With the arrival of autumn, the slightest chill comes, and the whole land becomes extremely busy.
On the endless flat open fields, the golden wheat waves are moving with the slightest bit of cold wind. Harvesters are walking among the wheat waves, harvesting the grain quickly.
The elderly Carpenter Li is now gradually withdrawing from production. He sits on the roadside and looks at everything in front of him, recalling his life in his mind.
Born in the mountains of the Qinling Mountains, I have been a mountain dweller since I was a child. Although I inherited a few acres of thin farmland from my ancestors, and although I worked hard and diligently all my life, I still didn't have enough food to eat.
Carpenter Li's life was extremely difficult, especially when his sons gradually grew up and the half-grown sons devoured me to death.
It was not until later that his eldest son Li Da immigrated to Black Earth Province, and his family slowly lived a good life. His sons immigrated one after another, and finally Carpenter Li immigrated with him and moved to Black Earth Province.
here.
Here in Black Earth Province, Carpenter Li can truly live a good life.
The land at home is vast, and the food produced every year is so huge that sometimes it cannot be sold, so we can only raise livestock to consume part of the food.
Here, hunger has long been forgotten by everyone. What everyone pays attention to is eating well, with a balanced mix of vegetables, fruits, and meat. Wheat is obviously produced to eat noodles, but many times they often buy rice to eat rice.
My precious great-grandchildren are very picky eaters. They won't eat this or that. I want them to be like you when I was a child in the mountains, even when they had nothing to eat, it depends on whether you still eat.
“The current era is better!”
Carpenter Li sighed and stood up slowly, wanting to help, but was quickly stopped by Li Da.
"Dad, you can just sit next to me. You are already old, and you are not required to do things alone in the house."
Li Da helped his father sit back down. Now Carpenter Li no longer drives the harvester himself, leaving it to his son to do it.
"We have grown a lot of wheat in our town this year, but I don't know if it will be sold well."
Carpenter Li sat down again and looked at the vast wilderness around him, the endless wheat fields, and the road extending to the end of the field of vision.
"Don't worry, the price of wheat this year is still very good."
"Several provinces in the northern part of our Ming Dynasty suffered from severe drought, and almost all harvests were wiped out."
"In addition, the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Europe have also suffered severe droughts, and their grain output has dropped sharply. They all need a large amount of grain. Now the grain in our Black Earth Province is mainly exported to Europe."
"Our flour mill has received another order from a trading company. Feel free to produce flour and we will receive as much as you can."
Li said with a big smile.
At first, he was a young man who knew nothing in the mountains. Now, Li Da has learned some cultural knowledge on his own, recognized some words, and has slowly begun to develop the habit of reading newspapers.
After many years, Li Da now knows how to keep up with current affairs and politics.
"That's good, that's good."
"I never thought that one day there would be so much food that I would worry about not being able to sell it."
Carpenter Li nodded happily.
In the minds of the older generation, food is a precious thing. They have always been worried about not having enough food and not having enough food. They have never thought that one day there will be so much food that they can't even sell it.
In the past two years, Ming Dynasty began to export grain to Europe on a large scale. In previous years, a large amount of grain in Black Earth Province could not be sold almost every year. It could only be ground into powder and used to feed pigs, cattle, sheep, and chickens.
Ducks, geese, etc.
When he first came here, Carpenter Li felt distressed about this for a while, because it was all good quality food. He couldn't even eat it when he was in the mountains. Now it is used directly to feed livestock. What a pity. What a pity.
What a waste.
"In our Black Soil Province, there is still a lot of land that has not been cultivated. The cultivated fields now are less than 10% of what we have here, and large areas of land are still endless grasslands."
"In the past two years, the price of grain has been stable and it can be sold. Otherwise, no one would be willing to grow grain. It would be better to grow grass and raise cattle and sheep."
Li laughed and said.
Only when you leave the mountains can you truly understand the prosperity and wealth outside. If you were still in the mountains, you would still be worried about having enough to eat. How could you be as wealthy and comfortable as you are now?
Even though immigrants from the Black Earth Province are constantly reclaiming land, the Black Earth Province is still a sparsely populated and vast Black Earth Province, stretching from the Black Sea in the south to the Arctic Ocean in the north, from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Ural Mountains and the Caucasus Mountains in the east.
In such a vast land, even the local native Slavs have a total population of less than 10 million, which can be said to be very sparsely populated.
The land reclaimed by immigrants still accounts for very little of the total land area. There are still a lot of areas with vast grasslands, swamps, wild sheep, wild horses, and howling wolves.
"Then should we plant more crops next year?"
