Bringing the Railway to Daming

Like most scholars at the time, the Zhu family knew that the Ming Dynasty had a high level of agriculture, far surpassing that of neighboring countries, but they did not know that it was so much higher than that of Europe at the same time.

It should be noted that Europe was the first place where the Industrial Revolution occurred in history.

For example, Zhu Biao believed that since Europe was able to undergo the Industrial Revolution in history, its agricultural level must be good, and might even be stronger than that of China.

Unexpectedly, the truth is: China's agricultural level has always been far ahead of the world!

"As early as the Neolithic Era, our ancestors had already begun using bone hoes and stone plows to dig the soil. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the emergence of iron plows and oxen dramatically increased the efficiency of farming."

"During the Han Dynasty, the plow cart, which could sow 100 mu of land in a day, was the prototype of the modern seed drill. The curved-beam plow of the Tang Dynasty reduced the effort of oxen by more than half. It can be said that China recognized the importance of intensive tillage earlier than any other civilization on Earth."

In the video, the commentary is accompanied by pictures of various ancient agricultural tools and pictures of our ancestors farming, so that Zhu Yuanzhang and others can know the time when these agricultural tools were created, and they can also marvel at and feel proud of the wisdom of their ancestors.

"From Shennong tasting hundreds of herbs to identify the five grains, to the ridge cultivation method that turned farming into a field art; from the twenty-four solar terms guiding agricultural work, to the Western Han Dynasty's 'daitian method' of rotating tillage to conserve moisture, to rotational cropping, intercropping, and multiple uses of one piece of land."

"There is no other nation in the world like the Chinese, who have fully developed their talent for farming and have taken it to the extreme..."

Seeing this, Lao Zhu and Zhu Biao couldn't help but sigh: It seems that China's agricultural tools and farming technology have always been slowly advancing. And the current level of farming is the result of the accumulated wisdom of countless ancestors.

Fortunately, both the historical Ming Dynasty and the current Ming Dynasty have contributed to the improvement of China's farming level.

Let’s not talk about it now. In history, the real popularization of cotton was due to the strong promotion of the court in the early Ming Dynasty, and the introduction of American crops such as sweet potatoes was also in the late Ming Dynasty, paving the way for the so-called "Kangxi and Qianlong Prosperous Era" in the Qing Dynasty.

The video then goes on to list how the Chinese have transformed various lands to facilitate farming.

"Two thousand years ago, the Chinese built the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, transforming the flood-prone Chengdu Plain into a fertile and prosperous land free from famine."

"We also constructed polders on lakeshores, terraced fields on hills, built trellises along rivers, raised fields on swamps, and opened up paved fields along the coast."

"Fighting for land with mountains and fields with rivers, the Chinese spent more than 4.8 years expanding their arable land from 9 million mu in the Han Dynasty to 4 million mu in the late Qing Dynasty. Finally, the Qing Dynasty ushered in a population explosion, exceeding the million mark in one fell swoop."

Hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but think of the Chinese moon landing plan he had read about in later generations, which included building an underground base on the moon to grow grains and vegetables in it to achieve food self-sufficiency in the base.

If the Xin Dynasty in the future could accomplish this, when future generations discuss the Chinese people's farming ability, they would probably add the phrase "competing with the moon for land."

This also shows that even though the Xin Dynasty entered the industrial society, the love for fields and farming remained unchanged.

While Zhu Yuanzhang was thinking about this, the content of the video changed.

"This is the power of Chinese farmers. Their hard work, facing the loess and back to the sky, can also shake the world!"

"However, these pillars who lifted up feudal dynasties with their blood and sweat also suffered severe exploitation and oppression, their bones drained of their marrow, and their efforts were spared."

"Since the Yu and Xia dynasties, the burden of taxation has been like a rat eating millet, from the tithe, the well-field system, to the equal-field system, the rent-and-use adjustment system, the two-tax system, and finally to the single whip system and the equalization of the land tax."

