I

Today's doctor in the Agriculture Department is called Yang Banggui.

He was ordered to arrange agricultural technicians to go to Nanpan Mansion to teach the indigenous people how to farm. After the matter was settled, Yang Banggui led another person to Yingmin Hall to meet the emperor.

The Agricultural Affairs Bureau has an excellent tradition and always brings some local products to the emperor every time.

What I brought this time was a bunch of cassava, and it was cassava sent from Hainan Island.

Yang Banggui said happily: "Your Majesty, Honglu Temple has brought back many crops from overseas, and the Agriculture Department has been cultivating and testing them all for several years. This cassava is a good thing!"

Of course Zhao Han knew it was a good thing. He smiled and said, "Tell me about your cultivation results."

Yang Banggui elaborated: "Cassava is grown in several provinces in the north and south, but the growth is not good in the north and may even freeze to death in winter. Cassava grows well in all southern provinces. It is drought-resistant, wind-resistant and does not pick on the soil. However, it is not easy to grow sweet potatoes. In the mountainous areas of China, planting cassava has yielded a lot of rewards. Generally, it takes two years to harvest cassava, but the experimental field in Qiongzhou matured in less than a year, with an output of more than 18,000 kilograms of fresh potatoes per mu!"

"How much?" Zhao Han thought he heard wrongly.

"The yield per mu is more than 18,000 kilograms," Yang Banggui repeated, and continued, "And cassava is wind-resistant. When we encountered a typhoon this summer, all other crops in the experimental field were destroyed. Only this cassava survived the typhoon! "

Zhao Han repeatedly praised: "Good, good stuff!"

Before traveling through time, Zhao Han only knew that the yield per mu of cassava was very high, but he really didn't know it was so high, and he didn't know that cassava could shorten the growth cycle in Hainan Island.

Is it related to the tropical climate?

Zhao Han asked: "Take this cassava and plant it in Luzon and the southwest border. Especially in Nache County (Xishuangbanna) and Pingnan Military and Civilian Prefecture, we can experiment with planting. If it is successful, we will vigorously promote it." go out!"

Yang Banggui said: "Your Majesty, this cassava is poisonous. I heard that it has killed many people in Africa. It must be soaked in water for six or seven days and then cooked before it can be eaten."

Zhao Han nodded and said: "This is just like the kidney beans promoted in previous years. They must be cooked before eating. People must be warned repeatedly when promoting seeds."

Kidney beans, namely kidney beans and green beans, were introduced to the coast of China decades ago. Now, under the official promotion of the Datong court, it has gradually spread to all provinces across the country.

There are also snow peas, which are green beans and green peas, which are slightly different from traditional Chinese peas. After the Datong Army regained Tainan, snow beans were also brought back to the mainland and have been promoted in the southern provinces.

And the name is ridiculous. The Chinese call it "Snow Bean" and the Dutch call it "Chinese Bean". Its origin is actually in Thailand and Myanmar.

"How about trial planting of dates?" Zhao Han asked.

Yang Banggui replied: "Date palms cannot survive the winter in the north. Even if they are not frozen to death, they will be too frozen to produce dates. Even in the Yangtze River Basin, date palm cultivation is not in good condition and can only be grown in Fujian, Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guangdong. , Guangnan cultivation. There are also various islands in Taiwan, Luzon, Coconut City, Malacca and other places."

Zhao Han sighed: "I also plan to plant in the desert of Hetao, but it seems that it is too cold."

…

During the Winter Solstice Festival, there will be a great gathering.

All civil and military officials wished the emperor a happy holiday, and the wives also entered the palace to congratulate the concubines.

After the court meeting dispersed, Zhao Han held a banquet in the palace and invited the civil and military ministers to try the cassava dumplings.

The ministers didn't care. On the Winter Solstice and New Year's Day, the emperor would give dumplings to his ministers. This was a rule passed down from the Ming Dynasty.

After sitting at twenty or thirty tables, Zhao Han raised his chopsticks and said, "Come on, gentlemen, let's taste the difference in this year's flat food."

Fei Ruhe dipped it in vinegar and took a bite, but didn't feel any difference. But he knew the emperor and knew that today's dumplings must be different.

