Chapter 138 God Bless the Tang Dynasty

"Come, let's take a walk and take a look!" Feng Xu took Wei Shutong and Li Boyan to the edge of the field and found two farmers, one in his forties or fifties and the other a strong man in his twenties or twenty-nine.

"Yes, sir!" the farmer bowed in fear and trepidation.

He was called away by the yamen runners early in the morning without saying anything. The whole family was scared and couldn't figure out why the officials called them.

The rent rice has been paid, but the family can only eat porridge and wild vegetables every day. If they can't pay the rent rice anymore, the whole family will starve to death.

They followed the officials trembling with fear, thinking they were going to the government office, but unexpectedly they were taken to a fertile field and asked to plow the land.

The old man breathed a sigh of relief. As long as he didn't have to pay rent, he would work for free.

But why is this plow different from the ones I usually see?

"Sir, how do I use this plow?" The old man looked at the brand new plow and didn't dare to use it rashly, as he couldn't afford to pay for it if it broke.

"You don't know how to use it?" Feng Xu was stunned. Shouldn't an experienced farmer understand this thing at a glance?

"Sir, this is the first time I've seen this. Please give me some advice. I'm afraid I might break it!" the old man said nervously.

Feng Xu is not a farmer, how would he know?

Wei Shutong and Li Boyan also looked at each other.

They were all sons of wealthy families. They went to the farm to eat, drink and have fun, but they had never worked in the fields. They had seen farmers plowing the land with straight-beam plows, but they had never seen them use Jiangdong plows.

"This..." Feng Xu was depressed. It seemed that there was still a missing link in the middle, someone who could read and understand farming to communicate in the middle.

"Go and get the report from Wuzhou!" Feng Xu said to the yamen runner.

The bailiff ran back to the government office and got the Wuzhou report.

Several people squatted on the ground, studying the drawings.

Fortunately, each component in Lu Zhaoshi's drawings is labeled with its name and function, so anyone who can read can understand it.

Each component corresponds to a real object, and its function is explained to the farmer. After everything is explained, the frightened farmer understands it, and trembles as he holds the plow and drives the ox forward.

After walking a few steps, he adjusted the plow and plowed again. Neat furrows appeared and the soil fell to one side.

"Old man, how is this plow?" Feng Xu asked loudly while standing at the edge of the field.

"Excellent, excellent!" the old man replied loudly.

"What's good about it? Tell me about it!" Feng Xu asked.

He doesn't know how to plow the land, and there is no comparison between good and bad. If he is fooled and reports it rashly, his career will be ruined.

“Sir, you see the dirt is falling to the side, unlike the usual way, where it blocks the plow and the more you push, the harder it gets!

There is also the turning function, which allows the plow head to turn around with just a slight lift; and the plow handle can adjust the depth, which is not available in previous ones. To turn the plow, you have to lift the plow up, which makes plowing very difficult and the plowing is not deep enough.

"And the height of the plow shaft is just right for a commoner to hold onto. It's not like usual, where you have to bend over and it's very strenuous. After a day of plowing, your waist would break," the old man answered truthfully.

"Okay, I got it!" Feng Xu asked the yamen runner to give the old man a handful of copper coins as a reward.

When the special envoy is here, he must at least show that he is approachable and does not exploit the people.

"I dare not!" The old man was frightened. He was very grateful that he and his son could return home safely. How could he dare to accept money from the official?

"Just take it when I told you to. Why are you being so long-winded?" Feng Xu was a little angry.

In front of the special envoy, you acted like a mouse seeing a cat, as if I had done something to the people! Am I that incompetent?

"Thank you very much, sir! Thank you very much, sir!" Seeing that the official was angry, the old man hurriedly took the money, thanked him, and ran away.

"Go find a few more farmers!" Feng Xu felt uneasy as he watched the old man and his son leave in a hurry.

We invited seven or eight farmers to experience it, including young and old people, and people of different age groups had different experiences.

In the end, everyone agreed that this plow was much easier to use than ordinary plows and was indeed a good thing.

