Jiang Qinyu explained, "It's a high-yield grain crop that I bought from a merchant from the Hu family. However, there isn't much of it. Our village only has five mu of land planted in total. One mu is for our family, one mu is for my parents, and the other three mu belong to Uncle Village Chief, Brother Meng, and Aunt Qin."
When she was planting sweet potatoes on her own land, Old Man Lu and Village Chief Meng Tianze asked her for some. They had a lot of land, so it wouldn't be a problem for them to allocate an acre to plant sweet potatoes. Even if there wasn't much of a harvest, it wouldn't affect anything.
"A foreign merchant?" Lu Yanzheng frowned. "The foreign merchant you met in Yukang Prefecture?"
Jiang Qinyu paused, feeling a little uneasy. "Yes, what's wrong?"
Did he figure something out?
Lu Yanzheng looked in Jiang Qinyu's direction for a moment in the darkness, then shook his head and said, "It's nothing."
Dai Viet referred to all ethnic groups outside the pass as "Hu," including Dayuan and Xiqiang. Given the current situation of these countries, it is impossible for merchants from these two countries to enter Dai Viet for business.
But perhaps Jiang Qinyu encountered merchants from other small tribes or countries?
Jiang Qinyu's heart pounded, and she quickly changed the subject, "If you have something to do tomorrow, you don't need to go. I'll ask the elders from the village chief's family to help with the collection."
“No need, I’m free tomorrow, let Qin Shen go, I’ll go to the fields with you.” Lu Yanzheng immediately agreed.
He has already made all the arrangements for purchasing food in the past few days. There will be no fighting in the border town for the time being, so he can stay in Dingshui Village for a while longer.
Last time, he led his men to force the Dayuan army to retreat thirty miles from their defensive line, and they dared not attack for a short period of time.
As for the Western Qiang, he led his men to plunder their granaries, and the remaining grain was moved to the foot of Yunshan Mountain near the Western Qiang side. Without food, the Western Qiang people dared not start a war.
This was also due to the fact that the alliance between Dayuan and Xiqiang was not solid; otherwise, he would not have been able to dismantle their alliance so easily.
"As long as it doesn't interfere with your business, it's fine." Jiang Qinyu didn't think there was anything wrong with it.
The land at home is her and Lu Yanzheng's joint property, and it's good that he's there during the harvest.
Lu Yanzheng said in a serious tone, "The crop harvest is also a big deal. I'd like to take a look at the village's harvest situation."
It is said that they planted winter wheat, but it is not harvest time yet, and it is unknown what kind of crop the sweet potatoes they will harvest tomorrow are.
"You, a great general, are concerned about farming?" Jiang Qinyu laughed, the image of a general she had seen in movies and TV dramas coming to mind.
If she remembered correctly, those people didn't care about the harvest.
Lu Yanzheng spoke after a while, “There are so many mouths to feed in the army. If those in power don’t know where the grain yield is high, the brothers in the army will go hungry when the court doesn’t provide rations.”
Marshal Qin taught him all of this.
In recent years, the imperial court has become increasingly harsh on the border troops, and Marshal Qin has to secretly purchase grain from various places at his own expense every time.
A border general cannot leave his post at will. Marshal Qin could only send people to various places to collect local harvest information and keep records so that he could quickly send people to buy grain when needed.
This is how the border troops have been getting by these past few years.
"Uh..." Jiang Qinyu was a little unsure of what to say, "So you confiscated Zhu Youcai's property and used all the silver you got to buy grain?"
A few days ago, she heard Qin Shen mention that Prime Minister Su and Zhu Youcai had colluded to embezzle all 60,000 shi of grain that the court had allocated to the border troops last year.
The 10,000 shi of grain they found was secretly kept by Zhu Youcai; otherwise, the border troops would have had to tighten their belts for another month.
Ten thousand shi of grain may seem like a lot to ordinary people, but it's not enough for a border army that's said to have 100,000 men.
"Yes, we bought grain, some farming tools, and some seeds." Lu Yanzheng didn't mince words and briefly explained the current situation of the border troops.
“When there is no war, all the border troops farm, but they are all ignorant about farming, so the harvest is low. Moreover, in recent years, the drought has been severe, and the people have even had trouble getting water to drink, making farming even more difficult.”
They reclaimed a lot of wasteland in the border town and planted a lot of grain, but the harvest was only half of the normal amount, and sometimes even only a small portion.
Besides the soil and water conditions, it should also be related to the seeds.
If the high-yield grain seeds that Jiang Qinyu said she bought from the Hu merchants really could produce high yields, he would do everything he could to get the border town to plant such high-yield grains.
Jiang Qinyu felt very uncomfortable after hearing what he said.
In the original owner's memories, the people of Dingshui Village lived a very hard life, but she never expected that the people of Biancheng would suffer even more.
Moreover, according to Lu Yanzheng, the entire border town is a military force. In addition to farming, they also have to train, and the key problem is that they are always hungry.
It was this group of people who guarded the border of Da Yue and stopped the iron hooves of the foreign tribes. Otherwise, how could she have slept peacefully here?
“Brother Zheng,” Jiang Qinyu suddenly spoke.
Lu Yanzheng turned his head to look at her, "What's wrong?"
"If our harvest is really good tomorrow, then take the seeds to the border town!" Jiang Qinyu said, feeling a sense of relief.
Based on what Lu Yanzheng and the others have said about the situation outside, if only Dingshui Village has water and food for a long time, their village will definitely face more robberies.
Instead of worrying about being robbed all the time, we should promote what we can promote. Once everyone has food, no one will come to rob them.
Lu Yanzheng chuckled softly, "Yes, if it really is a high-yield grain variety, the people of the border town will definitely be very happy, but..."
He sighed at this point, "Having seeds but no water is useless."
Upon hearing this, Jiang Qinyu almost blurted out "I have it," but thankfully she held back and remained silent.
The seeds could be attributed to the purchase from the Hu merchants, but what about the water? In Dingshui Village, they could shift the blame to the underground river, but in Biancheng, they had nowhere to pass the buck.
Speaking of water, Jiang Qinyu suddenly discovered another benefit of the system.
That means there's no limit to the water in her pipe; even if it's always on, water will keep flowing out.
So if she had the chance to go to the border town, she might be able to find a way to throw a section of water pipe into the water source there. She just didn't know if the tap water would still be available when she was more than 200 miles away.
The topic was a bit heavy, and neither of them spoke again. Gradually, Jiang Qinyu drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, Lu Yanzheng got up earlier than Jiang Qinyu as usual. By the time she came out, Lu Yanzheng had already finished a set of boxing moves.
At this moment, Qin Shen also came out of the house. He yawned, rubbed his eyes, and greeted Lu Yanzheng and Jiang Qinyu first.
"Good morning, General! Good morning, Madam!"
Jiang Qinyu smiled and replied to him.
Lu Yanzheng looked at Qin Shen and said, "Today you go and make contact with Langya, I will stay in the village."
"Huh?" Qin Shen was stunned. "General, you're not coming to Qiongzhou with us?"
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