In fact, nitrogen fertilizer, whether it is during the Republic of China or for a long time after liberation, our country is in a state of shortage, and in layman's terms, it is beyond our means.

Before the 80s, the balance of nitrogen nutrient input and output in our country's farmland had been more than 1 million tons, and there was a serious shortage of fertilizer.

The contribution rate of chemical fertilizers to the growth of crop output has been above 30%, especially in the early stage, and the increase in grain production was as high as 20 kg for every 1 kg of fertilizer application (converted to pure), and this growth did not stagnate until the 21st century before Cheng Nuo traveled.

During this period, due to the increase in grain production, our country successfully liberated a large number of labor productivity trapped in the fields, and since then it has gradually moved towards the ranks of the world's major manufacturing powers.

The term "migrant worker" appeared in this era and became a lingering memory for most people.

All in all, only by freeing up more manpower, there will be more possibilities for industrial development, and nitrogen fertilizer, represented by synthetic ammonia, is one of the most effective means at present.

Rolling up his sleeves, Cheng Nuo looked at the watch in his hand, and there was still a period of time before the end of class, so he wrote a word on the blackboard with confidence:

【Involution】

"Does anyone know what this English word means?"

As soon as the words fell, a student took the initiative to stand up and answer the question: "Back to the professor's words, this word is called the power in mathematics, and you mentioned it in your previous lecture." ”

Cheng Nuo said kindly: "However, if you are good at controlling details, is there any other meaning?" ”

The student hesitated for a moment and said seriously: "In biology, it is called degeneration, and in medicine it is called atrophy." ”

Cheng Nuo nodded with satisfaction, and then asked, "Does that mean anything else?" ”

The student frowned and thought for a while, but he couldn't think of any other meaning, and shook his head a little frustratedly: "I'm sorry, the professor is stupid, I really don't know that this word has other meanings, please give the teacher advice." ”

Cheng Nuo raised his hand and pressed down, asked the student to sit down, and encouraged with a smile: "It's okay, you already know enough, and the new semantics are my new extension." ”

As soon as this remark came out, the students immediately became curious, and there was a small commotion in the classroom, and they all guessed the new meaning of the word.

After all, there are not a few people who know this word, but the classmate just now reacted quickly and was the first to answer.

It happened that Chen Zhongfu and Li Daqi were passing by, and they were very curious after hearing the movement inside, and they looked inside, and just saw Cheng Nuo walking towards the podium, looking at the words on the blackboard, and becoming even more curious.

"This Zhiyuan is not good at arithmetic classes every day, how can he tinker with English?" Chen Zhongpu looked at the blackboard with his back hand, frowning and puzzled: "Isn't it that arithmetic is too boring, teach some English to change taste?" ”

Li Dajun crossed his hands in front of him and said with a smile: "Now it's not called arithmetic, it's called mathematics." ”

Chen Zhongpu waved his hand, a little impatient: "Changing the soup or not changing the medicine is the same thing, do you want to go in and take a look, and see what kind of medicine is sold in the gourd of our Professor Cheng Da." ”

As he spoke, he took the lead and crept in from behind.

Li Dajiao followed behind a little helplessly: "It's not mathematics, otherwise you and I may not be able to understand it, but listening to Zhiyuan teach English, this is the first time that a big girl has been on a sedan chair." ”

Cheng Nuo, who was standing on the podium, saw the expressions of all the students in his eyes, and naturally knew that Chen and Li were coming in.

However, they were still in class, so they nodded to each other and said hello, and then started teaching again.

"Involution is translated here as overdensification, in layman's terms, that is, involution, which means that their own people compete with each other and have to compete for limited resources, resulting in a decline in everyone's income, which is difficult to say on other occasions, but it is extremely suitable for agriculture."

Although they all said so, everyone in the audience still stared at each other and couldn't understand the meaning.

After a pause, Cheng Nuo added: "The growth of total output is only achieved by continuously increasing labor input on limited land, which ultimately leads to the continuous decline of marginal benefits."

A mode of production in which per capita output tends to decline and technological progress comes to a standstill is considered to be a growth without development.

That is to say, if we do not increase grain production by other means, then our countless peasant brothers will be trapped in this one-third of an acre of land because of the problem of eating, the development of industry needs population, the development of education needs population, and the development of urbanization needs population.

