The most arrogant in history

Ye Kun shook his head and smiled: "I don't need so much. Let's not talk about this for now, let's go to the inn and take a rest."

Not far from the port is the city.

Three years ago, when the construction of the new capital of Zhuo County began, a large port was also being built here.

Because Zhuo County has poor transportation, it must have sea transportation support to develop, and this port is indispensable.

Too lazy to come up with a name, Ye Kun called this place Tianjin Port and ordered the construction of Tianjin Port City and many huge government warehouses as an important logistics turning point for sea transportation.

Looking at the prosperous and busy port, Xiahou Chang was very emotional: "Your Majesty, you are much smarter than me. I didn't think of developing large sea ships at that time."

"With your skills, you can't develop them." Ye Kun said with a smile:

"If it comes to developing a navy, Xiao Dequan was an expert at that time. At that time, Xiao Dequan had more than 10,000 warships of various sizes, which was quite impressive. But when Xiao Dequan's warships went to sea, they were still a little bit inferior, and could only play in rivers and lakes."

"Xiao Dequan...are you okay now?"

"Very well, he stays at home reading books every day and accompanies his concubine in giving birth. I heard that he is still in good health and had several more children last year."

"That's amazing." Xiahou Chang smiled bitterly.

"You are amazing, you have dozens of sons." Ye Kun said with a smile:

"I plan to find an opportunity to invite you, Xiao Dequan, and the retired emperor Gongsun Zhang to come over so that old friends can have a chat. Oh, and there's also the great celestial master Zhang Mi and Wei Ning. Back then, we fought each other and it was a lively scene."

Xiahou Chang sighed, "Your Majesty, I am so ashamed. If I had known this would happen, I should have surrendered earlier."

"Yes, beating you down cost me the most."

Ye Kun rolled his eyes: "If you hadn't resisted stubbornly, China would have 10 million more people now. If there were 10 million people, we would have ruled the world now."

The problem now is the lack of population, which makes Ye Kun so anxious that his eyes are burning with anger.

This time, after the capture of Liaodong and Goguryeo, plus immigrants from India, Rome, and Jiaozhi, as well as the newborn population, the total population was almost 30 million.

However, if the Chinese people want to dominate every corner of the world, this population is still not enough.

Xiahou Chang smiled and said, "In fact, there are too many people. It will be difficult to feed them in the future."

"Nonsense. Give me 200 million people now, and I won't have any problem getting enough food and water."

Ye Kun rolled his eyes again.

Sang Buyi and others were at Tianjin Port to welcome the emperor.

When he arrived in the city, Ye Kun changed his clothes, met everyone and had dinner together.

Qin Chou ordered someone to bring out a few plates of fried peanuts and said with a smile:

"Your Majesty, this year we harvested more than 10,000 kilograms of peanuts. We have prepared 300 kilograms for everyone to taste, and the rest will be kept for seeds. We have also successfully bred corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes."

Ye Kun ate two peanuts and nodded, saying, "Everyone, try it. These are new things that you have never eaten before."

The officials present and Xiahou Chang tasted the peanuts, sweet potatoes, corn and potatoes together and praised them highly.

Ye Kun raised the corn on the table and said with a wry smile: "This corn is wild and needs further cultivation. Our farms in various places will try to grow it and select the good varieties before promoting it."

The corn brought back from the New World had a very low yield.

The corn cob is like a chopstick, with only a few dozen kernels of corn on it.

There is a huge difference between it and the corn cobs of later generations.

Therefore, Ye Kun felt that it would still require long-term domestication.

The traditional millet of China was domesticated from foxtail grass. The same goes for corn, which requires a domestication process.

Qin Chou nodded and said, "Your Majesty, rest assured. We have selected more than 200 locations, east, west, south, north, mountains and plains, to plant these foreign crops and select the good ones for seeds. In a few years, we will definitely have high-yield corn."

The same thing happened when cotton was introduced.

The cotton yield was very low, but through a scattershot breeding approach and selection of improved varieties, the cotton yield has greatly increased in the past two years, with an average yield of 60 kilograms of lint cotton per mu.

Qin Chou continued to report on the agricultural situation:

"The cotton harvest in the Jianghuai region has been great, and textile mills have been built in various places. In the market, the prices of cotton and cotton cloth have finally fallen. This winter, every family should have cotton quilts and cotton clothes."

Ye Kun nodded: "The promotion of cotton is considered a success. The area of ​​jute cultivation should be further reduced. From now on, jute will have no major uses except for hemp ropes and sacks."

Qin Chou asked, "Should we reduce the area of ​​mulberry trees?"

"Mulberry bark can be used to make paper, so we can just consume it slowly. There's no need to deliberately reduce it. Raising mulberry trees and silkworms is a thousand-year-old tradition and it can't be abolished all at once."

Ye Kun thought for a moment and said, "Let the people adjust mulberry, hemp, silk and cotton by themselves in the future. They will naturally plant what makes money. But peanuts, sweet potatoes and corn have just been introduced and must be promoted compulsorily."

Qin Chou smiled and said, "We are still in the breeding stage. Large-scale promotion among the people will have to wait until at least the year after next."

China is a country with a very large area, and the amount of seeds it uses is also terrifying.

We didn't dare waste any of the peanuts, potatoes, corn and sweet potatoes harvested this year and saved them all for seeds.

We will continue breeding for another year next year, and the year after that it should be possible to promote it in small quantities among the public.

Ma Zhengyang from the Ministry of Industry said: "The Western Ocean Expeditionary Fleet returned with seven large ships last month, bringing back 300 five-year-old rubber trees. They have been transplanted in Jiaozhi and Qiongdao. It is estimated that they will be able to tap the rubber soon and conduct experiments."

The seeds I brought back last time have just sprouted. I have grown them into seedlings and started transplanting them.

If you want to tap rubber, you have to wait two or three years.

So this time, when the expedition team returned, they transplanted the rubber trees into wooden barrels and water tanks and brought them back across the ocean.

Although there are only 300 trees, we can start testing rubber products.

"Very good. When the future voyage comes back, we can bring back another batch of living trees."

Ye Kun nodded and asked about the plans for railways and the Grand Canal.

Ye Qingyang reported: "The Han Canal has been dredged and expanded, and 100,000 civilians have been mobilized. It is expected to be completed by the end of the year. As for the railway planning..."

Sang Buyi took over the conversation:

"The cost of building a railway is too high. We have calculated that a one-mile railway requires 200 tons of steel. A thousand-mile railway requires 200,000 tons of steel. I feel that we can't afford it. Lord Wu Qiong also means the same thing, so we have a plan, but we dare not start construction."

Two hundred thousand tons of steel, this number scared everyone.

Converted into kilograms, that would be a weight of several hundred million kilograms.

It is equivalent to giving each person in this country more than ten kilograms of iron.

In other words, every person in the country would have to smelt more than ten kilograms of iron in order to build a thousand-mile long railway.

Ye Kun smiled and said, "Thanks to Mr. Xiahou Chang, the Liaodong Iron Mine has been developed. It is inexhaustible and the quality of the iron ore is very good. If we add more miners, the Liaodong Iron Mine alone will produce hundreds of thousands of tons of steel every year. So I think we can definitely afford it."

Liaodong iron ore is of good quality and contains nearly 50 percent iron.

Digging one pound of iron ore can produce half a pound of iron.

Wu Qiong said: "But building a railway requires more than just steel. It also requires a large number of technicians. Ordinary civilians cannot do this kind of work and can only do rough labor. No matter from which aspect, I think it is not appropriate to build a railway now."