Unparalleled Women in the World

Yutong City, the city lord's mansion.

On Luohan's small couch, lay a pair of white, tender, chubby babies. They were only four months old and could not sit still. Now they were staring curiously at the people in front of the couch with their black eyes open.

Mei Wangqing's heart softened when she saw it, she leaned forward and touched Xiaowa's face, and asked with a smile: "Uncle, what are the names of my little cousin and cousin?"

With a soft smile on An Ling's face, he replied, "The boy's name is Xue Wen, and the girl's name is Xue Wu."

Anping Taijun sat on the round stool in front of the couch, chatted with An Ling, and he suddenly said:

"Qing'er's marriage has to be arranged quickly, I'm waiting to hold my granddaughter!"

An Ling nodded, looking forward to saying: "Qing'er's child must be very handsome!"

The corners of Mei Wangqing's mouth froze, she had already broken her sleeves, and she had a woman in her heart!How can I meet a man in this life?

She was silent for a moment, feeling a little unhappy, and after sitting for a while, she left the house and headed for the school grounds of the City Lord's Mansion.

On the school grounds, the soldiers had already started training, and there was the ups and downs of humming and shouting in their ears. Mei Wangqing took a closer look and saw that they were practicing, some of them were waving weapons such as long knives and spears in their hands; or fight against others; some are running long distances with heavy loads; some are cultivating cooperation and tacit understanding between teams...

Most of the twelve cavalry are already on the field, they are training soldiers individually, and some of them even got off the field to try their moves with others.

"The king of the county is here..."

"Look, Xiao Qing'er..."

Mei Wangqing greeted each of them one by one, nodded her head, and watched them silently for a while.

With a smile on Twelve's face, she walked quickly: "Wang Qing is here, look, how about the soldiers we brought?"

Mei Wangqing admired sincerely: "Heroic, upright, good soldier!"

Twelve boldly patted his chest, raised his eyebrows and smiled: "That is! It is definitely worthy of your evaluation!"

Xue Qin was instructing two soldiers to practice their skills against each other. She saw Mei Wangqing, stepped off the high platform, and came to the two of them:

"How does Wangqing feel in the past two days? Are you still used to it?"

Mei Wangqing's eyes narrowed, she sighed softly, her voice was as thin as the wind:

"Auntie, I only know that the southern border is suffering, but I don't know how hard it is!"

Xue Qin frowned slightly, and said slowly:

"Although Yutong City is bitter, it can still fill your stomach!"

"Yixing County is the real poverty! There are battles in Yixing County every year, every year, and the 54 soldiers fight for a year, and the army food consumption is [-].

Stone is a big grain-producing state-the grain in Dingzhou is only 58 shi. If you want to transport grain from Dingzhou, you have to trek through mountains and rivers, and the road is far away, and there is Jinzhou natural moat in the middle. It takes 20 women to transport the grain and grass, and the food lost along the way, as well as the food consumed by the horses and the grain transport team... The war in the southern border, the money and food consumed in one year are worth the production of a state in ten years , and so on, the imperial court can only convert the grain into silver bills...but Baiyue is rich in grain, and these years we have only secretly traded grain with the surrounding tribes and small princes and small countries..."

Mei Wangqing's eyes became darker:

"This is not a long-term solution! Once we fight against Nanyue and other countries, these fearful princes and small countries may stop trading. The consequences of this are unimaginable. If the court does not act, the southern border can only rely on ourselves!"

Seeing her calm face, Xue Qin was faintly curious: "Qing'er, there seems to be a way?"

"There is little food in the southern region. First, the land is too barren and there is little land available for planting. Second, the husbands and scholars are weak and there is a shortage of strong and hard-working girls... If these two problems are solved, there is no need to ask the court for help. Grain, or buy grain from the princes and small countries!"

"A lot of land reclamation, digging canals, dams, septic tanks, water trucks to divert water, using manure to make fields, I am not afraid of not producing food... I have the methods of fertilizing fields and reclaiming wasteland, but these projects are huge and lack a lot of hardworking women Ding... If the soldiers are not sent to the countryside to open up wasteland and grow food, in order not to delay their daily drills, my suggestion is to stagger their training shifts and change the time of their patrols..."

