Timoshenko promised to provide the troops with necessary supplies, but it remains to be discussed when the transport plane will actually be dispatched. Net
They will eventually airdrop a large amount of supplies, and the news has been passed on to the vast number of soldiers. Everyone is looking forward to it. But as the top brass of the army, Yang Mingzhi and Yevlov are even more important to support themselves. Now the wait has finally arrived.
Ripening season of potatoes.
Therefore, Yang Mingzhi first mobilized the soldiers of the guard company, and the team was replenished to 200 people, standing neatly in the small empty space of the camp. Each of them was holding a military shovel, and the short wooden handle was changed to a long one.
Then it was time to dig potatoes in the fields.
Yang Mingzhi's injury got better again. He followed the doctor's advice and still hung his injured left arm on his chest.
He looked around at his soldiers, all of whom were in good spirits. "Very good, very good. Comrades, we have been waiting for two months. That was when we first entered this swamp, and we sowed potato roots.
Two months have passed and they are ripe, it’s time to harvest!”
The soldiers roared, and they wanted to dig up the fields near the guard company's camp first.
Starfruit and Natasha are also here, but the girls don't have to go to the fields themselves. As logisticians, they boiled a large pot of boiled water and cooled it down to cold boiled water. In order to get rid of some earthy smell, they even put in some tea powder.
Now, Yang Mingzhi has officially handed over the task of digging potatoes to the new guard company commander Balzen.
"Now that you have a new position, you have to lead everyone to dig out all the potatoes and not waste any of them."
Balzen saluted. He cherished his current position. The reconnaissance company also suffered a lot. They were elite soldiers drawn from various battalions, and now they have been supplemented by the guard company, which has suffered a lot of personnel losses. Balzen has suffered a lot in recent battles.
His performance was very eye-catching, and he had no complaints when he became the company commander.
Everyone immediately took action and started digging in the fields near the camp. Soon, balls of potatoes were dug out.
Yang Mingzhi was injured, so he watched from the side and told his wife, "When they get tired of digging, they will definitely ask you for water. Pour cold water into their lunch boxes now."
He looked at the soldiers quietly, and couldn't help but think of many things in his mind.
There are quite a lot of supplies in the warehouse of the 284th Division now. The last time the fighting troops suffered heavy losses, they got a lot of food. It turned out that the villagers who followed the troops to withdraw had almost emptied their homes and even opened the cellars.
, contribute a large amount of food stored for the winter, such as potatoes and cabbage.
In addition, the troops also stored a lot of flour, which of course was captured by the Germans.
At present, an ordinary Soviet soldier's daily staple food is bread and potatoes. The bread is not purely black bread. The captured German flour is white flour, mixed with wheat flour with high bran content stored by the people in the swamp.
, or simply baked with buckwheat flour. But when choosing between potatoes and bread, the soldiers must choose bread. After all, the simplest boiled potatoes have no taste at all and are even difficult to swallow.
It’s just that everyone knows that potatoes are still the basis for everyone’s survival. This plant can still survive in peat soil such as swamps. It is cold-resistant and salt-alkali tolerant. There is no problem if the soil moisture is high, and the yield is still very good.
Yang Mingzhi just watched for a while, and the soldiers dug out a lot of potatoes, which even piled up a hill. The size of these potatoes was not big, mainly due to the variety. High-quality potatoes need to be detoxified, so they even
They can grow as long as a volleyball, but if their offspring are no longer processed, they will eventually become half the size of a fist.
Even though potatoes are small, they still win with numbers.
"Everyone, please work harder. There are many of us. We must dig the fields we are responsible for before noon!"
Yang Mingzhi's words were usually orders, and the soldiers raised their shovels and shouted "Ula".
The guard company was responsible for more than ten acres of potato fields, which were originally wild forests. In order to build houses, all the trees were cut down. The soldiers also cleared the roots of the trees and reclaimed the fields so quickly. Because of the characteristics of potatoes,
There is no need for farmers to constantly serve. Soldiers also understand the importance of farmyard manure, and the excrement of humans and animals is not wasted. As for food scraps, they are fed to poultry.
The task Yang Mingzhi gave the two girls was to wait honestly, and they became a little bored after waiting for a long time.
Natasha couldn't help but hum.
