Armed with a machete and a gun, armed with a system, they fled the famine.

"Uncle Muramasa, what did you say? This blade of grass is... a sweet potato sprout?"

A young man asked in surprise, "Is this how sweet potato seedlings grow? How can one seedling produce several sweet potato plants? I don't think that's very likely."

He had heard of sweet potatoes, but had never seen one, let alone knew how they grew.

He doesn't know how to grow sweet potatoes, but he knows how to grow other crops.

Crops like wheat, millet, and soybeans don't grow from a single seedling into several large sweet potato plants.

Therefore, he was skeptical of what Zhou Hu said.

Some of the other villagers remained silent, while others expressed doubt.

"Yes, Muramasa, how can you be so sure this seedling will grow into a sweet potato? What if you're wrong?"

"That is to say, if we go through all the trouble of planting it, and nothing grows at all, then all our efforts will have been wasted."

Hearing the villagers' doubts, Zhou Hu immediately said irritably, "To be honest, I don't know if this stuff can actually grow sweet potatoes, but I do know that these sweet potato seedlings were specially left for us by Xiao Zhao. If you don't want to plant them, then just pretend that what I just said was nonsense."

He waved his hand and began to chase people away.

"Alright, I have nothing more to say. Go back to where you came from."

When the villagers who had been hesitant heard that the sweet potato seedlings were specially left for them by Zhao Yan, their hesitation vanished, and they all scrambled to have the seedlings.

"Muramasa, I want it, I want it."

"Uncle Muramasa, my family too, my family wants it too."

"And me, I..."

Upon seeing this scene and realizing that it was Zhao Yan's doing, the villagers who had been spouting discouraging words immediately changed their attitude and joined in the scrambling and grabbing.

“Uncle Village Chief, my family needs a lot of them. I trust Madam Zhao.”

"Yes, yes, Muramasa, I must have been out of my mind just now. Don't take it personally. My family wants to plant these sweet potato seedlings too."

joke.

Zhao Niangzi led them to boil beeswax, which they then sold and made a lot of money.

Now that they're generously sharing sweet potato seedlings with them, only a fool wouldn't take advantage of that.

He wants to plant it!

He wants to get his whole family involved in planting it!

He believed that if Zhao Niangzi said it was a sweet potato sprout, then it really was a sweet potato sprout!

Seeing how quickly the villagers' attitudes changed, Zhou Hu couldn't help but twitch his lips.

If he had known that Xiao Zhao had such a strong reputation among the villagers, he would have just said so directly.

He wasted a lot of his breath.

He raised his hand to signal the villagers to be quiet, and then continued, "Okay, since everyone is willing to try planting, then later each family will send a representative, and I will distribute the sweet potato seedlings to everyone."

"Don't rush to plant the sweet potato seedlings. Xiao Zhao told us that there are some important things to know about planting them. We'll go to Qiu Zhen's field with her later so she can demonstrate how to plant them."

Qiu Zhen wanted to say that she didn't plan to plant them in her family's land, but seeing that the sweet potato seedlings would wither if they weren't planted soon, she gritted her teeth and nodded to the villagers, saying, "Yes, I learned how to plant sweet potato seedlings from Xiao Zhao. Everyone, come with me to the field later to see how to plant them."

Upon hearing this, the villagers immediately urged, "Alright, alright, village head, let's hurry up and distribute the sweet potato seedlings."

"Yes, yes, Uncle Muramasa, let's start dividing the sweet potato seedlings."

Zhou Hu was furious again.

“You were the ones who didn’t want to plant earlier, and now you’re the ones urging us to plant. What’s the rush? A day or two won’t make a difference.”

Despite his words, he couldn't resist the villagers' repeated urging and, with the help of Qiu Zhen and Zhou Renbin, quickly distributed a bamboo basket of sweet potato seedlings.

"Alright, everyone take your things home first, and we'll go straight to Qiu Zhen's field later."

After giving instructions to the villagers, Zhou Hu hurriedly returned home with two thick bundles of sweet potato seedlings in his arms.

Before long, all the villagers of Huaihua Village came to Qiu Zhen's fields.

Qiu Zhen called over all her eldest, second, third, and fourth sons, and even her several half-grown grandsons to help dig holes in the field.

She has a large family and is allocated a lot of land.

So she consulted her family and decided to plant two acres of sweet potatoes in one go.

Before planting sweet potatoes, Qiu Zhen first asked her sons to divide the two acres of land into rows.

When it was almost time, she picked up a few sweet potato seedlings and went down to the ground to teach the villagers how to plant sweet potatoes.

Some villagers, fearing they would forget about it when they got back, went down to help plant a few more.

So, this person planted a few trees, that person planted a few trees, and Qiu Zhen's two acres of land were quickly planted without much effort.

"After planting the sweet potato seedlings, don't rush to cover them with soil. First, water the hole. After the roots of the sweet potato seedlings have absorbed enough water, then cover the seedlings, leaving only the upper part of the stems and leaves."

It wasn't until they had almost finished planting their own two acres of land that all the villagers finally learned how to grow sweet potatoes.

So everyone hurriedly went home, grabbed sweet potato seedlings, and carried their tools to their own fields.

After Qiu Zhen finished planting her land, she asked all her family members to go and help Zhou Hu.

Zhou Hu is as fierce as his name suggests; he is also very ruthless when he does things.

This time, he bought all the remaining sweet potato seedlings.

It took up three acres of his land.

There's nothing we can do; they just have blind confidence in Zhao Yan.

The villagers worked for two or three days before they could plant all the sweet potato seedlings.

Some families were worried that sweet potatoes wouldn't grow, so they only planted half an acre as a token gesture.

Some, like the Zhou Hu and Qiu Zhen families, planted two or three acres of land at once.

However, these people only make up a small portion; most families still conservatively cultivate only half an acre to one acre of land.

When Zhao Yan heard about this at the farm, she simply smiled calmly.

If you're willing to plant it, that's fine. She can't guarantee anything else, but she's definitely willing to try planting this.

The only thing she was unsure about was the production volume.

According to modern farming methods, one mu (unit of land area) can yield at least 2000 to 3000 jin (unit of weight).

However, this was in ancient times with poor conditions. According to current planting conditions, a yield of 1000 jin per mu would be considered high.

For a period of time afterward, both Zhao Yan and the villagers of Huaihua Village devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the fields.

Whenever the villagers had any problems, they would go to Zhou Hu to ask about the situation.

It was Zhou Hu's first time growing sweet potatoes, and he didn't know anything about it, so he could only ask Zhao Yan for advice from time to time.

Zhao Yan never found it annoying and patiently explained the situation to Zhou Hu every time.

One day in late April, Qiu Zhen and Zhou Hu suddenly arrived at the farm with great excitement.

Upon seeing Zhao Yan, Qiu Zhen excitedly grabbed her arm and exclaimed, "Little Zhao, it's done! It's done!"

Zhao Yan pulled her hand out of Qiu Zhen's palm and gestured for the two of them to sit down and talk.

"Aunt Zhou, speak slowly, there's no rush."

Before Qiu Zhen could speak, Zhou Hu continued, "Xiao Zhao, here's what happened: some villagers couldn't resist their curiosity and secretly dug up a sweet potato. Guess what? There really was a sweet potato growing underneath!"