Only then did Feng Xu go back to write official documents with satisfaction and report all the multi-person experiments one by one.

The letter also included vermicelli and konjac flour, including the production method and consumption method.

Wei Shutong and Li Boyan were also busy. They each wrote a secret memorial and reported on the developments in Huanggou Village, Wu County, especially the treatment of the Li people.

And later I will go to Wu County to verify it. If it is effective, I will replicate and promote it in Lingnan, and report all the details to the court.

Each of the three people has their own focus, so the people above can capture more information and will not think that they are colluding to fool people.

Moreover, the delivery speed was different and they arrived in Chang'an at different times. The continuous good news made the superiors happy for a few days.

The imperial court has been troubled by the aftermath of the locust plague in the capital and Guanzhong these days and needs good news to boost morale.

On the official road from Lingnan to the capital, the sound of horse hooves clattered, and the postman kept whipping his horse and galloping, carrying a bundle on his back.

"Hurry! Urgent news from Lingnan!" When they arrived at the post station, the postman jumped off his horse and shouted.

Someone ran out from the post station, took the bundle and official letter, led the horse out of the stable, and took over the next leg of the journey.

The postman was exhausted after the handover. He wiped the sweat from his head and thanked God that he finally arrived on time.

"What happened these past two days? Lingnan Road has been sending urgent reports one after another. What happened?" The postmaster muttered as he watched the fast horses go away.

The crescent moon hangs high in the sky, and the ground is covered with frost. It is late autumn, and the night in Chang'an is already very cold.

In the Secretariat of the capital, the on-duty Minister Fang Xuanling was reviewing official documents.

Fang Xuanling was a scholar selected through the imperial examinations of the previous dynasty. He was a top talent with great talent who focused on state governance and was incomparable to the Jinshi.

A total of thirteen people were selected during the Sui Dynasty and were finally used by the Tang Dynasty, including Kong Yingda, the Grand Secretary of Chongwenguan.

Fang Xuanling blew on his cold hands and sighed worriedly.

At the beginning of the year, a severe drought in the interior of China triggered a locust plague, which affected the capital. During the autumn harvest, the people had almost nothing to harvest, and the court had to mobilize grain from all over to provide disaster relief.

Now Henan and Hebei provinces have successively reported that they have suffered frost damage, which has severely damaged the winter wheat. Large areas of wheat seedlings in the fields have been frozen to death. There will be a large-scale reduction in production next year, and the states have requested to reduce the rice rent for next year.

These matters are very troublesome and must be reported to the emperor as soon as possible. However, after the report is submitted and approved, the solution still needs to be discussed by the Secretariat and the Ministry of Revenue.

Reviewing these annoying documents every day and not seeing any exciting news, Fang Xuanling felt like he was going to become emo.

The eunuch hurried in with a tray, "Sir!"

"What's the matter?" Fang Xuanling looked up. In addition to an urgent official document, there was also a bundle on the eunuch's tray.

This urgent document is so special that it is hard to ignore.

"This arrived along with the urgent official document from Feng Xu, the Lingnan Dao envoy, saying it's a specialty of Wuzhou." The eunuch whispered.

"Let me take a look!" When Fang Xuanling heard that it was Feng Xu, the envoy of Lingnan Province, and that it was a specialty of Wuzhou, he thought it was a new tribute.

After opening the bundle, there were several rolls of vermicelli of different colors, black-brown, light white, and snow-white, with the words "fern root vermicelli", "kudzu vermicelli" and "konjac vermicelli" written on them respectively.

There was also a bag of snow-white powder, which felt different from wheat flour and was labeled konjac flour.

Fang Xuanling was stunned at first, then he realized that it was made of fern roots, kudzu roots, and konjac.

Could these grass roots, tree roots, and poisonous substances be made into food? Fang Xuanling hurriedly opened the official document, looking for the answer.

"Wonderful! Wonderful! God bless our Tang Dynasty!" The usually calm right prime minister of the Tang Dynasty said excitedly.