Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 128 Is Your Bird
a month...

For the thriving Wuyang Qianhu Institute, many things can happen in one month.

The first thing was that shortly after Mr. Fang returned, he sent someone to send over twenty cattle, five hundred catties of fine seeds, and a batch of hoes, sickles, plows and other agricultural tools, which fully demonstrated his importance to agriculture and mulberry. manner.Yang Menglong happily accepted these things, but the people around him could still hear him muttering in a low voice: "Stingy!"

The second thing is that the craftsmen of Qianhu in Wuyang made twenty water mills, lined up along both sides of the Tang River, using water power to drive stone mills, and grinding wheat to save trouble and efficiently. Military households can use these for free As for the facilities, folks from four towns and eight miles can also use them, but they need money.

The third thing is that families of soldiers continue to move over from the Daming Mansion to take refuge with their sons and brothers who are soldiers in the Wuyang military household.Each soldier can get ten acres of fertile military land, which is incomparably attractive to farmers. All of them are moved by the whole family. The population of Wuyang Thousand Households has skyrocketed, and it has already surpassed the peak period. There are 7000 people, and it is still growing steadily. In addition to the artisan refugees who stayed and worked in the thousand households, it is very easy for the total population to break through the [-] mark.

The fourth thing is that the wheat is ripe and ready to be harvested.This year was plagued by drought and locusts, and the wheat harvest was greatly affected. The yield per mu of Juntian was only about one and a half shi. Yang Menglong’s fertile fields were stronger, and most of them could reach two shi. The harvest was not bad.This is all thanks to Yang Menglong. If he hadn't invented the Bordeaux solution to drive away the pests and built a water truck to solve the irrigation problem, I'm afraid there would be no harvest.The military households are gearing up and preparing to work hard. The harvested wheat has paid off the grain owed to General Xiao Yang, and there is still a lot left. This year, they should be able to eat a few full meals.

All in all, everything is moving in a good direction, everyone is working together, and natural disasters are not so terrible.

Yang Menglong was even more excited, running to the fields every day, looking at the pieces of golden wheat with joy.The more than 3 taels of silver he brought is now only a few dozen taels left, and he will be finished if he doesn’t make any more money. He can’t tell anyone about this, and he’s so worried to death during this time!Fortunately, it finally lasted until the wheat matured. This yellow wheat is money!He did the math, deducted the military rations, deducted the grain reserves enough to feed the entire Thousand Households for three months, deducted the taxes, and he could sell at least seven thousand shi of grain. According to the current grain price, At least it can be sold for a few thousand taels of silver, which is enough for him to last for a while.As for the notch... we'll figure it out later.If there is a calculator, he will definitely poke it, and calculate how much money he can make.

Early this morning, he ran to the wheat field to look at his precious wheat.Now that the wheat is ripe and the air humidity is low, this weather is the most suitable for harvesting wheat.He gently twirled a bunch of wheat, counted the grains on it, and sighed: "Oh, the yield is still too low. It's so hard to get rich by farming without fertilizer!"

Chen Baihu came over with a team of people. This old man seems to have been beaten up recently. During the day, he organized people to drive sparrows in the field to prevent the sparrows from pecking at the grains. At night, he organized people to patrol the fields. To prevent someone from stealing the wheat, the whole person has endless energy.Seeing Yang Menglong, he said with a smile: "My lord, the wheat can be harvested today... The weather is just right, hot and dry, and it is easy to dry in the sun. If you don't cut it, the sky will change. After a few rains, The wheat should rot!"

Yang Menglong said: "Then cut it. Do it after breakfast, men, women and children. Don't worry if you cut it early!"

The military households let out a cheer, gearing up.Harvesting wheat is actually very hard work. With your face facing the loess and your back facing the sky, the scorching sun can burn off two layers of your skin. There are so many mosquitoes in the field that bite you all over. They are so happy when they hear that they are going to harvest wheat It's not that they don't know how to work hard, it's just that so much wheat is put in the field and they can't sleep at night if they don't cut it back earlier.

Chen Baihu said happily: "Then I'll go back and tell everyone to eat early and start harvesting!"

Yang Menglong hummed in agreement, looked at the wheat again, and sighed with dissatisfaction: "The harvest is too bad..."

Is this bad?

Chen Baihu and the others curled their lips.Take a look at Mr. Tian's field. Our field can harvest more than one stone per mu, but his field only has a few buckets per mu. Is this poor?But everyone also knows that Yang Menglong's standards have always been frighteningly high, just listen to it, don't take it seriously, if you take it seriously, it will be against yourself.

With Yang Menglong's order, the entire Thousand Households came into action, wolfed down breakfast, picked up baskets with a sickle, ran to the wheat field, and began to harvest wheat.There are tens of thousands of acres of wheat. This is not an easy task. Each labor force counts as one, and they all go to battle. Even the children are given a special holiday. The older ones help cut the wheat, and the younger ones follow with their baskets. Check the grains and ears of wheat that the adults accidentally missed.The more than 1000 soldiers in the barracks who were training or training all day long were also released, holding their sickles and shaking their arms, and harvesting the wheat.They must regard harvesting wheat as training. Three people form a group, five people form a team, advance together, and advance neatly. There is no question of who is faster and who is slower. From this, we can also see Qi Hu's training for them What a success.As for the elderly military households, they don’t have to work so hard. They are responsible for boiling water and cooking, and send buckets of food to the field at every meal time. Everyone washes their hands, sits in the field and finishes eating, and continues. Do it, don't waste a minute.

