In Jiaozhou, Guangxi, there is a huge farmland on the outskirts of Songping City. But what is different from ordinary farmland is that this huge farmland is surrounded by fences and a sign: Experimental Farm, Idle People
No entry required.
On one side of a large farmland, there is a three-story cement building. This type of slightly larger cement building is relatively rare in suburban areas.
A signboard hangs at the door of the building: Jiaozhou Breeding Institute, Grain Department, Ministry of Agriculture.
This is one of the hybrid rice breeding institutes under the Grain Department of the Ministry of Agriculture.
The Tang Empire has been researching hybrid rice for a long time. Every year, it invests a lot of research funds to cultivate hybrid rice, and successively established the Guangzhou Breeding Institute, Kunming Breeding Institute and now the Jiaozhou Breeding Institute.
However, they have not been able to produce any great results. Although many improved rice varieties have been cultivated, the preliminary work has focused more on selecting and cultivating improved varieties from the Nanyang region so that they can be planted in the southern region of the empire.
Pure hybrid rice breeding work has always been limited to theory and small-scale experiments. At least so far, they have not been able to find high-yielding grain varieties.
Relatively speaking, the work of transplanting and cultivating other grain varieties in the Tang Empire was actually smoother.
For example, a large number of crops introduced from Southeast Asia, America and even Europe have been promoted and cultivated nationwide after improvements by the Grain Department of the Ministry of Agriculture.
For example, corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, these three relatively important crops, have always been the key crops cultivated by the Ministry of Agriculture.
After a long period of improvement and cultivation, the above three crops can now be grown in most areas of the Tang Empire, and they can guarantee a certain yield, or even a large yield.
This is quite difficult. If a huge amount of money is not spent on special improvement and cultivation, and only relying on private improvement, this time may take decades or even hundreds of years.
Historically, sweet potatoes have been around since the Ming Dynasty, but the original sweet potatoes are not suitable for planting in many places, and the yield is not high.
However, after a long period of selection and elimination of the fittest, it was not until the Qing Dynasty that sweet potatoes could be widely planted in China and ensure large yields.
The Ministry of Agriculture's improvement and cultivation is to shorten this process, and has successively improved and cultivated many varieties suitable for different regions.
Corn, in particular, is now grown in most areas of the Tang Empire, especially in arid and barren lands, where corn has begun to be widely grown.
Because corn has extremely strong drought tolerance, cold tolerance, barrenness tolerance and excellent environmental adaptability, its nutritional value is also high and its yield is not low.
Of course, the reason that prompted farmers in the Tang Empire to start planting corn extensively was that corn could be grown on any piece of dry land or even on a hillside.
This was very important for the Tang Empire, which lacked arable land.
Similarly, sweet potatoes actually have similar characteristics, so sweet potatoes are also widely grown.
Many farmers in the Tang Empire grew rice in good paddy fields or wheat in high-quality dry land, and planted sweet potatoes, corn, peanuts, or cash crops such as mulberry trees, cotton, fruits, and vegetables on other sub-par dry lands.
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The officials of the Tang Empire also encouraged farmers to plant these new crops. In the early years, they provided high-quality grain seeds for free. Now they also organize merchants to purchase cash crops such as cotton, silkworm cocoons, fruits and vegetables to increase farmers' income.
However, even if this is the case, it will be difficult to completely solve the food problem faced by the Tang Dynasty.
If we simply talk about having enough to eat, the Tang Empire today is actually able to do this.
Even if there is no food supply from overseas territories, the 300-400 million local people can be fed by relying solely on local food.
However, the requirements of the Tang Empire were not just to feed the people, they also wanted to feed the people well.
Lower the food index.
The difference between a grain index of 60% and a grain index of 40% is not 20% of grain yield, but several times of grain yield.
This is why the Tang Empire has insisted on developing hybrid rice and chemical fertilizers for so many years.
Now the expenditures have begun to take shape, and as for hybrid rice, although there has not been much progress, it can be regarded as a small achievement.