Chen Xisong, who has been promoted to Zuo Shilang, certainly knows what this is. The officials in the Department of Agriculture are all his old subordinates. But we can't say it out for the time being. We need the emperor to announce it, and we can't steal the emperor's limelight.

Halfway through eating the dumplings, the guards brought in two baskets of cassava.

All the ministers looked at it and guessed what kind of crop it was. Anyway, it must be edible.

Zhao Han finally said with a smile: "This thing is called cassava. It is produced in America. It was introduced to Africa by the Portuguese and is now grown in our country. The dough of the flat food we eat today is mixed with cassava flour. Two kilograms of wheat flour are mixed with it." One pound of tapioca flour can be used to make dumplings.”

Zhu Shunshui cupped his hands and said: "Congratulations, Your Majesty, we have obtained a new crop. All the people in the world will have enough food and clothing."

Zhao Han smiled and said: "This plant can be planted in the southern provinces. It is cold-resistant, wind-resistant, and does not pick up the land. It can also be planted in barren mountains and wild mountains. It can also produce thousands of kilograms per mu in barren mountainous areas. If the soil is slightly fertile, the yield per mu can easily increase." Thousands of catties. All southern provinces have a crop of one crop every two years, but Qiongzhou can have one crop a year. The experimental field in Qiongzhou even yields eighteen thousand catties per mu!"

The yield per mu is 18,000 catties?

The officials were in an uproar after hearing this. The yield of several kilograms of sweet potatoes per acre made them feel very outrageous.

Hundreds of years later, after cassava cultivation and the use of chemical fertilizers, the yield of 40,000 to 50,000 jins per mu was normal, and this 18,000 jins was really nothing.

"Auspicious!" Everyone exclaimed.

Zhao Han laughed: "Let's eat the auspiciousness, move the chopsticks, move the chopsticks!"

Chen Xisong finally spoke: "Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Guangnan provinces are all mountainous, and corn and sweet potatoes are often grown in the mountains. From now on, with cassava, the people in the mountains will no longer know that they are hungry. !”

"Hahahaha!" Zhao Han laughed.

The officials also laughed, and the banquet was full of joy.

Cassava, like sweet potatoes, can cause bloating if you eat too much. If the cassava peel is not processed properly, it will taste bitter. In the final analysis, it is still food for the poor.

But it is undeniable that these high-yielding crops from the Americas will make China's population roll upward.

Qian Qianyi said: "The population of the whole country has already exceeded 100 million."

"Not just over 100 million, I'm afraid it's 120 million!" Zuo Xiaoliang said with a smile.

Ouyang Zong said: "We'll know in two months!"

During the census every five years, each village will urge villagers to register for household registration if they are not registered at the age of twelve. Those who have died in the past two years must also report to the county. The new dynasty of Datong did not pay labor service, and there were no birth restrictions. The common people did not object to this. It is often the village head who conducts statistics and submits the data to the town, who then takes it to the county government for reporting.

There are definitely some omissions, but the general data is fine.

Around the Winter Solstice Festival, provinces near Nanjing have already sent their census statistics, along with the taxes payable to the central government. As for further provinces, this must be done before the end of February next year.

As winter turns to spring, New Year's Day and Lantern Festival are bustling with activity.

Officials from many provinces rushed to Beijing during the ten-day Lantern Festival holiday to escort account books and tax money to Beijing, and by the way, they could also watch the lanterns in Nanjing.

At the beginning of February, various statistics will be completed.

In the 17th year of the Republic of China, the country's annual income was 68.2 million taels of silver (including overseas territories). Much of this horrific financial increase comes from last year's customs inspections, which resulted in huge fines and back taxes from a large number of foreign trade companies (which have not yet ended).

The national population has also increased sharply from five years ago, reaching 123.64 million.

This data does not include children under 12 years old, overseas territories, or newly occupied Ruan territory. However, when Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Qinghai-Tibet, and northern Myanmar are included in the statistics, the statistics for these places are not accurate, but the data are definitely not much less.

The populations of Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Sichuan all exceed 10 million.

In addition, Henan's population is growing rapidly, with the annual population growth rate approaching 3%.

The northern provinces are growing rapidly, but Hebei, Liaoning and other provinces have been receiving immigrants, and the population there does not belong to natural growth. The population of Hebei Province has reached nearly 2.5 million (excluding Beiping Prefecture), and many Jiangsu farmers have taken the initiative to move north.

