"Five coins to buy a peck of rice is cheap enough, but if you sell a peck of rice, you can only get three coins. It's as difficult as climbing to heaven for ordinary people to save money by selling grain."

"Farming is so hard, but the grain we grow sells for such a low price. Farming is not worth it at all!"

"But someone has to farm, otherwise what will all the people of Dayuan eat?"

"Why can't we raise the price of grain? If a dou (a unit of dry measure) of rice sells for fifty or even five hundred wen (another unit of dry measure), wouldn't the common people be able to make money?"

"But if that happens, will the people who don't have enough land and food still be able to afford to buy grain?"

"If the price of grain goes up, will the price of food also go up? Will unscrupulous landlords take the opportunity to raise rents?"

......

The kids are arguing endlessly about this issue, but it seems that no matter what measures are taken, they are not friendly to ordinary people.

"Low grain prices hurt farmers, while high rice prices hurt the people."

Ye Jingchen summarized the key points of their argument in eight words.

If grain is sold too cheaply, the profits will be too low, which will dampen people's enthusiasm for farming; if grain is sold too expensively, people will eventually have no rice to eat.

This is a typical concept in economics. The best solution is to keep grain prices in a balanced state that is neither too high nor too low, while increasing crop yields and providing government subsidies.

In this era, agriculture was valued and commerce was suppressed, and the main source of national tax revenue was land tax.

Without other sources of tax revenue, the country relies on that little bit of tax revenue to operate. Tax reduction and exemption sounds easy, but it is very difficult to implement, let alone subsidize farmers, which is simply impossible!

Therefore, the only way to solve this problem is to find ways to increase crop yields and at the same time vigorously develop commerce to supplement agriculture.

In this era of strict class hierarchy, scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants held the lowest social status. However, they were wealthy, and presumably, they were also willing to use money to elevate their social standing and enjoy more social power.

However, before implementing these policies, it is essential to ensure that the land remains in the hands of the people so that they can truly benefit from these policies.

So ultimately, the priority should be to suppress powerful families and nobles while vigorously developing commerce and elevating the social status of merchants.

At the same time, it is urgent to find new crops with higher yields that are more suitable for the climate and land of Daeyueh.

In addition, increasing the yield of existing crops is also something that must be done.

You only realize how little you know when you need it. Thinking about how to increase crop yields, Ye Jingchen could only regret that he had never been interested in farming before, so his knowledge in this area was very limited. He only had some methods he had seen in novels and TV dramas, the veracity of which he didn't know, as well as some common sense. He still had to test the feasibility of those methods one by one.

To this end, Ye Jingchen had already asked Xie Chang'an to hire several farmers who were very experienced in farming, and also rented several plots of land with different levels of fertility in the suburbs of the capital to test those methods in the fields.

To increase crop yields, favorable weather, geographical location, and human factors are all indispensable. Given the current level of agriculture in Dayuan, we can temporarily disregard 'favorable weather,' as the cost would be too high and the returns too low, making it uneconomical.

As for the people involved—if his experiment is successful, it will definitely be promoted throughout the entire Great Abyss, and his status as the crown prince is still very useful in this regard.

In terms of soil conditions, different crops have different requirements for soil acidity and alkalinity, and how to fertilize is also a science.

These are the key points of Ye Jingchen's experiment.

Another key focus is seed cultivation.

The quality of seeds directly affects the growth and yield of crops, as well as the quality of crops. If excellent seeds can be cultivated, the yield of crops can be increased several times over!

Nowadays, the yield of rice paddies in Dayuan is only about 200 jin per mu, but in their time, a yield of more than 1,000 jin per mu was common. The nearly tenfold difference in yield was due to the soil and seeds.

After several years of trials, the seeds have been continuously optimized and the soil has become more and more suitable for crop growth. Last autumn, the field with the best harvest yielded nearly four shi per mu, or more than 400 jin, which is more than double the average yield of Dayuan!

When they reached this conclusion at harvest time, the old farmers burst into tears of joy.

Unfortunately, most of the land in Dayuan was still controlled by aristocratic families and nobles. The methods he experimented with and the superior seeds he cultivated could not be made public to benefit the people and could only be spread on a small scale.

Ye Jingchen also filled in a three-tenths of an acre of land in the palace with a pond. Every spring, he would personally lead a few of the older children to the fields to cultivate seedlings, transplant rice, fertilize, and harvest.

Because there were no pesticides in this era, and pests could not be effectively controlled, Ye Jingchen also had a few ducklings raised to help with pest control.

Several years have passed, and the productivity of this small plot of land is now equivalent to the average yield per mu in Dayuan. The ducklings have also grown from a few to a flock. The Crown Prince no longer needs to go out to buy ducks when he wants to eat them; the palace has them ready-made, and they are plump and fresh!

The rice grown there is sweeter and more fragrant than ordinary rice, and can be compared to the quality of tribute rice.

After each harvest, Ye Jingchen would keep a portion for himself, give most of the rest to the emperor, and distribute the rest to the young servants who had contributed to the harvest.

As a result, the gifts the emperor received became increasingly strange: either new rice or plump ducks, which, though not something to be proud of, were delicious.

Moreover, his filial piety is commendable!

If it weren't for the fact that his children preferred to keep a low profile and didn't want too much attention, the emperor would have definitely made it public, letting the entire Dayuan—no, he wanted the whole world to know how filial his children were and how happy he was!

It's the end of February now, and in a while, it will be time to cultivate rice seedlings again.

This time, Ye Jingchen decided to involve all the kids, especially the sixth one!

If we don't let him know how hard farming is, he won't treat ordinary people like human beings!

These bad habits taught by daughters of wealthy families need to be corrected!

As he was thinking this, Ye Jingchen glanced at Ye Jingan.

Receiving a look from his elder brother, the Crown Prince, Ye Jing'an's mental radar started spinning wildly. He suddenly had a bad feeling that his elder brother, the Crown Prince, might be coming up with some new way to torment him.

There are two purposes for this trip out of the palace: one is to let the children try to interact with people, and the other is to let them understand the prices in the capital.

Ye Jingming, Ye Jingyu, and Ye Jingyu are the three kids who did the best in this regard.

They learned about the prices of the most essential goods for ordinary people's daily lives, including food, clothing, housing, and transportation. They not only learned how to buy things, but also how to sell them.

Moreover, based on the price difference between buying and selling goods, they all had their own opinions on the 'merchant' in the scholar-farmer-artisan-merchant class.