The Jiaozhou Rice Breeding Institute submitted a report to their superiors, stating that they had initially developed a type of rice suitable for planting in the southern region, with a short growth time and high yield.
Of course, it is not without its shortcomings. This shortcoming is that it has relatively high requirements on climate and the fertility of farmland.
However, if chemical fertilizers are used as supplements, parts of Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and most of the Nanyang Peninsula are suitable for planting and maintain high yields.
Although this hybrid rice still has great limitations, it is still a huge progress for the rice cultivation work of the Tang Empire.
Furthermore, the entire Nanyang region now belongs to the empire, and at the same time, the Nanyang region is a granary area that the Tang Empire focuses on developing.
This Jiaozhou rice is just right!
After learning the news, even the Holy Emperor Li Xuan paid personal attention to the matter.
"If this kind of rice is promoted in Nanyang, the yield per acre in one year will increase by more than 50% compared to the current level. Even if the cost of chemical fertilizers increases, the final amount of food grown will be
The cost is still much lower than the current cost of food!”
"This is a good thing, a great thing. Later, your Ministry of Agriculture will handle it as appropriate!"
"However, don't be anxious. Make sure there are no problems. Don't carry out large-scale promotion in the early stage. As before, choose one or two places for experimental planting. If the effect is good, then slowly promote it!"
After Li Xuan gave instructions to the Grain Department of the Ministry of Agriculture on the relevant precautions, he called the people from the Immigration and Reclamation Department over!
"Nowadays, the rate of immigration in Nanyang is still slow. It has been several years since there were only a few million people. This is quite small for the huge Nanyang region!"
"I remember that nearly two million immigrants went to the Americas last year, but only over one million went to Southeast Asia. This doesn't work!"
“This immigration work must not be slacked off at all times!”
These words made the people in the Immigration and Reclamation Division start to sweat on their foreheads!
We must not relax at all times. This means that they have slacked off in the work of the Immigration and Reclamation Division. The Holy Emperor has openly expressed his dissatisfaction with the work of the Immigration and Reclamation Division.
After returning home, the director of the Immigration and Reclamation Department summoned all the officials under his command and conveyed the Holy Emperor's oral instructions.
When these officials heard the words "never relax at all times", all of them looked serious.
Even if he is a newcomer to the officialdom, he can understand the dissatisfaction attitude of the Holy Emperor because of his straightforward words.
However, even after being serious, they all looked embarrassed.
Immigration work is not that easy.
Someone immediately sighed and said: "Well, people are generally unwilling to immigrate to Nanyang now. They would rather immigrate to America at their own expense than immigrate to Nanyang for free. This is the fundamental reason for the lag in immigration work in Nanyang in recent years!"
Another person said: "Yes, although the Nanyang region is already a mainland and there are no indigenous people in it, the environment in most areas is still a bit harsh, and many people are unwilling to immigrate there!"
"On the other hand, conditions are better in the Americas. Although we have long canceled the ferry ticket subsidies for immigrants, people still have to go there even if they take loans to buy their own tickets!"
"But difficulties are not a reason. We still have to find ways to attract more immigrants to the Nanyang region. I heard before that the Food Department has created a Jiaozhou rice. This type of waterway can only be found in the Nanyang region.
Planting, and the yield is extremely high, I think we can start from this aspect and focus on publicizing the planting of Jiaozhou rice in Nanyang, so that people know that going to Nanyang to farm can get a bumper harvest!"
"Yes, in addition to rice, I think we can also start with rubber. As the empire's demand for rubber increases, the price of rubber is also getting higher day by day. Previously, the only few rubber plantations in Nanyang were profitable.
Now, many people in Nanyang have begun to plant rubber on their own initiative!"
"The empire's demand for rubber will definitely grow in the future, and the Nanyang region is very suitable for large-scale rubber planting. I think we can start with rubber planting to attract immigrants."
"Since we are attracting immigrants from cash crops, I think we can also add some attention to cash crops such as tropical fruits. Now there are refrigerated transport ships. Last month, I heard that someone used refrigerated transport ships to transport a
Bananas went north to sell them and made a lot of money."
