plant them on a separate plot of land to see if the yield can reach new heights. If the yield per mu can reach thousands of catties or even more like in the previous life, then why don't the people of the Ming Dynasty worry about having enough food and clothing?

Seeing this, Zhu Junyang also asked the steward to instruct the long-term workers to look for ears of wheat that were longer than the length of the index finger and relatively full of wheat grains in his 800 acres of fertile land, and all of them were concentrated in the grass. After threshing, it actually exceeded 100 catties. In this way, fifty or sixty acres can be opened up as experimental fields.

Recently, it has been a sunny day, and after inquiring about the small mending stone, I learned that there was no rain for half a month, and the summer harvest began vigorously. The tenant farmers on the Zhuangzi have their own fields under their own responsibility, and they work very hard to collect them.

More than 100 acres of wheat have completed the steps of harvesting, threshing and drying in less than five days, and the grains have been returned to the warehouse. A rough calculation shows that 600 catties of wheat are harvested per mu of high-grade fertile land, 500 catties of medium fields are harvested, and even the lowest fields have a yield of more than 300 catties per mu. The whole Zhuangzi is boiling!

In this way, after removing the rent handed over to the owner, there are still more than 200 catties of grain per mu of land on average. Some people have a lot of labor and have divided forty or fifty acres of land, so isn't there nearly 10,000 catties of wheat in the input? It's just one season, plus the income from the autumn corn...... Oh, my God! Even if you eat white flour and white rice every day, you can't finish it!

Of course, these high-yielding wheat, they must not be eaten. Xiaocao is going to be saved for next year's seeds, and see if the wheat seeds that have been improved by Lingshi Water will reach new highs next year. Therefore, when all the wheat seeds were threshed, the Yu family bought all the wheat seeds from the tenant farmers at market prices.

The news of Yujia Zhuangzi's high wheat yield spread in the vicinity. The first person who came to contact Yu Hai was the steward of the Zhou family's sacrificial fields. The Zhou family has business dealings with the Yu family, and they are old acquaintances. After a little greeting, the steward explained his intention straight to the point: "Master Yu, our old lady heard that your wheat yield is good, and I want to inquire where your wheat seeds come from?" ”

Yu Haigang wanted to say that these were ordinary wheat seeds, but he was stopped by his youngest daughter. Xiaocao smiled and kicked the ball to King Yangjun's body: "The seeds of wheat on our Zhuangzi were given to us by King Yangjun. At first, I saw that the seeds were no different from ordinary wheat, but I never thought that they would have such a high yield. ”

King Yangjun once went to the West to bring back a lot of seeds of high-yield crops, not to mention Tanggu, this news is the people of the entire Ming Dynasty, there are few who don't know. The steward of the Zhou family pondered for a moment and said, "That...... I don't know if Master Yu can give some seeds to the Zhou family, and the Zhou family is willing to buy them with a lot of money! ”

Yu Hai glanced at his daughter, and when he saw her nodding at him, he said, "I don't know how many good breeds the Zhou family needs?" ”

The steward pondered for a while, and then said: "The Zhou family has 500 acres of sacrificial land, 300 acres of fertile land under the name of the big house, and ...... second room."

"Steward Liu, our family is also planting in the first year and harvesting in the first year, and there are not many seeds in our hands, so we can only give you the seeds of 500 acres of sacrificial fields." One acre of land requires fifteen to twenty catties of seeds, and Zhou Jiaguang needs nearly 10,000 catties of seeds for sacrificial fields. The Yu family Zhuangzi harvested a total of 70,000 catties of seeds, and then let Steward Liu continue, the Zhou family alone would divide the improved seeds by one-third. After a little calculation in his heart, Yu Hai hurriedly interrupted the words of the Zhou family's steward and spoke.

When Steward Liu heard this, there were only 500 acres of sacrificial seeds? He only completed half of the task given by the old lady? When he wanted to fight for more seeds, Yu Hai insisted that he could only give 10,000 catties, and the rest was not to be discussed!

Yu Xiaocao smiled silently on the side, if the Zhou family's big house was better to Zhou Xiaosan, maybe she would help the Zhou family intercede and sell them more wheat seeds. But the Zhou family's big house is a strange room, and there are many orphans and widows who bully Zhou Xiaosan. The eldest man of the Zhou family also puts out the score of being a father from time to time, wanting to control the second room of the Zhou family. Their Zhuangzi grain grains are not harvested, she cares about them to die! As for the land under the name of the second room of the Zhou family, as long as Zhou Xiaosan speaks, can her father not give him face?

Over there, the price of the improved seed has already been negotiated. Since the yield of improved varieties can be doubled compared to ordinary wheat, the price will be at least several times higher. For example, ordinary wheat seeds are 10 wen a catty, and an acre is sown 20 catties, which is 200 wen. One acre of fertile land can harvest 300 catties of wheat, and the market price of wheat is five cents per catty, that is, one mu of land can harvest 1,500 catties, which is seven or eight times the input.

Her ordinary wheat seeds at home can produce a high yield of 600 catties, and if it is replaced by improved seeds next year, the yield will definitely be only high. Let's calculate it according to the yield of 600 catties per mu, and there is an income of three taels of silver per acre of land, so she will receive 50 wen per catty of seeds, which should not be too much, right?

The abacus in Manager Liu's heart crackled, with a smile on his face, and said, "Master Yu, is this price too high?" You see, your good seed is only twice as productive as ordinary seeds, and the price is five times higher. You're asking for too much, aren't you? ”

Yu Hai also felt that his daughter's price was a little higher, he just smiled, didn't answer, and set his eyes on his little daughter.

Yu Xiaocao gave him a look of "don't be impatient", and said to Steward Liu with a smile: "Steward Liu, I'll settle the account for you, you can see if this deal is worth it." Ordinary wheat seeds can only produce more than one tael of silver per acre of land, but our family's high-quality wheat has an income of three taels of silver per acre of land. Ordinary wheat needs 20 catties of seeds, and our family's good seeds only need 15 catties. That is to say, if you invest 750 wen, you can exchange it for 3 taels of silver per mu, and the net income is 2,250 wen. If you have 500 acres of sacrificial land, you will have an income of 1,125 taels...... If you only use ordinary wheat seeds, you can earn more than 600 taels at most, which is nearly double the amount of silver! ”

Steward Liu took the abacus from the guy behind him, and crackled it, and sure enough, the same field produced nearly twice as much silver, and it was a fool not to do this business!