Today's persuading farmers are called Yang Banggui.

He was instructed to arrange for agricultural technicians to go to Nam Poon Province to teach the natives to farm. After the matter was properly handled, Yang Banggui led another person to Yingmin Hall to meet the emperor.

Persuading the agricultural department to have an excellent tradition, every time you see the emperor, you have to bring some local products.

This time it was a bunch of cassava that was brought, and it was a cassava sent from Hainan Island.

Yang Banggui said happily: "Your Majesty, Honglu Temple has brought back many crops from overseas, and the Agricultural Division has been cultivating and experimenting with all of them for several years. This cassava is a good thing! ”

Of course, Zhao Han knew that it was a good thing, and he smiled: "Tell me about your cultivation results." ”

Yang Banggui elaborated: "Cassava is cultivated in several provinces in the north and south, but the growth in the north is not good, and it will even freeze to death in winter. Cassava grows well in the southern provinces, and is drought-tolerant, wind-resistant, and does not pick up soil, which is not a good mountainous area for growing sweet potatoes, and planting cassava also yields a lot. Cassava generally takes two years to be planted, but the experimental field in Qiongzhou matured in less than a year, yielding more than 18,000 catties of fresh potatoes per mu! ”

"How much?" Zhao Han thought he had misheard.

"The yield per mu is more than 18,000 catties," Yang Banggui repeated, and continued, "And the cassava is wind-resistant, and this summer encountered a typhoon, and other crops in the experimental field were destroyed, but this cassava has survived the typhoon and has not fallen!" ”

Zhao Han praised again and again: "Good, good thing!" ”

Before the crossing, Zhao Han only knew that the yield per mu of cassava was very high, but he really didn't know that it was so high, and he didn't know that cassava could shorten the growth cycle on Hainan Island.

Could it be related to the tropical climate?

Zhao Han instructed: "Then take this cassava to Luzon and the southwest border to plant." In particular, Nacheli County (Xishuangbanna), as well as the Pingnan Military and Civil Mansion, can be experimentally planted, and if it can be successful, it will be vigorously promoted! ”

Yang Banggui said: "Your Majesty, this cassava is poisonous, and I heard that many people have been poisoned in Africa. It must be soaked in water for six or seven days before being cooked. ”

Zhao Han nodded and said: "This is the same as the kidney beans promoted in the past few years, they have to be cooked before eating, and the people must be repeatedly warned when they are promoted." ”

Kidney beans, also known as kidney beans and green beans, were introduced to the coast of China decades ago. Now, under the official promotion of the Datong court, it has gradually spread to all provinces across the country.

There are also snow peas, which are green beans and vegetable peas, which are slightly different from traditional Chinese peas. After the Datong Army recovered Tainan, snow peas were also brought back to the mainland and have been popularized in the southern provinces.

And the name is very nonsense, the Chinese call it "snow bean", the Dutch call it "Chinese bean", its origin is actually in Thailand, Myanmar.

"How about a date planting?" Zhao Han asked.

Yang Banggui replied: "Dates can't survive the winter in the north, and even if they don't freeze to death, they will freeze so much that they can't bear dates." It is the Yangtze River Basin, and the planting conditions of dates are not good, so they can only be planted in Fujian, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guangdong, and Guangnan. There are also islands of Taiwan, Luzon, Coconut City, Malacca and other places. ”

Zhao Han sighed: "I also plan to plant in the desert of the Hetao, it seems that it is too cold and really can't do it." ”

……

Winter Solstice Festival, Great Pilgrimage Meeting.

The civil and military officials congratulated the emperor on a happy holiday, and the wives also entered the palace to congratulate the concubines.

When the court meeting dispersed, Zhao Han set up a banquet in the palace and invited the ministers of civil and military affairs to try tapioca dumplings.

The ministers didn't care, on the winter solstice and New Year's Day, the emperor would have given the ministers flat food (dumplings), which was a rule handed down from the Ming Dynasty.

After sitting at twenty or thirty tables, Zhao Han raised his chopsticks and said, "Let's go, let's try the difference between this year's flat food." ”

Fei Ruhe dipped in vinegar and took a bite, but he didn't feel any difference. But he knows the emperor and knows that today's dumplings must be different.

