Dominate the Country

In the middle of the first month of the 26th year of Chengtian.

Just after the New Year, a sudden cold front swept across Guangdong and Guangxi. After the highest temperature in Qiongzhou Prefecture was below 20° for three consecutive days, the temperature today dropped sharply again. The temperature in the early morning was close to 10°, and even at noon the temperature was less than 15°.

For the first time, countless indigenous people here tasted what "cold" was.

However, at this time, the Qiongshan County Trade Market in Qiongzhou Prefecture was bustling with traffic and people. One car after another lined up directly from the market entrance to the sidewalk, stretching for hundreds of meters.

No one cared about the weather change. A few degrees drop would not kill anyone. It would just add a waistcoat. Selling the cut sugarcane early for money was the real business.

Although many merchants now go directly to the fields, after negotiating business with the growers, the sellers find people to cut sugarcane and find carts and horses to pull them. But there are still many people who work hard to cut sugarcane with their whole family in order to make a little more money, and then work hard to pull it to the market to sell.

At the same time, the fields in the villages outside the city are also crowded with people.

This is the day for the official sugarcane harvest. This is the main cash crop of the people in Qiongzhou. Although growing sugarcane is very labor-intensive, if you want to ensure the fertility of the fields, you have to spend money to sell bean cakes and bird droppings, but growing sugarcane makes money.

Sugar is something that countless people love to eat. Of course, after living conditions have improved, the consumption of sugar has risen sharply. According to statistics, in the third year of Chengtian, the national sugar consumption was only 2 million dan, one dan is 100 jin.

Compared with Europe, this is a large number, but if you convert it thoroughly, in China with a population of 200 million, the per capita consumption of sugar is only one jin. This number is compared with the survey data of the United Nations in later generations-in 2011, the global per capita consumption of sugar was 25 kilograms, while in industrialized countries, this number is as high as 33.1 kilograms. China's original data was pitifully small!

What about China today?

In a previous statistical survey, the annual consumption of sugar cane in mainland China alone reached tens of millions of dan. Although it is still pitifully small compared to the data in the 21st century, it has made great progress that is gratifying.

There is only one main source of these tens of millions of dan of sugar cane, that is, the sugarcane forests in the south. From the beginning of the southern part of mainland China, to later this range including the entire Southeast Asia. The sugarcane forests are the main source of sugar in China. And now in the northeast and other regions, the planting area of ​​sugar beets is constantly expanding, and the proportion it occupies is still a very small number.

At this moment, thousands of Qiongzhou farmers waved sharp machetes, cut down the small forests of sugarcane one by one, and then tied them into bundles and moved them to the carriages on the roadside. As soon as one carriage was pulled away, another carriage was ready at the end of the farm trail. Like a long dragon, a series of carriages loaded with sugarcane went to the sugar mill in the north of the city.

It would be too labor-intensive to transport these carts of sugarcane. Since ancient times, only finished sugar and sucrose have been shipped out, not sugarcane.

Almost all the sugar mills in Qiongzhou Prefecture are controlled by the Li family. Due to fate, the Li family and Qiongzhou are inseparable. Li Kun was not ready to enter the sugar industry at first because the profit was not too high. But after a long time, Li Kun also "understood". To let his beloved nephew ascend the throne, it is not enough to have money. It is more important to hold the lifeline of some industries.

Even when things are not going well, it can be used as a talisman.

Li raised funds from the Jiuzhou Chamber of Commerce and set up a modern enterprise in Hainan Sugar Industry. Li's sugar mill used steam engines at the beginning, instead of the old-fashioned animal-powered press in the sugar mill. Not only is the speed fast, but the utilization efficiency is also higher. Moreover, the squeezed bagasse can be used for papermaking, and some bagasse can even be sent to food processing plants after being completely crushed.

Anyway, it took only three years for Li's Hainan Sugar Company to unify the sugar industry in Qiongzhou and turn the entire Qiongzhou Prefecture into its own raw material planting base. It also took only three years to earn back the capital and change the name from a company to a group. The output value of sugar in Qiongzhou Island has also reached 700,000 dan. It can be said that it has also established its foothold in the entire imperial sugar industry.

Since the era of Wang Huizu, Hainan Sugar Industry has experienced the "darkness" of the Liu Dezhao era and began to attack Guangxi, Annan and Nanyang on a large scale. However, although God is not dark anymore, sugar companies in other places have also completed technological innovations. Hainan Sugar Industry has no technological leadership, and the expansion effect naturally cannot achieve the overwhelming force they expected.

Up to now, five years have passed, and the total output value of Hainan Sugar Group has just exceeded one million dan. But this is enough to make Hainan Sugar Group a giant in the industry.

Jiuzhou Chamber of Commerce doesn't care about that. All they want is for Hainan Sugar Group to thrive. The money invested that year has been recovered in dividends alone.

…

"Be careful, don't damage the cart. It won't be a big deal if you pull a few more times!" The middle-aged man who put on a thick robe when he went to the fields today was calling back and forth in front of a large sugarcane field, fearing that his farm workers would be greedy and move a few more bundles of sugarcane, causing the already overloaded carriage to fall apart.

"Manager Li, this year's sugarcane is of very good quality, at least it can be rated as Class A." An old farmer with deep ravines on his face naturally stood beside the middle-aged man, stroking his gray beard and smiling.

This is the technical master of the farm. He is invited to give lectures in the training classes held by the town's agricultural and animal husbandry station. Although he can't read a few words, he is absolutely an expert in growing sugarcane.

Although Li Xuanming is the head of the farm, in the eyes of the boss, this old man is more important than him, Li Xuanming.

People like Li Xuanming are everywhere, and it is not easy to find a "technical master" like the old man.

