The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

That evening, a small earth pit was dug in a vacant lot a few dozen steps outside the mulberry forest of Heifu's family. Inside was a pile of black manure half a person high.

There were chicken, duck and dog manure picked up by two children carrying baskets, large pieces of cow manure from oxen, and even some human manure... Many flies were attracted and buzzed around, and many villagers were watching from afar, pointing and laughing at Heifu's family for piling manure here.

Holding a wooden shovel, Jing, who was covered in stench, also showed a skeptical expression.

"Brother Zhong, can this really work?"

"Do as I say, it's absolutely right." Heifu said as he poured the dustpan full of dry manure on the manure pile. He couldn't help but sigh in his heart that the development of agriculture really cannot be separated from fertilizer.

Thousands of years ago, when agriculture just appeared, the whole world was slash-and-burn farming. In the forest or grassland, the ancients drilled wood to make fire and burned it, leaving all the plants to burn, leaving only ashes on the ground. Then they used stone knives and wooden sticks to poke holes in the ground, threw seeds in, and then stepped on them to bury them.

Slash-and-burn farming ended here, and there was no longer any management, leaving drought, flood, disease, insects and weeds to invade. Such extensive, but also artificial cultivation. However, the yield is very low, and it is good to harvest seven or eight buckets of millet per mu.

Now it seems that the ashes of "slash-and-burn farming" are the original fertilizer, but the ancients did not understand this. After they planted on a piece of land for a few years, the soil was exhausted and the harvest of grain decreased, so they gave up the land, migrated with their whole family, looked for a new site, and then reclaimed new farmland in the same way, and so on...

The tribes of the three generations of Tang, Yu and Xia were always running around, and the Shang Dynasty moved its capital five times, all of which were related to this nomadic farming method. At that time, the farmers did not have the concept of settling down, and it was normal to run away after planting. The cultivated land in the Central Plains also gradually expanded in this way.

It was not until the Western Zhou and Spring and Autumn Period that the role of manure was discovered, and real settled farming became possible. The Chinese and wild people used plows to cultivate the land, and the well-field system came into being, until the furrows pulled by the ox-plow plow were completely torn apart...

Nowadays, in rural areas, feces are the most common thing, everywhere on the roadside, in the ditch, in the toilet, and outside the pig and cattle pen. If city people see it, they will definitely frown, but farmers will not dislike its dirtiness, because people in this era have already understood that fertilizing with manure can relieve the fatigue of the land and make the crops grow more pleasingly.

As Mencius said more than a hundred years ago: "The harvest of the farmer is one man on a hundred acres, and the manure of a hundred acres can feed nine people." This means that if one person cultivates a hundred acres of land and fertilizes all of it, the grain produced can feed nine people! Even the ash from the burning of grass and wood during the slash-and-burn period is not as fertile as manure.

So in the eyes of farmers, "dung" is not a derogatory word that can be discarded at will and cannot be put on the wall in the rhetoric of literati and scholars, but a precious treasure.

The reason why oxen are so expensive is not only because they can play the role of several laborers in spring ploughing, but also in other seasons, oxen are a continuous fertilizer production machine. A pile of cow dung is enough to fertilize a large piece of land.

Rural slang: dung is real gold, urine is silver. Although vulgar, it makes sense. Don't think it is dirty and filthy, this is the truth of material circulation, just like the sun, moon and stars that are high above, it is eternal and unchanging.

However, despite the invention of fertilization, the yield per mu has only increased to dozens of kilograms. There are reasons for crop types and farming techniques, but in Heifu's eyes, a big reason for the low yield is that farmers' use of manure is too extensive these days!

So after the dung pile in front of him was piled up, Heifu leaned against the door again and explained the principle of composting in a friendly manner.

He himself didn't fully understand the principle of using microorganisms and fungi to decompose organic materials into humus, and couldn't explain it clearly.

Hei Fu could only give the simplest example around him.

"Brother, have you ever found such a thing in the past? When using manure to fertilize crops, fresh human and animal manure or urine and manure that have been fermented in my toilet for a long time, which one grows better?"

After hearing this, Zhong suddenly realized: "It is true that the crops irrigated with manure from the toilet and water seem to be better!"

"That's right!"

Hei Fu clapped his hands: "Although fresh manure or dry manure has fertility, it is ultimately limited. We need to use some means to release their fertility...completely. Putting it in the pit of the toilet to rot is one way, and piling it in a pit outside for a while is another way. This is fermentation and composting."

This truth, which even a child in the countryside of later generations can understand, was an enlightening creation in the Warring States and Qin Dynasties. Because composting seems simple, it can be recorded in agricultural books at least in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. After treading the pestle, Heifu once again came up with an idea that was hundreds of years ahead of the times.

