Chapter 14 The New Plow is for the Present and for Future Generations

Mo Jingchun carried a stack of bamboo slips and walked along the main road toward the "temporary office".

A group of men walked briskly past her, brushing against her as they headed towards the city gate.

Mo Jingchun was taken aback. Weren't they from Shifang? Why were they leaving the city all at once? What happened?

Just then, another group of women came quickly from another direction, also heading to the city gate.

They were from the laundry.

Moreover, just like the group of men from before, their faces showed a mixture of anticipation and curiosity.

Mo Jingchun: "?"

She called out to a young woman, "Sister-in-law, where are you going?"

The young woman replied with a smile, "Master Cheng obtained a blueprint for a plow from the goddess, and the lumberyard made it according to the blueprint. They're testing it on an ox's neck right now, and everyone wants to go and see it."

"I'm leaving now, or I won't see anything." The young woman said, then jogged a few steps to catch up with the line ahead.

plow?

Mo Jingchun recalled the straight-shafted plows that the uncles and grandfathers in the village used to plow the fields, and blinked hesitantly: "How much more can a plow change?"

What kind of plow will the goddess give you?

Ugh, I want to go see it!

Mo Jingchun quickly delivered the bamboo slips to the "temporary office" and then ran towards the city gate.

She arrived at the outskirts of the city, panting, and saw that the crowd had surrounded several fields in layers, making it impossible to see inside from the outside.

Forget about new plows, you can't even see oxen or oxen herders!

Mo Jingchun pursed her lips and tried to squeeze in a little.

...I couldn't squeeze in.

She gritted her teeth in resentment.

Just then, a boy's voice came from behind, "Sister Chun Chun!"

Mo Jingchun turned her head in surprise.

I didn't see anyone.

Mo Jingchun looked up at the sound and saw five children perched on a rooftop not far away, looking in her direction. The little girl in the middle was waving at her with a grin.

Mo Jingchun gasped.

She ran over quickly, "How did you climb so high? Come down!"

The little boy with the flat nose blinked his eyes and said, "If we go down there, we won't be able to see anymore."

The little girl, who was missing two front teeth, nodded quickly.

"Sister Chun Chun, come up here too. You can see what the adults are doing from here." The little girl with the ponytail greeted Mo Jingchun with an adorable tilt of her head.

Mo Jingchun sighed and rubbed her forehead in exasperation.

After a short while, she climbed onto the roof using a wooden ladder that the children had brought from somewhere, and together they lay on the tiles, looking out at the fields not far away.

She finally saw what the plow the goddess had given her looked like!

Unlike the plows she had seen before, this plow had a curved tip, shaft, and blade!

A V-shaped wooden yoke was placed around the ox's neck, pulling it forward with the plow behind it. The plow scooped up the soil in the field, and where the ox passed, a straight path was turned over.

A man holds a plow and controls the direction of an ox. When the ox reaches the end of the field, he makes it turn around.

The children were just watching the spectacle; they didn't understand why the adults surrounding the fields looked so happy.

Mo Jingchun understands.

Clearly, this plow was much easier to operate than the previous plow, and it required far less effort to control the oxen as they moved forward and turned.

As a result, the soil turning speed increased considerably.

The onlookers chattered as they watched, discussing whether more plows could be made so that they could all use them, and how much easier it would be to till the fields if they had one.

Immediately, someone countered that there wasn't enough wood and that people shouldn't have too high hopes.

"We don't know when Hu Dazhu and the others will be back."

Gu Lanying was speechless: No matter how capable Hu Dazhu and the others are, they can't create a tall forest out of thin air! Don't put all your hopes on them, they can't bear that burden.

"Why do we still need to farm? Doesn't the goddess give us food every day?" someone suddenly said.

Upon hearing this, the men, women, and children around him all turned to look at him, wanting to see what the fool who had spoken looked like.

The person who spoke: "???"

Bathed in the pitying gazes of the crowd, he subconsciously swallowed, "You..."

"Are you stupid?" someone couldn't help but say.

Others also began to educate him.

"If the goddess can stay here for ten or a hundred years, can she stay for a thousand years?"

“If we don’t farm and don’t teach our children and grandchildren to farm, what will happen to those who don’t know how to farm when the goddess leaves? What will they eat?”

"That's right, that's right. If our generation doesn't farm and just lies around waiting for the goddess to provide food, then the next generation will think that all the food is conjured up by the goddess!"

"...Is it that serious?"

"Of course it's that serious. Some city people have never seen rice paddies or celery fields, so they think that rice and celery grow automatically in stores."

"!!!"

"It can't be that absurd, can it?"

"Oh, that's about right. I only exaggerated it a tiny bit."

"Master Cheng said that the goddess came to save us, but she will not stay in the human world for thousands of years."

"Therefore, we cannot abandon the skill of farming."

“If our children and grandchildren have never seen their elders farm, they will naturally not know that grains must be planted and harvested by themselves.”

"If the goddess returns to heaven someday, our children and grandchildren won't starve because they don't know how to farm."

"The fields won't be abandoned because of this. Those fields would easily fall into disrepair if left uncultivated for a few years!"

Gu Lanying listened with great satisfaction: this was also the result of their propaganda team's efforts over this period of time!

