Chapter 195 Changes in Border Town
Hearing that Yan Jiu and Shi Er Niang were right behind him, Yan Shiyi was so excited that he wanted to go out of the pass to pick them up, but was stopped by the Yan family guards: "Master, we can just wait here. It's not safe to go outside the pass!"
Jinsui directly called the farmer who was working in the field nearby and said, "Count how many rapeseeds he trampled down and make him pay for it!"
Yan Shiyi was so angry that he fell backwards: "I am your salt supplier after all. I deliver so much salt to restaurants every year, and you want me to pay for trampling down a few rapeseeds!"
Xie Maolin quietly pulled Hei Hu: "Who is this young man?"
Hei Hu smiled and said, "The younger brother of Patriarch Yan, we all call him Young Master Eleven."
Xie Maolin hissed. Didn't they say that the nobles of Yan were not willing to obey the prince? They said that the prince could only manage a small border town, and the nobles of the sixteen states of Yan joined forces to resist the prince.
Now it seems that the rumors are false! The head of the Yan family can be said to be in the northern border and must cooperate with the prince.
Yan Shiyi, who was in Yan, did not have the arrogance of a young man from aristocratic family.
Xie Maolin felt much more relieved. He had always been worried that the Yan nobles would oppose the prince. If they found out that the prince brought back these Northwest Army soldiers, they would definitely report it to the court.
Yan Shiyi was still asking about the situation of Yan Jiu and Shier Niang. Seeing that Jin Sui ignored him, he chased after Gu Changxiao and asked. Gu Changxiao's words were concise and shocking, and he was not satisfied.
He patted Heihu's shoulders and said, "I will be the host later and treat the entire army of Heiyu Camp to a good meal. By the way, Heihu, Baozhu is looking forward to your return every day!"
Hei Hu's face suddenly turned red. He put his fat hands around Yan Shiyi's shoulders and told him what happened in the Northern Frontier like pouring beans from a bamboo tube.
Yan Shiyi was so excited when he heard this that he regretted not going with them. It would be such an exotic experience and he didn’t know when he would be able to go there again if he missed this opportunity.
Jin Sui continued to talk to Cheng Yu about the industrial zone: "The nobles of Yan didn't object? I have always been worried that when the prince is away, the nobles of Yan will take the opportunity to put pressure on you and restrict the development of the border town."
When Cheng Yu said this, he looked embarrassed, glanced at Gu Changxiao, and whispered, "I would like to apologize to the prince first."
Gu Changxiao understood immediately and said sincerely: "I know how difficult it is for Lord Cheng to guard the border town alone. No matter what you did during this period, as long as you didn't harm the people, I will forgive you!"
Cheng Yu was shocked: "Your Highness, you misunderstood. How could I harm the people? I just wanted to protect the interests of the border town, so I had frequent exchanges with the Yandi nobles and agreed to some of their conditions."
Jin Sui asked with a smile: "Have you signed the contract?"
Cheng Yu smiled knowingly, "Of course not. I don't have the power to sign a contract with them. I have to wait for the prince to come back before signing."
Jin Sui waved his hand: "Then it doesn't count! If they dare to look for you, let them come to the prince and see if they really dare."
She leaned over curiously and asked, "Hey, how did you cheat the nobles? Is it worse than what I did in the beginning?"
Cheng Yu stroked his beard and smiled: "I can't compare to Boss Ji. I only learned a few tricks from you, and I can deal with the nobles."
Grandpa Ling was twitching his beard when he heard this. He quietly pulled Jinsui over and said, "Girl, have you forgotten that you are a girl again? Didn't we agree that what you did when you were the fake King Li had nothing to do with you, Jisui? If you keep talking like this, everyone in the world will know that you are a bold and crazy girl."
Jin Sui quickly assured: "Don't worry, Grandpa. This time when I return to Border Town, I will work honestly for the prince and Yan Jiu and never do those dirty things again."
But now Jinsui was really curious about how Cheng Yu fooled the gentry. They actually allowed the border town to develop so well, and neither suppressed it nor made trouble.
Soon Jin Sui knew why Cheng Yu said he learned it from him. He was learning the Yanzhizhai business from Jin Sui and Shi Er Niang:
"Make friends with distant people and attack nearby ones. The nobles of Yanzhou have started to unite and cause trouble. I will let the Eleventh Young Master block it."
Jin Sui quickly asked, "Is Li Heng playing fence-sitter again?"
"Boss Ji guessed correctly. After you and Patriarch Yan left, Governor Li often claimed to be ill. But he didn't put pressure on Biancheng."
Jin Sui raised his eyebrows, turned sideways and said to Gu Changxiao: "You must not let Li Heng be transferred away, let him work as the governor of Yanzhou until he dies!"
Cheng Yu went on to say that Yan Shiyi stopped the Yanzhou nobles from causing trouble for the border town, so Cheng Yu took advantage of the Yanzhou gentry whom he met at the polo match to negotiate cooperation with them.
He let them invest in building a workshop, and he promised to sell half of the finished products to them. He also auctioned off the equity of each industry.
