met free Chapter 84 feels a bit off.
Chapter 84 feels a bit off.
Limpy Wu couldn't quite understand Magistrate Yang's ideas, but that didn't stop him from understanding Yang Shaofeng's wishful thinking—to find ways to make the people earn more money. If the people had more money, their livelihoods would be stable, they wouldn't cause trouble, and Magistrate Yang could lie in the county office and sleep soundly.
While pondering haphazardly, Lame Wu cupped his hands in response, "Brilliant, Your Excellency is indeed brilliant."
Magistrate Yang Shaofeng chuckled and, on the way back to the county office, pointed in the direction of the county town and said, "After the official road to Yanzhou Prefecture is repaired, we will repair the roads to Wenshang and Jining, as well as the roads to Tai'an, Jinan, and Yidu."
"Since the people are idle anyway, to prevent them from getting sick from being idle, we might as well find them something to do."
"Autumn sowing, land reclamation, road construction, and digging canals after spring—I've filled their schedules with these tasks. All they do every day is work and earn money, so naturally they don't have time to think about anything else."
……
More than ten days have passed in the blink of an eye, and it's already the end of July.
The sorghum planted after the start of spring grows taller than a person, and the bright red sorghum ears stand tall in the fields like torches.
Standing on the edge of Liu Miao Village, Yang Shaofeng, the county magistrate, had the image of Tan Mowang singing "When the sorghum ripens, the sky is red all over, Jiu'er, I'm sending you to a distant place" playing on a loop in his mind. His voice could even drown out the incredibly loud suona horn, and there was always some guy wearing glasses clapping and cheering excitedly.
These images inevitably gave Magistrate Yang a strange feeling—that Tan Mowang's song of Jiu'er wasn't for anyone else but for himself, and that the song would transport him back to the Ming Dynasty hundreds of years ago, with the suppressed suona sound seeming to be bidding him farewell...
He shook his head vigorously, banishing Tan the Demon King and the bespectacled guy from his mind, and then used reason to force Jiu'er to mute herself. Yang Shaofeng, the magistrate, turned his gaze back to the fields.
In the eyes of Magistrate Yang, harvesting sorghum was also a technical skill.
Experienced farmers would grab a sorghum stalk with one hand and a sickle with the other, then bend slightly over, press the blade of the sickle against the top of the aerial root of the sorghum, and pull back with a slight force of their elbow, thus felling a sorghum stalk.
After the sorghum harvest, the people would pull the sorghum stalks out of the sorghum stalks and then peel off all the leaves. These leaves could be kept to feed livestock, while the bare sorghum stalks would be left behind and woven into mats.
Foil is an indispensable item in people's homes. It can be used to dry cotton because the top of the foil is exposed to light and the bottom is ventilated, so the cotton dries quickly. You can also put a cloth on the foil to dry red dates or other things.
Foil can also be used to make beds. Just put a layer of straw mat on top of the foil, and it becomes a pure, natural, pollution-free, and harmless mattress.
Foil can also be used to build houses. When people build houses, they can lay foil on the purlins of the roof to act as rafters, which reduces the weight of the roof and saves costs.
Some people would hang foil on the walls inside their houses, or even use foil as a partition wall.
Just as foil has many uses, sorghum stalks are not just for eating. After people thresh the sorghum grains and scrape off the remaining grains from the sorghum ears with hoes, they tie up the sorghum stalks to make brooms and use the sorghum ears to sweep the ground.
Some people cut the sorghum stalks shorter, and these shorter sorghum stalks can be made into brooms for scrubbing pots. The cut sorghum stalks are not wasted; they are made into curtains, steaming mats, and other things that farmers can use.
Even sorghum stalks that are too short to be made into curtains or steaming trays will be collected by the people. In the twelfth lunar month, they can be used to make the Kitchen God's mount, so that the Kitchen God can speak good words in heaven and bring good fortune to earth.
As for the sorghum stubble left in the field, there's no need to say much about it. After the sorghum grains are hulled, they can be boiled and eaten, or used to brew wine. The hulls of the sorghum grains can be used to stuff pillows. Even the sorghum stubble will be dug out by the people with hoes, the soil will be knocked off, and then they will be taken home to dry in the sun. After drying, they will be used as fuel for fires.
Throughout its life, sorghum is used without a single wasted part; every part and every use has been developed to its fullest potential by the people.
After lamenting the life of sorghum, Magistrate Yang turned his gaze to the soybeans beside him.
While soybeans can't be used as efficiently as sorghum, where every part can be developed into various uses, they are no less efficient. The beans are eaten, and the remaining roots, leaves, and stems are used for firewood, so there is no waste whatsoever.
The people in the fields, busy harvesting and transporting sorghum, didn't sigh and lament like Magistrate Yang when they were digging up the sorghum stubble with hoes.
In the eyes of ordinary people, there are only things like whether something is edible or not, whether it is usable or not, and whether it is a bumper harvest or a poor harvest. Other things are basically not within the scope of their consideration.
Clearly, the sorghum in front of them is seen by the people as something that can be eaten, used, and is considered a good harvest.
The only downside is that soybeans are the main crop in the fields, and sorghum is only planted in rows. Even if the sorghum ears are plump and round, the amount of sorghum rice that you can actually get is not much.
But there was nothing that could be done. The land had been abandoned for many years, and no one could guarantee how fertile it was. The only option was to plant a large amount of beans to fertilize the land. Crops like sorghum, which are more fertilizer-intensive, were simply not something anyone dared to grow in large quantities.
Magistrate Yang summoned Liu Thirty-Two and asked him directly, "With this sorghum, after the soybean harvest, will it last until next year's wheat harvest?"
Liu Thirty-Two replied with a beaming smile, "Yes, yes! This year's sorghum ears are plump enough, about three hundred catties per mu. Even if we plant less, it should still be about a hundred catties per mu."
"Thanks to the great man, every family in our Liu Miao Village has dozens of acres of land. My family alone has more than 60 acres. My goodness, even if we don't grow any more, 60 acres of land should yield about 3,000 catties of sorghum. Even after hulling, it should still yield about 2,000 catties, right? Add in the beans, and it's enough for my family of four to live until this time next year!"
Is 2,000 jin of sorghum enough for four people to eat for a year?
Will eating too much of this junk hurt my stomach?
It seems that Old Zhu doesn't allow brewing?
After pondering for a while, Magistrate Yang turned his attention to the bean field.
If the beans also yield a good harvest, then in the fall we can organize the people to reclaim wasteland on a large scale. At that time, it won't just be seventeen mu per family; it could be thirty mu per family.
Then we'll plant wheat too, tsk tsk.
But as he was thinking about it, Magistrate Yang suddenly felt that something was wrong.
Damn it, isn't it common for severe floods to follow a severe drought?