Chapter 506: Northern Sugarcane (Please vote and subscribe)
This year's grain fields have changed a lot compared to previous years. First of all, the planting area of wheat has been reduced. This season, only 50 mu of wheat has been planted. If it weren't for the purpose of special seed preservation and breeding, it is estimated that the people would not be willing to plant it.
After all, the rice here is ripe, and the wheat over there is still green. The growth cycle is so long, and the yield is much smaller than that of rice. Besides
, it's not like you can't live without flour. Anyone who is not stupid knows how to choose. On the other hand, the fields on the east bank of the Rushui River are all planted with glutinous rice from the Sticky Tribe this year. Although the more mature planting method of the Han Tribe has been adopted, the yield is still obviously lower than that of the polished rice of the Han Tribe. With the same planting area, the yield is about 2/5 less than that of polished rice. In addition, because things are rare and expensive, Luo Chong set the price of glutinous rice with shells at 15 cents per catty, which is the same as soybeans.
However, the tribesmen are not used to eating this kind of round glutinous rice for the time being, and it is still difficult to popularize it in the Han tribe. We have to wait until the reed leaves from Liuyang County are delivered, and then we can wrap them into zongzi. It's just a pity that there is no suitable filling for the time being.
The last point that is different from previous years is that the planting area of corn has been increased. In the first season, the men's grain fields were planted with rice, while the women's auxiliary fields were forced by Luo Chong to plant corn.
The growth cycle of corn is short, it can be ripe in three months, and the yield is not less than that of rice. With 600 square meters per mu, the average yield of corn per mu can reach more than 700 kilograms.
However, because it is planted in early spring, the growth cycle is still a little longer, and it is delayed to mature at the same time as spring rice.
The reason why Luo Chong forced the planting of one season of corn is mainly to reproduce more seeds, promote corn on a large scale first, and solve the problem of eating in several new towns of the tribe this year.
The new cities are still in the initial stage, and the canals and fields are not as perfect as those in Hanyang City. Therefore, if they want to be self-sufficient, corn, which is more adaptable and drought-resistant, has become the first choice. Although corn is a coarse grain, the first priority is to fill the stomach first.
Therefore, after the corn in Hanyang City was harvested, it was quickly purchased by the government. After simple threshing and drying, it was immediately transported to several newly built cities, and an order was issued for them to plant immediately. This year, several new cities only planted corn, and at least two harvests must be harvested before winter, so that they can solve their own food problems.
In mid-April, the entire Hanyang City was golden everywhere. Not only was the square in the city used to dry grain, but even the four main streets in the city and the rows of alleys also dried a lot of grain.
It seems that the planting area has not changed much, but it is not like the public ownership before. Everyone dries grain together. Now that private ownership has become popular, in order to separate each household, everyone has found different places to dry.
It was not until the end of April, when the second season of rice was harvested, that the tax collection work began here.
Although the method of collecting taxes stipulates that four out of ten will be collected, in reality, it is impossible for every household to collect the same amount of grain. The county government, which is already short of manpower, is even less likely to weigh the total amount of grain for every household. So in the end , Luo Chong came up with a method of randomly selecting ten acres of land, weighing the yield per acre, and finally taking the average value, using this as the standard to collect 40% of the grain tax from each household.
Early in the morning, every household had to leave someone at home, and then the county clerk drove a four-wheeled double-ox cart to collect grain from every household.
Every household also opened the door in advance and prepared the grain to be handed in. The reason for leaving someone behind was naturally to let the head of the household sign and sign, so that the tax could be collected by comparing it with the registered household registration, no one could evade taxes, and the government could avoid collecting taxes multiple times.
At noon, the eight-and-a-half-year-old Xiao Qubing also stood on tiptoe at the door and looked around, and finally waited for the ox cart to collect grain.
"Little boy, where is your master? He has come out to hand in the grain."
The household clerk, who was wearing a black robe and a leather headband symbolizing the title of "Zhi Zuo", was flipping through the household registration book and a tax account book in his hand. He said this when he saw Qu Bing standing at the door. At the end, he saw that Qu Bing was wearing a copper buckle with a cloud pattern on his head, and he couldn't help but look at him with a higher opinion.