Touching the cross section of fresh sugarcane, the tip of the nose seems to be able to smell a sweetness that penetrates the heart, and the sticky feeling on the fingertips makes Li Xuanming smile. This is indeed a high-quality product that can be rated as Class A. Even if it is lower than Class A, the price is much better than that of Class B.

This year's sugarcane is very juicy, and the yield per mu has reached 6,000 kilograms. The entire farm is planted with sugarcane, and the entire 1,200 mu of land is full of sugarcane. This yield is considered to have created a new high.

Li Xuanming has already calculated his own income in his mind. In addition to his daily salary, he also has a 3% dry stock in the farm.

And what is the total investment of the farm? The salaries of him and the old man and other employees, there are only 22 workers in total for 1,200 mu of sugarcane. Planting sugarcane is not difficult, and the harvest is harvested, but the people who cut sugarcane are all temporary workers. And this is also the largest cost expenditure in the sugarcane planting industry. In addition to these, the salary expenses of the 22 people in the farm itself are not high, because 12 of the 22 people are slaves, and there are only 10 free talents like Li Xuanming. The monthly salary expenditure is only about 1,000 yuan. The total expenditure for a year - including the Mid-Autumn Festival and New Year's Day rewards, etc., is only 15,000 yuan. The biggest expense of the sugarcane field is fertilizer in addition to temporary workers.

Cutting sugarcane requires a lot of manpower. Not counting the cost of transportation, it takes five to six people a day to cut one acre of sugarcane. One thousand two hundred acres of land requires six to seven thousand people's labor days. If converted into a month, it is the monthly salary of two hundred to thirty people, which is not cheap. These people are all high-intensity laborers. The monthly salary of more than two hundred people plus food, lodging and tool consumption is at least 20,000.

Adding the cost of transportation and annual fertilizer expenses, the operating cost of the farm is definitely more than 55,000 yuan. And what about the farm's annual income?

What is the price of one pound of sugarcane?

Grade C sugarcane can only have a sugar yield of about 10%, that is, one pound of sugarcane can produce one ounce of sugarcane. The sugar yield of sugarcane that can be classified as Grade A can be half higher than that of Grade C, and the quality is better and higher.

And what is the price of sugarcane in the market? 2.5 yuan/pound. This price is not low, but not high, and it is definitely not outrageously expensive.

In the time of Kangxi, sugar could be bought for 100 coins per catty, while one tael of silver could only be exchanged for 800 coins. In the middle of Qianlong's reign, the price of sugar had risen to 300 coins per catty, although one tael of silver could be exchanged for 1,000 to 1,200 coins at that time. And what is the exchange value of one and a half silver dollars for one tael of silver and Huayuan? Let's calculate it as 14 Huayuan. What is one quarter of 14 Huayuan? 3.5 Huayuan. In fact, the price of sugar in China has fallen a lot compared to the Qing Dynasty. And now there is no more yellow sugar and black sugar in the domestic market.

——The yellow sugar and black sugar here do not refer to the yellow sugar and black sugar in the current cane sugar. Instead, it refers to the fact that the color of cane sugar was not right in the past due to backward technology, or even intentional, especially brown sugar and brown granulated sugar, which changed color.

But now the quality of domestic sugar is more than one level higher than that of the Qing Dynasty.

In a word, sugar has also been reborn in the Chen and Han dynasties. The price has dropped and the quality has improved. But the vast majority of the benefits are not in the hands of the plantation owners, but in the hands of the sugar industry owners.

The price of a pound of sugar cane is 2.5 yuan. If it is high-quality white sugar or crystal sugar, the price will be even higher, and three, four, or five yuan is also normal. And Grade A sugarcane is the raw material for this high-quality sugar cane product. In this case, what is the price of a pound of high-quality sugarcane with a sugar yield of more than 15%?

Not three cents, not two cents, not one cent, but only two cents, and the highest will not exceed three cents.

The planting area of ​​the farm is 1,200 acres, and the output of one acre is about 6,000 catties, and the total output value is 7.2 million catties. The price of each catty of sugarcane is only two cents, so the total output value of the farm is 144,000 yuan a year, and its total income is more than 85,000 yuan.

A sugarcane plant can be cut three times, that is, planted for three years. After three years, pull out the perennial roots and replant.

In fact, the farm needs to rest for a year.

Sugarcane is a very labor-intensive plant. Even if you spread bean cakes and bird droppings every year, you can't plant it every year. You have to let it rest in between.

When digging perennial roots and planting sugarcane seedlings, you also need to hire temporary workers to help.

This is a four-year cycle. The production capacity in the fourth year is close to zero. At most, you can focus on forage and land cultivation, and continue to fertilize. The income is not as much as the investment. In this way, the farmer's income in four years is about 230,000 or 240,000 yuan - and this requires producing Class A products every year.

Li Xuanming's dry shares are 3%, and his dividend this year is around 2,500 yuan. This is not a small number!

For the farm owner, one mu of land can earn 200 yuan in four years, which is 50 yuan per year. This is a very good income. It is much better than growing rice.

China's grain prices have fluctuated for several times. Now the price of rice is between 1.2 cents and 1.5 cents per catty. This is the market price. The price that grain companies pay for grain from farms will never exceed 1.1 cents per catty. And only late rice is collected. The price of early rice is another price, which is very low.

And how many catties of rice can be harvested from one mu of land?

It is normal for late rice to yield 300 catties per mu. 400 catties is a bumper harvest with good weather and good harvests. 500 catties is unheard of. At the same time, planting and harvesting rice requires so much effort, and there are also plowing, water storage, etc.

Growing sugarcane is more cost-effective than growing rice.

Especially after the court can supply bean cakes and bird droppings in time, there are also bird and animal droppings stones on the islands in the South China Sea.

In China, there are many examples of such cash crops encroaching on grain fields. And what does this mean?