Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

Today’s meal actually contains meat!

Stir-fried bacon with leeks.

There was no more bacon, no less, just three slices cut, and the rest was all leeks.

One piece for Zhu Ming, one for Zhu Guoxiang, one for the child, and three pieces of bacon are all divided. Unable to refuse, Mrs. Yan picked up the meat with her chopsticks and stuffed it into their bowls.

The corn porridge was also replaced with corn rice. It was still not shelled and the taste was a little bad, but it was dry at least.

After breakfast, Mrs. Yan went out with a hoe, saying she was going to weed the wheat. Her family has more than 20 acres of land, most of which is leased to villagers, but one acre is reserved for her own cultivation.

Shen Yourong washed the dishes and pots, then fed the chickens, and then swept the floor.

Several houses were swept, and then the yard was swept.

While sweeping the yard, I had an unexpected discovery: I found two piles of horse manure. Horse manure must of course be collected and used for composting and growing crops.

After cleaning everything inside and outside the house, Shen Yourong went to weed under the fence and bring dishwater to water the vegetables in the vegetable patch.

As for the little kid, he is concentrating on practicing calligraphy.

Perhaps to save paper and ink, Bai Qi dipped his brush in water and squatted in the yard to write on the ground.

Don't be afraid of damaging the pen. This broken pen is homemade. I bought the one for Ju Ming to write the "Three Character Classic".

"Hey, Dean Zhu, what are you looking at?" Zhu Ming stretched out his hand to block his father's sight.

Zhu Guoxiang looked a little embarrassed and looked away and said, "I was looking at what vegetables the people of the Song Dynasty grew."

Ju Ming joked: "Why do I think you are looking at the person watering the vegetables?"

"I'm not a pervert." Zhu Guoxiang refused to admit it.

Ju Ming said with a smile: "Just take a peek. What are you making excuses for? It's normal for an older bachelor to suddenly become younger and have a turmoil in his heart."

"It's not what you think," Zhu Guoxiang hurriedly explained, "Do you think Mrs. Shen looks like your mother when she was young?"

Ju Ming said sarcastically: "In your old eyes, any beautiful woman looks like my mother when she was young. Anyway, the final interpretation is yours."

Zhu Guoxiang said anxiously: "I'm not talking about looks, I'm talking about temperament. Do you understand temperament?"

"Temperament is a mysterious thing, you can say it however you want. I understand, no need to explain anymore, explanation is just a cover-up," Ju Ming chuckled, "If a man in his fifties marries a pretty widow in her early twenties, , do you think this should be called an old cow gnawing on young grass? Say yes, you have become young again. Say no, your mental age..."

"Get out!" Zhu Guoxiang became angry with embarrassment.

Ju Ming took advantage of the victory and pursued it: "It's urgent, someone is anxious. I know who it is, but I won't say it."

"I'm too lazy to pay attention to you." Zhu Guoxiang walked away angrily.

After winning the quarrel, Ju Ming was so proud that he whistled happily.

Zhu Guoxiang walked slowly behind Shen Yourong, looked at the rapeseed fields in the distance and asked, "In a few months, these rapeseeds will be ripe. What should we plant after harvesting the rapeseed?"

Shen Yourong was still watering the vegetables and without raising his head, he replied: "Plant rice."

"Is rapeseed and rice rotation used in Xixiang County?" Zhu Guoxiang asked.

Shen Yourong stood up and rubbed his waist: "I didn't know how to plant in turns before, and the land was wasted. I heard from my father that the method was brought over by the people in Sichuan, and the transshipment envoy ordered all states and counties to promote it."

Zhu Guoxiang asked again: "Mrs. Shen's family also grows rapeseed and rice?"

"Orphans and widowed mothers can't grow that," Shen Yourong said. "When planting rapeseed in different seasons, it's okay to plant less. If you plant more than one or two acres, it will be very troublesome to drain and plow the land. If you make a mistake, the farming season will be missed. This rapeseed Planting in rotation with rice requires a strong labor force in the family to keep busy.”

"It's just about raising and transplanting rapeseed seedlings. How can we be busy?" Zhu Guoxiang said.

Shen Yourong asked in confusion: "I only know how to transplant rice seedlings, can this rapeseed seedling be transplanted too?"

"Okay." Zhu Guoxiang began to inquire carefully about the farming methods of the Northern Song Dynasty.

After a while, after he understood the question, he went back to discuss it with his son.

Ju Ming smiled mischievously: "Okay, Dean Zhu, they've already started hooking up."