This household clerk was selected from the students of various tribes last year. In fact, they joined the Han tribe relatively late and knew what the copper buckle with a cloud pattern represented. Although it was not a title, they were definitely the first batch of big guys to join. They were not people that Zhi Zuo could easily provoke. He was just a little curious about how Qu Bing got the "merit" at such a young age.
However, Qu Bing was obviously immune to such surprised and envious looks. He did not explain or show off anything, and quickly handed over his mother to collect the grain.
The process of collecting grain was very simple. In addition to the ox carts pulling grain, the clerks in the household department also had a hopper cart next to them. It was a simple-looking but very sturdy frame with a bucket on top and a pile of empty bags underneath.
Qubing's mother carried all the grain to the gate in a rattan basket, and then several clerks began to measure, bag, and load the grain one bucket at a time on the tax account.
Finally, the clerk in the household department wrote down the specific amount of grain collected and the name of the household head on the tax account, and then asked Qubing's mother to sign and put her fingerprints on it. At the end, he took out a booklet that had just been printed a few days ago, turned to a new page, filled in the household head and tax payment information on it, and stamped it with a bronze seal he carried with him, and then tore it from the fold line in the middle, with half for the household head and half for the government. This was equivalent to the receipt for each tax collection. If there was a problem in the future, the two halves could be put together to verify each other.
The work of collecting taxes was carried out in an orderly manner. After the grain taxes were collected, they would soon be sent to the four new cities of Fumaguan, Matan, Danshan, and Ruyang by land and water transportation. As for the grain supply in Sitong County, it all depended on Liuyang County, otherwise the pressure on Hanyang City would be too great.
After arranging the work of collecting and transporting these grains, Luo Chong did not watch in Hanyang City, but completely let the officials do it themselves. After all, they were all novices, and they could not lack training if they wanted to grow. As long as there were no problems in principle, it was understandable to make some other mistakes. As long as they summed up their experience and corrected them later, people were not afraid of making mistakes, but they were afraid of not learning from their mistakes.
After explaining the things that needed to be paid attention to in the work, Luo Chong rode Huishan, took the other three elephants, and some of the new weighing instruments made in Hanyang City, that is, scales, and then transported them to Liuyang County, and checked the work there by the way.
The currency has been in place for a month. In comparison, among the existing cities of the Han tribe, the place with the most scattered transactions is Liuyang County. Even though there is a guy like Shu Da who is good at scheming, the overall environment in Hanyang City and Ruyang County is not as good as Liuyang County. The population there is more complicated than that in Hanyang and Ruyang, both in terms of quantity and composition.
As scattered transactions increase, some problems inevitably arise. This is not the fault of the currency, but the problem of the transaction unit.
The retail market in Liuyang County is mainly concentrated among the locals of the Han tribe, the vendors of the Ling tribe, and the migrant workers. Their transaction volume is not large, and they buy and sell fresh food.
Among the many products of the Ling tribe, ducks and duck eggs are easy to sell, and they can be sold by piece, but other things, such as water chestnuts, lotus roots, and even fish, cannot be sold by single numbers, so they are in urgent need of a batch of small scales of 0 to 20 jin for the vendors to use, which is why Luo Chong was in a hurry to send the scales over.
On the other hand, the appetite of the two new big mammoths is really amazing. Hanyang City can't afford to keep them, so Luo Chong plans to send these two big guys to the water meadow east of Babao Mountain, which is the shore where Luo Chong first entered the swamp and camped.
Of course, these things can actually be done by others. Luo Chong himself does not need to go there in person. But this time he has a reason to go. Because according to Dashu's regular reports, Luo Chong knows that something special has happened in Liuyang County, especially after the currency was issued and scattered transactions appeared. Since Luo Chong attaches great importance to this aspect, Dashu has to pay attention to it and still attaches great importance to the information on these markets.
The matter was reported by Dashu the day before yesterday. The report said that about three or four days ago, the Ling tribe came to Liuyang County to sell things as usual, but that day their goods suddenly had a plant that looked like corn stalks with leaves peeled off.
They sold one in Liuyang County for five cents. You know, this price is not low. If you eat rice, it is enough for an adult to fill his stomach and even eat too much.