"Even in the early Han Dynasty, which was known for its light taxes and levies, there were still layers of exploitation, such as the head tax, the exemption tax, the tribute fee, and the household tax, in addition to the land tax..."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang frowned slightly, feeling that the video's understanding of the matter was seriously flawed.

Various taxes and even corvee labor imposed on farmers, such as land tax, were not abolished until the Xin Dynasty in later generations.

But if we look at it from ancient times to the present, the farming system related to farmers and fields has been improving overall.

In addition, before the advent of the industrial age, where would the imperial court get its finances from if it did not collect taxes from the farmers, the country's largest producer?

Without finances to support the court, how can there be a country?
As for things like extortion and layer-by-layer exploitation, most of these things happened when the dynasty was in political chaos and officials were corrupt. How can we blame the imperial court for the act of collecting taxes itself?
The video then goes on to talk about a series of achievements made by the Xin Dynasty in agriculture in later generations.

"What have the Chinese peasants, who waved goodbye for a century, broken free from their shackles and let the world run wild, done?"

"If we go back 85 years, each person in China only had 1.14 kilograms of food per day."

"Today, China's grain output has achieved a historically rare 'twenty consecutive years of bumper harvests,' remaining above 9 trillion jin for nine consecutive years! The per capita yield has reached 1.3 jin, exceeding international food security standards for many consecutive years. The Chinese people's rice bowl is firmly in their own hands!"

How many shi are 1.3 trillion jin?
Zhu Yuanzhang subconsciously converted it in his mind.

Unfortunately, he was old after all and was not that good at mathematics, so he subconsciously looked at Zhu Biao next to him.

Perhaps it was a tacit understanding between father and son, or perhaps Zhu Biao happened to be thinking about the same thing, but he whispered, "About 6.5 billion shi!"

Six and a half billion koku?!

Zhu Yuanzhang was shocked by this. Ever since the Ming Dynasty began promoting American crops like sweet potatoes, corn, and potatoes a few years ago, coupled with the vigorous construction of water conservancy projects in various regions and the guidance of officials from the Ministry of Revenue in teaching farmers the most advanced farming techniques, grain production in various regions has been rising year after year.

Before Liu Kuan arrived, the total annual grain output of the Ming Dynasty was estimated to be around 30 million dan; and as of last year, the total grain output had reached an unprecedented 70 million dan!
In ten years, the total grain output of the Ming Dynasty more than doubled!
Zhu Yuanzhang was originally quite proud of this.

But when they learned that the total grain output in later generations was 65 billion dan a year, they suddenly felt that the Ming Dynasty was defeated in seconds and there was no comparison at all - perhaps they could not even compare to the fraction after the word "billion".

The video continues.

"This bowl of rice was not easy to come by, because it was not a favorable game, but a PUBG game!"

"Using less than 10% of the world's land resources to feed 20% of the world's population is an epic achievement achieved through the hard work and collective efforts of billion Chinese people. It is the achievement of all Chinese farmers!"

"The 18 billion mu (approximately billion mu) of arable land is a red line, and every inch of it is valuable. It is of vital importance to the national economy. We need not only farmland, but also good farmland. The Northeast Black Soil Protection Project, the Southern Red Soil Acidification Control Project, and the Northwest Sand Land Reclamation Project..."

"Beyond the 18 billion mu (approximately 15 billion mu) of arable land, there are 20 billion mu (approximately billion mu) of reserve arable land. This is evident in Lankao, Henan, where Jiao Yulu planted paulownia trees with great hope; in Karamay, Xinjiang, where evaporation is more than times greater than precipitation; and in the Dongying Delta, Shandong, where the Yellow River flows into the sea."

"With the spring plowing and summer weeding of countless farmers, the dream of turning 5 million mu of barren land into a large granary is just around the corner..."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately realized that these four-character phrases, which he had never heard of before, were all methods of land reclamation and farming developed by later generations. He immediately turned his head to Zhu Biao and said, "Have you memorized them all?"