"Don't talk nonsense," Zhu Guoxiang said with a serious expression, "I don't know about the south. I only say that in Hanzhong, the rice planting process is basically mature, but we still don't know how to control floods and droughts and raise seedlings. Therefore, rice planting is affected by climate and geographical conditions. The constraints are even more severe and it is impossible to reach the limit of ancient rice production."

Hearing that they were talking about business, Ju Ming also stopped smiling: "How much yield can be increased by the method of controlling water and drought to raise rice seedlings?"

Zhu Guoxiang explained carefully: "It is difficult to make statistics and it depends on the specific situation. The advantages of this method are to improve the quality of the seedlings, reduce the cost of raising seedlings, and enhance the ability to prevent and resist diseases."

"Why can dry rice cultivation improve the quality of seedlings?" Zhu Ming was a little curious.

Zhu Guoxiang organized his words and tried his best to make it clear to Zhu Ming: "Controlled water and drought cultivation means that seedlings grow in an arid environment. Soil moisture affects the differentiation of seedling roots and controls the occurrence of some seedling roots, thus increasing the number of latent roots. At the same time, The cytoplasmic concentration of dry-nurtured seedlings increases, nutrients are accumulated, and the plants are always in a high-energy state. When dry-nurtured seedlings are transplanted to paddy fields, the differentiated but not elongated root primordia will rapidly develop into new roots, forming explosive roots. …”

"Stop, stop, stop, you don't have to say it anymore." Ju Ming was really not interested in this thing.

The technology of controlling water and drought to raise rice seedlings appeared and was promoted in the Ming Dynasty, making the rice yield per mu in the Ming Dynasty rapidly exceed that of the Song Dynasty!

Although Ju Ming doesn’t know anything about farming, he knows how to take advantage of this: “If we guide technological innovation and help people increase production and income, we can quickly gain the respect of the villagers and gain a firm foothold in Xixiang County.”

Zhu Guoxiang continued: "Also, farmers in Hanzhong have mastered the technology of rapeseed and rice rotation. But they still don't know how to raise and transplant rapeseed. Therefore, they have to rush to plant seeds when changing to rapeseed, and they need to double their labor input in the short term. If rapeseed is used, Seedling transplanting technology can not only reduce labor input, but also improve the quality of rapeseed seedlings, enhance the disease resistance of rapeseed, and increase the yield per mu of rapeseed.”

Ju Ming couldn’t help but ask: “Isn’t it easy to raise seedlings and transplant them?”

"It's very simple, but there are tricks," Zhu Guoxiang said, "and it can be combined with water-control and drought-cultivated seedling technology, because dry-cultivated rice seedlings can delay transplanting, so there is no need to compete for time during planting rotation."

Paddy and drought crop rotation can improve the air and water permeability of paddy fields, increase soil fertility, and reduce the damage of pests, diseases, and weeds.

The emergence of rapeseed and rice rotation was a breakthrough in ancient southern agriculture in China.

At present, the rapeseed and rice rotation methods only require dry rice seedling cultivation and rapeseed seedling transplanting. If these are completed, it means that this method is completely mature.

Ju Ming asked: "Does Mrs. Shen grow rice at her house?"

Zhu Guoxiang shook his head and said: "No, most of her family's land has been rented out. She only grows some wheat, millet and the like on dry land. Taking care of the paddy fields requires strong labor, and also involves farming cattle and irrigation. It is not good for orphans and widowed mothers. alley."

Ju Ming said: "You can't tell the farmers about your two new methods directly. They won't believe you if you talk empty talk. We must first achieve some results to let the villagers know that we are agricultural experts, and then they will be obedient. When production increases and income increases, Once they taste the sweetness, farmers will be completely convinced and respect us.”

"But Mrs. Shen's family doesn't grow rice and rapeseed, so we have no place to hold demonstrations. It's impossible to take back the paddy fields rented out by tenants. That would be equivalent to destroying the tenants' jobs, which would be detrimental to Mrs. Shen's and our reputation. Zhu Guoxiang said with a headache.

Ju Ming said: "We have sweet potatoes and corn seeds, which can be planted in the mountains. They will definitely become famous when harvested. Do you have any other tricks?"

Zhu Guoxiang looked at the mountains in the distance: "Collect wild shiitake mushrooms from the mountains and make your own strains. You can grow shiitake mushrooms artificially. By the way, you can also make Ganoderma spawn and grow Ganoderma lucidum as big as a millstone!"

Artificial mushroom cultivation technology also existed in ancient times, but it had to wait until Zhao Jiu established the Southern Song Dynasty. The inventor of this technology was named Wu San, who was honored as "Wu San Gong". After his death, a temple was built to worship him, and the people regarded him as the "Mushroom God".

Zhu Guoxiang pointed to the vegetable patch under the fence and said with a smile, "Did you see it? Day lilies."

