Qin Official

That evening, a small pit was dug in an open space a few dozen steps away from Heifu's mulberry forest. Inside was a pile of black dung half as high as a man.

There were two children in the family carrying baskets on their backs, picking up chicken, duck and dog excrement, large pieces of cow dung from farm cattle, and even some human excrement... It seemed that many flies had been attracted and buzzed around. There were also many villagers watching from a distance, pointing, and snickering at the Heifu family heaping dung here.

Jing Ye, who was holding a wooden shovel and smelling bad, showed a suspicious expression.

"Brother Zhong, is this really possible?"

"Do as I say, you are right." Heifu said as he poured the dustpan full of dried dung on the dung pile. He couldn't help but sigh in his heart, the development of agriculture is really inseparable from fertilizer.

Thousands of years ago, when agriculture first emerged, the whole world was practicing slash-and-burn farming. In the woods or on the grass, the ancients drilled wood to make fire and set it on fire, burning all the plants and leaving only ashes on the ground. Then use stone knives or wooden sticks to poke holes in the ground, throw the seeds in, and then bury them under your feet.

Slash-and-burn farming ended here, and there was no longer any management, leaving drought, floods, diseases, pests and weeds to invade. It's so extensive, but it's also artificial cultivation. However, the yield is very low. It is good to harvest seven or eight bushels of millet per mu.

It now seems that the ashes of "slash and burn" were the original fertilizer, but the ancients did not understand this. After they cultivated a piece of land for several years, the soil was exhausted and the harvested food decreased, so they abandoned the land, moved the whole family, looked for a new site, and then used the same method to cultivate new cultivated land, and so on... …

Tribes in the three generations of Tang, Yu and Xia were always running around, and the Yin and Shang Dynasties moved their capitals five times, all related to this nomadic farming method. At that time, farmers had no concept of settling down and relocating. It was normal for them to run away after planting. The cultivated land in the Central Plains also gradually expanded in this way.

It was not until the Spring and Autumn Period of the Western Zhou Dynasty that the role of manure was discovered, and real settled farming became possible. Chinese savages plowed the land, and the well field system came into being, until the ravines pulled by the ox plow were completely torn apart...

Nowadays, in rural areas, feces is the most common thing. It can be found everywhere on the roadside, in ditches, in toilets, and outside pig and cattle pens. If city people see it, they will definitely frown, but farmers will not dislike its filth, because people in this era have understood that fertilizing with excrement can relieve the fatigue of the soil and make the crops grow more happily.

Just as Mencius said more than a hundred years ago: "The harvest of a farmer is one hundred acres, and one hundred acres of dung can feed nine people." This means that one person cultivates one hundred acres of land and fertilizes it all. The food produced can feed nine people! Even the ashes of burned vegetation during the slash-and-burn farming period are not as fertile as manure.

Therefore, in the eyes of farmers, "dung" is not a derogatory term that can be discarded at will and cannot be put on the wall in the rhetoric of literati and officials, but a precious treasure.

The reason why cattle are so expensive is not only because they can play the role of several laborers during spring plowing, but in other seasons, cattle are also a continuous fertilizer-producing machine. One soak of cow dung is enough to fertilize a large piece of land.

Rural slang: Manure is real gold, urine is silver. Although crude, it makes perfect sense. But don’t think it’s dirty and filthy. This is the truth of material cycle. It is as eternal as the sun, moon and stars.

However, despite the invention of fertilization, the yield per mu has only increased to a few dozen kilograms. Among them are the types of crops and farming techniques, but from Heifu's perspective, the main reason for the low yield is that farmers these days use manure too extensively!

So after finishing the pile of dung in front of him, Hei Fu leaned against the door of his house and explained the principles of composting.

He didn't even understand the principle of using microorganisms and fungi to decompose organic materials into humus, let alone explain it to him.

Heifu could only give the simplest example around him.

"Brother, have you ever discovered something like this in the past? The same crops are fertilized with manure, fresh human and animal manure, and urine and feces that have been soaked in my toilet for a long time. Who grows more vigorously?"

After saying this, Zhong suddenly realized: "There is indeed such a thing. The crops watered with toilet feces mixed with water seem to be better!"

"Of course!"

Heifu held up his palm and said: "Although fresh feces or dried feces have fertility, they are limited after all. Some means are needed to completely release their fertility.... Putting it in the pit of the toilet to let it rot is a kind of Another way is to pile it in a pit outside for a period of time, which is retting and composting."

This truth, which even a child in the countryside could understand in later generations, was an enlightening pioneering work in the Warring States and Qin Dynasties. Because composting seems simple, it can be recorded in agricultural books, at least until the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. After Tadi, Heifu once again came up with an idea that was hundreds of years ahead of the times.