"These are the special advantages of the Nanyang region. We should take advantage of them to attract more people!"
At this time, someone else said: "In fact, just promoting agriculture is not enough. You must know that there is oil and gold in the Nanyang region. And don't forget, the Nanyang region is now the mainland of the empire, which is not what it is."
There are no natives in the overseas territories. What does this mean?"
“This means we can invest and build factories in Nanyang!”
"The oil resources in the Nanyang region are very rich. Nowadays, crude oil is transported back for refining. However, it is completely possible to set up refineries in Malacca and other areas. In this way, it can be sold nearby in the Nanyang region and can also be exported to India nearby.
area!"
"The geographical location of Malacca is so good. It is a pity that it is only used as a transit port. Shipbuilding and other industries can be properly developed!"
"Only when industry and commerce develop can it attract more capital and people. Otherwise, it will be difficult to achieve the goal of tens of millions of immigrants from Southeast Asia in the short term by relying solely on agriculture!"
The initial immigration target set by the Tang Empire for the Nanyang region was 10 million, but several years have passed, and now the total population is only a few million.
And these millions of people must also include some immigrants who immigrated to Malacca in the early days.
However, although the Immigration and Reclamation Department has proposed many solutions internally, they are only responsible for immigration, and many other things are within the business scope of the Food Department, the Ministry of Commerce and even the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises. The Immigration and Reclamation Department has no jurisdiction.
However, the Immigration and Reclamation Department has always had a special position in the empire's internal politics, and it has relatively close cooperation with other departments.
After some discussions, other agencies also agreed to cooperate with the work of the Immigration and Reclamation Division to promote the work of Southeast Asian immigrants.
But what is more important is the newly established Ministry of Health, which has no significant presence yet. This organization can be regarded as the most established organization in the Tang Empire.
As the name suggests, its authority is responsible for health and medical affairs.
By the way, the Tang Empire actually had a similar organization before, but what’s interesting is that it used to be under the Patrol Police Department and had a Health Management Department.
The main functions of the previous Health Management Department were to manage urban sanitation, epidemic prevention, etc. This is because the Tang Empire always attached great importance to health affairs, especially the emphasis on urban sanitation to the point of perversion. There were always people on the streets.
There are patrol officers watching people, seeing you spitting or littering, and immediately go to issue a ticket.
This is also the reason why the Health Management Department has always been under the management of the Patrol Police Department.
Later, the epidemic prevention and other functions were integrated and merged with the Royal Medical College. Based on this, the Ministry of Health was established, which is mainly responsible for epidemic prevention, health, medical and other affairs.
The Ministry of Health is the latest ministerial-level organization to be established, and the affairs it manages are not very important, so its presence is not large. The only major thing it has accomplished in the past few years is the spread of government-run hospitals within the empire.
In the early years of the Tang Empire, at least one government-run hospital was established in every county.
After the Ministry of Health was established, its main task was to promote primary care.
For this reason, the Ministry of Health has set up government-run clinics in towns. These clinics are not large in scale, with only a few or two doctors sitting in the clinic, but they can still be regarded as regular government-run clinics.
But what is more important is to promote, support and encourage rural doctors, and to train a large number of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners in the folk, so that they can treat common diseases according to various medical books compiled by the Ministry of Health.
The goal of the Ministry of Health is to strive to have a rural clinic in every administrative village. It does not need to be too large or even a nurse. It only needs a rural doctor who can understand basic medical knowledge.
It doesn’t need to be anything serious, it just needs to be able to cure common diseases.
The purpose of government-run hospitals is very simple, which is to provide cheap medical care to the people, so the charges are relatively cheap.
But it cannot be said that the treatment level of government-run hospitals is low. In fact, the highest level of treatment in the Tang Empire was still in government-run hospitals, but in higher-level government-run hospitals.
They are usually large comprehensive hospitals on provincial roads, and their medical standards are first-rate.