But the weird thing is that such an inconspicuous thing is selling very well. On the first day, people didn't buy a lot. On the second day, almost as soon as they entered the market, they were immediately snatched away, and they didn't bargain.
The next few days were even crazier. Almost as soon as the rafts from the Ling tribe came over, people would line up in the Liuyang County market. A group of people would go directly to the river to grab them.
At first, Dashu didn't pay attention, but with the tribesmen's discussions and various strange behaviors, Dashu also found something wrong. Then on the morning of the fourth day, as soon as the Ling tribe landed, Dashu asked someone to bring a few of that thing over.
Then he heard from his subordinates that this thing didn't have a name yet. The people of the Ling tribe didn't know what it was called. They only knew that it was edible and not poisonous. The people in Liuyang County called it sweet straw.
As the name suggests, it is a sweet straw. Dashu also tasted it. The skin of this thing is thin. If you bite off the skin and take a bite of the stem core inside, chewing it in your mouth will make a lot of sweet water flow out, and then spit out the chewed residue.
The original words of the tree in the report were: the skin is green, more than two meters long, the stem is straight, as thick as a thumb, the skin is thin and juicy, the juice is sweet, and people can't stop eating it.
Luo Chong was not calm at the time. If he guessed correctly, this thing should be the sweet stalk he ate when he was a child. The scientific name is also called sweet sorghum. In fact, it is a kind of sweet sorghum stalk. The most important thing is that this thing has a resounding alias, known as "northern sugarcane".
The Han tribe is not without sugar. The root nodules of the man-eating tree in the back mountain produce syrup, but with just that one tree, the yield is low. The key is that the tree eats meat and drinks blood. With the current strength of the Han tribe, it is already amazing to be able to raise one tree. If you want to plant this man-eating tree on a large scale to produce sugar, how many years will it take to grow? The Han tribe can't afford the planting cost alone.
Therefore, sugar is extremely rare in the Han tribe. Only a few high-ranking officials can share it, and it is syrup. Because of the small amount of production, Luo Chong is too lazy to engage in the sugar industry.
But the lack of sugar does not mean that people do not have demand. You must know that sugar is recognized by the world as the food that can best improve people's happiness in any era. In addition, a celebrity once said that the addiction rate of sugar is higher than any drug.
Therefore, as soon as the sweet stalk appeared in Liuyang County, even if its price could be equivalent to a full meal, it was still not enough to fill the stomach and could only sip the sweet water, but the tribesmen still flocked to it.
This shows that the sugar market is huge, not only the Han tribe needs it, even if it is sold to the grassland and Zhudao, they will definitely fall in love with sugar at first sight like buying salt.
And what Luo Chong values is obviously not just sugar production. You must know that the scientific name of sweet stalk is sweet sorghum, so no matter how sweet it is, it is actually a kind of sorghum.
The utilization rate of this sweet sorghum is very high. In addition to being able to extract sugar like sugarcane, it can also produce sorghum rice. These sorghum rice are also a kind of food. Let’s not talk about eating them. The key is that sorghum is very suitable for making wine.
Let’s not talk about the problem of drinking and making trouble. The most important thing is that as long as you can make wine, it means that you can make alcohol. As long as you have alcohol, you can try your best to disinfect in the treatment of various injuries in the future. It has a great effect on improving the survival rate of the tribesmen. It is also a solid step for the medicine of the Han tribe.
Finally, it is waste utilization. The sorghum rice on the top is used to make wine, and the straw below is used to extract sugar. However, the skin and crude fiber left after the sugar is extracted are equivalent to the core of sugarcane.
These wastes are used to feed livestock, which is an excellent feed. Not only is it sweet, animals love to eat it, but it is also high in energy. Eating this thing can also grow fast.
The same waste, if it cannot be used as feed, can also be used for pulping and papermaking.
What a magical crop this is, it has so many uses. With the emergence of sweet sorghum, how could Luo Chong stay in Hanyang County? If he hadn't arranged for people to collect taxes in the next two days, he would have rushed all the way to Liuyang County.
But it's not too late to go now. After all, Luo Chong is not just going to eat a few sweet sorghums. The main purpose of this trip is to find a way to get some seeds, and then try to popularize them on a large scale, so as to prepare raw materials for the future brewing and sugar-making industries of the Han tribe.
(End of this chapter)
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