"Just follow the method that Zhongdi said and give it a try!" Zhong heard that what his brother said seemed to make some sense, and his eyes suddenly lit up and he became interested. For farmers, there is nothing more exciting than making crops high-yield.

At this time, several neighbors passed by and greeted Heifu and his three brothers kindly.

With Heifu being the head of the pavilion and promoted to the position of Shangzao, Lian Yuan was appreciated by the county magistrate and went to the county town. Heifu's family has become the most popular family in the sunset, and the neighbors are respectful to them.

However, this does not prevent a few stubborn old farmers from laughing at their family for looking for manure everywhere to pile up and planting mulberry in the field.

Because it does look stupid.

The villagers are closed and ignorant. They initially treat any new things as jokes. Only after seeing the real benefits and tasting the undoubted sweetness will they change their views and follow closely with envy.

This is true for the current ox plowing and composting, as well as the road and bridge construction, sending children to school, and working in the city in the future. The densely populated cities are always the engine of new ideas, while the marginal villages are always the tail end of the tide of the times, suffering the most and benefiting the least.

So Hei Fu was not angry, but laughed and said loudly: "You two, wait and see, when the field is evaluated in October, my family will definitely get the 'best'!"

The neighboring farmers did not take it seriously and thought Hei Fu was joking. They responded happily and walked away.

Hei Fu was serious. He told Zhong He Jing that in addition to the traditional human feces and stable manure, even straw and weeds could be piled in together, and they could slowly decompose into humus.

"This year, I must make my family's grain yield the highest per mu, to scare them!"

After saying that, because they felt that the manure was too dry and difficult to ferment, the three brothers untied their belts on the spot and urinated on the manure pile...

The silver drew an arc and fell into the real gold pile, making them truly a farm treasure with a touching smell.

"I heard these things from the Guanzhong merchant. I don't know how long it should be piled for. Let's pile it for a month before applying it to the land. Remember to turn it over and let it breathe frequently. Brother, don't forget to take good care of those zedoary trees for me! I will be of great use to them after autumn!"

After saying this, Heifu lifted his belt, went home to wash himself, ate a few bites of food, said goodbye to his mother, and hurriedly packed his bags and went back to Huyang Pavilion to work again.

County officials in Qin State had a five-day break, while Heifu, a doushi pavilion chief, had a ten-day break. He usually took three days off in a month.

When leaving the sunset, looking back at his wide and neatly plowed fields, Heifu couldn't help but sigh:

"Spring ploughing, summer weeding, autumn harvest, and winter storage, it is really a life that never changes."

But sweet sugarcane and stinky compost, after these two things are added to life, may bring a different taste to this autumn...

Although spring has just arrived, Heifu has already begun to look forward to the arrival of autumn.

...

"On the third day, I plow (sì), and on the fourth day, I raise my feet. With my wife and children, I work in the southern acres (yè), and the field is very happy..."

Time flies quickly. In the farming ballads, the last few days of January passed quickly in the busy spring plowing.

February is still busy. It is the season of rain. Peaches and plums begin to bloom, orioles chirp, eagles fly high in the sky, and cuckoos fly through the fields, reminding people not to miss the farming season...

Heifu also stepped up his inspections, mainly to see if there are any lazy people in the villages within the security jurisdiction. Qin State attached great importance to spring plowing. In January and February every year, even the night watchman service was cancelled. Whenever there was a project, prisoners, merchants, and sons-in-law were given priority to do it.

Fortunately, except for some trivial matters, there were no major cases in the villages of Huyang Pavilion throughout February. Perhaps it was Heifu's reputation for catching tomb robbers that frightened those scoundrels. For small cases, Heifu Pavilion Chief had no responsibility to mediate family disputes. He could just send them to the township and hand them over to the township governor.

During this period, he also took advantage of the holiday to return home, and together with Zhong, Jing, four hired farmers, and two servants assigned by the head of the village to help, they diluted the composted manure and applied it to the fields.

Because their family had a lot of land, one hundred acres of it was fallow. At Heifu's suggestion, Zhong applied one hundred acres with compost, one hundred acres with the fermented manure in the toilet, and one hundred acres with ordinary fresh cow and horse manure and urine... for comparison.

In this way, the peaceful and leisurely life lasted until the end of March in the late spring, when duckweed began to grow in the pond and the spores of crops in the fields gradually emerged, and then the township assigned a new case...

Heifu did not expect that this seemingly small case would leave him with an indelible impression...

Unforgettable for a lifetime!

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