"щииkaшa, пишahaшa~щииkaшa, пишahaшa~"
(Cabbage soup and buckwheat soup are our favorites)
She sang an incomprehensible tune, which sounded interesting.
"Cabbage Soup and Buckwheat Soup, is this the name of this song?" Yang Mingzhi asked with great interest.
"Well, that's about it. Mom used to sing like this when she cooked the meal, but..." At this point, the girl's face darkened again.
"I'm sorry, dear, I'd better not ask." Yang Mingzhi felt that he had accidentally poked her sore spot, and he couldn't help but blame himself.
Natasha was naturally not an unreasonable person. She tried her best to be strong and looked at her savior with a forced smile. "Anyway, this is the truth. I can only be strong. At least for my brother, I must be strong."
"That's very well said." Yang Mingzhi couldn't help but applaud. Her life experience is very similar to that of Yang Tao, so the two have a lot in common.
When it was almost noon, the soldiers finally finished their mission. They dug very deep. Some of them even dug half a meter deep. If they dug deeper, the groundwater might seep out!
Yang Mingzhi finally stood up and watched the soldiers walk to Yang Tao covered in mud and beg for cold water. Many people brought some water of their own and immediately unscrewed the kettles and filled them up.
Balzen stood in front of Yang Mingzhi, gave a military salute and said: "Deputy division commander, the mission has been completed. This time we have gained a lot!"
Yang Mingzhi replied with satisfaction: "You did a great job. Our potato digging operation was an experiment. Obviously, we achieved a bumper harvest this time."
Potatoes are a crop that can produce four to five thousand kilograms per acre when the weather is good, and two thousand kilograms per mu if the environment is bad. Its extremely high yield is the reason for the population explosion in ancient Chinese history.
Yang Mingzhi glanced at the tired and laughing soldiers. He did not show his authority and asked everyone to re-queue, but directly issued an order: "Comrades, take a rest first, and we will start weighing the potatoes in a while. We will finish this task before eating. I
The teacher must be informed of the results.”
Just do it, and the intense weighing work begins immediately.
These potatoes have not been washed, and many of them still contain soil, which will affect some results, but the impact is minimal. The large scale of the collective farm was brought over. This thing was originally used to weigh fish and livestock, but it is now used
What a perfect time to weigh potatoes.
The weighing took more than an hour, and it was long past noon. Although everyone was very hungry, everyone's face was filled with the joy of the harvest, because the yield of each acre exceeded two thousand kilograms, that is, one ton, and one ton for ten acres of land.
A total of eleven tons of potatoes were produced.
Yang Mingzhi wrote down the data on a piece of paper. Eleven tons of grain was a large amount. He knew that there were many potato fields in the entire camp. Because it was an imperative to promote potato planting, although he did not carefully count
How many acres of farmland are there? I'm afraid there are still five or six hundred acres.
Farmland is scattered in the forest, and many open spaces have been reclaimed, mainly growing potatoes. If there are 500 acres of farmland, the harvest will be 500 tons. There are only two, two, three, two or three kinds of potatoes, and the maximum is only 200 grams. Under the rationing system
Under the conditions, ordinary farmers without physical labor would be enough to eat 500 grams of potatoes a day, and children would need less.
But manual laborers and soldiers eat more, at least more than one kilogram a day. Yang Mingzhi simply did a calculation for himself. The total population of the troops and attached civilians was about 13,000, and they were distributed over a large area.
Within the area, based on the consumption of one kilogram of potatoes per person per day, thirteen tons are consumed per day. This harvest is enough to feed the entire population for two months.
With this result, Yang Mingzhi was very excited. Facing the mountains of potatoes, he couldn't help but sigh with emotion. "We were lucky to get two months of rations. We also have other food. We won't go hungry this winter!"
Balzen explained: "Deputy Commander, we can actually continue sowing. We are very close to Ukraine, and there are generally no terrible low temperatures in winter. We can still gain something by planting another season of potatoes."
Yang Mingzhi agreed, "I will do as you say, and we will continue planting. No matter what the situation is in winter, if the potatoes are frozen to death, we can still dig out the growing rhizomes. Although they are small, they can still feed us."
After all the missions were over, the soldiers poured into the canteen. Just like Natasha's ditty sang just now, everyone just likes to drink the vegetable soup provided in the canteen. Although it is not boiled buckwheat grains, or even ordinary wheat grains, the aunt in the canteen cooks it.
