Spring comes to the desperate place

Gu Fengyue had never farmed before, but he still knew the basic common sense. As for the fields under his family's name, the annual yield per acre was basically around four hundred to five hundred kilograms. Occasionally, in a better year, it would reach more than five hundred kilograms. Therefore, although he felt that the yield mentioned by Song Dazhuang was a lot, he was not too surprised.

However, Song Dazhuang added, "This is only the yield of half an acre of land. A lot of the sweet potatoes were damaged by thieves before. Otherwise, the yield would have to increase."

This time, not only Gu Fengyue, but even the housekeeper and servants standing beside them all widened their eyes.

The servants looked at each other, and then their eyes fell on the basket on the ground.

Can these two gray lumps of soil really produce 1,000 or even 1,400 kilograms per mu?

Gu Fengyue keenly realized that this was a big deal, so he kept all the potatoes and sweet potatoes, ordered people to put them in the warehouse, and told no one to tell anyone.

Song Dazhuang had to rush back to the village, and before leaving, he asked Gu Fengyue to visit the Song family again if he was free tomorrow.

"Chunlin planted an acre of potatoes and sweet potatoes in the wasteland and mountains around our house for fun. They should be ripe by now. If you and the Marquis are free tomorrow, you can go and take a look. You will know whether what we said is true or not."

Gu Fengyue didn't quite understand: "But why should we plant crops on wasteland? Isn't wasteland called wasteland because it can't grow food?"

Song Dazhuang laughed: "It's not because the land is bad that we can't grow crops. Anyway, our potatoes and sweet potatoes can bear fruit even if they are planted in wasteland. And the corn you gave Chunlin before, Chunlin has also grown it. They all have two or three ears, and the yield is much higher than that of potted plants."

Hearing that Song Chunlin had grown two ears of corn, Gu Fengyue immediately became interested. It's not like he had never seen two ears of corn before, but two ears of corn were rare and he had only seen them once by chance. After hearing from Song Dazhuang that Song Chunlin had grown three ears of corn, Gu Fengyue became even more curious and wished it would be dawn so that he could go and see the three ears of corn in the Song family's field.

Not long after Song Dazhuang left, Gu Fengyun came back. Thinking of his brother who was on leave today, he came back early on purpose and wanted to have dinner with Gu Fengyue.

Seeing the baked potatoes and sweet potatoes brought from the kitchen on the dining table, Gu Fengyun sniffed the fragrance in the air.

"Is this the roasted sweet potato you mentioned? The fragrance is really overbearing, and I can smell it from a long distance. Is this grown by the Song family?"

Gu Fengyue nodded, broke open a sweet potato and handed it to Gu Fengyun. The golden flesh was baked thoroughly and he could feel the soft and delicious taste inside before he even ate it. Gu Fengyun took a bite tentatively and found that it was just as his brother said, sweet and soft. Gu Fengyun finished one in no time and licked his lips with a feeling of being unsatisfied.

Gu Fengyun reached out to take the second one, and did not forget to ask Gu Fengyue how much the production of this thing was.

Gu Fengyue: "One thousand kilograms."

"Oh, one thousand...what? One thousand kilograms!" Gu Fengyun stopped eating the sweet potatoes in shock. He looked down at the sweet potatoes in his hand, and there didn't seem to be anything special about them.

"Just this, just this lump of soil, it produces a thousand kilograms per acre?" The annual output of the family's fields would be bound into a book and presented to him, so Gu Fengyun naturally knew what a yield of a thousand kilograms per acre meant.

That's a thousand kilograms! Even if it can't be eaten as a staple food, a thousand kilograms is still a very considerable amount.

After getting Gu Fengyue's affirmative answer, Gu Fengyun suddenly felt awe for the small sweet potato in his hand. This thing has a much higher yield than wheat. If it can be used as a staple food to replace wheat, one acre will produce one thousand kilograms, and ten acres will produce tens of thousands of kilograms. How many people can be fed with that?

Seeing that his brother was still in shock, Gu Fengyue spoke slowly, "Uncle Song said that potatoes have a higher yield than sweet potatoes. One acre of land can yield 1,400 kilograms."

Gu Fengyun: “…”

Suddenly I felt that my worldview had been reshaped.

Gu Fengyun picked up a round potato and whispered softly, "This lump of soil can actually grow so fast."

Gu Fengyun looked at the basket of roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes for a long time, and then he said slowly, "Uncle Song sent these here to seek shelter, right?"

