In early spring, it rains lightly.

Wearing a straw hat, Lan Tian was busy sowing seeds with Ganji in the field. Although he often went to the fields with his mentor, most of the time he was engaged in research and rarely wielded a hoe. It was really tiring to roll up his sleeves and do it now.

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Even though it was raining lightly, the backs of the two father and son were soaked with sweat.

Due to the military disaster last year, Wangjiazhuang now has fewer people and more land. Ganji thought that Lantian would help, so he asked for 80 acres to plant.

During the Three Kingdoms era, wars were frequent, and crops of corn were grown twice a year in various parts of the north. In the absence of drought and locust plagues, the average yield per mu was about three shi.

That is to say, for the eighty acres that the Gan family is responsible for, the normal corn output per season should be 240 shi, and the output in two seasons a year should be about 480 shi.

Liu Bei's field officials stipulated that they should turn in two hundred dan every quarter. If they could have any leftover grain, it was up to the farmers. If they couldn't, they would have to go hungry or borrow it from their employers.

Three stones of corn in the Han Dynasty is equivalent to 281 kilograms in today's market. If God favors them, they should have no problem with having enough to eat.

The two of them went out to work early in the morning. Lan Tian had a sallow complexion and thin skin but worked hard. Ganji couldn't bear to see it. But when he thought about paying rent and taxes on 80 acres of land, he could only hope that God would give him a meal.

It would be nice to have some surplus food left over after paying the tax. At least I can raise some more meat for Lantian.

Around Chen time, Gan Qian delivered breakfast to the fields. The spring plowing was busy and the two of them were sowing seeds very slowly, so they didn't bother to go home and rest.

At this time, due to the shortage of food, the two-meal system in the morning and evening was still implemented in various places. The Gan family's food reserves were now exhausted. In addition to borrowing millet seeds from Liu Bei on credit, they also advanced a small amount of rations.

There were many Yellow Turban rebellions in the Qingxu area, and Cao Cao looted Xuzhou last year. You can imagine how tight Liu Bei's food supply was.

Ganji is very strict about his food rations, because he always has to pay back what he borrows. If there is any calamity, the hole will get bigger and bigger.

Fortunately, now that the earth has recovered, Gan Qian can pick some wild vegetables in the wild, but it is still difficult for Lantian to have enough to eat.

Gan Qian looked at Lan Tian devouring the food and smiled: "Why are you eating so fast? Are you in a hurry to continue working?"

"This long land has not been sown yet, so I have to hurry up and do more work, otherwise after the spring rain ends, the sown seeds will not have enough water." Lantian is new to farming, but has profound theoretical knowledge.

When Ganji heard this, he looked at his foster son with admiration, "I thought you knew nothing about farming, but I didn't expect you actually know how to moisten seedlings with spring rain."

"I heard it all from other people..."

After breakfast, the two of them continued planting until they returned home in the evening. It took them seven or eight days of hard work to finish sowing the eighty acres of land.

The next time is to wait for the spring rain to moisten the earth. During the short break from the busy farming, Ganji also prepares fertilizer for the millet seedlings. The word fertilizer has not yet appeared in this era, so it is replaced by the word "dung", which mainly refers to soil and manure.

Grass manure.

Grass manure is grass that grows naturally in fields. Plowing the ground before sowing means covering the ground with grass as fertilizer to enhance the fertility of the land.

"The Book of Pan Sheng" records: "When it is plowable, it will be plowed when it rains. The soil will be close to each other, the seedlings will only grow, and the grass will be rotten, and all will become good fields."

In addition, farmers also burn soil to make manure and spread it during the growth of seedlings to achieve the effect of promoting crop growth.

Ten days after the spring rain ended, the millet seedlings slowly broke through the soil, and the fields in Wangjiazhuang were full of green. At this time, Lan Tian did an incredible thing. He happily came to the field to thin the millet seedlings.

Thinning is also called seedling thinning, because farmers do not know how to plant scientifically at this time. The amount of sowing greatly exceeds the amount of remaining seedlings, causing the seedlings to be crowded. This not only robs the fertility of the land, but also prevents each seedling from absorbing enough nutrients, air circulation and sunlight.

It cannot be saturated either.

When Ganji saw this guy pulling out the sprouted seedlings, he immediately went to the ground to stop him and said, "Xiao Tian, ​​what are you doing? If you pull out these seedlings, what will happen to our harvest in the summer?"

"This is called thinning. We pull out the excess seedlings so that the remaining millets can grow better and yield higher yields," Lantian explained.

"That's nonsense. I have been farming for more than 20 years, and this is the first time I hear such ridiculous words. Why don't you stop?" Ganji saw that this guy was not ready to stop at all, so he pointed at him and said angrily.

It's true that you are my adopted son, but if you want to ruin my job, you can't do it even if my father comes.

"Father, my method is really effective." Lan Tian tried his best to fight for it.

Lantian did not continue to talk to Ganji about "scientific planting". He could not understand it with his current knowledge base, so now he could only rely on playing the emotional card.

"No matter where you learned the method, I have to be responsible for the survival of this family." Ganji said angrily.

"Father, please let me give it a try." Lan Tian begged.

"Lantian, don't be indolent, I have more experience in farming than you." Ganji said earnestly.

"How about you give me twenty acres to try?" Lantian took a step back and said.

"I won't do it if I say no, what happened to you kid today?" Ganji asked in confusion.

"Dad, Brother Tian, ​​what are you fighting about?" Gan Qian happened to come to deliver the meal at this time, and saw the two of them arguing in the field, blushing.

Gan Ji was so angry that he didn't want to speak, so Lan Tian explained the situation to her. Gan Qian persuaded her: "Dad, why don't you give Brother Tian ten acres of land to try? You have to try.

He won't give up until he gives it a try."

Gan Qian said this because she didn't want the relationship between the two to become tense. Secondly, she always believed that Lan Tian was not ordinary and should be a man of great wisdom.

"Okay, ten acres is ten acres." Ganji saw his daughter begging for mercy and finally compromised.

Ganji gave Lantian ten acres of relatively barren land and asked him to do some "scientific planting" on his own. From then on, Lantian thinned out seedlings and cleared trees within his jurisdiction, and his adoptive father Ganji no longer said anything.

At first, Ganji tried to persuade him earnestly, could the thousands of years of farming experience of his ancestors still be false? But as time went by, he realized that something was wrong.

Although the millets cultivated by Lantian are sparse, the roots and stems of those plants are thick and much taller than those cultivated by myself.

Could it be that the so-called ‘scientific planting’ really works?

I, the old farmer Ganji, am not as good as a child in farming?

When the corn seedlings started to hang ears, Ganji, who had always regarded himself as a farming expert, had to be convinced, because every ear of corn in the blue field was weighing down the branches. As long as there were no insects or droughts, the harvest should be very good.

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The past few months have also exhausted Lantian. In order to have enough to eat, such a thin body has to throw himself in the fields every day, serving his ten acres of land like his own mother.

Insects? There is no pesticide, I will catch them by hand for you, and I will still have a full meal.

This is really making dreams come true with both hands.

Although he is very tired every day, Lantian feels extremely fulfilled, as if he is participating in social practice or doing a graduate project.

At this time, Gan Ji looked at Lan Tian more and more, and he was thinking about whether to give his daughter Gan Qian to him? Anyway, the age difference between their siblings was only one year, but he immediately shook his head.
Chapter completed!