Carpenter Li still couldn't figure out why there was so much food that he couldn't sell it.
"No more planting. Our family should raise more cattle, sheep, and pigs. This food is almost enough."
"Even if the whole of Europe does not grow grain, our Black Soil Province can still support the European side. Everyone has planted more this year, and there will definitely be more next year. Then the food will not be easy to sell."
Li Da shook his head and said.
There is definitely no need to worry about selling this year's grain. The Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Europe have all experienced significant reductions in grain production due to drought, requiring a large amount of grain.
But next year will be different. If everyone has good weather next year and you continue to expand your cultivated land, I'm afraid the grain produced by then will rot in the warehouse.
Li Da is still very sure about this.
Nowadays, the food in Black Earth Province is mainly exported to Europe. The demand for food from Black Earth Province in Ming Dynasty is very small, very little, because there are also many low outputs in Mainland China.
In Hezhong, Liaodong, plus the Yangtze River Basin, Nanyang and other places, the Ming Dynasty's local grain also overflowed in large quantities.
Provinces such as Beizhili, Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, and Shanxi, which used to be major grain-growing provinces, now basically don’t grow much grain. Instead, they grow cash crops such as cotton, vegetables, fruits, peanuts, soybeans, and corn.
Because everyone discovered that growing grains did not make money at all, but that growing some cash crops could make money, so naturally no one grew grains.
In addition, there is the Nanyang region, which is actually very suitable for growing rice. It can have three crops a year, or even seven crops every two years. But it is such a good place. Most of the land in Nanyang is used to grow sugar cane, because
It is more profitable to grow sugar cane, so those plantation owners will not be so stupid as to grow food.
Growing food is not profitable.
This is already a consensus among farmers in the Ming Dynasty.
"Oh, I don't understand. I don't understand that in this era, there will be times when food is not easy to sell. It's so cheap. What a good food."
Carpenter Li shook his head slightly, he really couldn't understand this era.
There was so much grain that it was impossible to sell it, and it was all the finest refined grain, and the price was extremely cheap, so much that it was used for livestock in large quantities.
"Dang~dang~"
"The grain has been gathered, the grain has been gathered."
"Just harvest the wheat, just harvest the wheat, 2 cents per catty, 2 cents per catty."
While Li Da and Li Carpenter were chatting about food, a businessman led his men and shouted on the road, beating gongs and drums.
"Wheat can be sold for 2 cents a pound?"
Hearing this voice, Li Da's eyes widened slightly, and then he quickly walked over to take a look.
By the time Li Da passed by, a lot of people had already gathered around him.
"Is it true? This wheat can be sold for 2 cents per pound?"
"Of course it's true. You don't need to grind wheat into powder. Wheat with husk costs 2 cents per pound. You can harvest as much as you can."
When the waiter heard this, he quickly said.
"That's okay. My family has more than 1 million catties of wheat. When will you come over to harvest it?"
Someone got the affirmation and said it on the spot.
"My family also has 2 million catties of wheat. If you want to harvest it, come over with your money and carts."
"My family also has millions of catties of wheat."
Others also spoke one after another.
In the past, the price of wheat in the husk was more than 1 cent per pound. Unexpectedly, this year it has increased to 2 cents per pound. This is indeed an increase, and it can be roughly seen that the demand for grain abroad is now very high.
of exuberance.
"Okay, okay~"
"Don't worry, everyone. We have plenty of money. We are a big business and a big employer. Everyone's food has been collected."
When the merchant saw that everyone had a lot of food in their hands, he immediately laughed from ear to ear.
These businessmen also saw the opportunity this time. They knew that the food production in the Ottoman Empire, the Persian Empire, and Europe had greatly reduced, and this food trade would definitely make money.
The nearest grain-producing area is the Black Earth Province, so many merchants come to the Black Earth Province to purchase grain and then transport it to the Ottoman Empire and Europe for sale.
It's just that these businessmen don't understand the layout of the top management of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Empire wants to use food to control Europe, and even the whole world, and to include the whole world in the huge capitalist torrent of the Ming Empire.
Let the whole world become the source of raw materials and the dumping ground for goods for the Ming Empire. Places like the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Egypt are suitable for growing cotton, so they should not grow food. All of them should grow cotton. In this way, the textile industry of the Ming Dynasty will be established.
Raw materials.
It would be best if they raised more sheep and sheared them, so that raw materials would be more abundant, and Ming's factories could operate at full capacity, and then a steady stream of cheap, fine cloth would be delivered to them.
Businessmen's pursuit of profit naturally played a big role in helping Ming Dynasty's food penetrate into the world.