Rebirth of the Ming Dynasty: Sixth Generation of Glory, I don't want it

"Just this one item and the one from Baotangfang, the inner storehouse is well stocked. The sweet potato harvest is good this year, the people can have enough to eat, and the remaining food will definitely allow them to have a good New Year."

Xu pondered in her mind and sighed.

“It just went really smoothly.”

Zhang Xin nodded vigorously.

This year, good things have indeed happened one after another.

Just as she had thought before, her fifth uncle, Prince Zhou, was in charge of food, and her seventeenth uncle, Prince Ning, was in charge of money.

Completely realized.

Especially as for Uncle Wu’s food, it is foreseeable that the people of the Ming Dynasty will no longer go hungry.

The story begins in October last year.

The King of Zhou sent people to deliver several carts of crops grown in the fields to Zhu Di from afar, asking him if he wanted to promote their cultivation.

According to the detailed description of King Zhou, this is an annual herb, and its rhizomes and leaves are all edible.

The gentlemen at the botanical garden named this stem sweet potato based on its characteristics and origin.

In terms of yield per mu, the underground rhizomes of sweet potatoes can reach at least one thousand to two thousand kilograms, which are real weights. The whole rhizome, including the skin and flesh, can be eaten. It is just as effective in satisfying hunger as rice or noodles, and may even be more filling.

If you pick the leaves on the ground and cook them, they will grow into a new crop in a few days, which can weigh hundreds of pounds.

Of course, King Zhou also pointed out the disadvantages. Eating too many sweet potatoes will cause bloating and farting.

The estimated yield of one to two thousand kilograms per mu really scared Zhu Di.

At this time, whether in the south or the north, the yield of rice and wheat from planting in the best fertile fields is only about 500 kilograms, while in the inferior fields even 300 kilograms is considered a lot.

If this is promoted in the country and all the people plant sweet potatoes, one acre of land will be enough to feed a family of five for a year.

The shortcomings described in Uncle Wu's letter can almost be ignored.

This sweet potato was the one that Yao Guangxiao planted in the flowerpot and was given to him by a friend from Southeast Asia. It was cultivated from an unknown plant with thick roots.

When it was in Yao Guangxiao's hands, the flowerpot was not suitable and no fertilizer was applied after planting, so the roots grew thin and long, and it looked like an ordinary plant.

When the gentleman from the botanical garden got the sweet potato, he looked at its characteristics and classified it as a tuberous plant.

Planting is their strong point, and the group of people led by King Zhou have been conducting research in the botanical garden for more than ten years.

So we built a greenhouse, planted seeds, and started tissue culture to start breeding.

With professionals taking over, the sweet potatoes are growing well.

During that period, Zhang Xin also provided a large amount of manure.

With the sweet potato roots and seedlings in Yao Guangxiao's flowerpot, he took a multi-pronged approach and harvested nearly 50 kilograms of sweet potatoes after five months.

The King of Zhou asked a death row prisoner to taste the food. He found that it could be eaten raw or cooked, and it still tasted sweet.

Nowadays, sugar is no longer a necessity in people's lives. People can only have something sweet in their mouths under special circumstances.

King Zhou made a prompt decision and used all 50 kilograms of sweet potatoes as mother seedlings.

At the beginning, the mother plant only produces enough seedlings to plant one acre of land. After being harvested, they will grow again in a short time.

The last fifty kilograms of sweet potatoes were planted on almost four acres of land.

At the harvest time, we harvested almost 8,000 kilograms of sweet potatoes.

The King of Zhou immediately sent the sweet potatoes over, along with the gentleman who cultivated them.

The gentleman suggested that sweet potatoes were previously grown in frontier areas like the capital.

Generally speaking, no matter what kind of grain, the per-acre yield in the north cannot catch up with that in the south. People want to go to the south to try planting it, and they also have to experiment with which type of land is more suitable for growing sweet potatoes.

So Zhu Di selected a hill and nearby fields from the imperial farm in the south, and sent people there by water as quickly as possible to plant sweet potatoes.

By this time this year, sweet potatoes have been harvested twice and the conclusions of the experiment have come out.

It likes high temperature and light, is relatively drought-resistant, but not cold-resistant and shade-tolerant.

Marginal land such as sandy land, tidal flats and saline-alkali land that are not suitable for growing crops can still be used for cultivation.

Because potato leaves grow in a creeping manner, they are not affected by typhoons even if they are planted by the sea.

The highest yield per mu is currently 3,500 kilograms, and the lowest is 1,200 kilograms. And one mu of land only needs about 30 kilograms of sweet potato seedlings.

The combination of these factors actually means that the Ming Dynasty had a particularly high-yield grain that was not picky about where it was grown.

Fortunately, Zhu Di generously rewarded King Zhou with 50,000 taels of silver last month.

It was specifically for the professionals in the botanical garden whom Zhou Wang called "sir".

Along with the letter of thanks from King Zhou, there was also a bag of crystal clear white sugar.

A Mr. Gan in the botanical garden originally specialized in sugarcane cultivation.

In the past two years, the area in Beijing is not very suitable for growing sugarcane, so there has not been any breakthrough progress in sugarcane cultivation.

At that time, Zhang Xin asked her second brother to pick up these people and bring them to the capital to settle down. Since these people were good at agriculture, she copied a copy of all the books related to agriculture in the collection of the Prince of Yan's Mansion and gave them to them.

The old man had nothing to do, so he read books and made sugar.

He actually managed to make the sugar.

The yellow mud water sprinkling method for extracting white sugar.

This method is inexpensive and labor-intensive, it just has one more step than the current sugar refining process.

The sugar liquid squeezed out of the sugarcane and boiled until it becomes viscous is poured into the waliu, which is a specially customized large funnel.

Plug the small hole at the bottom of the large funnel with straw first, then pour the sugarcane sugar liquid into the funnel. After the sugar liquid has completely condensed into black sugar, pull out the straw used for blocking, and flush specially prepared yellow mud water into the funnel. The black impurities in the black sugar will flow along the water and be discharged from the small hole at the bottom, and what remains is white sugar.

Thus, the Royal Sugar Factory was officially opened and made a fortune.

“I wonder if salt can do the same thing?”

Zhang Xin suddenly had an idea.

After all, sugar is not something that ordinary people buy often.

Salt is not.

A while ago, Lady Hu asked her buyers to bring various types of salt to show her.

Sea salt, lake salt and well salt are considered to be relatively good salts.

In addition, there are earth salt, nitre salt and rock salt.

The colors of the last three are all messed up. It is said that they taste bitter because there are too many impurities.

"Don't even think about salt for now. The late emperor was against it. Let's talk about it again when the people have enough to eat in the next few years."

Xu shook her head as a reminder.

"Oh, okay. Mom."

Zhang Xin just thought about it and felt it was inappropriate after she finished speaking.

While the two were talking, the voice of the young eunuch outside came in.

"Meet the Third Prince's Consort, Your Majesty, the Third Prince's Consort is here."

"Oh, let her in."

Xu frowned slightly, but still called him in.

【Small Science:

Almost all of Zhu Yuanzhang's war funds were provided by private salt dealers, so after he came to power, the salt administration was strictly controlled.

In the early years of the Hongwu Dynasty, salt was rationed. Adults were allocated three catties per year, but it was not free. They had to pay for salt grains - three catties of salt per year and eight dou of rice. In other words, one catty of salt was equivalent to more than thirty catties of grain.

The official price of salt was 100 yuan per pound of salt, but due to the flooding of the treasure notes, it was actually unusable, and in most cases, one coin of silver was used for one pound of salt.