"It takes only ten and a half days to grow grain, and the same is true for harvesting and transporting grain... During the rest of the time, the villagers are only allowed to fertilize and maintain it, and the soldiers practice as usual. In this way, it only takes them one or two months a year!"

Xue Qin's eyes brightened again, she paused for a moment, and sighed:

"Daliang's military system is a recruiting system. Usually, soldiers are trained when there is nothing to do, and they go directly to the battlefield together. It is indeed a good way to use soldiers to farm and use agriculture to support soldiers!"

"However, this strategy has to be written to the empress in the court..."

Twelve twitched the corners of his mouth, and his voice was very unhappy: "Waiting for the court's order, I'm afraid we will all starve to death!"

Xue Qin glanced at her, and said bluntly: "The Grandmother of the Ji family, the grandparents, the art of war set by the emperor, can't be violated easily!"

Mei Wangqing pondered for a long while, but she could understand that there were gaps and speculations between the government and the garrison, the emperor and the foreign generals, and she continued:

"Recently, it's the time for harvesting autumn grain, and it's also the best time to dig canals to store water. At this moment, the soldiers are temporarily unavailable, so I will use the armored soldiers and guards in my mansion first, and then recruit the strong laborers here, and go to the countryside to work..."

Xue Qin smiled gratifiedly, and she sighed: "If that's the case, I'll leave it to Qing'er!"

……

On this day, Mei Wangqing came to her fief, Leyang County, Changle Village.

Behind her was the long history, master secretary, and commander of the guards of Mei Mansion, followed by a row of long armored soldiers.In front of her were the local village head and a few respected elders, and in the fields not far away were the villagers watching the excitement.

At the foot is a narrow and curved ridge, on both sides are square paddy fields, and in the paddy fields are pieces of golden ears of rice.

Mei Wangqing turned her eyes, and asked in a soft voice; how much is harvested in a year, how much energy is invested, how much grain is produced, how many fields a household has, how much is the tax...

The village chief replied:

"Two crops a year, this kind of rice is 7 cents a catty, the price of rice is 1 stone and 1 guan, a hundred catties of rice can produce 70 catties of rice, 30 catties of rice bran, and the yield per mu is 300-400 catties. There are about 5-7 mu, and each household pays 200 catties of rice every year."

Mei Wangqing calculated in her mind. She estimated the yield per mu to be 350 jin. Based on 6 mu per household, 2100 jin of rice could be harvested a year, and 1470 jin of rice could be harvested. After tax deduction of 200 jin, there would be 1270 jin left over, one person per year. About 300 catties of rice can be eaten. If there are 5 people in this family, they will eat 1500 catties of grain, which is not enough to eat 1270 catties... This is an ordinary estimate. It's even worse... It's really not easy for farmers to eat according to the sky!

Counting the value again, Mei Wangqing was surprised. Converted into RMB, it was about 10 yuan a catty.

Jiufang couldn't believe it: "The price of rice in Beijing is only 6 Wen a catty, and it is even cheaper in Dingzhou to 4 Wen a catty."

The grain production in this area is small, and it is not peaceful, so that the price of rice is high!In modern low-yield paddy fields, the yield per mu is 700 to 800 jin, and the high-yield paddy field is 1000-1300 jin. Mei Wangqing knows that the piece of land under her feet is still relatively fertile in the local area.

She pointed to a large blue hillside in the distance: "If you turn this into a field, why worry about not having enough food?"

The village head stammered: "Your Majesty, it's so steep that if you plow it to flatten the field, it will damage the geomantic omen. There are too few water pools in the mountains, and it will be very dry in summer, so it's not easy to irrigate..."

"Feng Shui? Is filling the stomach more important or superstition?"

The village chief was so frightened that her forehead was sweating, her voice was a little weaker: "It will cost a lot of labor to cultivate a field, I'm afraid it will not be easy!"

