Chapter 104
"Master Yao, come quickly. The moment to witness a miracle has arrived."
As soon as Yao Chunnuan appeared at the edge of the field, Yu Chen quickly called her over.
Yao Chunnuan laughed. "A miracle? We haven't even started digging yet, and you're so sure there will be a miracle?"
"Of course." Yu Chen had high expectations for the two acres of land. "Let's not waste any more time and get started. Let the general do the first hoeing." As he spoke, he handed a hoe to the general.
Hearing about the sweet potato harvest, the general and all the other high-ranking officials of the military settlement arrived, along with guests from the northern border, including General Qin and General Huo, the latter coming to see the wonder. They had no idea what the sweet potato was, only that it was a new food species discovered in the Yichun military settlement, with all its tubers, fruits, roots, and leaves being edible—a treasure from head to toe. The high-ranking officials of the settlement took it very seriously and came along.
The two acres of sweet potatoes were well cared for, and the vines grew lushly, covering the entire field.
Right now, they need vine cuttings, so the more lush they are, the better, as they can get more vines. But when they finally get to plant, they can't do that. Overgrown vines will affect the fruiting of the sweet potatoes in the field, as all the nutrients are in the vines, which is not good.
"Is this the leaf from the plate of green vegetables we had this morning?" General Qin asked after identifying it.
Yu Chen gave him a thumbs up and said, "General Qin has a good eye. This is exactly it." Yu Chen extravagantly picked a basket of sweet potato tips this morning. Only the senior military officials and guests from the northern border could taste them.
"These sweet potato tips taste really good." General Qin smacked his lips.
While they were talking, the villagers had swiftly harvested the sweet potato vines in the fields, cut them into nine-inch lengths, piled them together, and then carried them away by the tall and strong villagers to the designated sand fields for planting.
When the general dug with his hoe, he found sweet potatoes in the mud.
The dug sweet potatoes are buried twice in loose water-rich soil, then germinated. After sprouts grow, they are sliced and planted in sandy fields. This way, the maximum amount of sweet potato seeds can be obtained.
The general only made a token move and left it to the villagers to dig. Professional matters should be left to professionals.
Yu Chen stood on the edge of the field and warned, "Be careful, don't dig up the sweet potatoes too badly." Damaged sweet potatoes are difficult to germinate.
General Qin sighed, "This thing is really productive." He had only dug one acre of land, right? He had already dug out a pile of sweet potatoes.
General Qin weighed one of them and estimated that the pile probably weighed more than 200 kilograms. This thing is too productive, isn't it?
One acre of land must yield over 2,000 kilograms. Plus, the vines are edible; the tender parts are edible for humans, while the older, chewy parts can be fed to pigs, horses, cattle, and sheep. Combined, the yield per acre is guaranteed to be 3,000 kilograms.
After calculating this number, General Qin's breathing became rapid. He grabbed the general and said anxiously, "Changfeng, you must give us some of this sweet potato." Even if they didn't want anything else and gave up everything, as long as they took back this sweet potato, it would be a great gain.
Everyone looked at the general. The guests from the northern border were afraid he wouldn't agree. The people in the military settlement were worried he'd give away too much at once. Yu Chen, in particular, was nervous, fearing the general would give away half or even a third of the money. If that happened, he swore he'd faint on the spot.
The general thought for a moment and said, "Okay, I'll give you 100 kilograms of sweet potatoes. You can take them back and grow them yourself."
One hundred kilograms is already a lot, compared to their initial starting point of ten or so roots. They only need to plant two rounds before they can plant on a large scale.
General Qin and Huo Bing quickly thanked him, "Thank you, thank you so much." They had already learned that the military farms had a difficult start when planting these sweet potatoes. They had immediately harvested a hundred kilograms of sweet potatoes, which was a far better outcome than they had originally. At least this hundred kilograms of sweet potatoes would save them another round of breeding time.
The general knew that it would be difficult to grow sweet potatoes that were bad, so he took the initiative to wash a few bad ones and then shared them among himself to eat.
Everyone who tried it said, "This thing tastes amazing. Sweet and crunchy."
Yao Chunnuan smiled and said, "This thing tastes one way when eaten raw and another way when cooked. Do you want to try cooked sweet potatoes?" She wanted to eat baked sweet potatoes.
