Chapter 3185 Counting Rice
Just as Zhou Dalang poured them some water, the sound of carriages and horses was heard outside again.
Before Zhou Dalang could open the door, Mr. Zhuang and the others had already pushed it open. Seeing Mr. Zhuang, Zhou Dalang was overjoyed. His heart instantly dropped. He left the emperor and Yin Li and walked forward, "Mr. Zhuang, you are here."
Mr. Zhuang smiled and nodded, then he and Wei Zhi stepped forward to greet the emperor. Turning around, he saw Zhou Dalang standing there in a daze, and said, "This is His Majesty. Why don't you come and greet him?"
Zhou Dalang's eyes widened, he was at a loss as to what to do. He knelt on the ground, raised his hands and bowed, "Greetings, Your Majesty."
"Quickly, excuse the formalities," the emperor said, having Zhou Dalang lifted to his feet. "After all, our two families are relatives, and this is outside the palace, so there aren't so many formalities. Come, everyone, sit down, and let's take a look at the rice grown from these new rice plants."
Zhou Dalang felt that the emperor was very approachable, much like the people in his village, so he started by discussing his relatives. He glanced at Mr. Zhuang secretly, and when he saw Mr. Zhuang nodded slightly, he said, "Your Majesty, we have selected some rice ears for seed. Would you like to see those?"
The emperor's eyes lit up slightly, "Oh? Bring it here and let me see."
It is normal to select seeds from the fields every year. In the past, the ones with long rice ears and full grains were selected. But things have changed since Zhou Lizhong took over. Manbao found some agricultural books and materials for Zhou Lizhong from somewhere.
Every year, the rice ears Zhou Lizhong selects are very strange. Some grow particularly well, while others grow poorly. After sorting them, they are tied up and hung under the porch to dry, and then slowly threshed.
Zhou Dalang was not very good at choosing the ones they had, so he always picked the best ones, and this time was no exception.
At this time, the rice ears were hanging under the corridor of the next yard, which was the yard where he and Zhou Wulang lived.
The emperor was a little restless, so he followed him. As soon as he entered the yard, he could see the golden ears of rice hanging under the corridor without having to look up. The long rice ears hung down, and the grains almost sparkled with gold under the sunlight.
The emperor even walked lightly.
Zhou Dalang did not stop, but instead quickened his pace and picked out the best bundle to show the emperor, "Look, this is the seed for next year."
The emperor untied the rope, picked up a rice stalk, and asked, "How many grains are there in this stalk?"
Zhou Dalang touched his head embarrassedly and said, "We can't count them. In the past, these were counted by the children. This year, some children haven't come yet, so we'll just hang them up for now."
The emperor came back to his senses and asked, "Do you count every year?"
"Yes, Manbao said this is called experimental data. How many ears of rice are there on one plant, how many grains are in one ear, how many grains are there in total, and even the length of the rice ears and the length of the rice plants must be measured and recorded." Zhou Dalang said, "In the past, my eldest son did all this, but now my eldest son is not in the capital, and we can't count it, so..."
Zhou Dalang was afraid that the emperor would be displeased, so he quickly said, "But two days ago, our village head helped count and found that there were 308 grains in one ear of millet. At that time, there were eleven ears on that plant."
The emperor held up the rice stalks and said to Wei Zhi and others, "Since they can't count them, let us count them." He was very excited.
Wei Zhi glanced at the emperor but did not object.
Seeing them sitting in the corridor and counting, Zhou Dalang quickly brought over a dozen small stools and said, "Come on, come on, sit down and count. I'll go to the kitchen to see how the water is boiling."
"No hurry," the emperor said with a smile as he divided the rice ears between his hands. "Let's talk."
The emperor was very curious and asked, "What kind of rice seeds did you use to cultivate this rice plant? How many years did you cultivate it?"
Zhou Dalang said, "We used the number D seed. This plant we have here is in its fourth year of cultivation. Last year, it yielded seven dan per mu, and the year before, it yielded six and a half dan per mu. We haven't finished harvesting this year, but we've already harvested two mu of land. We calculated that the total raw rice yield is nineteen dan. After drying, the yield per mu will be even higher than last year."
Mr. Zhuang then told the emperor, "The new rice varieties are all cultivated in Putian Village. They must be more suitable for the climate here, which is why the yield here is higher than in Beihai County and Luojiang County."
Although the emperor was very excited about this yield, he was not distracted. Instead, he asked perceptively, "Where did the Ding seeds come from?"
Zhou Dalang glanced at Mr. Zhuang and answered honestly, "Manbao brought it back."
The emperor raised his eyebrows.
As for where Zhou Man came from, the Zhou family never asked. Manbao brought back so many things. They couldn't ask every time he took out one, right?
The emperor knew from Zhou Dalang's expression that he would not know the answer even if he asked him in detail, so he looked at Mr. Zhuang.
Mr. Zhuang lowered his eyes, holding the rice ears in his hand and carefully counting the grains, avoiding the emperor's gaze.
The emperor tapped his knee with his fingers. "Since there's a D seed, there must be A, B, and C. I wonder what they are like?"
Soon, the emperor stood between several fields. Zhou Dalang pointed to the sign at the end of the field and said, "We can no longer plant seeds with numbers A and B. They're bad seeds. They're fine the first year, but terrible the second. We've been planting them for three years and trying every possible way, but we can't save them. Here are seeds with number C: C1, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7, C8, C9, C10, C11, C12, C13, C14, C15, C16, C17, C18, C19, C20, C21, C22, C21, C22, C23, C24, C25, C26, C27, C30, C4
The emperor stared at the ugly words on the sign for a while and asked, "Who wrote this?"
Even his little grandson can't write such ugly characters.
Zhou Dalang said embarrassedly, "I wrote it. Li Zhong used to write it. He was not at home, so I wrote it."
The emperor nodded and praised: "Well written."
He asked, "What does this number mean?"
"My son compiled it. I just picked the seeds according to the number. C was the number of the seeds I got first. The numbers after that were also numbers. When we planted the seeds that year, we added a number to the top according to the number of the seeds we picked."
Everyone heard but didn't understand.
Seeing that everyone was confused, Zhou Dalang became anxious and didn't know how to explain.
Mr. Zhuang smiled and explained, "Your Majesty, this field is Experimental Field No. 2. The field next to it, already harvested, is No. 1, and that's No. 3. Each experimental field has different cultivation conditions, and differentiated cultivation is performed during the harvest. The seeds left over from the final harvest will have a number added to their original number. That number represents which experimental field they came from and the conditions under which they were cultivated."
"Zhou Lizhong will summarize the results, select the best seeds for further cultivation, and also summarize the optimal farming conditions."
The emperor finally understood and pointed to the words on the sign, saying, "So this is the seed from the No. C test field that was cultivated for five years. The second year, the seed from the No. 1 test field was used, and the third year, the seed from the No. 3 test field..."
Zhou Dalang nodded repeatedly, "Yes, yes, that's what I meant. Manbao said that numbering would prevent confusion. There are so many seeds every year. If they are not numbered, we won't be able to recognize them."
(End of this chapter)
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