My Pen Pal Zhu Yuanzhang

Chapter 164 Daoyan was surprised by sweet potatoes

Mao Xiang's interest was growing, and he talked nonsense like a fool, talking about everything from the launching of the steamship to the musket battalion sweeping across the desert. Daoyan looked like a child who knew nothing, with a look of complete disbelief.

The foreign tribes in the desert, from the ancient Beidi, the Huns of the Han Dynasty, the Turks of the Tang Dynasty, to the Khitan and Jurchen in the Song Dynasty, and then to the Mongols, which one was not a serious threat to the Central Plains dynasty?
If the northern barbarians could be eliminated so easily, would it be necessary to build the Great Wall from the pre-Qin period to the present day?

As for what Mao Xiang said, that the people of the Ming Dynasty no longer have to worry about going hungry and can have full meals every day, he couldn't believe it.

It had only been a short time since the tragic scene of thousands of famine victims at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty had only been established for a short period of sixteen years. Could the food problem have been solved? How was this possible?

Zhu Yuanzhang simply decided not to take the carriage back to the palace, but to take Daoyan with him for a walk and a look around Yingtian Prefecture.

As the saying goes, seeing is believing. For some things, you can only have a concrete impression by seeing them with your own eyes.

They came all the way to the outside of Jiangdong Gate, which was an important grain trading area in Yingtian Prefecture. Daoyan knew this place and had been here many times before. In addition to supplying wholesale grain to the grain shops in Yingtian Prefecture, there were also many grain stores selling scattered grain.

The food here is mainly unpounded paddy, which is much cheaper than rice. Many poor people will push wheelbarrows here to buy cheap paddy, and then pound it themselves.

Although it is a lot of hard work, the price is cheap.

But now when Daoyan walked through here again, he found that in addition to the original grain store selling rice and grain, there were many more shops selling other things.

The thing had a brown-red skin and was round in shape, covered in mud all over, just like a lump of earth. It was ugly in appearance and no one knew what it was used for.

In some shops, the things they sell are even stranger: round, bright yellow objects placed in piles.

Daoyan felt very strange and stopped to watch for a long time. Zhu Yuanzhang and Mao Xiang looked at each other and then smiled at each other.

"Go away, monk. You haven't seen that thing before, right? It's not rare. There's nothing to see. I'll treat you to a taste later."

Mao Xiang said as he continued to walk forward with Dao Yan. Dao Yan was suspicious, "Commander Mao, is that thing edible?"

"You'll know whether you can eat it or not later."

Mao Xiang kept the secret for a while, then took Daoyan from Jiangdong Gate to Dazhong Bridge. It was a bustling place, a famous market town in Yingtian Prefecture, selling all kinds of daily necessities, rouge and powder, tea and snacks.

Many vendors were hawking their wares along the street.

"Shaobing, mahjong shaobing, fragrant and crispy mahjong shaobing, cheap."

"Tanghulu, sweet and sour Tanghulu, delicious but not sticky."

“Baked sweet potatoes, authentic local sweet potatoes, fragrant and sweet baked sweet potatoes!”

"Your Majesty, would you like to try it?" Mao Xiang chuckled. He didn't even need to say anything, as Zhu Yuanzhang knew what he was thinking just by the turn of his eyes.

"Go ahead, let the master have a taste too."

"Okay, Your Majesty, Master, please wait a moment."

After a while, Mao Xiang bought three big and fragrant sweet potatoes, "Your Majesty, please try them. Big monk, don't just stand there, try them too. You have never eaten this before." Before Li Han brought the sweet potatoes, Daoyan had already been arrested and imprisoned, so he naturally didn't know what sweet potatoes were.

But he was not a pedantic person. He took it and imitated Mao Xiang, peeling off the roasted red and black skin, revealing the golden sweet potato flesh.

Immediately afterwards, a special sweet aroma wafted into his nose, which made Daoyan, who had been eating leftovers in the imperial prison for nearly a year, salivate.

His throat moved as he swallowed, then took a light bite. Immediately, the sweet taste filled his mouth, and the soft and glutinous flavor fully stimulated his taste buds.

It was the first time he had eaten such a novel food. It tasted so good that he couldn’t stop after taking a bite. The more he ate, the more delicious it became. He didn’t care that it was hot and finished all the roasted sweet potato in his hand in a few bites.

Even after licking his fingers clean, he was still not satisfied. Seeing this, Mao Xiang bought him another one with a smile.

Daoyan stopped eating until he burped and his mouth was full of the taste of sweet potatoes. Then he looked at Zhu Yuanzhang and said:

"Your Majesty, this is called sweet potato. It tastes sweet and is very filling. I never thought that after being imprisoned for only a year, Yingtian Prefecture would have an extra delicious snack."

"Master, if you say so, you are underestimating sweet potatoes!"

Seeing Mao Xiang's smug look, Mao Xiang was a little surprised and said, "According to Commander Mao, could it be that sweet potatoes are still very useful?"

"Okay, Mao Xiang, you don't have to make fun of the master. The master has been imprisoned by you for nearly a year, so it's normal that he doesn't know about sweet potatoes."

Zhu Yuanzhang glared at Mao Xiang, who shrank his neck. He said that this was not his fault. Who had ordered Daoyan to be imprisoned?

"Master, this sweet potato is a good thing. Not only can it be used as a snack, but it can also be used as a staple food when food is scarce."

As a staple food?
Daoyan was stunned for a moment. "Sweet potatoes are sweet and delicious, and they are very easy to fill the stomach. They are perfect as a staple food."

Mao Xiang could not help but say, "Master, you still don't understand the true use of sweet potatoes. They are now being fully planted in Guangdong, Guangxi and Qiongzhou, and are being gradually promoted throughout the Ming Dynasty. Once they are planted in the northern regions, the people of the Ming Dynasty will no longer have to go hungry!"

"That's true. But after farmers plant this, how can they find land to grow crops?" Daoyan asked puzzledly.

"Master, you don't understand. Sweet potatoes can be grown in dry land instead of paddy fields. As long as there is soil, they can be cultivated anywhere. Moreover, they can be harvested twice a year. In Guangdong, Guangxi and Qiongzhou, it is not a problem to harvest three or four times a year!"

“Three or even four crops a year?”

This really shocked Daoyan. With such a high maturity rate and without occupying rice fields, this was simply a godsend for the people of the Ming Dynasty!
"Not only that, big monk, guess how many kilograms of this thing can be produced per acre?" Mao Xiang deliberately kept the question in suspense.

"Eight hundred, nine hundred?" Seeing Mao Xiang's expression, Daoyan tried to guess as high as possible. Unexpectedly, Mao Xiang's words almost made his jaw drop.

"That's not right. This sweet potato can produce at least 4,000 kilograms per mu. If it is planted well, 6,000 to 7,000 kilograms per mu is not a problem!"

"Six or seven thousand kilograms?"

Daoyan was completely dumbfounded. Although he came from a family of doctors and became a monk when he was young, he was not unfamiliar with agriculture and sericulture. On the contrary, he was well-versed in agriculture and sericulture books and was extremely familiar with the agriculture and sericulture of the common people.

How in this world can there be a grain yield of several thousand kilograms per mu? You must be bragging!
(End of this chapter)