There is an old saying: "The king of the county, it is stipulated in the law that you can't reclaim wasteland at will!"

"This is my fiefdom. I will reduce or exempt taxes and encourage you to reclaim wasteland and farmland. You can rest assured!" Mei Wangqing thought about it carefully, and she continued:

"It's not difficult to dig the hillside into terraced fields. Don't worry about manpower, I will send armored guards to help; as for irrigation, you can dig nearby canals, store dams, and introduce water trucks to transport water..."

The clan elders next to me were overjoyed when they heard the words, and one of them asked anxiously, "Your Majesty, what is this terraced field?"

Mei Wangqing explained:

"Cultivate up and down along the angle of the hillside, like stairs, one step at a time. Most of the terraces are narrow in width but long in length, and most of them are narrow and long circular. In order to fix water and lock fertilizer, each step The field ridge should be thicker, of course, some beans, vegetables, etc. can be planted on this field ridge, which can be regarded as saving land..."

She thought for a while, then shook her head: "The yield per mu is only 300-400 catties, and this field is too hard! We need fertile fields!"

The village head looked at her face carefully, and said cautiously: "In recent years, the number of people in Changle Village has grown slowly. The amount of swill and manure in the ditch is limited. Normally, the villagers pile up fermented grass manure or burn some straw. ..."

Mei Wangqing suggested: "Raise more chickens, ducks, geese, cattle and sheep and other livestock. The chickens don't need to be fed food. The grass, leaves, wild fruits, and insects all over the mountain are enough. The chickens eat these. The eggs laid are much more nutritious than the eggs laid by feeding grain. You can enclose a piece of land here, build a fence and grass shed, and raise chickens. The eggs and the meat of this chicken can be eaten by yourself, and you can also take Selling it on the street can add some income! The chicken manure is collected and composted; as for the ducks and geese that are kept in the water ponds of the ditches and paddy fields to eat fish and shrimp, the duck and goose manure can also be composted, oh yes! I will send people over to collect the down and eggs of ducks and geese at the market price, and you can sell them to me, as well as this wool!" She thought, developing the economy, agricultural business is the most important thing, and only if you buy it can you sell it. Down is so useful!

"In addition, this pond can also grow some lotus roots, raise some fish and shrimp, and increase income!"

The village head and several clan elders were all sincerely convinced, and their gratitude was beyond words.

Mei Wangqing kept her word, and left the armored guards to reclaim the fertile fields. They all rolled up their sleeves, picked up the shovels, hoes, and poles presented by the villagers...bending down to pick up the fields, the armored guards had plenty of strength and Strict discipline and amazing speed, on the barren hills and the barren fields, under their hoes and shovels, the prototype of terraced fields gradually appeared...

According to her request, the long history and stewards of the Mei Mansion brought the waterwheels. Waterwheels are precious equipment in the village. Mei Wangqing said that these two waterwheels were given to Changle Village and belonged to the local villagers. Please cherish it.

The villagers looked at Mei Wangqing with even more reverence. When she left, some villagers brought sugar cane just pulled from the ground, or several baskets of newly dug sweet potatoes. After many thanks and pleadings, she nodded and accepted a portion of each item!

Mei Wangqing is riding on a horse. She wants to develop agriculture and drive the economy. She usually relies on mountains to eat mountains, makes the best use of everything, and adapts measures to local conditions.

What are the local characteristics?She looked back and saw two open horse-drawn carriages behind the team. These were the same carriages used to transport water. On one carriage were red and green sugar cane tied with straw ropes. Mei Wangqing raised her eyebrows, but the two A variety of sugar cane; in another carriage, several baskets of sweet potatoes and some green vegetables...

Suddenly her eyes lit up, this sugarcane can be used to make sugar, and the girders have sugar, but the sugar she wants to make is naturally different.As for sweet potatoes, they can be processed into vermicelli.

The raw materials are available, and people can be sent to collect them. What these require are workshops and labor.

Mei Wangqing thought that she would be very busy in the future.