Chapter 106 The Book of Agriculture
What Qiao Yan and the system said were certainly not all the reasons.
If one has the agricultural book in hand, it is not just about how many people can be saved during implementation, but more importantly, how many extra people she can feed.
Once the Han Dynasty collapsed, it would be possible to get the jade seal before Sun Jian, or even snatch it from him.
But if Qiao Yan were to select farmers with better farming skills from Bingzhou, and then assign them to various counties for teaching, and then ask her to rack her brains to find ways to increase farmland production, it would take too much effort.
Before, when she was confined to Leping, there was still some time before Liu Hong's death, so she had the leisure to study the "Book of Si Sheng" to learn how to raise pigs and draw tips on how to plant crops. However, now that the scope of her control has spread from Leping to the entire Bingzhou, it would be inappropriate to do these things.
Weighing the pros and cons of the two, the result is self-evident.
It would be better to directly use the imperial seal, which does not really represent the will of heaven, to exchange for the agricultural book.
Once the grain production is sufficient, she can even use the Xiongnu and Xianbei people as servants in the two open-pit mines, without having to simply exchange interests with the Bingzhou families to get them to hand over the hidden households in their clans who are responsible for mineral mining.
So change!
Her counselor system really makes people feel a little naive. The other party said that the purpose of storing grain was to rebel, but it still remembered what Qiao Yan said before, that she was imitating Liang Xi, the governor of Bingzhou in Cao Wei, and did not suspect that she had the same idea. Instead, it went to contact the other party after hearing her decision.
This time there was no need for a three-day search. Not long after, it handed the transaction guarantee to Qiao Yan. After she signed the contract, a book on northern farming appeared in her hand.
After flipping through two pages, Qiao Yan realized that the deal she had previously thought was a good deal might have been an underestimation.
Agricultural books say that it is suitable for planting in the north, but it only means that the selection and breeding of seeds, farming seasons and methods are more in line with the northern environment and climate, but it does not mean that the things in the books are just like that.
I don’t know if it’s because of the host’s experience or the knowledge stored in the farming system, but there are many records of soil and fertilizers in this agricultural book.
For example, soil ammonia water and soil sulfuric acid.
The latter does not mean real sulfuric acid, but is equivalent to the fertilizer effect of ammonium sulfate.
The configuration of these two fertilizers was possible under the conditions of the Han Dynasty.
The slightly special raw material for making it is plaster of Paris powder.
Was there gypsum in the Han Dynasty? Of course there are.
During the Western Han Dynasty, Liu An, King of Huainan, made tofu by using gypsum. This agricultural book even thoughtfully notes that there are gypsum mines in Linfen, Shanxi, and that it should be possible to find them if you go a little further north.
This couldn't be more convenient.
As for the process of processing raw gypsum into cooked gypsum, Qiao Yan still has some impression of it.
She read on in the agricultural book and saw the record about compound fertilizer and base fertilizer. The materials used for this fertilizer were indeed more complicated than the above ones, and it also included animal bones, but this was a nitrogen, ammonium and phosphorus compound fertilizer, and the fertilizer efficiency was indeed high enough to increase grain production significantly through slow release.
Animal bones...
Seeing this, Qiao Yan's thoughts unconsciously drifted towards the north.
Where can I get animal bones? In addition to the pigs that she had people raise in Leping, the nomadic people's cattle, sheep and horses were slaughtered during the winter. The meat naturally went into the mouths of the Hu people, but what about the bones?
Except for the parts that were made into bone tools, the rest were buried on the grassland.
This is indeed a great source of income!
Compared with the current situation in Bingzhou where it is rare to afford meat and it is difficult to collect animal bones, the Hu people ate meat simply because the income from planting was not enough to meet their food needs. They did have such an environment for grazing and breeding, which had a quantitative advantage.
These animal bones can be made into raw bone meal or defatted bone meal as described in this agricultural book, and become an important component of fertilizer.
As expected, we still have to fight the group outside the Great Wall!
She calmed herself down and gave up the idea of sending troops right away because of the various benefits of fighting the Hu people. She continued reading the agricultural book.
In addition to these fertilizers that can be successfully produced under current productivity conditions, various agricultural tools are also of universal significance in both the north and the south.
Qiao Yan herself was not an expert in farming. Because of this, the best she could remember was a curved plow that was recorded in history books and had important historical significance. She had already asked the specialist in agronomy in the academy to make and research it.
The principle that every profession has its own specialization is indeed true.
According to the book, it takes at least five or six years to select and cultivate superior varieties. This is a long process. If you want to see results in the short term, the most critical operation is deep cultivation.
How to deep plow still depends on various agricultural tools.
It was precisely because of the records in this agricultural book that she realized that the curved plow she had previously ordered to be made was undoubtedly imperfect.
The innovation of the curved-beam plow was not just changing the straight beam to a curved one, or shortening the long beam to make it smaller and easier to turn, thus saving the energy of humans and animals. Another reform was installing plowshares and plow arrows on it to adjust the depth of the cultivated land and adapt to different crops and cultivated land.