The military households from the Biyang Hundred Households Office and Tongbai Hundred Households Office also came to help and joined the ranks of harvesting wheat, which made the momentum even bigger.Landlords and gentry looked at the bustling labor scene, and then looked at the appalling crops in their fields, feeling very uncomfortable. This group of poor soldiers really made them do something famous!
The harvested wheat is picked back in loads and placed on the grain drying field. Capable women use a farming tool similar to a comb to comb off the wheat leaves from the wheat stalks, and then use a sickle to cut off the ears of wheat and spread them on the grain drying field. As for the straw, they are bundled into bundles and placed in the open space to dry. In the future, repairing the roof, lighting the fire and cooking will all depend on it.After the ears of wheat have been drying for a few days, someone will drive the oxen, put on a stone roller, and drive the oxen all the way over, and the wheat grains will be rolled off from the ears of wheat in this way.This is the oldest thresher, which has been used since the Stone Age. It has been used until the 70s and it has not been considered to be out of the stage of history. For farmers, the importance of stone rollers is self-evident, and it is called farming civilization. The last keeper is not an exaggeration.

The rolled wheat grains are swept together, the grains are cleaned up, and then raised to the field.The so-called lifting field is to scoop up wheat with a shovel and put it into a dustpan, and then lift it out against the wind to let the wind blow away the chaff. This process requires two people to complete.Yang Menglong watched from the side, and felt emotional: It's really like learning from the West, there is no way to put the wheat into his granary without going through 81 difficulties!He has long been accustomed to combine harvesters and diesel-powered threshers, and he doesn't like these pitifully inefficient technologies, but there is nothing he can do about them. He doesn't have the ability to invent a combine harvester for military households!

The processed wheat was spread out on the grain drying ground—thankfully, the original training ground finally played a positive role.The work of drying wheat is also done by the elderly and children. They must train a pair of eyes comparable to early warning radar, pay attention to the sky at any time, and take action if the weather changes slightly, otherwise, when it rains, all the wheat will be ruined up.Children also need to have a pair of scud legs. When they see birds falling and pecking at the grains of wheat, they will immediately rush over to drive them away. The little ones are extremely firm in defending the grain: you will not eat a single grain!Yang Menglong saw how hard it was for them to run around, so he asked people to make a batch of slingshots and distribute them. When he saw the birds stealing wheat, he directly served them with slingshots.This move won unanimous praise from the children. Stone bullets flew through the grain drying field, and greedy birds were shot from time to time, which in turn became a delicacy for the children.This job Yang Menglong loves to do, he spends every day on the sun-drying field and the children shooting birds with a slingshot, having a great time, Xiao Yufang can't laugh or cry, are you a thousand households or a child's head?Judging from his performance, he is more like the latter...

A big bird descended from the sky, quickly pecked at the grains of wheat, raised its head to look around every few pecks, or flew to another place, so as not to be caught, the vigilance was really high enough.It was pecking vigorously, and with a whoosh, a pebble came through the air and hit its body!The big bird uttered a miserable cry, rolled twice on the spot, thrashed in pain, causing the wheat grains to fly, and died in the painful struggle.Over there, a large group of little Maotou clapped and cheered around a banbutou: "It's a hit! General Xiao Yang's hit is really accurate!"

Yang Menglong said proudly: "Nonsense, I am a marksman with perfect shots. Can you be accurate? Go and pick it up for me. I will use it to make a soup for my future wife!"

A little kid with a bare butt rushed over to pick up the spoils...

Yang Menglong imparted his own experience to the children in a grand manner: "You must strike quickly, keep your eyes fixed on the bird, move your hands with your eyes, aim and hit, there is no reason why you can't hit..." Just as he was talking, Xiao Yu Fang's voice sounded like a silver bell: "Menglong, come here!" The young lady came to the sun-drying field with an umbrella.

Yang Menglong quickly put the slingshot into a child's hand, and then walked over in a serious manner. Before Xiao Yufang could say anything, he shouted: "I didn't shoot the birds! I just came to see if the wheat was dry!"

Xiao Yufang flicked his forehead heavily with her index finger: "There is no silver 300 taels here! Stop playing, go back quickly, someone is looking for you."

Yang Menglong was a little upset, he was having fun: "Who is looking for me?"

Xiao Yufang said: "A big grain merchant asked you to buy grain."

This is a big event, Yang Menglong didn't dare to neglect, and followed Xiao Yufang back to Qianhu House.The bare-bottomed kid followed the poor bird and called, "Little General Yang, your bird, your bird!"

Isn't this a slap in the face?

Yang Menglong turned his head away and said angrily, "It's your bird!"

(End of this chapter)