Shipin Dalizheng

Lord Zuo pointed to the large, flat field in front of him and said with some worry, "Lord Jian'an, this land is very barren and won't grow any crops."

Rong Tang said, "Let's give it a try. If it grows, it will be a huge profit."

Lord Zuo certainly knew what it meant to grow crops on saline-alkali land, but...

Seeing Rong Tang personally building ridges to enclose a piece of experimental land for himself, he also hurried to start.

Rong Zhan finally woke up from his trance and helped Rong Tang with the work. He felt a little embarrassed for a moment, "Yingniang insisted on coming here every day. She's not idle either. She helps boil water and cook, and chats with the villagers..."

Before he could finish his words, Xu Yingniang called out in a delicate voice, "Zhan Lang, it's time to eat."

Rong Zhan trembled all over, and Rong Tang's tiger body also shook, "Go, go!"

Oh my god, so this is femininity. It’s enough to learn for a lifetime.

Rong Zhan blushed, "Master, have you eaten?"

Rong Tang hadn't eaten when he came, but he couldn't eat now. Just as he was about to say something, a horse galloped over from a distance. The face of the horse belonged to Eleven, who was two months younger than him.

Rong Tang put down his hoe and walked over. He saw Eleven, dusty and exhausted, with a face covered in dirt. He opened his mouth and said, "Young Master, Xiao Fengyu is dead."

Rong Tang paused. He thought he would be surprised, but he wasn't at all. "How did he die?"

"It was suicide. I saw it clearly. After reading the letter, he spoke to his son for a while, told him to take care of his sister when he could return to Beijing, and then he found a tree and hanged himself."

"Where's Xiao Zhenyue?"

"I first informed Master Xiao of Madam Xiao's death. He was crying when he heard his father was dead. However, he didn't see the letter. I took advantage of his confusion and took the letter back from Xiao Fengyu."

In fact, he had the opportunity to save Xiao Fengyu's life at that time, but according to Rong Tang's explanation, there were other hidden secrets in this matter, so he did not interfere with the cause and effect of the Xiao family.

If he chose to die, there must be a reason for him to die. If he didn't want to die, he could have asked for help from Earl Jian'an.

When Rong Tang heard that the letter was brought back, he thought to himself that as expected, Mrs. Xiao had no intention of hiding it from him. Or perhaps, they were dead and their children could be unaware of the truth, but she hoped that he would see it so that it could play some role.

Otherwise, Xiao Fengyu could have destroyed the letter and covered everything up.

Rong Tang opened the letter and read it. There were a few lines written on it, "Nianlang is back. We have to pay back the debt we owe. Please don't involve the child."

In other words, the Xiao family has an enemy named Nianlang, and now he is here to seek revenge. If the couple does not die, Xiao Zhenyue and Xiao Jinyue will be in danger. For the safety of the children, Mrs. Xiao persuades Xiao Fengyu to give up his life.

Mrs. Xiao was obviously afraid that after she and her husband died, their enemies would not let their children go, so she left this letter for him to see. Since he knew that someone was seeking revenge on the Xiao family, he would naturally be more careful in the future to prevent them from being harmed.

Or if they were killed, he would avenge them.

Who would Rong Tang avenge? The answer is self-evident: someone important to him. So, when Madam Xiao chose Rong Wanli as her son-in-law, she was looking for someone to protect her daughter's life, and she was confident that Rong Wanli was closer to her than "Nian Lang".

This is equivalent to entrusting an orphan to someone else.

The premise for her to believe that Rong Tang would protect Xiao Jinyue must be that the couple must die. If they don't die, the "debt" cannot be paid off and the Xiao family will be in the wrong.

Rong Tang quickly reviewed the changes that had occurred in the short ten days from the first time he met Madam Xiao to her death. She showed improvement on the first day of treatment, but on the second day, both the two great doctors said that she didn't want to live anymore.

Rong Tang didn't understand why she didn't want to live at first. She had always been taken care of by him, and even in prison she had not fallen into the most helpless and desperate situation. Seeing that she was being exiled, her whole family was still alive, and it was not impossible for them to be reunited in the future. Why should she die?