Gu Fengyue: "Will brother give it to me?"

Gu Fengyun turned around and looked at his brother, smiling brightly: "Give it to them, of course I will. Not only that, I will also find them the strongest umbrella of protection in the world."

The next day, Gu Fengyun brought Gu Fengyue and twenty guards from the mansion to collect sweet potatoes and potatoes for the Song family.

Grandpa Song held Song Xiaobao and sat beside them, accompanied by the Ninth Prince. Gu Fengyun did not explain the Ninth Prince's identity to the Song family, but just asked them to call him Xiaojiu.

At this time, Xiaojiu was standing in front of Grandpa Song bored, teasing the sleepy Song Xiaobao.

In the fields on the hillside nearby, twenty guards were divided into five teams, each team was responsible for a ridge of land, two people were hoeing the ground, and two people were responsible for squatting on the ground to dig.

These people usually have a lot of training, and this time they came to dig the ground for the Song family, which was purely a warm-up exercise. They cooperated tacitly, and after the two people in front finished digging the ground, they would run to the front to look for any fish that had escaped the net in the ground.

On the contrary, the Song family next door seemed more leisurely. The family was only responsible for one ridge of land. Song Dazhuang and his wife were both good at work. Their movements were more skillful, and compared with those energetic guards, they were not much inferior.

The yield in the wasteland is naturally not high. Song Chunlin has no intention of making these things become a myth. What he wants is to let the world know that potatoes and sweet potatoes can be harvested even in the barren wasteland. In this way, even if people do not have fertile fields, or are reluctant to use good fields to experiment with these new things, they can plant them in the wasteland first.

As for those refugees who don’t even have land, as long as they have seeds and reclaim a piece of wasteland, they can barely fill their stomachs.

With strength in numbers, they soon dug up all the two acres of wasteland. The output of wasteland was indeed not as good as that of fertile fields, but Song Dazhuang was surprised to find that the output here was only 40% less than that of fertile fields.

Forty percent may sound like a lot, but considering the barrenness of the wasteland, it is indeed a good number.

Gu Fengyun calculated in his mind that the yield was higher than that of wheat, not to mention that this was still barren land.

Song Dazhuang pointed to the wasteland and said, "My Lord, this piece of wasteland is mostly sand and gravel, and these potatoes and sweet potatoes are planted underground. The sandy soil is relatively loose, which may be more suitable for the growth of crop roots and stems, so it is so high-yielding."

"Uncle Song, I heard that this is your first time growing these things. Why do you want to grow these things you've never seen before?"

Song Dazhuang smiled bitterly for a moment, "Lord Gu knows that we are fleeing from famine. On the way, we were so hungry that we had nothing to eat, so we had to dig up grass roots and peel tree bark. But you can't imagine how bad grass roots and tree bark taste. When our family was in the most difficult time, we relied on these lumps of earth we dug to survive."

"When I first dug sweet potatoes, they were growing in patches in the field, all green. We dug them out hoping for the best. Fortunately, they are not poisonous and taste good. Moreover, a sweet potato plant can produce at least 20 sweet potatoes, each weighing almost a pound. Lord, if you were extremely hungry and saw a pound of sweet potatoes, could you guarantee that you would not be tempted?"

Gu Fengyun was unable to answer. He picked up one of the sweet potatoes and shook it. It was indeed heavy in his hand.

Song Chunlin took Gu Fengyue to see the three ears of corn he planted. The corn had already matured, but Song Chunlin kept them just in the hope that they would grow longer.

But now that Gu Fengyue has come, Song Chunlin naturally has to give face to Gu Fengyue.

One of them was holding Song Xiaobao, and the other was holding Xiaojiu. In the middle, Xiaojiu was holding Song Xiaobao. The two of them swayed as they followed their brothers through the fields.

When Xiaojiu came to the fields for the first time, he felt that everything was new. He looked left and right and was dazzled by the sight.

Xiaojiu kept whispering "Wow! Wow! Wow!" the whole time. He was very curious about everything he saw and always wanted to reach out and touch it, especially after seeing the bright red chili peppers.

The peppers were brightly colored. Xiao Jiu carefully reached out and touched them. Song Chunlin quickly reminded him, "You can't pick or touch these things. It will hurt if they get on your skin."

Xiaojiu in front didn't quite understand what was said, but still nodded obediently.

After harvesting all the sweet potatoes and potatoes, Gu Fengyun led his men to load all those things onto the cart. This time, they happened to have got a few carts before they came, and they pulled them with horses, and they galloped all the way towards the palace gate.