Zhu Biao nodded, "I will remember this."

The video then goes on to talk about Yuan Longping's achievements in breeding hybrid rice, as well as the manufacture and use of various agricultural machinery in later generations. Finally, it talks about how the agriculture of the new dynasty is moving from the "mechanical age" to the "intelligent age."

At this time, the video has entered the final section.

"Today, the comprehensive mechanization rate of crop cultivation and harvesting in China has exceeded 73%. There are now 220 million units of agricultural machinery equipped with Beidou terminals nationwide, and the total number of plant protection drones is nearly 20..."

The video showed a scene that shocked the entire Zhu family.

On the vast plains, huge machines were rapidly harvesting wheat; hundreds of thousands of drones took to the sky, spraying fertilizers and pesticides; in greenhouses wider than the square in front of Hongwu Gate, vegetables and fruits grew without soil, and grew well under all kinds of mysterious and impressive technological facilities!
This made many people subconsciously look at Liu Kuan.

Although they knew that Liu Kuan came from the future and the scenes in the video were all created by technology, this way of farming still made some people, especially the old concubines of Zhu who had lived in the deep palace for a long time, suspect again that the "future" Liu Kuan came from was actually heaven, not the mortal world.

After all, those farming methods are no different from the magic of immortals.

At this moment, the background music of the video suddenly changed, with suona as the main instrument and drums as the auxiliary instrument. It became extremely passionate, like a war song, which made people's blood boil.

"In 2021, nearly 1 million rural residents in China were lifted out of poverty, marking a victory in the largest and most intensive poverty alleviation campaign on earth, contributing over 70% to global poverty reduction!"

"Three million Chinese people have bravely fought their way through poverty alleviation, and 1800 have died for it!"

"Today, when we look back at the history of China's agricultural civilization, it is a century of transforming the world, two thousand years of fighting against nature, and ten thousand years of defying fate!"

Perhaps it was because the video was too infectious, or perhaps it was because the "war song" was too passionate, but for a moment many young princes and grandchildren of the emperor could not help but stand up.

"As we unfold the long scroll of time, from the snowy plateau to the sandy seashore, from towering mountains to the grasslands and Gobi Desert, from the bean sprouts on Zheng He's treasure ship to the green onions under the windowsills of ordinary people, the Chinese people's passion for farming has never been extinguished."

"From Shennong, Dayu, and Li Bing, to Wang Jing, Su Shi, Guo Shoujing, and Lin Zexu, to Ding Ying, Yuan Longping, Yang Shouren, and finally Jiao Yulu and Chen Yonggui... this land has never been blessed by gods. Every cultivator who refuses to bow to fate is their own patron saint!"

The video ended after it made the point, but the Zhu family still couldn't recover for a long time.

After about a minute, Old Zhu sighed, "This video is really well made. It's a pity that we can't keep it. Otherwise, we would have to let all the descendants of the Old Zhu family see it."

Zhu Biao said, "Father, after the banquet, I can write down an article recounting the contents from memory and record it in the secret volume of the Imperial Ming Ancestor's Instructions, so that it can be passed down to future generations."

"Okay!" Zhu Yuanzhang nodded with a smile, "Then I'll leave this matter to you, Biao'er."

At this point, Zhu Xiongying asked, "Teacher, will farming in the future really use so many high-tech methods like in the video? What about the intelligent era of agriculture?"

Liu Kuan said, "I haven't farmed in the future, but I did visit an agricultural base. Those agricultural bases located on the plains are indeed mechanized and controlled by intelligent systems."

"Often, a dozen people can cultivate tens of thousands of acres of land. With the help of various high-tech tools, we can monitor the status of crops and water, fertilize, and spray pesticides at designated locations and times, making the grain yield per acre much higher than manual farming."

"I see."

Zhu Yuanzhang then asked, "Liu Kuan, in the video, it was said that 'a full meal is hard-earned, it's not a game of luck, but a game of survival'. What does that mean?" (End of this chapter)