Originally, Zhou Hexuan planned to go up the river and take Zhang Leyi with him from Nanjing to Lushan Mountain. However, because of the human harvester, Zhou Hexuan had to return to Shanghai again and contact Yu Qiaqing about business cooperation.
"This is your harvester?" Li Zongwu looked at the machine that was only half a man tall in front of him with curiosity.
90% of the machine is made of wood. Only the iron buckle on the threshing wheel and the internal axle are made of iron. The threshing wheel above is connected to the pedals with two belts. People only need to step on the pedals like a sewing machine to drive the machine.
The threshing wheel rotates.
Li Shuhua smiled and said: "Mr. Zongwu can try it himself."
Li Zongwu stepped on the pedal carefully, and the threshing wheel on it immediately started spinning. He said happily: "I have to get it, I have to get it, I have to get it."
Li Shuhua explained next to him: "With this machine, when farmers are harvesting rice, one person can be responsible for cutting the rice and the other person is responsible for threshing. As long as the rice ears are placed on the threshing wheel, the machine can make the rice grow quickly."
The harvesting process is cleaner than traditional threshing methods. We have tested that using this human harvester, two people can do as much work as the previous six people, and the labor efficiency has been increased by three times, and it is easier and more labor-saving."
"Improving the efficiency by three times? The rang grid is amazing," Li Zongwu exclaimed, "If a small farmer has a machine like this, it will be much easier during busy farming times."
Wheat is fine, but rice harvesting is far from as simple as increasing efficiency several times.
After the rice matures, there are only a few days of optimal harvesting period. Harvest too early and it will not be mature enough, and if it is harvested too late, the rice grains will easily fall off automatically, causing a huge waste. It also depends on the weather. There are often heavy rains in summer, so harvest rice on rainy days.
, incomplete drying will cause the rice to become moldy.
With this kind of manual harvester, rice can be harvested in a short time, which not only saves manpower and material resources, but also avoids waste caused by weather factors, thereby increasing the rice harvest rate per unit area.
Li Zongwu said eagerly: "This kind of machine should be produced as soon as possible. I will help you contact Yang Sen and Liu Xiang to promote the harvester to Sichuan."
Yang Sen was still the largest warlord in Sichuan last year. He was dismissed from military and political posts by the Nationalist Government because he took in Wu Peifu, who was defeated in the army.
Although the Nationalist Government was unable to deal with the Sichuan warlord leader, it had the central government's will. After Yang Sen was dismissed, his ambitious elements were immediately ready to take action. Guo Rudong took the opportunity to stand on his own. Fan Shaozeng (Fan Shaer) defected to Liu Xiang, which greatly damaged Liu Xiang's strength.
But it took advantage of the trend to rise.
With Li Zongwu's reputation in Sichuan, both Yang Sen and Liu Xiang valued him, so it was very easy to help promote human harvesters.
Zhou Hexuan said happily: "If the harvester can be successfully promoted in Sichuan, that would be the best."
Li Shuhua expressed his thoughts: "It is too slow to cooperate with businessmen for promotion, and it is more appropriate to find the government."
Zhou Hexuan thought carefully and said: "Then let's cooperate with the Ministry of Agriculture and Minerals. The Minister of Agriculture and Mines, Yi Peiji, is also in Shanghai. There is no conflict with cooperating with Yu Qiaqing."
When the Nationalist Government was first established, there was no Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. It was called the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Fishery, and Animal Husbandry, and was responsible for overall management of agriculture, forestry, fishery, animal husbandry, etc.
The Minister of Agriculture and Mines at this time was Li Shizeng's in-law Yi Peiji. Not only did he serve as Minister of Agriculture and Mines, but he also served as the president of the Labor University. He was in charge of all the education work in Shanghai. As the National Government took action on the education system, soon
A bureau of education was to be established in Shanghai, and the first director happened to be Chen Dezheng, who had a personal grudge against Zhou Hexuan.
After discussing the plan, everyone immediately split up and took action.
Li Zongwu did not wait for Wu Zhihui to come back, and resigned directly and went back to Beijing to busy promoting human harvesters. Zhou Hexuan and Li Shuhua went to Shanghai to find Yi Peiji and Yu Qiaqing to discuss government-business cooperation.
Zhang Leyi felt helpless. She said she was going south to Lushan to propose marriage, but she had too many things to do on the way, so she could only put off the business again and again.
Two days later, Zhou Hexuan met with Minister of Agriculture and Mines Yi Peiji in Shanghai.
He did not hand over a business card or a greeting card, but directly sent Li Shizeng's calligraphy. In addition, Li Shuhua and Yi Peiji both studied in France, so the atmosphere was very harmonious when they first met.
"Mr. Zhou, Runzhang, is this machine really as useful as you say?" Yi Peiji didn't believe it.
Li Shuhua said confidently: "You might as well give it a try first."
Zhou Hexuan suggested: "We can find a mature rice field and invite many reporters and businessmen to come and witness it. Divide the rice field into two equal parts, with one side harvested by a harvester and the other side harvested in a traditional way. What do you think?
?”
"This method is good, intuitive and credible." Yi Peiji said with a smile. If the harvester can be successfully promoted and benefit the majority of farmers, it will also be a great thing for him to improve his reputation and political achievements.
…
Today, traditional rice is still widely grown in China, and its growth cycle is slightly longer than that of later hybrid rice.
From the end of July to the beginning of August, the early-maturing rice fields are already golden, while the late-maturing rice fields have to wait until mid- to late August.
This morning, a team composed of officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Mines, newspaper reporters, and representatives from the Shanghai business community set out for the Jinshan area in the outer suburbs of Shanghai.
"Minister Yi, Mr. Yu, Mr. Zhou, Mr. Li, Reporter Liang..." Meng Huaiming, a local wealthy gentleman, stepped forward and saluted one by one with fists in his hands.
Meng Huaiming is a large landowner in Jinshan, and this harvest experiment was conducted in his rice fields.
Local farmers came to see the strange thing one after another. Reporters and businessmen were also very interested in it and were waiting to see the results of the competition.
A golden rice field is divided into two parts. Four long-term workers use traditional harvesting methods, and the other two long-term workers use manual harvesters.
Li Shuhua served as the referee. He opened his pocket watch and shouted: "Ready, start!"
At the beginning, because the long-term workers were not familiar with the machine, they were in a hurry and often ignored their feet. In the panic, the rice straw was even stirred into the threshing wheel, causing the machine to get stuck.
The other four long-term workers used traditional methods to harvest and thresh very neatly, and the harvesting speed was actually faster than the machine.
Li Shuhua looked a little ugly and ordered the accompanying Peking University students to clean the machine, while the farmers who were watching the excitement talked about it:
"What kind of broken machine is this? It stops working as soon as you mess with it."
"Haha, how can those gentlemen who drink ink know how to do farm work?"
"It's okay to use machines to weave cloth, but we farmers are better at harvesting rice."
"..."
Including the businessmen and reporters, everyone thought that the machine was going to lose the competition because after more than ten minutes, the amount of rice harvested by traditional methods was more than twice that of the machine.
However, as time passed, everyone was stunned.
After the two long-term workers became familiar with the machine, they gradually caught up and achieved the lead very easily.
Until the harvesting by the machine was completed, their opponents had completed less than two-thirds of the workload...