The girl traveled through another world and forced the prince to take the imperial examination

Yun Qing also seemed to sense the awkward atmosphere, so he spoke first, "I heard from the villagers that you are discussing matters related to the Winter Moon Festival. Is there anything you need our help with?"

The village chief waved his hand and said, "There's nothing to prepare for the Winter Moon Festival. When the time comes, everyone will prepare the sacrifices together, and then we'll slaughter the New Year pig. Miss Mu, you must remember to come to the slaughtering of the New Year pig. It's going to be very lively."

Mu Qingcheng nodded excitedly on the side. She must come to this kind of excitement.

Yun Qing almost rolled his eyes. Is it appropriate to invite a girl to watch the New Year pig slaughter? But he didn't stop him: "Then I will definitely come when the time comes!"

"Okay, okay, we're going to worship our ancestors on the eleventh day of the winter month. I wonder if Mr. Mu would like to come and participate. Although your ancestors are not here, you are from Daxi Village, so you can also come and participate."

Yun Qing nodded and said, "I will definitely come that day."

Mu Qingcheng was shocked when she heard this. "Wow! Isn't this Double Eleven? I don't know what kind of event it is."

The village chief was even happier when he heard this. He thought that their village had such a distinguished figure. He was afraid that even their ancestors would be overjoyed to see him. Daxi Village was going to prosper.

After Li Zheng saw them finish talking about ancestor worship, they brought up some unhappy things, namely that the court had issued another tax order.

Yun Qing frowned upon hearing this. The village chief was also worried. This year, the drought had caused a poor harvest, and the imperial court had increased taxes, requiring every household to pay an additional two dou of fine rice. One dou of fine rice cost thirty-five wen, so two dou was seventy wen. This worried the village chief deeply.

Someone said, "We don't have enough food to begin with. We rely on selling the little refined grain to exchange for coarse grain, which can last us until April or May. Without the refined grain, we'll only have the little we have left. How can we make it to the harvest next year? We'll be lucky if we can make it to spring! Some families with large families are even borrowing food now."

"This is really cruel. March and April are the lean season. The old grain has been eaten up, and the new grain won't come in time. Are we supposed to abandon our crops and flee to other places?"

Yun Qing said, "People live by the mountains and by the water. They can't rely solely on crops for their livelihood. They can hunt and gather in the mountains, and all of these can be used as food."

The village chief and Li Zheng both shook their heads and sighed. The village chief said, "There's nothing to eat on the mountain nearest our village. The grass on the mountain has been plucked bare. It's even difficult for the people to get firewood. Now going up the mountain to chop firewood often means fighting with other villages."

Li Zhengdao said, "If you want to go hunting in the mountains and gather food for the winter, you have to go to Dongling Mountain. What's the situation with Dongling Mountain these years? Who dares to go up the mountain? Women who go up the mountain to dig wild vegetables never come back. Young people who go up the mountain to hunt all disappear inexplicably. Alas! You can't go up this mountain."

Yun Qing's face darkened terribly after hearing this. They were from Lao Chen Village again, so this group of cancer had to be eliminated.

But he was also deeply concerned about the predicament he faced, a reality shared by the entire Great Qi State. Located in the far north, the Great Qi State had a short summer, meaning only one harvest a year. Nanyue, on the other hand, had a warm climate and could harvest two crops. Therefore, during lean times, the Great Qi State relied on Nanyue for supplies.

Due to frequent droughts in various places this year, the imperial court had no choice but to increase taxes in the south.

"Can't we grow grain in winter?"

A gentle female voice suddenly rang out from the dull and depressing room.

Everyone looked in the direction of the voice and saw Mu Qingcheng, who was sitting behind Yun Qing, looking at them with an incredible look.

"Planting grain? How can we plant it when winter is about to come?" An old man shook his head and sighed. Young people nowadays don't know anything.

"But I remember a book saying that if wheat is too late to plant, winter grain can be planted. Am I mistaken?"

"Donggu?" Everyone looked at each other. They had never heard of him.

Yun Qing frowned in thought. He hadn't read any books about winter grain either. The Great Qi Kingdom had countless scholars and patriots who had searched through ancient and modern books and never found a cure. If such a record existed, it would have been used long ago.

The village chief said, "I've been farming all my life, and I've never heard of growing grain in winter. No one in the entire Qi State has ever done that. Miss Mu, you must have remembered it wrongly."