Chen Xisong, who has been promoted to Zuo Shilang, of course knows what this is, and persuades the officials of the Agricultural Division to be his old subordinates. But it can't be said for the time being, it needs to be announced by the emperor, and it can't steal the limelight from the emperor.

Halfway through the dumplings, the guards brought in two baskets of cassava.

The ministers looked over one after another, guessing what kind of crop it was, and it must be edible anyway.

Zhao Han finally smiled and said: "This thing is called cassava, which is produced in the Americas, introduced to Africa by the Portuguese, and now it is planted in our Celestial Empire. The dough of the flat food eaten today is mixed with tapioca flour, and two catties of wheat flour can be used to make dumplings by mixing one catty of tapioca flour. ”

Zhu Shunshui arched his hand and said: "Congratulations, Your Majesty, you have another new crop, and the people of the world can have enough food and clothing." ”

Zhao Han said with a smile: "This thing can be planted in the southern provinces, cold-resistant, wind-resistant, and not picking the ground, and it can also be planted in barren mountains and mountains." Barren mountainous land can also yield thousands of catties per mu. The soil is slightly fertile, and the yield per mu is easily tens of thousands of catties. The southern provinces are ripe every two years, and Qiongzhou can be ripe once a year, and the experimental fields in Qiongzhou even yield 18,000 catties per mu! ”

18,000 catties per mu?

The ministers were in an uproar when they heard this, and the yield of thousands of catties of sweet potatoes per mu made them feel outrageous.

Hundreds of years later, after the cultivation of cassava, coupled with the use of chemical fertilizers, the yield per mu is 40,000 or 50,000 catties is normal, and this 18,000 catties is really nothing.

"Xiangrui!" The crowd exclaimed.

Zhao Han laughed: "Let's eat Xiangrui, move chopsticks, move chopsticks!" ”

Chen Xisong finally spoke: "Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Guangnan provinces are all mountainous, and corn and sweet potatoes are often grown in mountainous areas. From now on, there will be cassava again, and the people in the mountains will not know hunger! ”

"Hahahaha!" Zhao Han laughed.

The ministers also laughed, and the banquet was full of joy.

Cassava, like sweet potatoes, has bloating after eating too much. If the cassava skin is not handled well, it will be bitter to eat, and in the final analysis, it is still the food of the poor.

But it is undeniable that these high-yielding crops from the Americas will make the Chinese roll up.

Qian Qianyi said: "The number of people in the whole country is afraid that it has already exceeded 100 million. ”

"Not to mention breaking 100 million, I'm afraid there are 100 million and 20 million!" Zuo Xiaoliang said with a smile.

Ouyang Steam said: "I will know in two months!" ”

In the five-year census, each village will urge the villagers to register as soon as possible if they are 12 years old and have not yet registered, and those who have died in the past two years must also go to the county to report. The new dynasty of Datong does not pay for servitude, and there are no birth restrictions, and the common people do not resist this. It is often the village head who makes statistics, hands over the data to the town, and the town mayor takes it to the county government for reporting.

There must be omissions, but the approximate data is fine.

Around the time of the Winter Solstice Festival, the provinces near Nanjing have already sent the population statistics, along with the taxes payable to the central government. Further afield, it will have to be done by the end of February.

Winter goes to spring, and New Year's Day and Lantern Festival are very lively.

Officials from many provinces, during the ten-day Lantern Festival holiday, escorted account books and tax money to Beijing, and by the way, they could also watch the lanterns in Nanjing.

At the beginning of February, the statistics came to an end.

In the seventeenth year of the Republic of China, the country's annual income was 68.2 million taels of silver (including overseas territories). A lot of such a terrible increase in finances came from last year's customs clearance, a large number of foreign trade companies imposed huge fines and paid back taxes (not yet over).

The country's population has also soared from five years ago to 1236.4 million.

This figure does not include children under the age of 12, overseas territories, and newly occupied Nguyen Thi territory. However, if Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Qinghai-Tibet, and northern Myanmar are counted, the statistics of these places are inaccurate, but the data is certainly only a little.

Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, the population of the three provinces has exceeded 10 million.

In addition, Henan's population is growing rapidly, with an annual population growth rate of nearly 3%.

The northern provinces are growing rapidly, but provinces such as Hebei and Liaoning have been receiving migrants, and the population there is not a natural increase. Hebei Province, with a population of nearly 2.5 million (excluding Beiping Prefecture), has many Jiangsu farmers who have taken the initiative to move north.

