Chapter 97: Collecting Firewood Again
When the village chief heard this, he asked his eldest grandson to call Secretary Zhang over, "Your Uncle Zhang is a nice guy, and he's also a good worker. Let's have dinner and talk together."
An Zhixia smiled and nodded, "I'll listen to my uncle!"
The village chief's wife personally led her two daughters-in-law into the kitchen to prepare the food. They cut a little of each kind of meat and made a large table of farm meals with seasonal vegetables and dried goods stored up from previous years.
An Zhiqiu came over with a ceramic jar wrapped tightly with clothes.
Zhang Shanquan also came into the yard carrying a pot of old wine. Seeing this, he asked cheerfully, "An Zhiqing, what delicious food did you bring? Why are you so secretive?"
"I just cooked something delicious. Brother Yuan sent it to me. He said it can nourish the brain and body, so I brought it here for everyone to try."
When they heard about Fang Yuan's cooking, everyone came over to try it first. The ceramic pot was not big, and each person could only take two or three mouthfuls. It contained various ingredients cut into thin strips, and the soup was thick and had an attractive fragrance.
An Zhixia also tasted it curiously. It tasted extremely delicious, even better than the pheasant soup she had tasted before. It also had an indescribable sweetness and a long aftertaste. The meat was chewy and chewy, like the meat in the palm of a chicken. "Brother, what kind of meat is this?"
Everyone was very curious. Was there anything on the mountain that they hadn't eaten?
"Snake meat, this is made into snake soup!" An Zhiqiu said calmly.
Everyone was stunned, especially the women, who all got goose bumps all over their bodies. They didn't know whether to spit out or swallow the soup in their mouths.
An Zhixia felt like crying but had no tears. Although she didn't believe in ghosts and gods, snakes were long, thin, cold-blooded animals with many parasites. Didn't her brother know that diseases come from the mouth? Well, people at that time didn't have this awareness, and they ate field mouse meat happily.
However, the men did not think too much about it. They just thought it was delicious and drank and chewed it in big gulps. When they saw that their women didn't want to eat anymore, they were very considerate and took a gulp and finished it.
Later, An Zhixia was extremely satisfied with the table full of authentic farm meals cooked in an earthen stove. Even the old-fashioned steamed buns had a unique fragrance and sweetness.
After all, the people of Xiahua are nostalgic in their bones. They miss the warmth and leisure outside the cold city and fast-paced life.
After dinner, each person had a cup of perilla brown sugar tea, which Fang Hongye learned from An Zhixia. The light floral fragrance diluted the sweetness of the sugar, leaving an aftertaste that even men who don't like sweets can appreciate.
The An brothers and sisters, the Fang father and daughter, and Zhang Shanquan were left in the main hall.
An Zhixia pondered for a moment before speaking, "Uncle Village Head, Uncle Zhang, have you ever heard of raising fish in rice fields? This is a thousand-year-old experience of increasing rice field yields passed down by our ancestors, but I don't see this method of combining farming and breeding in our commune, or even in the entire county."
The village head and the village party secretary could not help but look at each other in surprise, but they suppressed their inner emotions and said in a deep voice, "We old masters have all heard of this, and there are one or two villages in Lin County that raise fish in rice fields, and they harvest 10% more rice than we do. But this is an ancestral technique, and they never reveal it to others. Even when people in the village get married, they are particular about it.
The village also organizes militia patrols, and does not allow outsiders to observe and learn. They are very self-centered, and the people above them can't do anything about them. Besides, those people also have their own selfish motives. If the rice fields in the area they manage increase production, their performance will be better than others, right?"
The village party secretary also said: "Director Xiao An, you are smart, but you have not worked with us for a whole year, so you may not know that there is not always water in the rice fields. We have six or seven days to dry the fields, and we also have to fertilize and spray pesticides on the rice fields, which greatly affects fish farming.
When we encounter droughts or floods, the water level rises and falls, and we can’t even take care of the rice fields, so how can we have the energy to take care of the fish?
Besides, it’s not that no one is jealous of the high yields in those villages. Some team leaders who want to show performance have gritted their teeth and taken out one or two plots of land for experiments. As a result, the fish were either washed away during floods or the fish ate the food! "
Fang Hongsheng and Fang Hongli have also been working in the fields for many years and have accumulated experience. They both nodded and agreed with a bitter face. "I seem to have heard that there are experts in this field, but the fees are too high and our county can't afford them. And the places where we have experts are hiding their experience and don't pass it on to others.
How much benefit can a 10% increase in grain production bring to everyone?"
"I've heard about it too. There was another place that was too eager for quick success. I don't know where they got an expert from, but the whole village tightened their belts to scrape together the money for the expert. But it turned out to be a liar who took the money and ran away. Now the captain of that place and his family are all homeless and have to live in a cowshed!"
An Zhixia pursed her lips and said, "I was busy with a stage play some time ago. I just took a break today and rode my bike around. Suddenly I remembered this incident. In fact, when I was collecting firewood in Kyoto, I went to the scrap yard to pick up some books and wood in order to be lazy. The aunt at the scrap yard was a good person. As long as I helped her with some work, I could bring some things home every now and then.
There are many ancient books in it, and I saw many articles about raising fish in rice fields. For example, "Lingbiao Luyi" by Liu Xun of the Tang Dynasty: "In Xinlong and other states, the mountain fields are barren, and the flat areas are opened up with hoes and shovels to make towns and rivers. When the spring rain comes, water is stored in the hills. Then, grass carp eggs are bought and scattered in the water fields. After one or two years, the fish grow up and eat the grass roots. The fields become fertile and the fish benefit. So rice fields are planted and barnyard grass is eliminated. This is the best way to benefit the people." When she said this, she spoke quickly, and people couldn't hear clearly or understand what she meant, but she was able to grasp the key words of farming and raising fish, and finally achieved a win-win situation. She felt a strong sense of wonder in her heart!
She said this just to give everyone a reason to convince them. "There are many articles like this, and some of them explain in detail how to perfectly combine fish farming and farming. The key points of this method are farmland construction, breeding and management, which solves the problems of shallow irrigation, field drying, fertilization, pesticide application, and flood and drought prevention mentioned by Uncle Zhang.
I wonder if the village head and the village party secretary have the courage to give it a try this year?"
Among the people present, except for Xiaobai An Zhiqiu who was pondering the magical way the girl collected firewood, the rest of them had an inexplicable obsession with food, and the fire in their hearts was burning very strongly.
This was a huge gamble for them, using half a year or even a whole year's worth of food to bet on a 10% increase in income! Looking at the indifferent smile on An Zhixia's face, and then looking at her extremely young and beautiful appearance, just like their fiercely fighting hearts, it made people waver.
Believe her, she is too young, relying on book knowledge, can you really trust her? Isn't there a saying from our ancestors that talking about war on paper is useless? How can a little girl who has never worked in the fields lead them to increase their income by 10%?
(End of this chapter)
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