And where the population comes from, only from the agricultural and rural peasants. ”

Some students were puzzled: "Professor, what will happen if we don't solve this problem?" ”

Cheng Nuo put away his smile and said seriously: "Then more and more compatriots will die of hunger." ”

In order to deepen the memory of the students, Cheng Nuo simply told the students present in an intuitive way with numbers.

"Recently, I have a little free time, to help the National History Museum sort out some information, do not sort out I don't know, a tidying up frightened, during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, after deducting various losses, the average output of each agricultural population can directly eat 808 catties of refined grain,

After deducting the average ration of 340 catties per person, 468 catties of commercial grain can be provided to the society; By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the agricultural population could directly eat 400 jin of refined grain, and after deducting their own rations, they could provide 60 jin of refined grain to the society.

When we get to our Republic of China, do you know how much is left? ”

"How much?" Chen Zhongfu couldn't help but ask.

Cheng Nuo said with a little sadness: "The per capita output of directly edible refined grain is only 394 city catties, and the commercial refined grain that can be provided to the society is only 53 city catties, which is not as good as the end of the Qing Dynasty, which is not objective." ”

Hearing this number, everyone couldn't help but gasp and expressed disbelief at this number.

However, if you think about it carefully, since the end of the Qing Dynasty, there have been major disasters and small disasters every year, and it is not easy to have such an average grain yield.

As soon as the conversation began, Cheng Nuo was not going to give up, and then added: "The low per capita output of the agricultural population fundamentally restricts China's urbanization process, and roughly speaking, our urbanization rate is about 10%, what is this concept, and the early Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties are roughly the same." ”

As soon as these words came out, the classroom completely exploded.

"Professor Cheng, this shouldn't be nonsense, it's so low, we have developed for thousands of years, and the more we develop, the more we go back?"

"They're math professors, can they fool us with numbers? Isn't this a big joke in the world, and there's no reason to lie to us, everyone is a poor student, and there's nothing to want. ”

"Alas, it's all to blame on this Manchu Tartar, who occupies our great mountains and rivers and doesn't do anything, if it's me, I have to settle the old accounts for them completely."

……

Seeing that the students were already discussing with each other, the noise was much quieter.

Cheng Nuo threw out the rest of the insight: "Backward urbanization can neither provide enough non-farm employment opportunities, but also make it difficult to modernize agricultural production methods."

Eventually, poor farmers, faced with the yield limits of traditional agriculture and the scarcity of land resources, had to over-demand from nature and embark on the road of indiscriminate reclamation and deforestation.

The irreconcilable contradiction between man and land eventually led to the destruction of the natural environment and triggered more violent natural disasters, such as the Naoli flood this year because of the destruction of vegetation, which led to the silting of the river and eventually caused the tragedy of flooding. ”

At this time, Li Daxuan had gradually learned the red theory, and after listening to Cheng Nuo's words, he thought about it: "In order to avoid 'involution', so we want to develop industry?" ”

Cheng Nuo smiled and said: "Li is right, the double crisis of our agriculture and rural economy and ecology is not only not the product of industrial development, on the contrary, it is the inevitable result of the lag of modern China's industrial development.

Seeking the industrialization of agricultural production means is an inevitable choice for Chinese to break through the bottleneck of resources and environment and strive for survival rights and interests after the traditional production mode exhausts its growth potential!

Therefore, the next step is to develop synthetic ammonia and increase grain production, and industrial development is necessary! ”

Of course, in addition to the above points, there are other more important reasons, and Cheng Nuo did not expand here.

In terms of soil quality, most of the land in the country lacks nitrogen, especially in central, southern and southwestern China.

In the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, in the Huai River basin and south of the Yangtze River, there are many lands that lack both phosphorus and nitrogen.

China's animal husbandry is underdeveloped, manure has always been scarce, and farmers mostly use human and animal manure.

Urea as a natural fertilizer, its quantity is directly proportional to the density of the hukou, near the city, less arable land and more dung, rural remote arable land and less manure, not enough for farmers to use.

Moreover, organic fertilizers such as human manure, manure, compost, river mud, weeds, plant ash, soybean cakes, cotton cakes, etc., are rich in organic matter, but the nutrients are thin.

At the same time, it will also lose most of its efficacy due to wind, rain, sunlight and other reasons, so it is not too much to adapt to the needs of plants.

If you want to increase food production, you must develop chemical fertilizers.

As early as the Song and Yuan dynasties, the Chinese used lime, gypsum and sulfur as fertilizers, creating the original form of applying chemical fertilizers.