Now we finally have the answer. Everything goes around and around, and retribution will come.

Who Nianlang is seems to be about to be revealed.

He let out a breath and continued to work. When he came to the small piece of land he had enclosed, Lord Zuo had already built a ridge for him, which was about one mu (approximately one acre) in size.

As soon as they finished their meal, people from Rongjia Village came over. After the New Year, all the workshops were open, and there were not many idle young laborers in the village. Rong Dajiang greeted only old men and women and teenage girls.

As soon as the three masters arrived, they hurried to the fields. After listening to Rong Tang's plan, which was to plant beets on this vast piece of land of thousands of acres, they all said to themselves, "Oh my god! How worrying!"

No matter how worried we are, we have to work on it. We pull the wires, build ridges, and dig canals. No one doubts that anything can be grown in saline-alkali land.

People hired from nearby villages saw that there was no work left, so they helped out. When it was getting dark, they got paid and left.

From that day on, Rong Tang never returned to the capital, living and eating in Fuxin Village. He and Master Zuo did not participate in the division and management of the large fields, but focused on their own experimental fields.

The rows are forty feet apart and the plants are twenty feet apart. The seeds were planted meticulously. Lord Zuo followed suit and did the job one after another.

When the large area of ​​land was leveled and divided into small plots, and it looked like good arable land from a distance, the beet seeds they planted sprouted.

Mr. Zuo's eyes bulged out half a centimeter, "Oh my god, it's really sprouting."

Of course, the emergence of seedlings alone does not mean anything. The key is whether they can grow well and be harvested.

Rong Tang opened up several more experimental fields, some to increase fertility, some to increase water supply, a total of ten fields of various sizes, to see the final results.

During this period, Rong Dajiang went to other villages to find more people to work. Half a month later, this large piece of land was full of green spots.

The green spots were, of course, because the plants were still too small, and it was unclear whether they would grow. Even so, Master Zuo was very happy. At least this was beyond his expectations. He had always thought that nothing would grow in saline-alkali soil, but the emergence rate was at least 70% to 80%, which seemed promising.

"Lord Jian'an, you really know a lot. Is this also the experience of farming in southern Xinjiang?"

Rong Tang responded vaguely.

Although beets are not tasty, they are better than nothing when there is no food. If beets can be grown in all the saline-alkali lands in Dai Viet, it would be no less than discovering dormant buds and harvesting a second crop of rice.

Rong Tang went back to the city every day since the seedlings sprouted, coming early and leaving late. Lord Zuo never left. He lived in a thatched house at the edge of the field, accompanied by a few remnant soldiers from Fu Xinzhuang. He smiled every day as he watched the land grow greener and greener, and used a notebook to record the entire process of planting beets.

Rong Tang then personally went out again, searching for beet seeds in areas rumored to be heavily planted. He rushed to plant several hundred acres by the end of March. By that time, the investment in the saline-alkali land alone—including the land, seeds, labor, and the installation of the water hose—had totaled over two thousand taels.

And the expenses are not over yet. We still have to weed and fertilize the soil in the later stage. I don’t know what the harvest will be like and whether it will be enough to cover the cost.

Anyway, according to Lord Zuo's account books, growing beets at such a high cost is not enough to cover the cost. When beets are on the market, they cost several kilograms for one penny. Even if one can harvest a thousand kilograms from this acre of land, it will still cost him everything. He will have no place to cry.

The benefits that Lord Zuo could think of were only for the poor. They could open two acres of wasteland without paying taxes for three years, and cultivate it with their own family. Every bit of harvest was better than starving.

Jian'an Bo is such a good man. He risked his life to help the poor find a way out.

After March, the temperature starts to warm up and it is time to plant rice and sorghum in the fields.

This year, thanks to Rong Tang's intervention, many villages signed contracts to grow sweet sorghum. He notified the growers in each village one by one, and asked them to space out the planting time to make it easier for each village to collect sorghum stalks collectively, and try to extend the harvest period to two to three months.

After he finished giving instructions on this important matter, he watched the villagers go to plant the fields one by one. Suddenly it was May, and in another half a month, he would have been here for a year.