The empire's water conservancy construction was previously focused on flood and drought control, focusing on the management of major rivers, especially the Yellow River, Huaihe River, Yangtze River and other river basins.
Now that these water conservancy projects focusing on disaster prevention are almost completed, we are ready to start focusing on the construction of more extensive small-scale water conservancy projects mainly in rural areas, with irrigating farmland as the core goal.
This category is relatively easy to see results in the short term. After all, small irrigation and water conservancy projects in rural areas are small-scale and have short construction periods. As long as there are funds, they can be completed quickly.
Thirdly, it is to increase investment and support for agricultural production equipment, especially ordinary agricultural production tools, hoes, sickles, etc., which may not be inconspicuous, but are extremely important, and then there are other agricultural production machinery and equipment, such as threshing machines.
, a private enterprise has long developed a threshing machine driven by human pedals, and the production efficiency is quite good.
But this thing is still relatively expensive to buy at the moment, because the companies that developed and patented the threshing machine technology are hoping to get rich with this thing, and with the support of the patent system, people can sell it for whatever price they like.
In this regard, the cabinet is prepared to solve this problem once and for all, directly asking the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises to carry out the acquisition, directly spending money to acquire the company, and then licensing the patent for free so that everyone can produce it. In this way, rapid popularization can be achieved.
After all, this thing actually doesn't have much production cost. It was expensive before because the patent was monopolized.
The same applies to other types. The cabinet is planning to turn some agricultural production equipment that has low production costs but overpriced prices into cheap equipment so that the majority of farmers can afford it.
Of course, the empire is a country that pays attention to the law and will not take things from companies for free, so the official will ask the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises to directly acquire patents or simply directly acquire companies. The official empire has always been generous, and it is very satisfying to give money.
Ten thousand is one hundred thousand, one million is not enough, one million is not enough, one thousand...
Well, at this time, the tax investigation officers of the Ministry of Taxation should come out to administer justice, find out the evidence of tax evasion and evasion, compile it if not, sentence them to tax evasion, bankrupt the company, and arrest and shoot the businessman.
If you want to extort money from the imperial officials, that's a good idea!
In addition, there is another way to see results in the short term, but with slightly less effective results, which is to increase investment in the natural fertilizer industry.
To support industries related to guano and saltpeter synthesis of nitrogen fertilizers, it is proposed to exempt all guano and saltpeter from tariffs, and even provide certain import subsidies to reduce the cost of importing the above-mentioned materials. Otherwise, the cost is too high and farmers cannot afford it.
For eggs.
The above-mentioned projects are all short-term projects, and it is easier to see results in the short term. The only disadvantage is that they cost a lot of money.
In addition, there are several medium and long-term projects.
For example, to increase investment in synthetic fertilizers, this time the cabinet will allocate a special fund to support it. Its research and development funding has reached a million dollars. The cabinet hopes to get a cheap fertilizer that can be used in large quantities.
Mass production technology of chemical fertilizers that can be produced on a large scale without too many restrictions.
Anyway, the current method of synthesizing nitrogen fertilizer based on saltpeter is not good. There is not much natural saltpeter. Now in the Tang Empire, large-scale saltpeter mines are only found in the Principality of Chile. The saltpeter in this place is
With Datang's huge consumption, it is estimated that all the mines will be mined within a few decades.
Otherwise, a full R&D support fund of one million Tang Yuan would not have been given!
This is only funding to support research and development, and does not include subsequent support funding for production, promotion, etc.
The Royal Institute of Technology has already invested funds in this area, but compared with the one million special R&D funds, it is much less.
With sufficient funds, the fertilizer project team at the Royal Institute of Technology can recruit more researchers and conduct multiple experiments at the same time to shorten the research and development time.
The chemical fertilizer industry is a medium- and long-term project.
Also belonging to the mid- to long-term project range are crop improvement and super-large irrigation and water conservancy projects.
The empire has been improving crops, but now, the empire is preparing to increase investment, and it is a huge investment. It is not only the high-yield cultivation of hybrid rice and wheat, the two most important food crops of the empire, that are supported in this way, but also the high-yield cultivation of hybrid rice and wheat, the empire's two most important food crops.
There will be improvements in many other native crops.
Not only the improvement of local crops, but also the improvement of crops introduced from overseas, such as sweet potatoes, corn, and potatoes, three crops that the empire attaches great importance to and have been promoted and cultivated on a large scale in the country.
Among them, sweet potatoes were introduced the earliest and are now widely promoted, followed by corn.
As for potatoes, they were only introduced and planted in the past ten years or so, and the scale of cultivation is not yet large.
In other words, because the Tang Dynasty introduced potatoes to South America, Europeans also began to introduce potatoes on a large scale and pay attention to them. Moreover, this stuff has good adaptability in Europe. Now many farmers in Spain have begun to grow this stuff.
Regarding the improvement of crops, this will be a long-term long-term project. Basically, there will be no effect in a short period of time. In the medium term, it is expected to be a little bit, but it is hard to say, but if it continues, the effect will definitely be huge.
of.
The last long-term project is a super-large irrigation and water conservancy project.
The officials in the cabinet want to build very large dams in areas rich in water resources to divert water to irrigate surrounding areas and create new grain-producing areas. Moreover, they are so imaginative that they want to divert water to areas such as the Yellow River and the Yangtze River.
The water from the river is introduced into other water-scarce areas, such as the North China Plain.
This had to remind Li Xuan of the Yellow River diversion project that the Ministry of Industry had planned for more than 20 years but was still on paper.
The Ministry of Industry has long pointed out that the Huaihe River is now seriously flooded, and Shandong, Hebei and other North China Plains are seriously short of water. In addition, in ancient times, the Yellow River flowed through the North China Plain, so it wants to take the initiative to divert the current Yellow River.
, to divert the Yellow River to the North China Plain.
To this end, they also proposed two detailed plans, namely the Shandong plan and the Hebei plan.
Attempts are made to artificially divert the Yellow River to allow the lower reaches of the Yellow River to enter the Bohai Sea through a pre-set river course. On the one hand, this is to alleviate the frequent flooding in the lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Huaihe River Basin. On the other hand, it is also an attempt to introduce the water resources of the Yellow River into the North China Plain to better
Good development of local agriculture.
Unfortunately, this kind of artificial diversion project is too huge, difficult to construct, involves a wide area and a large number of people.