After entering the palace, he hurriedly pulled all these things to the outside of the Third Prince's bedroom. When the Third Prince heard that Gu Fengyun had brought him more than a dozen lumps of earth, he was confused.

The third prince finally walked out of his bedroom. Looking at the baskets that filled the yard, he inexplicably felt that his bedroom was indeed a bit crowded.

Words are not enough to prove anything. Gu Fengyue had already asked someone to write down the production of the two and handed it to the third prince.

The Third Prince didn't take it seriously at first, thinking that these clods of dirt were useless, and he just glanced at the paper in his hand. However, just this one glance made his eyes gradually widen.

With a barely perceptible tremor in his voice, he asked Gu Fengyun: "Gu Aiqing, how many kilograms do these two things yield per mu?"

Gu Fengyun said calmly, "Your Highness, take this half-acre of land as an example. The sweet potatoes have reached 500 kilograms, and the potatoes have reached 1,400 kilograms. This yield was produced by a villager in Yongle Village. I also sent people to their wasteland and found that the yield was not false. In addition, part of the crops were planted in the wasteland behind their home, and the yield was 60% of that of the good farmland. I personally sent people to monitor this part, so there is absolutely no chance of falsehood."

So these two lumps of earth turned out to be real treasures.

The third prince also became interested. He picked up one of them and looked at it carefully. There didn't seem to be anything strange about it, except that the sweet potato was indeed heavy.

"Gu Aiqing, tell me, what reward do you want?"

Gu Fengyun smiled and said, "Your Highness, can you let me take full responsibility for distributing the sweet potato and potato seeds? In addition, Your Highness, please reward that civilian family."

The third prince thought about it and realized that this was the case. He was delighted and confirmed it.

Before Gu Fengyun left, he wrote down a few recipes about potatoes and sweet potatoes for the Third Prince. The Third Prince was in a good mood and handed the recipes to the imperial chef with a wave of his hand.

It was the first time for the royal chef to make this kind of strange food. After looking at it from left to right, he felt that it was really difficult to start with. In the end, he simply threw it all into the fire, intending to roast it directly according to the recipe.

After the imperial chef pulled the roasted sweet potatoes and potatoes out of the fire, an overbearing and strong aroma wafted out, attracting some palace servants who came to serve their master's meals to block the door. They couldn't help but gather together because of the aroma. One of them was particularly lucky and got a small piece of sweet potato from the imperial chef.

The third prince looked at the roasted sweet potatoes in front of him and fell into deep thought.

How should I eat this thing?

Gu Fengyun entered the village in a very high-profile manner, bringing three carts full of rewards. He was accompanied by a senior eunuch from the palace, who was responsible for conveying the imperial edict.

"Send it, His Royal Highness the Third Prince has issued an oral order. The Song family has made great contributions by offering treasures. They will be rewarded with 100 taels of gold, a bucket of pearls, a pair of jade ruyi, two boxes of silk and satin, and a basket of fruits for each season. Order Song Dazhuang to distribute sweet potato and potato seeds to the people in each prefecture tomorrow and teach them the planting techniques. The teaching location will be decided by the Song family. Volunteers will be given priority, and the first come first served."

Finally, the eunuch smiled and helped Grandpa Song up: "Please stand up, old man. Your family is going to be rich."

Grandpa Song's face was full of red. "Thank you for your kind words. You have worked hard, father-in-law. Here, a little gift is not enough to show respect."

Grandpa Song unnoticeably stuffed a purse into his hand and handed it to the eunuch. He felt the thickness of the purse in his palm and smiled.

The news that the Song family had received the imperial edict spread like wildfire. Within a day, everyone in the surrounding area knew about the two new crops, potatoes and sweet potatoes. Hearing that they were high-yield crops that even the crown prince had praised, everyone scrambled to see what these two things looked like. But after a few days, there were many people who came to watch the fun, but very few who were willing to plant them.

The reason is that these two are new things after all, and most people remain on the sidelines about new things, and some people are skeptical about the production of both.

The fact that Song Dazhuang's family was the only one planting the crops could not dispel everyone's suspicions, so after a few days, Song Dazhuang only got the support of the village chief and the head of the neighborhood.

As for the other villagers, they were all waiting and watching, wondering how much the Song family would produce next year. If the yield was really as high as they said, it would not be too late to plant again then.

The Song family also understood that people these days had very few staple foods to eat, so it was understandable that they were skeptical about potatoes and sweet potatoes.