In the golden autumn season, the entire Ming Dynasty also entered the busy autumn harvest season.
Liaodong is now the most important production area in the Ming Dynasty. The entire Liaodong area is vast and sparsely populated, and the land is extremely fertile. It is also a great plain area, which is very suitable for the development of agriculture.
With the large number of immigrants migrating to the Liaodong region, agriculture in Liaodong region developed rapidly.
In the 14th year of Hongzhi, the grain produced in the Liaodong region could be exported on a large scale. By the 15th year of Hongzhi, the grain produced in the Liaodong region alone was enough to feed the entire Ming Dynasty.
This year, the 16th year of Hongzhi, Liaodong region once again ushered in a bumper harvest.
In Tieling Nanshan Village, on an endless wilderness, Li Damao drove his own steam harvester to harvest wheat. Accompanied by bursts of whistles and billowing black salt, golden wheat fields were harvested wherever the steam harvester passed.
, leaving behind a bag of wheat.
"Woo~"
Not far away, several identical steam harvesters emitted bursts of whistles, as if they were greeting Li Damao.
Li Damao looked at it, smiled immediately, and then controlled the steam harvester to make blasts of whistles.
Due to its unique environment, the Liaodong region has fertile land and plains everywhere. At the same time, it is vast and sparsely populated. Every household has a few hundred acres of land, and some, like Li Damao, have now cultivated thousands of acres of land.
It would be difficult to cultivate such a large amount of land just by manpower. Therefore, farmers in Liaodong area like to use machinery to cultivate.
Steam cultivators and steam harvesters, two agricultural machinery that rely on steam to provide power, are the most popular in Liaodong.
Because of Li Damao's latest use of steam harvesters and steam cultivators in Nanshan Village, everyone has seen the benefits and benefits of these steam harvesters and steam cultivators.
Therefore, in the 16th year of Hongzhi in the entire Nanshan Village, the villagers bought more than a dozen steam harvesters and steam cultivators. At this time, when the autumn harvest came, the whistles of the steam harvesters disappeared in the fields around Nanshan Village.
Stopped.
Steam harvesters are not cheap. One machine costs more than one hundred taels of silver. Under normal circumstances, it is difficult for ordinary people to afford it.
Even the farmers in the Liaodong region are considered wealthy.
Thanks to the immigration policy, farmers in Liaodong have not had to pay grain taxes until now. They are still within the tax holiday, and every household has grown a lot of grain.
Last year alone, the Nanshan villages that had a great harvest earned dozens of taels of silver from selling grain, but grain was also the bulk of their income, and apart from various expenses, there was not much left over.
If you want to buy a steam harvester that costs more than 100 taels of silver, it will obviously take several years.
The fact that everyone can afford it is mainly due to the preferential loans provided by Daming First Bank to support agricultural development.
The interest rate for purchasing machinery loans is very low, and you can also pay in installments. Under these preferential policies, the villagers in Nanshan Village also bought steam cultivators and steam harvesters one after another.
With the help of these two machines, the villagers of Nanshan Village reclaimed all the fields around Nanshan Village and planted food in just one year. Every household has thousands of acres of land.
"I'm afraid this year's food prices will be even lower than last year!"
A bumper harvest should have been a happy day, but Li Damao couldn't be happy.
On the one hand, there were more steam machines in Liaodong, which made his business even more difficult.
Last year, because he was the first to buy a steam harvester, he made a lot of money by harvesting wheat for others. He earned back the money to buy the machine in just two months.
But this year is different. There are more steam harvesters, so the jobs he can receive are less, and the prices are also lower, because if you don't do it, someone will always come back to do it.
Another aspect is the issue of food prices.
This year, Liaodong region will have another great harvest.
This is an extremely fertile black land with abundant rainfall, heavy snowfall in winter, and few pests and diseases, which results in high wheat yield and good quality in Liaodong.
The promotion of agricultural machinery has also allowed the fields cultivated in Liaodong this year to far exceed the previous total. It is said that the northernmost areas have been cultivated as far as the Heilongjiang River.
Originally, most of the immigrants in the Liaodong region gathered on both sides of the Liaohe River (later in Liaoning Province). However, with the continuous migration to the Liaodong region in the past two years, immigrants also continued to migrate north.
Then it gradually expanded to the Heilongjiang River Basin, where fields were cultivated and wheat was grown.
A large number of fields have been reclaimed and planted, and the grain output in Liaodong will definitely increase significantly this year.
The surge in grain production will inevitably lead to a continued decline in grain prices. Last year, grain prices were already very low. Liaodong wheat that was worth five kilo could only be sold for one tael of silver.
This year, I am afraid that the price of food will be even lower.
This is the reason why Li Damao is so sad.
In the past, before Li Damao immigrated to Liaodong, this bumper harvest would have been something to be happy about, because it meant that his family could have more food to eat.
But things are different now. The immigrants in the Liaodong area have no worries about food and clothing, and there is so much food that they cannot finish it all.