When Yao Chunnuan said this, Yu Chen recalled the sweet potatoes she had eaten, and he still felt heartbroken. If she hadn't eaten them and saved some for seeds, they wouldn't have been able to cultivate just two mu of land. She didn't just eat a few sweet potatoes; she ate hundreds of kilograms.
The others were unaware of Yu Chen's heartache and were instead curious about Yao Chunnuan's question, "How should we try? Pick out some that are damaged and have them take them back to cook?"
"No need to go through so much trouble. Let's build a kiln and do it on the spot." In Yao Chunnuan's opinion, the most delicious cooked sweet potatoes are those cooked in a kiln, followed by those roasted on charcoal, and the worst tasting ones are those boiled.
"Okay, let's try it." The general made the decision.
It seems that the harvest of sweet potatoes will be quite large this time. Can't these people have some to eat?
Others also agreed. All of them, except Yao Zhubo, had never eaten cooked sweet potatoes, so they didn't know what they tasted like.
Yao Chunnuan was in a good mood and built a large earthen kiln himself. Because there were so many people, some of the generals and the masters' followers who were more skilled in handicrafts learned to build a few more and then lit them all.
No one wanted to leave, as they all wanted to see how many sweet potatoes there would be when they dug up the two acres of land.
Not long after, Yao Chunnuan started eating kiln sweet potatoes.
The fragrant, sweet and soft sweet potatoes conquered them all.
By the time they had finished eating, the yield of the two mu of sweet potato fields had been calculated, and the sweet potato tubers weighed 4,266 kilograms. In other words, the output of one mu of land was over 2,100 kilograms.
Upon hearing this yield, everyone present, except Yao Chunnuan, was astonished. It was truly a high yield! Compared to most crops like rice, wheat, and quinoa, which only yielded two or three dan per mu, sweet potatoes yielded nearly ten times that. These sweet potatoes were truly divine, truly a living, divine seed! If the entire Daliang region were planted with them, wouldn't anyone ever go hungry again? Everyone's imaginations ran wild.
General Qin and Huo Bing were both very excited.
Yu Chen saw this and, to avoid any trouble, muttered, "With these three or four thousand kilograms of sweet potatoes, I wonder how many sweet potato seedlings we can grow?"
According to their estimates, one acre of land requires one hundred kilograms of sweet potatoes, and these four thousand kilograms of sweet potatoes can only be used to plant forty acres of land. Together with the sweet potato vines transplanted and cuttage previously, they can barely plant about seventy acres of land.
General Qin was very sensitive to numbers. When he heard this, he subconsciously started calculating in his mind.
With over 70 mu of land, assuming a yield of 2,000 catties per mu, by the time of the autumn harvest, that would be 140,000 catties. Furthermore, the yield per mu was certainly higher than 2,000 catties. In other words, a conservative estimate suggests they could harvest over 120,000 to 130,000 dan of sweet potatoes alone. Oh, and he hadn't even counted the sweet potato vines!
This is just over 70 mu of land, and that's on sandy land that's considered good farmland. What if they planted 700, 700, or 70,000 mu? Wouldn't that mean they'd have to harvest tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of dan of sweet potatoes? With so much food, how many soldiers would it take to recruit?
His idea was too obvious. First of all, it was impossible to keep the sweet potatoes secret. After the autumn harvest this year, some of the sweet potatoes would be lost. If the common people could rely on these sweet potatoes to fill their stomachs, it would be even more difficult for them to recruit soldiers.
This was all predictable, and Yao Chunnuan had no intention of stopping it. The main reason was that compared to later generations, the people here lived in such hardship. Many families worked from the beginning of the year to the end, barely surviving starvation, and might not even taste meat for a year. During years of famine, countless people sold their children for a bag or two of grain. It could only be said that when the country prospers, the people suffer; when it dwindles, the people also suffer. She only hoped that the spread of these sweet potatoes would make life a little better for the people.
Just then, someone came to report, "General, Marshal Zhu has sent someone to ask when we will give them the 880,000 dan of grain we promised them. They said they want at least half of the grain from this summer harvest."
News of the abundant harvest at the Yichun military settlement spread like wildfire. After all, the fruits of the crops never lie. Just as they had harvested all the ripe crops, many of which had yet to be dried and stored, Marshal Zhu impatiently sent for food.