In order to break the serious constraints of backward means of production on increasing agricultural output, the application of chemical fertilizers on a large scale is the most realistic and feasible way to effectively increase agricultural output in a country like China, where there are many people and little land, where there is a lack of fallow land, where the planting area of green manure crops is scarce, and the manure and fertilizer that can be provided by livestock storage is a drop in the bucket.

However, the production and use of chemical fertilizers in modern China has lagged far behind the world trend.

Although as early as 1908, there was a practical process of synthesizing ammonia from air and hydrogen, but when we were able to produce nitrogen fertilizer independently, we had to wait until the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, when the bumpy development to the founding of the country after liberation, our annual fertilizer output was less than 1% of the world's total output, which was miserable.

Now that he has the ability and takes the chemical industry as the primary direction of his current research, Cheng Nuo will naturally not give up this opportunity to change history.

"All in all, in short, whether we want to have a full stomach or want to develop industry, we must solve the food problem first, and the people take food as the sky, this sentence is not a joke."

After the words were finished, regardless of whether the students could thoroughly grasp the truth, they could also feel the patriotism in it.

The bell rang for a long time, and they all gathered around Cheng Nuo.

Maybe Na Yitong's speech was too shocking at the end of class, or maybe the math was too boring, and the questions asked around Cheng Nuo were basically about chemistry, which made him cry and laugh.

I finally got out of the crowd, and I had a hand pulling it up from behind.

Cheng Nuo habitually said: "I'm sorry, classmate, the final exam is mathematics, not chemistry, not humanities, and there is no focus on the exam, go down and review it well." ”

Unexpectedly, this "student" was not afraid at all, and stepped forward directly, grabbed his arm and said in a rough voice: "But Professor Cheng, what if I am not interested in chemistry?" ”

"So what are you interested in...... Mr. Zhongfu? Before he finished speaking, Cheng Nuo reacted, and it was not a student who was following behind, but Chen Zhongfu.

Now he was baring a mouthful of big white teeth, and said happily: "Just now, the students surrounded you on three floors and three layers outside, and I was embarrassed to say it directly, now I can ask you, right?" ”

"Of course." Cheng Nuo immediately pulled three chairs, kept one for himself, and divided the rest between the two of them: "What do you want to ask, Mr. Zhongfu shouldn't be interested in mathematics, right?" ”

Chen Zhongfu hurriedly shook his head: "You overestimate me, I didn't understand it in the classroom just now, and I still didn't understand the relationship between agricultural fertilizer and industrial development, please tell us about it again." ”

Cheng Nuo picked up his cup, swallowed a cup of tea and said slowly: "Actually, it is also simple, in the case of the rapid expansion of the agricultural and non-agricultural population, without the rapid development of the fertilizer industry, it is impossible to raise the agricultural surplus necessary for the continuous advancement of industrialization and the stable expansion of the city."

Even if it is barely raised, it will be difficult for the countryside to usher in new development. ”

Chen Zhongfu suddenly realized: "No wonder, no wonder, it's really a ring after a ring, and the ring cannot be replaced." ”

Li Daqi nodded: "It's still Zhiyuan, you think more thoughtfully, don't worry about it, do it boldly, tell us what support you need in time, what you can do will definitely help you, as long as it's for the same ideal, it's easy to say anything." ”

Cheng Nuo quipped: "It's okay, if you really need it, you won't let the two gentlemen go." ”

Of course, in addition to the above reasons, there is also a very important thing to do is to protect the natural environment.

Without the rapid progress of the fertilizer industry represented by nitrogen fertilizer, China's vast rural areas will inevitably escape the vicious circle of "indiscriminate reclamation and deforestation, declining agricultural productivity, farmers' livelihood, and intensifying indiscriminate reclamation and deforestation".

We will continue to be in the predicament of ecological deterioration, the crisis of agricultural production, and the lack of survival of the people at the same time, and it will be impossible to talk about curbing indiscriminate reclamation and deforestation and gradually improving the conditions for agricultural production and the ecological environment in rural areas.

Even if it is impossible not to follow the old path of destruction first and then treatment, it is also avoided as much as possible.

After all, due to the destruction of the natural environment, in addition to desertification in some places, it has also caused the extinction of a number of endangered animals.

Cheng Nuo doesn't want future generations to see rare animals such as Chinese white-sided dolphins and South China tigers in books.

The development of the nitrogen fertilizer industry represented by synthetic ammonia is needed by agriculture, environmental protection, and industry, and it is more necessary to avoid "involution".