The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

In mid-August, the weather was clear and crisp. Yunmengze welcomed the first batch of wild geese returning southward in the blue sky. Under the V-shaped geese formation, there was a layer of white frost on the ground and withered and yellow grass and trees.

But around the human settlement, there was no desolate scene at all. Outside the five-acre house, the children drooled, staring at the yellowing apricots on the trees; in the fields, the golden rice ears danced in the breeze.

In the sunset of Yunmeng Township, the open land beside the farmland can be seen everywhere. Villagers bent over and busy at work. This is the harvest season, and it is also the busiest time of the year for farmers. There is no idle person in the whole village.

Heifu, whose leg injury has healed for the most part, can no longer sit still and wants to come out to help. Standing by the soft and cool paddy field, his nose is filled with the fragrance of ripe rice. The days of chasing and fighting and licking blood on the edge of the knife in the past few days seem to be farther away from him.

At this moment, my uncle, my wife, and a few hired farmers were facing the rice field, their backs facing the sky, and they were harvesting rice in the paddy field with sickles in their hands.

Since Heifu became an official, their family's life has improved a lot. Even the farm tools have been replaced with copper and iron. Look at other families nearby, some of them are using stone sickles...

Even with iron sickles, it is still not fast to cut the rice stubble. This work is very tiring. After a day, my waist is almost broken.

But it is not good to harvest it quickly. After the rice is ripe, it cannot be left in the field for too long.

Alas, this is the disadvantage of having too much land. Now there are three people in Heifu's family who have titles. Although they have divided the family in name, the land is planted together. At the beginning of August, my uncle only helped Heifu harvest half of the 100 acres of millet field that was composted. There are still 100 acres of millet field fertilized in the old way, and 100 acres of rice.

Having said that, farm work cannot be rushed, and Heifu's family is not a black skin who forces farmhands to live. Seeing that the farmers are tired, they call them to sit on the ridge of the field. Put down the sickle in your hand, take off the bamboo hat on your head, brush your sleeves with both hands, drink a few sips of water brought by the woman, eat a few mouthfuls of rice steamed by Heifu's mother, and chat for a while.

The face of the owner of the field is full of joy, and the farmers are also very happy. After all, according to the agreement in advance, the more harvest, the more food they will get.

After watching for a while, Heifu couldn't help but want to go down to help, but Zhong thought he was injured and didn't allow him to go to the paddy field, so Heifu volunteered to take the work of threshing with his brother Jing.

The harvested millet was stacked on the ridge in bundles, and the weight of each bundle was just right. If there were too much, they couldn't take it all, and if there were too little, it would delay time.

Although Heifu's nephew "Yang" is only seven years old, he has already started to help. The child squatted obediently by the field and helped to carry bundles of millet from the ridge to the threshing place. After several trips, he was sweating profusely, but under the praise of adults, the child was very happy, but his face was scratched by the straw, which made people feel a little distressed.

Their family's threshing tool is actually just a large wooden barrel, called "Guan Dou" or "Ban Dou". Its working principle is very simple, that is, hold the lower end of the mature rice with both hands and hit it hard on the inner wall of the barrel, so that the threshing effect can be achieved.

There is also a circle of densely woven bamboo strips around the barrel, so that even if the threshed rice is beaten out, it will be blocked by the bamboo strips and fall into the barrel.

Heifu grabbed a handful of millet with both hands and raised it high above his head. The sound of the millet breaking through the air and hitting the walls of the bucket was pleasant to the ears. Then, golden rice grains left the straw and jumped into the bucket.

"A half bucket is worth a thousand taels of gold. If you have grain in your hands, you will not be worried."

For some reason, Heifu remembered this old saying from his hometown in his previous life. In the past two thousand years, the farm work of Chinese farmers has not changed much.

In addition to this simplest wooden barrel, Heifu found that there were also people using flails nearby. The thing consisted of a long handle and a set of parallel bamboo strips, like a large nunchaku, which could be used to beat millet, rice, hemp, etc. to make the grains fall off.

Heifu was thoughtful and secretly calculated the time. In fact, whether it was a half bucket or a flail, it was time-consuming and tiring, and the millet that was beaten was not clean. It had to be blown clean before it could be used to pay rent or carried home to be stored in the warehouse.

"It's too late this year. Next year, I might ask my brother-in-law to try to make a pedal-operated wooden thresher. That thing is much more efficient than a half bucket and a flail."

"Brother Zhong, you still have a dull pain in your leg. Take a break. There's not much grain left. I can do it."