"Give it to them!" With the high yield of sweet potatoes, the general was very happy to give the food, and he didn't bother to argue with Marshal Zhu. Besides, it was already promised before.
After saying this, the general glanced at Yao Chunnuan. Given Marshal Zhu's miserly nature, at least half of the grain would have gone into his private vault. If their military base ran low on food later, couldn't they just ask Marshal Zhu for some? For now, they could just consider it stored with him.
In the Marshal's Mansion, Marshal Zhu, who was calculating the large amount of grain that was about to come in, suddenly felt a chill in his heart. He looked left and right, but couldn't find the reason, so he just thought it was his own illusion.
With the general's order, the Yichun military storage granaries were opened wide. In the Yichun military storage drying grounds, sacks of grain were piled up in an orderly manner.
The people in the Yichun camp checked the 440,000 dan of grain back and forth. After the inspection, they found that the people in the military settlement were very honest. They gave full and good grain, without passing inferior food for good quality or shortchanging the grain.
The small leaders from the Yichun military settlement who came to beg for grain looked at each other in bewilderment. How could they be so honest? They couldn't believe it. They weren't exposing their own secrets; if the leaders of the main camp were doing this, they would definitely mix good grain with bad. As long as the good grain, with plump grains, accounted for more than 70%, their leaders could pat their chests and declare it the best grain in the world.
The small chief in charge of food supply at the Yichun military settlement was getting impatient. "I'm telling you, Yichun camp, are you done yet? Tell me how many times this has happened. Is this the sixth time? We only check three or four times at most, and you've checked five or six times, and you still don't seem to be stopping. Aren't you too cruel?"
Isn't it just a grain inspection? If there's no problem, hand it over and then take it away. And they're hiding things from them while they're inspecting. What's the point? Are they secretly cursing them?
The people at the Yichun camp were embarrassed by what they heard. Could they say that they had been told by their superiors to carefully inspect the food handed over by the Yichun military settlement before leaving? They simply didn't dare to trust that the Yichun military settlement would provide them with food of the right quality and quantity.
"The food you military settlements provide us is so good that we can hardly believe it." The people in the Yichun camp spoke the truth.
The grain transfer officer at the Yichun military settlement rolled his eyes elegantly. "Are you looking down on me?" he asked. "A mere 440,000 dan of grain, do they really need to resort to such tactics?" All of the Yichun military settlement's strategies stemmed from the shogun's office. But without a profit margin of two or three times the original, the officials in the settlement's office wouldn't budge, would they?
After thinking about it, the grain delivery officer said bluntly, "After you've inspected it, take the grain away quickly. I really don't want to waste any more time with you. Besides, you're so slow at work. If it were our military settlement, you'd be at the bottom of the list, don't you understand?" Lack of enthusiasm for work indicates a problem with one's thinking. In their military settlement, when the superiors told them to work, whether they were soldiers or settlers, they were all very enthusiastic. This was because after completing this kind of work, they would always receive a large amount of merit points or work points, which was much better than doing daily chores. Unfortunately, such opportunities were rare.
The soldiers who came to the Yichun camp to escort the grain: Damn, we’re being ignored.
The grain collecting officer at the Yichun camp signaled his subordinates to speed up the inspection while trying to get in touch with the grain delivery officer. "Hey, buddy, I heard that your military farms have a good harvest on over a million acres of land. Is that true?"
The grain delivery officer of the Yichun military settlement asked in confusion, "Didn't your newly opened farmland have a good harvest?"
The grain collector of Yichun Camp: What does this mean?
"Do I remember that your Lord Wang Lang spent 4,800 taels to buy the complete set of 'Key to Crop Planting Techniques' from our military settlement? If you follow the instructions above, your yields should be quite high."
The grain collectors and their subordinates at the Yichun camp were speechless. The problem was that their farming had not yielded a good harvest. What was going on?
The subordinate whispered to him, "I heard that the remote farms opened up by our camp were not all done according to the instructions in the booklet." After saying this, he gave the leader a look that said 'you know what I mean'.
The grain collector was confused. Did he understand? He didn't understand why his camp had spent so much money on someone else's planting booklet, but then wouldn't follow their instructions? Wasn't that a flaw in his brain? Or was it just that he had too much money and didn't know where to spend it?
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