Feeling sad in his heart, Li Yuanjia was helpless.
He does have a huge fortune. If he uses it to repair the houses and buy clothes and food for the poor, it will really help many people survive this harsh winter!
However……
How many people can be saved by dispersing all the wealth?
There are hundreds of thousands of people in Chang'an City, more than half of whom are poor. Can Li Yuanjia save a thousand people? Or two thousand people?
Besides, is this really something he, the King of Han, can do?
Even if Emperor Li Shimin is far away in Luoyang, it is not his turn to do the disaster relief in Chang'an City. If he really has to bite the bullet and do it...
"hehe."
With a wry smile, Li Yuanjia sighed and decided to completely dispel these unrealistic thoughts in his mind. Instead of thinking about these things, he might as well pay more attention to Sun Zhan's cotton cultivation!
So early the next morning, Sun Zhan braved the heavy snow and rushed to Prince Han's Mansion.
"Little Sun Zhan, join the king!"
"Well, get up!"
Looking at Sun Zhan, whose hands and face were bruised from the cold, Li Yuanjia's mouth twitched, and he felt a sense of apology in his heart. Just because of his sudden mood swing yesterday, this young man rushed from outside the city despite the heavy snow.
It's really a bit too unkind here.
However, Li Yuanjia buried this apology well in his heart, and there was not even a trace of fluctuation on his face.
Over the years after his rebirth, especially in the first few days, Li Yuanjia's ability to hide his mentality from the people around him has reached its peak. After all, it is in the palace. If you are not careful, God knows what the consequences will be.
.
So suppressing the apology in his heart, Li Yuanjia asked calmly: "Sun Zhan, how much cotton is left in this year's harvest? How many acres can be planted next year?"
At Li Yuanjia's insistence, this new gadget was called cotton.
If you get cotton seeds and farmers from Gaochang country at the beginning of the year, you will naturally be able to harvest a batch of cotton at the end of the year.
As an annual herbaceous plant, the growth period of cotton is not too long, more than a hundred days is enough. Although the number of seeds sent as tribute from Gaochang Kingdom is not large, it is still enough to plant a few acres of land. In Sun Zhan
With the careful care of the farmer from Gaochang, we planted a total of three acres and harvested 69 pounds of cotton in October...
To be honest, Li Yuanjia didn't know whether this number was high or low.
Even though he had used more than 69 kilograms of cotton in his previous life, from childhood to adulthood, Li Yuanjia really didn't know how cotton was grown or how much yield one acre of land could produce... No, before that,
He didn't even know cotton was an annual herb!
So he was quite satisfied with the sixty-nine pounds of cotton produced in three acres of land.
If Li Yuanjia knew what the future cotton yield would be, he would not know whether to cry or laugh when he looked at the yield of more than 20 kilograms per acre...
In any case, Sun Zhan and the others finally succeeded.
Although more than half of the buried seeds died, a small half survived and produced dozens of kilograms of cotton and more seeds. For him, these seeds meant hope!
Therefore, the first priority after harvesting is to carefully preserve the seeds, and the next step is to process more than 60 kilograms of cotton.
"Back to the king, there are still more than twenty kilograms of cotton left!"
After bowing, Sun Zhan said respectfully: "As for the seeds, it should be no problem to plant ten acres next year. If it is sparse, twenty acres will be fine."
"Well……"
After listening to Sun Zhan's words, Li Yuanjia raised his eyebrows, pondered for a moment and then asked: "Where's the reeling? There are only twenty kilograms of cotton left. How is your progress in spinning with the reeling?"
Reeling machine, a tool used for reeling silk.
Li Yuanjia didn't know when this thing was invented, but he knew that as early as thousands of years ago, our ancestors had known how to use silk, and spinning tools had already appeared in the Han Dynasty.
It's definitely inappropriate to use a reel to spin cotton yarn, but it shouldn't be difficult to modify it, right?
"this……"
After hesitating for a moment, Sun Zhan said with a wry smile: "In reply to the king, reeling and spinning... it's not possible! We haven't found the right method yet. The cotton yarn spun is uneven in thickness and is very easy to break."
When he said these words, Sun Zhan's heart was beating hard.
Of course he knew how much the king valued these cottons. He gave one hundred acres of the best land. In order to allow Sun Zhan to take care of these cottons, Li Yuanjia also specially gave five strong laborers at his disposal! More What's more, the king even asked people to build a house for them, gave them two cows, and also allocated a hundred dollars for daily expenses!
This kind of treatment made Sun Zhan feel flattered but also felt uneasy.
When he was originally assigned to the one hundred acres of land to grow cotton, Sun Zhan was still quite unconvinced. But when he received the one hundred acres, he would return to the palace every three to five to report the cotton situation to Li Yuanjia. When it comes to big things and small things, Sun Zhan has gradually understood one thing, that is, he will probably be inseparable from cotton in this life.
Therefore, Sun Zhan's mentality changed from unconvinced at the beginning to uneasy.
He is a little scared!
He was afraid that his work was not good enough, that the cotton yield was too low, or that the cotton he planted could not be successfully spun into cotton yarn on a reel. Of course, he was even more afraid that he had not taken good care of the seeds and let them all die!
In fact, this almost became a reality.
Fortunately, after more than half of the seeds died, the remaining half succeeded after all, and in addition to the harvested cotton, they now have accumulated more seeds...
Just when Sun Zhan was racing with all kinds of thoughts, Li Yuanjia calmed down and nodded: "It doesn't matter, we have plenty of time, just do it slowly."
He was never short of time.
Only 10 to 20 acres of cotton can be planted next year. Even if the yield of one acre of land is 50 pounds, it will not add up to much in the end. Even if all 100 acres of land are planted with cotton, it will be an insignificant figure.
Just take your time when renovating the spinning machine.
Compared with such trivial matters, Li Yuanjia is actually more worried about the large-scale planting and promotion of cotton in the future!
To be honest, he really had no confidence at all in persuading Li Shimin or the ministers in the DPRK to promote cotton cultivation in the Tang Dynasty. After all, in this era of low productivity, the cultivated land was not enough to grow food. Let them grow more cotton?
No matter how he thought about it, Li Yuanjia found it difficult.
The nobles have silks and furs, and there is no shortage of warm clothing, which is also quite comfortable and luxurious; while the poor have linen to survive the cold winter, and their desire for food far exceeds the warmer cotton...
If Zhu Yuanzhang hadn't forcefully promoted it later, how long would it have taken for cotton to become mainstream in China?
"call……"
After thinking about it, Li Yuanjia let out a long breath.
After all, the future of cotton still lies with him.
During the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty, it was the time when the population of this dynasty was the sparsest and the land was the most abundant. If cotton could not be promoted in my lifetime, it would be even more impossible when the population expanded later...