Because the goddesses would eventually leave, they tried their best to keep the people mindful of potential dangers and to encourage them to continue farming, remembering that they still needed to cultivate the land properly.

As for those lazybones who won't listen to advice, let them be. It's not about trying to convince everyone. In the words of the goddess, "The law doesn't protect those who sleep on their rights," they only help those who deserve it.

Gu Lanying's expression was serious, but then again, what does the statement "The law does not protect those who sleep on their rights" mean?

After thinking about it, she decided to ask Master Qian another day when she had time.

County government office.

He Qinglan is having a private chat with a friend who is located in a modern world.

[Maple Leaf Galaxy Grand Prize Winner: Beetroots and sugarcane are planted in August and September, right? Is it September where you are yet?]

[Maple Leaf Galaxy Grand Prize-winning actress: I'll send you the seed.]

[Maple Leaf Galaxy Grand Prize-winning actress: How will you solve the salt problem?]

He Qinglan frowned slightly and replied, "If we haven't acquired any areas with salt wells and salt fields, we'll have to buy them for now."

I bought them and taught them how to process them.

[Maple Leaf Award-winning actress: Okay.]

[Maple Leaf Award-winning actress: He Qinglan, you need to be prepared, not all kindness will be reciprocated equally.] Besides, there are so many people where you are.

He Qinglan's lips twitched. [Does being prepared guarantee I won't be let down?]

[Maple Leaf Award-winning actress: No.]

[Maple Leaf Award-winning actress: But you feel a little better when you find out you've been betrayed :-D]

He Qinglan closed the chat box expressionlessly.

See, this is the importance of having a human-shaped dialogue box; Qiu Tang won't deliberately upset her.

She opened the chat window with "I am the villain" and asked the other person to get her some wild plants and animals.

"I'm the main villain," he readily agreed, while warning her to be careful of "invasive alien species."

He Qinglan didn't even frown.

Is now the time to worry about biological invasion? Many places are barren, with no plants or animals at all.

Once Hu Dazhu and Ning Huai'an have taken those two counties, the important thing is to take stock of how many barren mountains and wastelands there are in the five counties, plant trees where possible, reclaim wasteland where possible, and make the land green again.

Speaking of Hu Dazhu and Ning Huai'an, I wonder how their siege is going.

He Qinglan did some quick calculations.

Okay then.

Keep up the good work!

She tapped the cafeteria system: [System, I've discovered a bug in your system.]

The system is now online with a "beep beep beep": [What bug?]

He Qinglan: [I can choose where to place the food, but I can't see how the diners look when they eat it, and I don't know if they are satisfied with my food.]

System: [...What do you want to say?]

He Qing smiled (with blue parentheses): [The surveillance system, using its all-seeing eye to observe the expressions on the diners' faces while they eat.]

The system replied matter-of-factly: "Host, I am not a military mess hall system; I cannot monitor and broadcast the distant battlefield for you."

He Qinglan: [Does the military have a mess hall system?]

System: [No, dear.] I've already said I'm one of a kind!

He Qinglan clicked her tongue.

She stopped teasing the system.

If you want to get rich, build roads first.

The main roads in Yunhe County have been built by the local people, but there may not be connecting roads between the various townships and villages outside the county.

In addition, a main road needs to be built connecting Yunhe County to the four surrounding counties to facilitate better management and people's travel.

Let's wait until Tianshui County and Baoshan County take over this project before discussing it further.

The academy needs to be rebuilt. A temporary academy can be used for a while, but it cannot be used indefinitely. A proper school is still needed.

...It is too early to build a library at present, but once papermaking and printing are popularized, a library can be set up in the school so that children can borrow extracurricular books to read.

He Qinglan seemed to be thinking about something. She could get the book from Chu Xi, since Chu Xi was also teaching children.

Seeing that He Qinglan had suddenly stopped speaking, the system couldn't help but ask: [What are you thinking about?]

He Qinglan frowned slightly and casually replied, "While simplified characters are convenient and helpful for literacy, aren't they too advanced for the people here?"

He Qinglan: [However, we can teach the students Pinyin and Arabic numerals first.]

He Qinglan: 【...Politics and history can't be neglected, and basic geography, biology, physics, and chemistry knowledge also need to be increased.】 Damn it, I really want to borrow Chu Xi's cub-raising system!

system:【……】

System: [However, do you remember we haven't unlocked all the recipes yet?]

He Qinglan waved her hand, "There are noodles and meat; the people here can eat their fill. There's no rush to serve three dishes and a soup."

system:【! ! ! 】

The system is exasperated: "Are you really treating me like an infrastructure system? Are you even too lazy to give me a perfunctory response?"

He Qinglan: [?]

She snapped out of her reverie, her tone heavy: "How did I brush you off? If you had a guide, we would have unlocked all the recipes and released the three-dish-and-one-soup version long ago. Maybe even the five-dish-and-one-soup version would already be available."

He Qinglan: [It's because you didn't have a guide that I had to painstakingly unlock dishes through trial and error.]

He Qinglan: [The 53 practice exam even has answer keys, why don't you have one?]

The system responded listlessly: "Stop trying to manipulate me, I won't listen, I won't listen, I won't listen."

He Qinglan resumed her aloof demeanor: 【System, you're not cute anymore.】