Anyone with a discerning eye can see that the Queen's purpose is to prevent officials from corruption. You said you spent 50,000 taels on building the road, so how much money did you spend on labor and how much money did you spend on materials? These must be recorded clearly. Think about it.
It will be difficult to make money from this.
After Yi's decree, the ministers who originally thought this was a lucrative job were put off. However, Lang Touqing, who had just entered the officialdom, no longer had such worries, and the job of building roads was quickly taken up by a new Jinshi.
The people all praised this yellow list and Yi Yi's decree. After all, they had never seen any case handled by the court be announced to the people before. Moreover, every time an official committed a crime and ransacked his home, he only said that it would be returned to the national treasury. What happened to the money?
Who knows what?
But now, they know that the Queen Mother said that the money should be used to build roads for the people, and part of it should be used as military pay. It would be good to use it as military pay. Their family has a son serving as a soldier in the northwest. It is pitiful that the military pay has never been paid.
After all the hair loss, sometimes I can’t even wear a cotton-padded coat in winter, but the Queen has done a great thing!
Someone was responsible for the road construction, and Ning Yue selected a clan relative to be the supervisor, specifically responsible for the supervision. Prime Minister Wen once asked: "Queen, aren't you afraid that the supervisor will seek personal gain for you?"
"That's just right. The Ministry of Household Affairs will be able to receive one less salary. My decree is not in vain."
Prime Minister Wen: ...very good and powerful! He is too worried and wants to worry about the Queen!
…
Time passed in the blink of an eye. One month passed, and the road construction work had not achieved much. However, Jiang Jing raised a major issue related to people's livelihood in court, "I would like to inform the Queen, the corn seeds you asked me to plant were harvested yesterday."
From half an acre of land, we got 442 kilograms of grain."
The whole court was in an uproar!
Four hundred and forty two kilograms were harvested from half an acre of land. Wouldn’t the harvest from one acre of land be eight hundred and eighty four kilograms? Even if the grain is newly harvested and some moisture is removed after drying, the yield per mu will still be higher.
Has it reached 800 kilograms?
If this new crop could be grown across the country, would the people of the Great Xia Dynasty still have to worry about not having enough to eat?
Ning Yue was very happy. She didn't know whether the corn seeds in her space were originally self-crossed or hybrid. But after each harvest, she used those seeds to replant them. The corn that grew became more plump and the yield increased.
When she first took out these things, she was worried that they might not be able to produce food in the outside world, but she didn't expect that the planting was successful.
Although the yield per mu is only over 800 kilograms, which is incomparable with modern hybrid varieties that can easily yield over 2,000 kilograms per mu, in ancient times, the grain yield of over 800 kilograms per mu was enough to shock the world.
Prime Minister Wen said: "Do you really mean what the Duke said? What do you mean by following the Queen's order?"
"Is this still false? Zhuangzi is preparing to harvest corn today. If Prime Minister Wen doesn't believe it, he can go with his father-in-law and weigh it on the spot.
The Empress had already ordered her family to look for high-yielding crops to solve the people's food and clothing problems. When the son went out, he happened to encounter a caravan carrying a crop called corn. Since it was a new crop, the son took it.
I bought all the seeds, but I didn’t expect that the yield of this grain seed would be so high.”
This was half true and half false. Before the spring planting, his daughter suddenly had a letter and a key delivered to his home. The house mentioned in the letter was a dowry given to his daughter by his family, so he took someone to go there in person.
Then I found nearly 10,000 kilograms of grain seeds in the warehouse.
The letter contained instructions on how to grow corn, so Jiang Jing’s claim that the empress ordered it to be planted is not a lie.
Of course, he also hoped that more high-yielding crops would appear in the Great Xia Dynasty, so that the people would have enough food to have surplus food, so that they would not have to worry about food when fighting at the border.
Prime Minister Wen couldn't help but glance at the high position. She was obviously just a woman. She was neither majestic nor domineering. She just sat upright on the dragon throne, always with a smile on her face.
, Graceful, dignified and majestic is the most suitable description for her. However, what she does and thinks surpasses many men.
However, the yield of corn has not yet been verified, so he swallowed many words directly.
Looking at Zhen Guogong again, "I wonder how many of these new crops have been planted by Zhen Guogong Zhuangzi this year?"
Jiang Jing: "More than four thousand acres in total."
Prime Minister Wen did a quick calculation in his mind. If the yield was really as high as what Duke Zhen Guo said, then the harvest from these four thousand acres of land alone would be enough to plant a quarter of the arable land in the capital.
Wen Cheng said on the spot that after going to court, he would go to the Jiang family's farm to watch the corn harvest.
Other officials also agreed and expressed that they would follow, so today's morning meeting ended early, and then a large number of officials either rode horses or made carriages, all following Jiang Jing out of the city.
The people in the city thought it was strange, so many people followed the motorcade out of the city to watch the excitement. Then, nearly a thousand people rushed to Jiangjiazhuang to watch the tenants breaking corn there.
Jiang Jing simply measured out one acre of land and sent more than 20 people to break the corn kernels into the field. After harvesting the one acre of land, he broke out the corn kernels and weighed the seeds together. Not only did the number not decrease, but it actually did not decrease.
It was more than twenty kilograms more, and the people watching suddenly became excited!
An acre yields 900 kilograms of grain. If a family grows a few acres of this so-called corn, they will not have to worry about food for a year!
The people were immediately ready to take action. Jiang Jing simply waved his hand and hired these people to break corn in the fields. The servants of the Jiang family who didn't know how to do it would teach them how to work.
It took seven days to harvest the corn from the Jiang family's four thousand acres of land. Prime Minister Wen watched it from beginning to end, and then weighed all the grain. The average yield of the four thousand acres was as high as eight hundred and seventy-seven acres.
Seventeen pounds!
As the Jiang family's corn was harvested, news spread that the Queen was looking for high-yielding crops for the people. Suddenly, the Queen's reputation rose to a higher level!
The whole restaurant and teahouse were talking about this matter for a while.
"Did you hear about it? I have a relative who works as a shopkeeper in the Zhenguogong Mansion. It is said that the Queen has already made a decree that she will distribute this batch of corn to the people for free, just so that ordinary people can have enough to eat as soon as possible.
ah!"
"Really, can such good things be given out for free? Then I will get some no matter what. My family has more than ten acres of land!"
"Whose family has no land? My family has not been divided yet. There are more than 20 people with a total of 58 acres of land. If we can all grow this corn, we will really not have to worry about not having enough food to eat."
"Ever since the Empress took charge of the government, she has actually done practical things for our people. That light and easy-to-use plow was made by someone sent by the Empress. Then she uncovered dozens of corrupt officials and copied out millions of taels of silver.
In addition to the money given to the border, it was all used to build our roads.
The road to my house has been built for more than ten miles. In previous years, people from each family had to do corvee work to build river embankments and dig ditches. This year, it is better. Each person pays 30 cents per day to build the road, and they also have to take care of a meal at noon.
People in our village are rushing to take care of the job!
This time we found another eight or nine hundred kilograms of grain per acre. The Queen is really a living Buddha who saves people in distress!"