Another system of intensive farming used in conjunction with the curved plow is also recorded in the book. It was the plowing, harrowing and hoeing technology that was formed in the northern environment during the Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties.
What is plowing and harrowing? After the land is plowed, a large amount of soil will remain in the arid environment of the north, so the soil is first broken up by plowing and then crushed with a harrow.
The plowshares and plowshare arrows newly added to the curved plow are made of wood like the plow itself. The harrow is just a wooden stick dragged by the shaft, but the teeth on the harrow are mostly iron. Like the hoe, it is an iron farm tool.
This brings us back to the question.
The largest iron mine in Bingzhou is not somewhere else, but in Yanmen!
We must expand the production of iron farm tools or fight the Hu people!
At this time, the Xianbei people entrenched outside Yanmen Yunzhong had already been overwhelmed by the joint defense of Zhang Liao, Zhang Yang and Guo Wei. Not only did they have to guard against internal strife, but they were also unable to carry out their plan of raiding the border to plunder supplies for the winter because of the obstruction of their powerful generals. They never expected that the newly appointed Bingzhou Mu would have even more terrifying ideas.
She not only had to fight them to ensure that the mining in Yanmen and Dingxiang was not disturbed, but also to increase the labor force in the open-pit coal mines, to find an excuse to say that she had no conditions to send troops to Luoyang, to obtain more animal bones to produce compound fertilizer, and to change the status of the bandits under her command and even the captives later into good citizens.
We still have to beat them!
Anyone who hears this will have to light a candle for these barbarians.
When Guo Jia was called by Qiao Yan and took the reasons for the three-year anti-Hu policy from her, he couldn't help but be stunned for a moment, and then slowly moved his gaze from the paper in front of him to Qiao Yan's face.
He thought that he and his friends were usually indifferent in their conversations, but now it seemed that this Lord Qiao was the best among them.
But on second thought, he felt that this was undoubtedly good news for his next plan.
In years when famine is common, people will do more than you can imagine to get a bite to eat.
In order to survive, many people even eat tree bark. Not to mention that I can still eat now.
If this news were to be spread and told to the people of Bingzhou, where martial spirit is prevalent, as long as they could repel the Hu people, plunder them as captives, and transport the bones of cattle, sheep and horses from their lands and camps, they would be able to increase the production of their own fields and thus feed more people. I am afraid that a sizable team would gather at the gate of the provincial capital tomorrow.
Even if we don't expand the source of the message, just using these words to mobilize the soldiers guarding the border will be enough to boost morale.
It also saved Guo Jia a lot of trouble.
He did have doubts about the feasibility of the fertilizers Qiao Yan mentioned, but when he thought about the fields he had seen in Leping after the widespread application of the field division method, he felt that Qiao Yan probably would not joke about such a thing, and the methods he proposed would naturally be effective.
Since food is the lifeblood of the people, it may be difficult to get them to immediately choose the base fertilizer made from raw and cooked bone meal. However, the others are indeed feasible for promotion within the next year because they are top dressing fertilizers.
Of course, the specific operations, especially the mining of gypsum mines, obviously have nothing to do with him.
His targets were only the Xiongnu and the Xianbei.
He raised the paper in his hand and replied, "With this, and Wenyuan, Zhishu and Lu Fengxian, I am not worried anymore. Please wait for good news, Lord Qiao."
Guo Jia was full of confidence. After promising that he would never act recklessly, he packed his bag and set off.
Looking at his young and motivated appearance, Qiao Yan compared it with the state when he first came to Leping and ate and drank with Xi Zhicai, and he rarely felt a little guilty.
But thinking that next year would most likely be the last year of peace for her, she immediately suppressed her guilt.
What's there to feel guilty about!
It would be great if everyone who came to Bingzhou worked hard. It would be terrible if everyone was like Jia Xu, who was smart since childhood and was evaluated by Yan Zhong as having the talent of Zhang Liang and Chen Ping, but just thought about protecting himself and fishing in troubled waters every day!
Thinking of this, Qiao Yan took advantage of the moment when Jia Xu accompanied Qin Yu to inspect the treasuries of various counties, and appointed his eldest son Jia Mu to a temporary assistant position in the name of a state government recruitment.
Now, among her subordinates, there are mother-son, father-daughter, and father-son combinations.
In addition, this can also be regarded as a spur to Jia Xu.
If he doesn't work harder, his son will be above him in official position tomorrow. And if his son makes any mistakes in his work, he, as a father, will have to cover for him and give him some advice.
With this in mind, she simply assigned the task of finding gypsum mines, conducting subsequent mining, and making inventory records to Jiamu.
Jia Xu was a man who kept a low profile and was careful to protect himself, so naturally Jia Mu had no reputation outside. So when he received such an important task, he was quite confused as to how he had won the favor of the new governor.
But nowadays, there are still only a few people like Jia Xu who want to save their lives by taking shortcuts.
Most people who have some ability and ambition believe that they should do their best to accomplish whatever the state government entrusts them with, and Jia Mu is no exception.