Most of the grain needs to be sold, and the proportion of food sold is very small.
Therefore, food prices are related to everyone’s income.
There is no way, the Ming Dynasty now is no longer the Ming Dynasty before.
In the past, the Ming Dynasty consisted of two capitals and thirteen provinces. It had a large population but little land. Coupled with land annexation, most of the land was concentrated in the hands of the landlords and gentry.
This means that everyone has to rely on the land to survive. They work hard all year round just to have a few full meals.
It's different now. The Ming Dynasty has acquired too much land.
Nanyang, Australia, Golden Island, Liaodong, the Western Regions, the River System, Nanyun Province, grasslands, etc., any place is a vast and fertile wilderness, coupled with the development of overseas colonies and vassal states, it also attracted a large number of people.
population.
Under the continuous immigration policy, these places are gradually developed, and the most important manifestation is the bumper harvest every year.
The grain produced in Liaodong is enough to feed the entire Ming Dynasty. The grain produced in the Western Region and the river system is too much to eat, which is used to develop large-scale animal husbandry. The prices of horses, cattle and sheep have also been falling year after year.
The animal husbandry industry in Australia has developed rapidly, and now textile factories have been relocated to Australia, where wool is used to weave cloth and sold exclusively to Europe.
The gold craze is still very hot here in Huangjinzhou. A large number of people are looking for gold in this land, dreaming of getting rich overnight.
However, with the influx of a large number of immigrants, agriculture in Golden Continent has also developed rapidly. The output of corn and wheat has doubled every year, which has greatly promoted the migration of immigrants. At least you don’t have to worry about hunger when you come to Golden Continent.
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And here in Nanyang, the plantation economy has been very prosperous. There are more and more plantations, and traditional sugarcane cultivation is still popular. However, because the demand for spices is very strong in Europe, some plantations specializing in spices have also appeared.
As for rice, the planting area is very small, but the yield is extremely high. It not only satisfies the growing population in the Nanyang region, but also sells a large amount back to the Ming Dynasty and exports to overseas colonies and vassal states.
There is a bumper grain harvest in almost all regions, except of course Shaanxi, Shanxi, Beizhili, Henan, Shandong and other places in the Ming Dynasty.
Due to the large number of people migrating out of these places, many places have even been wiped out. For example, the loess high slopes in Shaanxi have always been a key area for the imperial court's out-migration population due to difficult conditions.
A large number of people migrated to various places, and they lived happily, which naturally led to the spontaneous migration of people in these areas, resulting in a massive loss of population.
The result of the massive population loss is that a large amount of cultivated land in these places has been laid waste and no one is cultivating it, so food production will naturally drop significantly.
Landowners and gentry in many places even have no place to cry.
In the past, everyone was scrambling to cultivate the best land, but now no one is cultivating it, and they can only watch it continue to be desolate.
In areas with large-scale population migration, the population is declining rapidly and food production is also declining.
This was caused by the imperial court's immigration policy, but it was also a situation the imperial court wanted to see.
The natural conditions in these areas are really harsh. Except for a few plain areas where the conditions are okay, other places can no longer sustain the huge population.
The population is migrating, the farmland is deserted, the land is deserted, and the mountains and forests are recuperating. As long as this goes on for a long time, the natural environment will slowly get better and better and gradually recover.
There are also areas such as Henan, which have too many people and too little cultivated land per capita. It is easy for conflicts between man and land to arise, and accidents can easily occur if there are natural or man-made disasters.
However, with the large-scale migration of people, the population in Henan is getting smaller and smaller. In the past, the land owned by the landlords and rich people was cultivated by everyone, but now the landlords and rich people beg everyone to farm it, but no one will farm it for them.
Because everyone is now focused on going abroad, whether it is to work in the Beijing-Tianjin area, or to immigrate overseas, anywhere is better than staying here in Henan and farming for the landlords.
Led by fellow countrymen, fellow villagers, relatives and friends, a large number of people spontaneously migrated to Liaodong, Western Regions, Hexi, Nanyang and other places. This also led to a two-year decline in grain production in Henan Province, a former major grain-producing province.
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As for Beizhili, the impact of immigration is very small. Beizhili has been deeply affected by capitalism and colonialism. A large number of people entered factories and went overseas.
This also led to a sharp decline in grain production in Beizhili, requiring a large amount of imported grain.
This is the current situation of the Ming Dynasty. The newly acquired territories are basically full of grain harvests. However, due to the large outflow of people in the traditional two capitals and thirteen provinces, a large amount of land has been left uncultivated, and grain production has plummeted.
Condition.
But this did not affect the food security of the Ming Dynasty, because the grain production of the two capitals and thirteen provinces has decreased, but the population has decreased even more, and the demand for food is smaller. Even if the grain production plummets, the food in these areas is still
Due to the surplus, coupled with the promotion of sweet potatoes, corn, and potatoes, the Ming Dynasty had no worries about food.
