Wei and Jin cooks

Many caravans were stranded in the west of Shanshan. When they heard that the imperial army was marching all the way to the Western Regions, they immediately brought their money and goods with them. When they arrived at Shanshan, they saw the flag with the character "Zhao" and the character "Hua". He went to seek refuge.

As expected, the imperial army did not refuse their surrender and brought them all the way back to Luoyang from the Western Regions.

Of course, they are not ignorant people, and they can still afford a little protection fee.

The most wealthy among them is Zhao Hu's caravan.

Firstly, they had more people and carried the most goods; secondly, their employer had a relationship with the emperor, and the leader of the army was the nephew of their employer. Even if it was to take care of Prince Qin, they could afford this amount of money.

Zhao Erlang complained: "There are ten countries in Shanshan, Loulan, Dongqiemi, Beilu, Pulei, Yizhi, as well as the front and back countries. They are the only way for Yanqi and Wusun to come to our Central Plains. The front country The country had a new king five years ago. I wonder if he was too poor. He directly sent troops to block the road and demanded high protection fees. If he couldn't pay the merchants passing by, he would just rob him. Several surrounding countries couldn't stand it, so they fought with him. Woke up."

"Those countries are also incompetent. They can't defeat him even if they unite. Not only are all the nobles killed, the land is occupied, the roads are also cut off by him, and they directly block the roads and rob them. This is why the Western Region is in chaos. Other countries have The caravans in the past two years just left and never came back."

"I defeated the Qianbu Kingdom and Pulei this time, but I think it's not enough. Didn't the Han Dynasty set up a Protectorate in that area? Sister, let's set up one too and take over all ten countries. , let’s see how they still rob our caravan.”

Zhao Hanzhang couldn't help but praise him, "This is a good idea, but it's too cold to use troops now. You wait until I send envoys to persuade them. Be polite first and then use troops. If they can't be persuaded, then use troops."

It was cold in the Western Regions, and the snow would probably not melt until April. She had used troops twice in the past six months, spending all the money she had saved since she came to the throne. Now the treasury is empty again.

Zhao Hanzhang decided to concentrate on the economy, various minerals were developed, and grain and cotton planting were laid out.

Because of the warm climate in the south, improvements in rice growing methods, and the emergence of new rice species, the yield per mu of rice has exceeded that of wheat.

Under the conscious adjustment of the imperial court, the center of gravity of grain production shifted to the south, and the backward south began to develop rapidly.

In addition to rice and wheat, the south grows a large number of mulberry and linen, while the north grows mainly cotton and linen this year.

Sinong Temple officials have to teach in the school every ten days. After teaching students various planting knowledge, they also go to the countryside to investigate and teach.

But because there is a school as a buffer, a large amount of planting knowledge has been transferred to the countryside by the students, and their pressure is much less.

It was only then that the officials in the court suddenly realized that the school was the most important bridge for imperial power to reach the countryside and for policies to reach the countryside. Its role was no less important than that of the county government.

"As long as there are children in a village or a neighborhood studying in a school, they can take back the knowledge taught in the school and the policies they heard. If they pass it on to ten people and hundreds of people, the policies will be known to the villagers and they will be confused again. Or cunning officials will not be deceived."

The cotton planting method developed by Sinong Temple is already very mature. After the common people received cotton seeds, they planted them according to their instructions. In August, the soybeans, wheat, soybeans and other crops in the fields were harvested one after another, and everyone went to Picking cotton.

Cotton blossoms as clean as white clouds bloomed on the branches. Shi Le picked one and pinched it until he found the hard shell inside, but the surface layer was soft. He looked suspicious, "This is it." The cotton core of the quilt cover in my house now? It doesn’t look like it.”

Wei Jie said: "Of course there are other processes, but look at this."

He pulled out strands of wadding from the cotton, the same wadding they pulled out when they received the quilts issued by the court.

Shi Le grinned and said, "Okay! It'll do just fine. Look at this. We have a good cotton harvest this year. We can make a lot of quilts at a glance."

Wei Jie: "Xiaguan thinks we should make cotton-padded clothes first. Now most people have piled kangs. As long as there is enough firewood, you can keep warm without quilts, but you must need cotton-padded clothes when going out."

Zhang Bin also felt the same way, "With cotton-padded clothes, they can go out to work. Sir, we are very busy this year and don't have enough manpower."

Picking cotton requires a lot of labor.

The farmers who were allocated seeds for planting did not have enough money for their entire family, so they had to pay for part-time workers.

Everyone came out to do part-time work one after another. Shile was also afraid that the good cotton would be spoiled if it was not picked in time, so he moved the days of labor back this year and asked them to work part-time to harvest the cotton first.

After the cotton is harvested, cotton seeds must be removed, debris removed, and then carded and stretched...

It will be mid-November when the cotton springs into fillable lint and batting.

The imperial court stipulated that people in bitterly cold places such as Youzhou and Bingzhou were not allowed to do forced labor after the twelfth lunar month.

At this point it was too late to issue more labor, so we had to spend money to hire people.

Shi Le was not a very disciplined person, but Fan Ying happened to be inspecting Youzhou as the censor.

Although he was not afraid of Fan Ying, there was still one less thing to do. In addition to this year's cotton harvest, he was quite wealthy, so he waved his hand and said: "Spend money and hire a servant!"

Forced labor is illegal, but spending money is not illegal.

Zu Ti is also spending money to hire laborers. This year, Jizhou has grown much more cotton than Youzhou, and he has been busy until now.

He only left part of it for Yushantang, and sold the rest for takeout at a high price.

When farmers who grow cotton see it, they follow the high price and sell it for takeout. In order to make money, some families don't even keep their own expenses, and sell it at high prices after paying enough to the yamen.

Ten kilograms of combed cotton can be sold for two pennies. Based on this year's output, one acre of cotton can be fetched seventy-two pennies. Even excluding the cotton handed over to the yamen, there are still thirty-six pennies.

Oh my god, they can’t make so much money even if they plant twenty acres of wheat or twenty acres of rice.

As soon as the price was calculated, farmers began to secretly collect cotton seeds without turning them over.

Zu Ti knew that this kind of thing could not be tolerated, and turned a blind eye and let it go. However, after the beginning of spring, he sent a large number of government officials to the countryside and called the governors of various counties to the Governor's Mansion, telling them to strictly investigate and prohibit it. The fertile land is used by others.

Fertile land can only be used to grow wheat, rice and other grains. If anyone dares to use fertile land to grow cotton and linen, they will be uprooted and severely punished.

The imperial court also ordered so.

"With heavy profits, some people will definitely use fertile land to grow cotton. Food is the foundation of the country, and each household must plant no less fertile land every year."

When the imperial court allocated land to the people, it also included mulberry and hemp planting areas, and cotton could be planted in those places.

The common people will not completely listen to the court, they have their own wisdom.

Zhao Dali planted cotton seeds on the edge of the field.