Yun Qing's eyes lit up. However, Mu Qingcheng was not from Da Qi! Perhaps her hometown really had records about Donggu. His eyes were full of hope.

Mu Qingcheng didn't know how to farm. In their modern times, grain seeds had undergone countless improvements, and frost and drought resistance had long been solved. Unfortunately, she didn't know how to farm. She could only find the most backward methods in some ancient books.

She closed her eyes and tried hard to recall an ancient article she had read.

"The day before the winter solstice, select grain seeds and place them in an urn. Tie the mouth with linen cloth, dig a hole four or five feet deep, place the urn upside down in the hole, and seal it with soil. After fourteen days, remove the seeds and plant them in the ground on the day of the Great Cold. In the spring, seedlings will sprout and mature a month earlier than normal, around the end of May or the beginning of June."

She recited silently, and when she opened her eyes she saw everyone in the room looking at her.

You could hear a pin drop in the hall, and no one had reacted yet.

"Nuannuan, are you serious? If we plant crops like this, we can really harvest the crops by the end of May."

Mu Qingcheng didn’t know whether this method would work, but it definitely worked for her.

Yun Qing was also a little excited: "If this method is feasible, how many fewer people will die in the Great Qi Kingdom every year? In other words, you may have saved tens of thousands of people."

Yun Qing explained to her why Great Qi was so short of food. Mu Qingcheng then realized that Great Qi was located in the north, and the country suffered from drought and little rain. Famines were common, and the people often couldn't afford to eat. In many places, people had to flee the famine in winter and return home to farm the following spring.

Thirty years ago, after Nanyue surrendered to the Great Qi, the Great Qi finally had granaries. Food shortages in the south were alleviated, though limited to avoiding starvation. But winter in the north was still a food shortage. Every winter, many families resorted to selling off their children, but one child was only enough to provide food for one winter. What about next year?

"So, we can also grow two crops of rice."

"Two crops of rice! Thanks to our ancestors, we have half an extra crop this year! Even after paying the taxes, we can't eat it all. We simply can't eat it all!"

"This is nonsense, absolutely nonsense. Don't believe the nonsense of a little girl. She is so young. I'm afraid she has never even planted a field." An elderly elder stood up to object.

The people who were just excited were suddenly poured with a bucket of cold water. They all sat back down in a daze.

Yun Qing frowned. There were always some old stubborn people who acted like clowns.

Yun Qing sneered, "If it's true or not, how can you know if you don't try it? Do you think you'll get food dropped from the sky if you just sit here and wait to die?"

The old man was afraid of Yun Qing's aura, so he just snorted coldly and sat aside unconvinced.

The village chief was eager to try, but how could he convince the villagers? They had never heard of growing winter grain and two crops of rice.

Yun Qing also understood. He said to the village chief, "This is what my sister suggested. Let's give it a try! I'm willing to sell another fifty acres of land. Together with the existing land, a total of one hundred acres will be used as experimental fields."

Everyone gasped, what a generous move!

"Isn't this too risky? What if the seeds don't grow? That's enough seeds for a hundred acres of land. Mr. Mu, why don't you plant fifty acres first?"

Yun Qing shook his head and said, "If we can really grow winter grain, it will be a major event that benefits both the country and the people. We can't be timid. I still need the village chief's help. After all, these one hundred acres of land will require some manpower."

The village chief was even happier when he heard this. He was just worried about how to resolve the tax order issue! Now, a noble person has come to help him, right?

From this perspective, one hundred acres of land wasn't too much. Yun Qing understood the village chief's intentions and said, "We can have each family send one person to work as a long-term laborer, with each person receiving five hundred coins per month."

"What?" The village chief jumped up. He must have heard correctly! It was the off-season, and the strong laborers in the village went to the county town to work. It was hard and tiring work, and they only earned a dozen coins a day. There was not work every day, and they also had food and accommodation in the county town. In total, they were lucky to take home a hundred coins.

"But I have the conditions. There are more than 60 households in Daxi Village. If each household sends one person, that's more than 60 people. This 100 mu of land doesn't need that many people. I'll use them for the first month, and then I'll eliminate half of them."

"Sure, sure!" The village chief agreed immediately. He knew that this was Mr. Mu helping the villagers, otherwise why would he need so many people for a hundred acres of land?