Ryukyu City, Liu Yuan accompanied Emperor Hongzhi on a stroll through the streets of Ryukyu City.
After all, this is my second visit to Ryukyu Castle. The last time I came here was when I led an army to sweep across the Southeast Asian countries. On my way back to Beijing, I passed by Ryukyu Castle and stopped here briefly.
I still vaguely remember that Ryukyu Castle at that time was not that big, just the size of a small county town. However, Ryukyu Castle today is already very large, and it vaguely has the momentum of a big city.
There are many people on the road, and it is very prosperous and busy. There are many shops on both sides of the street, and the variety of goods is dazzling.
"This Ryukyu Castle is really quite big."
"This is actually a city that was developed and built in just over ten years."
Emperor Hongzhi looked at everything in front of him with great interest.
Regarding the treasure island of Ryukyu, Emperor Hongzhi did not pay much attention to it in the past, because before the thirteenth year of Hongzhi, it was still a deserted land, sparsely populated, miasma-ridden, and a place infested by barbarians.
At that time, the Ming Dynasty did not even set up any county government, state capital or the like here. However, as Liu Jin took the lead in ordering people to build Ryukyu City here, he began to develop a plantation economy here in Ryukyu, relying on the considerable profits from cane sugar.
As well as the fertile land and unique natural climate conditions of the treasure island Ryukyu, millions of people immigrated here.
In just a dozen years, the treasure island of Ryukyu has undergone earth-shaking changes.
From the original barren land, a place full of miasma, and a place infested by barbarians, it has become an area with such a large population, rapid economic growth, plantation economy, shipbuilding industry, and developed agriculture.
Because of its unique natural conditions, even in winter, the temperature here rarely drops below zero. In the southern region, the temperature is very high even throughout the year. Therefore, the treasure island of Ryukyu is now not only the Ming Dynasty's
The sugar warehouse was also the vegetable and fruit warehouse of the Ming Dynasty.
Every autumn and winter, cargo ships departing from Ryukyu, loaded with a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits, head to the Beijing-Tianjin area of the Ming Dynasty.
Different from the vegetables grown in greenhouses, the vegetables and fruits of Takashima Ryukyu are famous for their high quality. They are very popular in the Beijing-Tianjin area and are the favorites of the rich and powerful.
"Your Majesty, the current permanent population of Ryukyu City has exceeded 500,000, and the proportion of children here in Ryukyu City is extremely high. More than half of the population are children."
"When these children grow up, the population of Ryukyu City will grow rapidly."
Liu Jin quickly said with a smile.
"Yeah~"
When Emperor Hongzhi heard this, he immediately laughed happily.
In this era, fertility is extremely important. Some people have everything. This is believed from top to bottom.
"Let's go out and take a look around. I feel that every city in Ming Dynasty is similar."
Emperor Hongzhi looked at it for a while and immediately felt that it was not interesting. The cities in the Ming Dynasty were all similar, especially these emerging cities. There was almost no big difference in planning or architectural style.
I got in the car and walked outside Ryukyu City. After leaving the city limits, I saw endless sugar cane fields.
"Stop~Stop~"
Emperor Hongzhi shouted quickly, and the car quickly pulled over and stopped.
Emperor Hongzhi looked curiously at the endless and huge sugar cane fields in front of him.
"What are these?"
Emperor Hongzhi had never seen sugar cane before, so he didn't recognize the sugar cane right in front of him.
"Your Majesty, this is sugar cane, and sucrose is made from this sugar cane."
Liu Jin quickly replied.
"Is this sugar cane?"
When Emperor Hongzhi heard this, his eyes widened slightly. He had eaten a lot of sugar cane, and this was the first time he saw sugar cane look like this.
"Bring up a sugar cane."
Liu Jin ordered the guards around him. Soon, a sugar cane was delivered to Liu Jin's hand. Liu Jin ordered people to cut it into several sections, peel off the skin, wash it, and handed one to Emperor Hongzhi and said: " Your Majesty, try this sugar cane. This Ryukyu sugar cane is the sweetest and has the highest content."
"This sugar cane juice is refreshing and quenches thirst. It's also very good, but it's a bit hard on your teeth to bite."
Liu Jin gnawed on the sugar cane while talking.
Emperor Hongzhi imitated Liu Jin and gnawed the sugar cane. As soon as he took the first bite, he nodded and said, "It's really sweet, but it's too hard and it's hard to bite."
"Haha, that's what this sugar cane is."
"Nowadays, machines are generally used to squeeze the juice, and then the juice is continuously boiled over fire. Finally, brown sugar, white sugar and other products can be obtained."
Liu Jin also laughed.
If the pedantic ministers in the court found out that Emperor Hongzhi was chewing sugar cane with his cabinet ministers, Liu Jin would definitely be impeached again.
"I see."