Although gypsum mining is only used in agricultural fertilizer production and is classified under agricultural activities, it is, after all, a management task that requires organizing people to conduct exploration and mining and to establish inventory backups. Anyway, Jia Xu was performing official duties in Shangdang County at that time, and Jia Mu couldn't find anyone to consult for advice for a while. After thinking it over, he felt that it would be a good idea to take over this position, so he took office immediately.
In this case, Jia Xu felt that there was something wrong with this, and he obviously had no chance to withdraw the promise for his son.
Watching Jia Mu leave, Qiao Yan gave a relaxed smile.
Then, as Lu Yuan had suggested to her before, she first called over Jia Zihou from the Jiexiu Jia family and asked him a few questions about the situation in the countryside in the state, and listened to the suggestions of this representative figure of Bingzhou's reformation on the current affairs of the state.
Seeing that Jia Shu had something to say due to his experience of sharing worries with others in the village over the past twenty years, Qiao Yan took the opportunity to ask him if he was willing to serve as an accountant in the provincial government.
He also has the surname Jia. When he was young, he was very passionate and would not care about life and death when seeking revenge. Now that he is middle-aged, his character has changed a lot, but his straightforward temper has not changed.
You know, although he was spared from death due to Guo Linzong's plea, it was really not easy for him to hold an official position. Now that Qiao Yan actually made such an invitation, he agreed without hesitation.
Even though the work assigned to him by Qiao Yan was also under the category of agricultural fertilizer, which was to build a fertilizer fermentation tank, he did not slack off at all.
"Marquis Qiao is the first to focus on people's livelihood and agricultural affairs, which is a blessing for the people of Bingzhou." This is what Jia Shu said.
But in fact, the job given by Qiao Yan also involves exposure to some confidential matters.
Cement is also used in the construction of fertilizer fermentation tanks.
The production conditions of this kind of cement made by traditional methods are much lower, and its strength is naturally slightly insufficient. It even needs to be maintained to achieve the purpose of solid defense. However, traditional cement is not without its advantages. At least its anti-corrosion performance is much higher than that of ordinary cement in terms of water resistance and acid and alkali corrosion resistance. In modern times, it is mostly used in underground projects.
Considering the materials and fermentation process required for earthen ammonia and earthen sulfuric acid, earthen cement is undoubtedly the first choice.
Jia Zihou, who was given an inspection position but actually did practical work, was very satisfied with the style of the governor. He even felt a little regretful that Guo Linzong did not live to meet the governor. If he had the opportunity, he didn't know what kind of evaluation he would give.
Qiao Yan was naturally very satisfied with the results of this meeting.
Just as Lu Yuan said, after meeting the familiar families, he chose to meet Jia Shu first, and the signal he sent was quite effective.
This is a respect for the evaluation of the famous scholars in Bingzhou and an admiration for their actions of correcting their mistakes and doing good.
And the Linghu Shao she met later was indeed a talented military commander as Lu Yuan said.
Under Bingzhou's current staffing situation, what is needed are talents to fill the vacancies in various parties. So in an actual combat match, with Linghu's private soldiers fighting against the Baibo bandits, and after asking him many questions about governance and listening to his answers, Qiao Yan can confirm that this is indeed a person who is more suitable to work under her than Lu Bu at the current stage.
Even though his personal combat capability might not even be ranked among the second-rate generals, this did not affect Qiao Yan's feeling that he was indeed the most suitable person to work in Shuofang County.
It is surprising that Linghu Shao's father had just taken up the post of Captain of the Guards against the Wuhuan, but he himself was highly regarded by the provincial government and obtained an official position in Bingzhou.
But when he thought that this governor had obtained the position of governor after defeating Xiu Tuge in the north, he felt that this matter was reasonable.
After these three rounds, Qiao Yan now has people to execute his short-term goals in all aspects.
After thinking for a while, she gave another order to transfer Liang Zhongning from Guanglu Pass.
The Black Mountain bandits and the White Wave bandits are both under the banner of the Yellow Turban Army, so why should we be reluctant to add the Yellow Turban Army itself?
To put it bluntly, the Yellow Turban Rebellion was just a helpless act when people could not survive. If Bingzhou could increase grain production and feed people, she would not have to worry about the other side rebelling against her.
No matter how Liang Zhongning became a stepping stone for her to pacify the Yellow Turbans in the two states, it could not change the fact that he was once the leader of the Yellow Turbans.
The remnants of the Yellow Turbans who were exiled to General Du Liao's camp back then, as well as those who are still lurking in various states and are very likely to rise again after Liu Hong's death, will also need someone to lead them if they fall into her hands during the subsequent recruitment and defeat of the uprising.
Compared with other unfamiliar Yellow Turban leaders, Liang Zhongning, who had watched her go to the battlefield and once showed her respect at the Guanglu Pass that day, seemed more suitable to Qiao Yan.
Even though he was summoned back by the governor's imperial decree and brought to the provincial capital, the two of them couldn't help but look at each other in silence for a while.
Qiao Yan spoke first, breaking the silence: "After meeting again after so many years, is he an enemy or a friend? Has General Liang made up his mind?"
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