"I saw it, but it hasn't bloomed yet." Zhu Ming said.

Zhu Guoxiang said: "With daylily, we can extract colchicine and induce plant polyploidy to cultivate improved varieties. This can be done for vegetables, grains, including mushrooms."

Ju Ming asked: "Does it require high-end equipment to extract colchicine?"

Zhu Guoxiang said: "You must first get distilled alcohol, which should be above 50 degrees. Wash the yellow flowers, soak them in alcohol, and reflux them at high temperature to extract them. The supernatant will be rich in colchicine."

"So simple?" Zhu Ming said in surprise.

Zhu Guoxiang asked: "How complicated do you think it can be?"

After Shen Yourong took care of the vegetable garden, he went to the kitchen eaves and cut some of the firewood he had brought home into small pieces and moved them to the kitchen. The rest were stacked neatly against the wall.

So far, the farm work is still not done.

Shen Yourong took out a clean linen cloth, wiped the mulberry leaves collected in the morning one by one, and carried them to the silkworm room to feed the silkworm babies.

After feeding the silkworms and collecting the silkworm droppings for compost, Shen Yourong finally came to the courtyard and said to Ju Ming, "Da Lang, please explain the Three Character Classic."

Not only tell it to children, but also to adults.

Because Bai Qi was too young to remember, only by letting Shen Yourong memorize it would it be easier to tutor his son in the future.

It was already noon, but there was no smoke from every house.

Zhu Ming sat down in the yard and asked, "Mrs. Shen, if you don't understand anything, you can point it out."

Shen Yourong actually knew many allusions to Meng Mu, Dou Yanshan, Huang Xiang, Kong Rong, etc. The first question he raised was: "It is called the ecliptic, where the sun is. It is called the equator, which is the middle power. What does this sentence mean?"

Ju Ming went to the firewood pile under the eaves, broke off a dead branch, and drew a pattern on the ground: "This is the earth, this is the sun. There are 365 degrees in the sky, and the sun moves 1 degree every day. The position of the sun every day is linked to It forms a circle. This circle is called the 'ecliptic'. This is called 'the ecliptic, where the sun shines'."

Then, Ju Ming drew another big sphere: "This is the celestial sphere, wrapping the earth. The top is the celestial pole, the bottom is the celestial south pole, and the north and south poles are connected in series to form an axis. Draw a circle around this axis in the center of the celestial sphere. The drawn circle is the 'equator' '. This is called 'the equator, the center of power'."

This thing is somewhat similar to the geocentric theory. The universe is a celestial sphere, the earth is at the center of the celestial sphere, and the sun rotates around the earth.

Ju Ming could not explain more, and it was impossible for him to talk about modern astronomical knowledge.

After all, Shen Yourong couldn't even figure out the ecliptic and equator, so what's the use of talking more?

Looking at the pattern on the ground, Shen Yourong thought about it carefully and took a long time to figure it out. He sincerely admired it: "Da Lang is really knowledgeable!"

Bai Qi, a little kid, looked at the circle representing the earth in a daze, and couldn't help but ask: "Is the earth round?"

Before Zhu Ming could speak, Shen Yourong said: "The sky is round and the earth is flat."

Bai Qi asked again: "The earth is floating in the celestial sphere, why doesn't it fall down?"

Shen Yourong couldn't answer. He looked at the pattern on the ground and couldn't help but look up at Ju Ming.

Zhu Guoxiang did not like fooling around. He took the dead branch from his son's hand and drew a model of the solar system on the ground: "The earth is round, not only round, but also a ball. This is the sun, which does not move in the middle. And the five stars of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, revolve around the sun day and night. Here is the moon, and the moon is also a ball, rotating around the earth."

Shen Yourong was dumbfounded when he heard this, but Bai Qi's eyes were shining. This little kid thought it was so magical.

Immediately afterwards, Zhu Guoxiang relied on the solar system model to explain why the moon waxes and wanes, and why the sun rises in the east and sets toward the west.

Shen Yourong clenched his fists and regarded them as the earth, and said in a daze: "We live on top of the ball, are there people living under the ball?"

"There is someone." Zhu Guoxiang said.

Shen Yourong was worried about the humans on the other side of the earth: "What will happen to those people if they fall?"

"You can't fall because the earth has universal gravity." Zhu Guoxiang said.

"What is gravity?" Shen Yourong asked.

Listening to his father's explanation, Ju Ming curled his lips and walked to the fence to look at the scenery in the distance.

With this attitude of One Hundred Thousand Whys, there is no need to talk about the "Three Character Classic" today. Since his father is so leisurely, Zhu Ming is too lazy to go over and get involved.