Hongzhi gnawed the sugar cane and nodded. This way of chewing sugar cane on the roadside seemed pretty good. Fortunately, he brought Liu Jin with him. If he had brought other pedantic ministers with him, he would definitely be criticized. Suddenly.
There are a lot of things that the emperor should pay attention to about his own etiquette, and they are endless.
Get in the car and continue driving casually on Baodao along the spacious cement road. On both sides of the road are endless sugar cane forests, which are extremely large in scale.
Ryukyu is the sugar storehouse of the Ming Dynasty, this is no joke.
Although the price of sugar has dropped a lot now, it has already entered thousands of households and is no longer exclusive to the rich. The income from growing sugar cane has dropped a lot compared to before.
But people here are still growing sugar cane and have become accustomed to growing sugar cane. Sugar cane is still an important crop here.
After getting some distance away from Ryukyu Castle, in addition to a large number of sugar cane forests, a large number of vegetable and fruit areas began to appear. The characteristic of these areas is that they are large and continuous areas, all of which are grown vegetables and fruits.
Emperor Hongzhi stopped the car again and came to the fields. He looked at the large vegetable field in front of him. A large number of cabbages, radishes, onions and other vegetables were grown in the vegetable field. It was very large, covering a large area. They are all vegetables.
At the same time, you can also see people busy in the fields, with a four-wheeled carriage parked nearby, carrying baskets of harvested vegetables to the four-wheeled carriage.
"Let's go, let's go find someone to talk to."
When Emperor Hongzhi saw this scene, he immediately became interested and hurriedly walked away.
The Yang Dalang family was busy harvesting vegetables. Now it is autumn and winter will soon come. It is the season when vegetables begin to be harvested and the price of vegetables is at its highest. All these vegetables are to be shipped to Beijing and Tianjin for sale. .
But they soon noticed Emperor Hongzhi, Liu Jin and others walking towards them, and they immediately looked at him curiously.
"Who are these people?"
"Are you here to collect the vegetables too?"
"There are so many small cars driving here, and there are also a few large trucks."
Yang Dalang was very curious.
"Fellow, how's the harvest?"
Emperor Hongzhi greeted Yang Dalang and others with a smile on his face.
"This year's harvest is still very good."
Yang Dalang looked carefully at Emperor Hongzhi, Liu Jin and others in front of him. At this glance, he knew that they were not ordinary people, and he replied with a smile.
"Really, what kind of vegetables do you grow here?"
Emperor Hongzhi looked at the baskets of vegetables and asked with a smile.
"There are so many, including cabbage, radish, broccoli, onion, cucumber, potato, soybean, celery, onion, ginger, garlic, etc., there are dozens of varieties."
Yang Dalang replied, listening to Emperor Hongzhi's accent, he knew that these people should have come to the Beijing-Tianjin area.
"How much can this cabbage cost per pound?"
Emperor Hongzhi nodded, then picked up a cabbage and weighed it carefully. It was quite heavy.
"All of our dishes are sold to the Beijing-Tianjin area, so the prices are pretty good."
"This cabbage can be sold for 2 cents per catty, this radish can be sold for 3 cents, and broccoli can be sold for 3 cents. Onions and potatoes are cheaper, one cent per catty, and ginger, onion, garlic, etc. can also be sold.
3 cents per catty."
Yang Dalang replied with a smile.
"That's okay. Let's see how many taels of silver you can sell for this acre of land."
Upon hearing this, Emperor Hongzhi made some calculations and said the same thing.
"Haha, it's okay, it's okay~"
Yang Dalang immediately nodded happily.
He was originally from Quanzhou, Fujian, and was one of the first people to come to Ryukyu City. He participated in the construction of Ryukyu City and has been here for more than ten years.
I started working for the Ryukyu Sugar Industry, and then I started growing sugar cane myself when I got a large piece of land of my own. Then after the price of sugar cane dropped, I started trying to grow vegetables and fruits.
The income is quite good. When there were no greenhouse vegetables in the past, the prices of vegetables and fruits here in Ryukyu were higher, and the income was even better.
After all, the family can earn thousands of taels of silver from growing vegetables and selling fruits a year. The income is quite good, and they live a very prosperous life.
"Do you still have your own labels on your vegetables?"
Liu Jin also kept watching, and when he saw that there was a label of Ryukyu vegetables on the basket, he also asked curiously.
"Of course it must be posted."
“Nowadays, there are many places to grow vegetables and fruits, such as Qiongzhou, Jiaozhi, Xianglin, Nanyang and other places. However, the quality of these places is similar to that of Ryukyu, so they will pass it off as Ryukyu’s vegetables and fruits.
"
"In order to differentiate, we specially hired people to design and manufacture this label. Only the vegetables and fruits from our Ryukyu side can be labeled with such labels, and only with this label can we sell them at a reasonable price.
"
Yang Dalang nodded and replied matter-of-factly.
"That's it~"
After listening to this, Liu Jin immediately understood that the competition is getting more and more intense now.