The one threshing grain with Heifu is his younger brother Jing. Jing is 16 years old and is in the period of growth. In half a year, he has grown a few inches taller. After being inspired by Heifu last year, Jing has become much more sensible. In the past few months, he was arranged by Heifu to go to the village to learn to read and write, in preparation for entering the school as a disciple in the spring of next year. It is said that he is very diligent in the village and can already write complete sentences. He only goes home to help during the busy farming season.

The reason why Heifu wanted to be a Qin official was also partly to allow Jing to be enrolled as a disciple, exempt from military service, and escape the Qin-Chu war. But now that that happened, he was a little unsure whether he could keep his position. Even if he did, he heard that the county right lieutenant would be transferred soon. Without a backer, it would be difficult for Heifu to survive in the lieutenant system.

"I can't put all my eggs in one basket. The Qin law is too strict. In order to prevent me from committing a crime and being dismissed from office one day, I must have other ways out..."

While thinking, Heifu sat next to Zhong and listened to his brother and neighbor farmers talking about everything. In the past year, as their family became more and more prosperous, his elder brother was no longer the taciturn person in the past. On the contrary, he was supported by his neighbors because of his honesty. Of course, there might also be a fear of Heifu and a deliberate attempt to please him.

Seeing this, Heifu couldn't help but come up with a plan!

...

After a few days of hard work, the rice ears that were once full in the field disappeared, leaving only the short stubble, which was left alone in the paddy field.

At this point, Heifu's rice fields and millet fields have all been harvested. Oh, and there are more than ten acres of sugarcane planted in the spring, which are growing vigorously, but they will not be harvested until winter, when the sugarcane is the sweetest.

After the millet is harvested, the farm work is not over. The millet is carried home and spread on wide bamboo strips overnight to ensure that the millet is ventilated and dry to prevent it from getting moldy. In the middle of the process, the surface must be constantly raked to turn the millet over to promote air drying.

On the second day, it can be exposed to the sun - the government does not accept wet millet, and the rent is measured by volume, not weight, to avoid uneven dryness of millet and cause injustice.

At this time, the millet is still mixed with a lot of impurities, husks, and broken shells, which must be removed one by one.

There is no end to sifting. Heifu found that his family used dried banana leaves as fans. The force should not be too heavy or too light, just enough to blow away the light impurities and leave only the plump grains.

Fanning the fan boredly, Heifu thought: "Next year, I can ask my brother-in-law to make a hand-cranked windmill. That thing is not only a good tool for blowing grains, but also comes in handy when pounding grains."

After reading all the way, Heifu found that the productivity of this era was really too backward. Not to mention the time of farming, even in the process of harvesting, in the eyes of a layman like him, almost every step has a lot of room for improvement.

At the same time, Heifu also borrowed the "stone" used to measure volume from the prison gate. In fact, it is a large hollow wooden barrel. He poured all the dry grains collected from each mu into it. After some calculations, the 100 mu of millet fertilized by the old method really only produced less than 2 stones per mu.

As for the 100 mu "experimental field" that used compost fertilizer to apply manure, Heifu was worried, so he selected more than 10 mu of millet harvested and weighed them one by one. He found that as Zhong said a few days ago, the yield per mu was close to 3 shi...

"The millet seeds are the same, the original land is adjacent, and there is no difference in watering and weeding. The only difference is the fertilizer used. In this way, composting is indeed more effective than fresh manure and urine!" Heifu said, patting the full stone of millet.

Not only the result, Zhong also recalled the process of taking care of the fields. The crops that were applied with compost and fermented fertilizer did grow more plump and had more ears. Those old farmers who laughed at their family for playing with piles of feces and urine in the early spring have been amazed these days, and they have tried every means to ask Zhong about his secrets of farming.

"The smart old farmer has guessed the reason, right? He will definitely follow suit next spring, and this secret will no longer be a secret."

But Heifu was not worried at all, and said with a smile: "My leg has healed, and I must go back to the pavilion to resume my post. So, tomorrow is the day to pay rent in the township, and I will go out with my brother, just in time to meet Tianbu Zuo of Yunmeng Township with you."

At this time, Heifu's sister-in-law passed by and asked curiously: "In previous years, the rent was paid by the small officials in the township. Why do you have to meet Tianbu Zuo this time?"

Zhongze understood: "Zhongdi, are you going to tell Tianbu Zuo about the composting method and ask him to help present it to the government? The method that can increase the yield per acre by so much is indeed a farming tool. My family cannot keep it to ourselves..."

The eldest brother is still too honest. Heifu laughed and said, "Brother, it's not me who is offering the gift, it's you who is offering it! If this is successful, you will definitely be rewarded. Who knows, the government may even grant you a position!"

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