The land in the south has begun to be tense, but it is still within the scope of bearing.

The land obtained by the noble family does not need to be cultivated by slaves. Farmers with many families and little land are willing to rent and cultivate noble land.

There are also peasant households who have too many sons, and after graduating from primary school, they leave the countryside and go to the city or town to work as apprentices to provide sufficient labor for the factory owners. In coastal areas, especially in Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Guangxi provinces, more and more young people are going to sea to earn a living.

There are three modes of going to sea:

First, being a sailor running a ship is very risky and the salary is higher.

Second, big businessmen or overseas landlords are recruiting people to go overseas to open up land, and Luzon and Coconut City are frantically reclaiming. Ten acres of cultivated land were cleared, four acres were allocated to the organizers, and the remaining six acres were distributed to the people. At the same time, the people will also share the four acres of land of the organizers.

Clearing the land was troublesome, and the organizers provided funds and force to protect it, while the people cut down trees, leveled the land, and planted in droves. In the first year or two, it was all collective farming, which could improve the efficiency of land reclamation, and divide the land after it was cultivated.

They also summed up the law of land reclamation, planting sugarcane in the first two or three years, and then switching to grain, so that the most profitable. This led to a significant increase in sugarcane production in Luzon and Coconut City, as well as a rapid development of the sugar extraction industry.

After all, the big landowners overseas did not follow the path of the European colonizers.

First, slaves are not easy to buy, and second, slaves are not easy to use. The output of slave plantations was far inferior to that of Han Chinese tenants.

The big landlords also raised their own money to build ponds and irrigation canals, and ordinary farmers and tenants had to pay water rent to the big landlords every year for irrigation.

Third, farmers raise funds to develop overseas based on their origins or clans, which is extremely common in Taiwan, and there are also many in Luzon and Coconut City. Often, a village is from the same county. Or a village, although the origin is different, but all of them are Hakka.

It is probably the model of the Qing Dynasty to develop Taiwan.

Historically, although the Manchus recovered Taiwan, they only opened a port and were not allowed to bring their families there.

This kind of ban is just a dead letter, and the people of Fujian and Guangdong provinces are frantically going to Taiwan. However, overseas reclamation is difficult, and family members really can't take it with them, often in several villages, there is not a single woman in sight, all of them are young and vigorous young men.

It's all young guys, they don't have families, and they're all surrounded by fellow villagers, guess what's going to happen?

Taiwan, another time and space, continued to revolt during the Qing Dynasty. And it's very nonsense, it was very smooth at the beginning, beating the Manchu garrison to the head, and then the rebel army split internally. The Zhangzhou people, Quanzhou people, Cantonese people, and Hakka people fought each other, and were finally divided and suppressed by the army sent by the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

The name Chiayi County is the result of immigrants beating each other. Within the Heaven and Earth Society, because of the fight against their origins, the local people stood on the side of the imperial court, and were finally rewarded by the imperial court and renamed "Chiayi".

What landlords, what government, in front of the young immigrants who have no wives and children, they all belong to scum!

However, the officials sent to Taiwan by the Qing Dynasty were often unable to change their thinking. No matter how the officials advised, the officials followed the mainland's routine and carried out wanton expropriation and extortion in Taiwan. As soon as you collect harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, you will blow up, and if you collect them ruthlessly, you will directly kill officials and rebel! It can be a riot every few years, or a major uprising in the past twenty or thirty years.

Today's Datong New Dynasty, overseas development has that kind of flavor.

There are more men and fewer women, and the same township is grouped. Even if it is a big landlord, you have to be polite to them, and young people who have nowhere to make a **** are easy to make trouble.

In the past two years, more and more young people have gone to sea to open up, and overseas governors are both happy and headaches. The key is to ask for a wife for them, as long as they have a wife and children, these young people can be stable. So the governors applied to the imperial court to withhold a part of the tax silver and buy young women from the local chieftains.

Those natives also fought with each other, and now they fought even more fiercely, that is, robbing women and selling them to the Han governor.

The island of Java, in particular, is home to several sultans at the same time. has long played the dog's brain, once whoever wins, immediately plunder, in addition to robbing the goods is to rob the woman, and the woman can be exchanged for wealth by transporting the woman to the coconut city.

(End of chapter)