Jin Sui interrupted, "This is called bidding! There's a professional term for it. Haha, a polo match can actually attract investment for such a big project in one go, not bad."
Cheng Yu also smiled and said, "Those nobles also said so. The main reason they are willing to invest is that they want to continue to come to the border town to participate in the polo game. They asked us to hold it every year."
Jin Sui was about to raise her hand to pat her thigh, but when she saw Grandpa Ling staring at her, she quickly changed her mind and said, "Of course we should do it! Next time we add an advertising space next to the venue, the advertising fees alone will be enough to make back the money we spend on hosting the game."
Yan Shiyi heard the words "Polo Match" and hurriedly shouted, "When is the match? This young master will invest!"
Jin Sui whispered, "See? There are so many stupid and rich people like this! We are not only holding a football match, but we will also add more events and other competitions next time."
At this time, they passed an open-air square. The huge square was now filled with rows and rows of long food strips drying in the sun. Hei Hu was surprised and said, "Noodles? We have opened a noodle workshop? That's great!"
From now on, there will be endless noodles to eat! For Hei Hu, he doesn't care about other workshops, he only cares about food.
Cheng Yu smiled and said, "It's not dried noodles, it's vermicelli. There are too many orders for potato and sweet potato flour, and the workshop can't dry them all, so we go to the square next to it to dry them."
"Vermicelli? What are potatoes and sweet potatoes?" Xie Maolin felt like he had come to a fake border town. They were both frontier cities, so why was the northwestern frontier so poor and dilapidated, while the border town was so prosperous?
On the way to the border, he was surprised by what he saw and heard. At this moment, he finally couldn't help but ask.
Hei Hu explained hurriedly: "Those are new crops in our border town. They are the seeds that Boss Ji brought from the Taoist temple..."
Grandpa Ling raised his eyebrows. Which Taoist temple? How come an old Taoist like me doesn't know? But he didn't even think about exposing his granddaughter's lie. If a lie is a hole, then his granddaughter would have become a net.
She told countless lies! "By the way, Mr. Cheng, we didn't see the first sweet potato and potato harvest. How was the harvest? Was there really 800 kilograms per acre?" Hao Duojin asked anxiously.
He once made bets with several brothers. Some bet on 500 kilograms, some bet on 600 kilograms, but he insisted that his Black Tiger must weigh at least 800 kilograms because Boss Ji said so.
Cheng Yu smiled: "More than that! Our experimental fields are fertile, one acre of sweet potatoes can produce 1,200 kilograms, and one acre of potatoes can produce 1,800 kilograms!"
"Hiss" a sound of inhalation, the soldiers who just returned were all surprised, and the soldiers of the Northwest Army thought that this adult was lying and wanted to cheat the prince of his political achievements!
How could there be such high-yield crops in the world? They were not planted by gods!
Even Gu Changxiao was surprised. He had heard Jin Sui say more than once that these two crops were high-yielding, but his understanding of high yield was similar to Hao Duojin's. Eight hundred kilograms was already an astronomical figure.
You have to know that in this era, the grain yield per mu was considered first-class good land, and only the fertile fields in the south of the Yangtze River could produce more than 400 kilograms of rice. If any mu produced more than 500 kilograms, it would be reported to the court as a good omen! 1,800 kilograms! What a concept! If the people all planted potatoes, no one in the world would go hungry!
Grandpa Ling also stroked his beard excitedly. He had known about this for a long time. When the harvest was started, Cheng Yu had specially invited him to preside over the harvest ceremony.
If he had not seen it with his own eyes, he would have thought that Cheng Yu was lying. Until now, whenever he heard him, he would pull his beard excitedly.
Only Jin Sui looked serious. Something was wrong! The potatoes and sweet potatoes in the space had been improved for many generations. The yield per mu should be at least 2,000 kilograms. How come the experimental field only produced more than 1,000 kilograms? Was it the wrong season? Or was it insufficient fertilizer? Was it necessary to have chemical fertilizer? It seemed that we had to find a way to get industrial fertilizer.
Well, don’t say that industrial fertilizers are bad for crops and are not pure natural green food. You should know that in this era, tens of thousands of people still starve to death every year, and 70% of people can only eat until they are 50% full.
We haven’t even achieved the goal of having enough food to eat, and now we are hoping that people won’t starve to death! High grain yields are the most important thing.
"Because the yield is so high, it is very expensive to transport them, and they are prone to spoilage on the way. Eating potatoes that have sprouted can cause poisoning.
I thought about it and remembered that Boss Ji had said before that these two were good ingredients for making vermicelli. So I might as well make them into vermicelli. After drying them, they would be light and easy to store and transport.
The dregs left over from being a fan are just right for horse fodder.”
At this point, Cheng Yu thought of something: "In addition to potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers, which are the specialties of our border town, there are also experiments that the prince instructed the Tuntian Camp to do before."
Jin Sui was startled: "What experiment?"
Cheng Yu smiled: "I knew that Boss Ji didn't take it to heart." He called this more and more fluently. Cheng Yu was really happy that Jinsui could stay in the border town in another identity.
Looking back, he told Jinsui directly that even if you, the fake King Li, wanted to rebel, I would support you.