The land in the south has begun to become tense, but it is still within the tolerance range.

The land rewarded by the Xungui family no longer needs to buy slaves to cultivate it. Farmers who have a large family but little land are willing to rent valuable land.

There are also farmers who have too many sons who leave the countryside after graduating from primary school and go to work as apprentices in cities or towns to provide sufficient labor for factory owners. In coastal areas, especially in the four provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Guangxi, more and more young people are going to sea to make a living.

There are three modes for going overseas:

First, being a sailor and running a ship is very risky and the salary is high.

Second, big businessmen or overseas landowners are recruiting people to develop overseas, and Luzon and Coconut City are being developed wildly. Ten acres of cultivated land were opened up, the organizers were allocated four acres, and the remaining six acres were distributed to the people who opened up the wasteland. At the same time, the common people will also share the four acres of land cultivated by the organizers.

Opening up wasteland is troublesome. Organizers provide funds and force for protection, while people work in groups to cut down trees, level the land, and plant. In the first one or two years, collective farming is done, which can improve the efficiency of land reclamation and divide the fields after the land is mature.

They also summarized the rules of land reclamation, planting sugar cane in the first two or three years, and then switching to growing grain, which would be the most profitable. This resulted in a significant increase in sugarcane production in Luzon and Coconut City, and the rapid development of the sugar industry.

After all, the large overseas landowners did not follow the path of European colonists.

Firstly, slaves are difficult to buy, and secondly, slaves are difficult to use. The output of slave plantations was far less than that of Han tenants.

The big landowners also raised their own money to build ponds and irrigation canals. Ordinary farmers and tenants had to pay water rent to the big landowners every year for irrigation.

Third, based on place of origin or clan, farmers raise funds to develop overseas. This method is very common in Taiwan, and there are many in Luzon and Coconut City. Often a village comes from the same county. Or in a village, although they have different origins, they are all Hakka.

This is probably the model used by the Qing Dynasty to develop Taiwan.

Historically, although the Manchus regained Taiwan, they only opened one port and were not allowed to bring their families there.

This kind of ban is a dead letter, and people from Fujian and Guangdong provinces are frantically heading to Taiwan. However, overseas reclamation is difficult, and family members really cannot take her with them. Often, in several villages, there is not a single woman in sight, and they are all young and energetic young men.

They are all young and strong men, have no family members, and are surrounded by fellow villagers. What do you think will happen?

In Taiwan in another time and space, uprisings continued during the Qing Dynasty. And it's very nonsense. It all went very smoothly at the beginning, beating the Manchu garrison into panic, and then the rebel army split internally. Zhangzhou people, Quanzhou people, Cantonese people, and Hakka people fought with each other, and were finally divided and suppressed by the army sent by the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

The name Chiayi County is the result of immigrants fighting each other. Within the Tiandi Society, a fight broke out over their place of origin. The local people sided with the court, and was eventually rewarded by the court and renamed "Chiayi".

What kind of landowners and what kind of government officials are all scum in front of young immigrants without the ties of wives and children?

However, officials sent to Taiwan by the Qing Dynasty often failed to change their minds. No matter how the officials tried to persuade them, they followed the mainland style and carried out arbitrary taxation and expropriation in Taiwan. As soon as exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes are collected, they will explode; if they are collected harshly, they will directly kill officials and rebel! It can range from a riot once every few years to a major uprising in 20 to 30 years.

Today's Datong New Dynasty has a strong flavor of overseas development.

In the same way, there are more men than women, and they also stick together in the countryside. Even big landowners have to be polite to them. Young people who have nowhere to exert their influence can easily cause trouble.

In the past two years, more and more young people have gone overseas to explore, and overseas governors are both happy and troubled. The key is to find wives for them. As long as they have wives and children, these young men will be able to settle down. So the governors applied to the court to withhold part of the tax money and buy young women from local chiefs.

Those indigenous people also fight among themselves, and now they are fighting more fiercely. They are robbing women and selling them to the Han governor.

Especially on the island of Java, several sultans existed at the same time. They have already figured it out. Once someone wins, they will immediately launch an army to plunder. In addition to robbing property, they will also rob women. Transporting women to Coconut City can be exchanged for wealth.