Make a simpler noodle porridge, sprinkle some salt or even vegetable leaves to make salty porridge. This kind of food is very easy to digest, has excellent taste, and is a good way to replenish your physical strength.
Yevlov and Fuming couldn't wait to know the result, so they simply entered the cafeteria. They watched eagerly as Yang Mingzhi drank two large bowls of noodle porridge and burped happily.
"It tastes really good. Look at our soldiers drinking it even more happily."
Yevlov chuckled and immediately asked about the harvest.
Yang Mingzhi was about to say something when the excitement in his heart turned into laughter. After laughing enough, he spread his hands and said, "We all have ten fingers. I want to tell you, the harvest is not just ten tons. I don't have shoes."
With the addition of a toe, there are a total of 11 tons of potatoes in ten acres of land, and we have a bumper harvest."
"So many!" Yevlov asked in surprise.
"Yes, there are so many, so hurry up and mobilize the masses. We will start harvesting potatoes from now on. We also have to build new barns and cellars. To be on the safe side, we should temporarily reduce the supply of flour. When there is no military operation,
Potatoes are our staple food. Let’s eat these newly harvested ones quickly!”
Yang Mingzhi talked a lot, and Yevlov and Fuming listened briefly.
"Okay, we'll start in the afternoon. The construction of the barn will take some time. Let's dig out the potatoes first."
In the afternoon, the potato digging activity first started in Catfish Village. After simple statistics, the farmland near Catfish Village exceeds 400 acres, and more than 300 acres are concentrated on growing potatoes. The remaining farmland is mainly planted with vegetables, especially cabbage.
The next day, excavation work also started in Black Earth Village and Blacksmith Village. Black Earth Village has more than 200 acres of potato fields, but because of the late sowing, the yield is lower. As for Black Earth Village, because they prefer animal husbandry, there are only more than 100 acres of farmland.
mu, the output is similar to that of Blacksmith Village.
After another two days, the harvest statistics were completely completed.
"Field census shows that the three collective farms have a total of 743 acres of fields, including 621 acres of potato planting area (one acre of land in the Soviet Union is ten meters by ten meters), and a total of 670 tons of potatoes were harvested."
The report was simply placed in front of Yang Mingzhi and Yevlov, "Timoshenko's assistance may begin in a few days. We never thought we would harvest so much food. Had we known this, we would have had limited air transportation capacity."
Obviously we can ask for more weapons and less food." Yevlov was excited in his heart. The policy of self-reliance for the troops was so right. He couldn't help but hold Yang Mingzhi's right hand tightly, "Berekov, come here.
It’s so right to be the deputy division commander and our staff officer!”
Yang Mingzhi almost became ecstatic after being praised so much. He actually knew that such a potato yield was quite normal. The Soviet Union used the area unit that would later be called "small mu" in China, which was half the area of "large mu".
In fact, it will be very easy to produce six thousand kilograms of potatoes per mu in the future. Now one ton of potatoes per mu is converted into two tons for a large mu, or four thousand kilograms. Under such poor soil quality as peat soil, such a harvest is already very large.
good.
Before traveling through time, he knew that there was a saying that potatoes and Soviet women saved the Soviet Union. The men went to the front lines, and the women gave birth in the rear. Due to environmental reasons, the Soviet Union was more suitable for growing potatoes, and they survived very well here.
Women are fully capable of farming, and its huge output feeds people all over the country.
It’s just that Yang Mingzhi also knew the disadvantages of potatoes. They don’t have several essential amino acids for the human body. What’s worse, their energy density is only 40% of wheat. Soldiers still need to eat some pasta and vegetables to reconcile. As for marching and fighting, they consume a lot of food.
Warrior, fat and red meat are the way to go.
There was a bumper harvest of potatoes, and the villagers of the collective farm began to store the food on their own. They guided the soldiers to build barns and cellars to store food. The entire Pripet Swamp camp became lively, and everyone knew that what they were storing was not just a pile of food.
The tubers of plants are the hope of fighting on.
At the same time, Yang Mingzhi and Yevlov were also waiting for new radio messages to arrive. They had a premonition that Soviet assistance was coming soon.