"Just follow what Brother Zhong said and give it a try!" Zhong heard that what his brother said seemed to make some sense, and his eyes suddenly lit up, and he became interested. For farmers, there is nothing more exciting than making crops highly productive. .

At this time, several neighbors passed by and greeted Heifu and the three brothers kindly.

As Heifu became the director of the pavilion and was promoted to a high-ranking official, Lian Qu was appreciated by the county magistrate and went to the county seat. Heifu's family became the most popular family in the sunset, and the neighbors treated them respectfully.

However, this did not prevent a few stubborn old farmers from laughing to their faces about their families looking for excrement to pile up for fun and planting zhe in the fields.

Because it does look silly.

Rural people are closed-minded and ignorant. They treat any new affairs as a joke at first. Only after they see the real benefits and taste the undoubted sweetness, will they change their views and follow them with envy. back.

This is true for cattle farming and composting now, and it will be true for later generations of building roads and bridges, sending children to school, and working in cities. Densely populated cities are always the engine of new trends of thought, while rural areas on the edge are always the tail end of the tide of the times. , suffer the greatest disadvantages, but gain the latest and least benefits.

Therefore, Hei Fu was not angry. Instead, he smiled and said loudly: "Second and third sons, be optimistic. When the field evaluation is held in October, our family will definitely win the 'best'!"

The farmers in the neighborhood didn't take it seriously and thought Hei Fu was joking. They cheered a few times and walked away.

But Heifu was serious. He told Zhong Hejing that in addition to the traditional human excrement and stable manure, even straw and weeds could be piled in together, and they would slowly decompose into humus.

"This year I must have the highest grain yield per acre to scare them!"

After that, because they felt that the pile of manure was too dry and difficult to ferment, the three brothers took off their belts on the spot and peed into the pile of manure...

The silver draws an arc and falls into the pile of real gold, turning them into farm treasures with a touching smell.

"I heard these things from the merchant from Guanzhong. I don't know how long it is best to pile them up. Let's pile them up for a month before applying them to the ground. Remember to stir them frequently and let them breathe frequently. Brother, don't forget, you need to Please help me take good care of those trees! I will be of great use in the autumn!"

After saying these words, Heifu picked up his belt, went home, washed himself, had a few bites of food, said goodbye to his mother, then hurriedly packed his bags and went back to Huyang Pavilion to work again.

The county officials of the Qin State had to take a break every five days to take a bath. The chief of the Pavilion like Heifu, who was fighting for food, had a break to take a break of ten days. He usually saved a month and had three days of rest.

As he left the sunset, looking back at his neatly plowed broad field, Heifu couldn't help but sigh:

"Plowing in spring, working in summer, harvesting in autumn, and storing in winter are truly a life that remains unchanged for eternity."

But sweet sugar cane and smelly compost, when these two things are added to life, may bring a different taste to this autumn...

Although spring has just arrived, Heifu is already looking forward to the coming of autumn.

…

"On the third day, I spent time in Shu (sì), and on the fourth day I raised my toes. With my wife and son, we are enjoying the southern acres (yè), and the fields are very happy..."

Time flies by, and in the farming songs, the last few days of January pass by in a hurry amid the busy spring plowing.

February is still busy. This is the season of rain. Peaches and plums are beginning to bloom, orioles are twittering, eagles are soaring in high schools, and cuckoos are walking through the fields, reminding people not to miss the farming season...

Heifu also stepped up his inspections, mainly to see if there were any lazy idlers in various areas within the public security area. The Qin State attaches great importance to spring plowing. In January and February every year, even the war of soldiers is canceled. Whenever there is a project, prisoners, merchants, and sons-in-law are given priority to work on it.

Fortunately, apart from some trivial matters, no major cases were encountered in Huyang Pavilion throughout February. Perhaps Heifu's reputation for capturing tomb robbers has intimidated the young people. For small cases, Pavilion Chief Heifu has no responsibility to mediate the family disputes. He can just send the case directly to the countryside and hand it over to the local mistress.

During this period, he also took Xiumu back home. Together with Zhong, Jing, four farmhands, and two servants who were assigned to help, he diluted the composted manure and applied it to the fields.

Because their family has a lot of land, one hundred acres of which is fallow. At Heifu's suggestion, Zhong fertilized 100 acres with compost, 100 acres with retting fertilizer from the toilet, and 100 acres with ordinary fresh cow and horse dung... for comparison.

In this way, we lived a peaceful and leisurely life until late March in the spring season, when duckweeds began to grow in the ponds and crop spores gradually emerged from the fields, and then a new case was assigned to the countryside...

Heifu did not expect that this seemingly small case would leave an indelible impression on him...

Unforgettable for life!