Haha, fortunately Gu Changxiao doesn’t care, otherwise he would definitely feel resentful.
"It's cabbage! Didn't Boss Ji tell them to mix seeds of various vegetables such as turnips, and then collect different seeds from generation to generation? And they actually collected them."
Jin Sui was overjoyed: "Have you planted them? How's the harvest?"
Cheng Yu shook his head: "The latest batch of experimental seeds are still in the greenhouse, and it is estimated that they will be harvested in April or May. However, according to your observation, this new cabbage will definitely have a high yield!"
As they were talking, everyone entered the square and took a closer look at the vermicelli drying in the sun. Yan Shiyi said proudly, "You haven't eaten it yet! It's delicious in hot pot. It's also delicious in mutton stew. I'll treat you tonight!"
Whether it is hot pot or stewed mutton, that is the way rich people eat it. Cheng Yu said softly: "Even if ordinary people can't afford meat, stewing it with sauerkraut is very delicious. It is easy to eat and can be cooked in half an hour after boiling water.
It has become one of the must-have ingredients for traveling merchants. Eating rice noodles on long journeys is convenient and durable.”
Jinsui thought about dehydrated vegetables and hot pot base, and then paired it with rice noodles. Our Border Town can produce a national fast food, Border Town brand 'instant rice noodles'! Suddenly, Xie Maolin ran to the front and knelt on one knee in front of Gu Changxiao: "Your Majesty, I have a favor to ask."
Gu Changxiao hurried to help him up: "Thank you, General. It's okay to say it. There's no need to perform such a grand ceremony."
Xie Maolin's eyes were red, he was so excited, because he believed that Cheng Yu was not lying, and he would only use the food as side dishes when there was too much food to eat.
Along the way, he saw too many greenhouses, as well as large areas of rapeseed and wheat fields covered with a layer of snow, which was completely different from the desolate northwest border. He was completely convinced that the food in the border town was very abundant.
"I'm begging the prince to give some potato and sweet potato seeds to the northwest border so that the brothers there can have enough food!"
Gu Changxiao hurriedly said, "Don't worry, Maolin. In the future, I will ensure that all people in the world have enough food to eat! This fine seed will naturally be planted in every state capital in Daxia."
Jin Sui asked Cheng Yu in a low voice: "Didn't those nobles come to ask for good seeds?"
Cheng Yu laughed sarcastically: "They don't believe it! They always think I'm bragging."
Jin Sui smiled secretly: "That's good, we can plant more for a few more years, and the rice noodle business can continue for a few more years."
We cannot say that those nobles were stupid, because what to plant on many fields was determined by the imperial court. Normal fertile land could only grow a limited number of crops, and if you wanted to plant cash crops you would be fined.
Potatoes and sweet potatoes had never been reported to the imperial court, and could be grown freely in the border towns because it was the fiefdom of King Li, and the land was tax-free within three years of reclamation.
The nobles did not dare to take the risk. What if the harvest was not as good as the wheat? They had never seen anything like it, and they were growing it in a greenhouse. What if the King of Li was fooling them? The King of Li used to love to fool people.
Jinsui estimated that only after planting potatoes and sweet potatoes in ordinary fields in the spring and having the merchants and common people witness the process from spring planting to autumn harvest, would they believe that this was a high-yield good thing.
At this time, Cheng Yu glanced at Yan Shiyi and said softly, "Only the Yan family bought a lot of seeds."
Jin Sui nodded. It made sense. Yan Jiu was so smart! Although Yan Shiyi was not smart, he was brave enough to adapt. Even if it was just to eat his own rice noodles, he would plant some sweet potatoes.
Just opposite the square where rice noodles are drying is a fenced-off grassland where many herdsmen are waiting anxiously on horseback. Next to the grassland is a workshop with thick smoke and a sweet smell.
From the workshop entrance to the nearby grassland, there was a long line of people, most of whom were herdsmen, and the other small number were obviously businessmen from other places.
Hei Hu sniffed: "What a nice smell! What kind of workshop is this?"
Yan Shiyi answered: "This is a sugar mill! Look at those Tartars, they love sugar like their life. Some of their tribes don't have gold or silver, so they just bring sheep to exchange for sugar."
Hei Hu reminded him: "Those who oppose us are called Tartars, and those who make friends with us are called foreigners."
Jin Sui remembered that the sugar workshop she had decided on was indeed in this area, but the location she chose was very small! Without sugar cane, they only relied on sugar beets to make sugar, so there was no need for such a large workshop.
But now this workshop is ten times bigger than the address she had decided on!
Cheng Yu explained her doubts: "Border Town Sugar is very popular, especially the method of making white sugar taught by Boss Ji. One ounce of icing sugar in Chang'an is worth one ounce of gold. The white sugar in our Border Town is more delicate and sweeter than icing sugar.
I took the initiative to expand the workshop and produce a large amount of sugar."
After he finished speaking, he glanced at Yan Shiyi again and said, "Young Master Shiyi won the sugar mill cooperation with the highest bid. The expansion of the workshop was all funded by the Yan family."
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