Although some county magistrates couldn't help but raise some doubts, they were all ordered to keep quiet by the newly appointed governor, Cheng Yu. After that, Cheng Yu explained in detail the specific measures of the Army Farming System, which included the various advantages of sweet potatoes. Only then did everyone's doubts slowly disappear.
"… Although the Army Farming System is well planned, the specific implementation still requires the careful cooperation of the prefectures and counties. The Prefecture Overseer will be responsible for the collection of sweet potato seedlings, and this governor will be responsible for the specific supervision. All of you will have to do your best to organize labor to cultivate the abandoned land and ensure that the cultivators get 40% of the final harvest, while the prefectures and counties each get 20%!
The county magistrates of each county can calculate the number of acres of abandoned land in your county, the number of cultivators that can be settled, and the final expected yield. If you think that this measure is beneficial, you can ask this governor for sweet potato seedlings.
Currently, the number of seedlings that the Prefecture Overseer can provide is limited, and can only be promoted in one or two counties. Those who arrive first will get it, and those who arrive later won't get it. If you can't get the sweet potato seedlings in your hands, there's no need to worry. The Prefecture Overseer will provide a second batch of seedlings as soon as possible … "
After Cheng Yu's encouragement, there were indeed two county magistrates of the 18 counties who took the initiative to step forward and were willing to be the first to try the Army Farming System to cultivate sweet potatoes. Moreover, these two county magistrates were more prestigious among the county magistrates. Both of them were willing to provide 10,000 acres of arable land and related labor to try the cultivation of sweet potatoes.
In fact, to be able to reach the rank of county magistrate, everyone present had considerable political wisdom. Just by looking at the actions of the newly appointed governor, Cheng Yu, in the past few days, and the support of the Qing Province's soldiers, most of them already had an idea of what to do and already knew how to choose.
However, the implementation of the new policy had many risks, so the county magistrates still had some doubts in their hearts, which was why they were a little slow in responding.
In fact, after the game's map was magnified a hundred times compared to reality, the population and land area were already quite considerable. According to the recent statistics from the counties, the entire Northern Sea Nation currently had a population of more than 15 million people, and a total of 50 million acres of cultivated land had been cultivated, of which nearly 20 million acres of abandoned land had been cultivated. If the land was spread out to the 18 counties, each county would have over a million mu of farmland!
Therefore, it was only a drop in the ocean for the two counties that promised to provide 10,000 mu of land for the experiment. The only thing that would take time was the raising of labor. Therefore, Cheng Yu did not ask for more mu of land. He decided to experiment with the two counties first. After the results of sweet potato planting were out, there was no need to worry about spreading it.
Fortunately, the food production cycle was only 4 game days. The sweet potato planting results would soon be visible. After four game days, Yang Rui would have to prepare more sweet potato sprouts. Knowing the sweet potato production rate, Yang Rui could almost foresee the sweet potato sprouts becoming popular.
Thus, Yang Rui returned to Grand Mountain City and reduced the conventional sweet potato planting area. Instead, he converted more than 10,000 mu of land into sweet potato seedling nursery plots to provide more sweet potato seedlings. Of course. If the army farming system could not be spread after 4 days, the harvest of more than 10,000 mu of land would be reduced. However, this loss was nothing to Yang Rui now.
During the next 4 days, Yang Rui continued to recruit state soldiers and refugees. He also asked Cheng Yu to recruit 50,000 soldiers from Beihai County as soon as possible and put them into the Penglai map to level up. The recruitment of state soldiers cost a total of 300,000 gold coins. Because the balance in the Beihai Prime Minister's office account was very small, this sum of money was paid by Yang Rui in advance.
According to the population in the game, the ratio of each county's state soldiers to the total population was only equivalent to the ratio of the police in reality. The role of these state, county, and county soldiers was similar to the role of the police in reality. Basically, they could only be used to maintain normal order.
Four days passed quickly. The two counties that tried to plant sweet potatoes did indeed send news of a bumper harvest. The two counties each took out 10,000 mu of ordinary quality land. Under relatively dry weather conditions, the average yield per mu reached nearly 10 units, which was the same as the harvest of other crops when the weather was good! However, Yang Rui and others knew that this yield was only half of the yield of normal sweet potatoes per mu.
When the two counties were harvesting sweet potatoes, Cheng Yu ordered the counties to send people to the harvest site in advance to inspect it. At this point, the counties had a good idea of the yield of sweet potatoes. Their confidence in the "army farming system" implemented by Cheng Yu greatly increased!
Originally, Cheng Yu only asked the counties to send people to the harvest site to inspect it. He did not ask for the identity of the people who came, but there were as many as 10 county magistrates from the 16 counties. These 10 county magistrates expressed their willingness to promote the "army farming system" proposed by Cheng Yu on a large scale on the spot. Even the other counties that the county magistrates did not come personally came to report to Cheng Yu not long after. They applied to implement the "army farming system"!
The eyes of the county magistrates were as sharp as snow. The yield of 10,000 mu of ordinary sweet potatoes could reach 100,000 units. 40% of the yield would go to the growers, and 20% would go to the prefectures and counties. After a production cycle, the county could earn 20,000 units of grain. Moreover, the growers' food supply was also solved at the same time. What would it mean if more than one million mu of sweet potatoes were planted in each county?
Therefore, the sweet potato seedlings that Yang Rui had done in advance came in handy. 10,000 mu of cuttings could provide more than 500,000 mu of sweet potato seedlings. Even so, the number of seedlings was still too little to meet the needs of the 18 counties. Cheng Yu had to reduce the planting area of the next few counties, but at least ensure that 10,000 mu of land in each county could be used for testing.
At the same time, Yang Rui asked Cheng Yu to convey the sweet potato seedling breeding method to the counties. In the future, the planting area of sweet potatoes in each county would inevitably increase a lot. Yang Rui could not waste the land of Dashan City to continue to provide sweet potato seedlings.
Another production cycle passed. More than 500,000 mu of sweet potatoes in Beihai had achieved the expected harvest. The counties tasted the sweetness, so naturally, they were happy to organize people to continue to expand the area of the army farming system. With the expansion of the sweet potato planting area, the Beihai area, which was originally limited by the terrain and mostly thin fields, became a huge food production base day by day.
At this time, the other five counties, under Yang Rui's urging, also reported the population, land, and resources of each county to Yang Rui. More or less, each county more or less knew about the army farming system in Beihai, and one after another, they sent people to Beihai to inquire about it openly and secretly.
Yang Rui timely summoned the governors and ministers of each county, and began to implement the "army farming system" in each county of Qingzhou. At this time, the people in charge of each county had gradually become aware of the benefits involved, and also learned the rules of the system. The implementation of the "army farming system" became very easy.
However, while Yang Rui was implementing the "army farming system", he also issued a "grain sales ban". This was also a strategy that Yang Rui had come up with in the past few days.
"Governors and ministers, famine has been going on for years, and the commoners in Qingzhou have suffered many disasters. While implementing the army farming system, the Prefecture Overseer wants to implement the grain sales ban to ensure that the commoners of Qingzhou can live and work in peace.
The specific method is that the army farming system will hand over all the grain from the counties and counties to the prefectural level. The Prefecture Overseer will purchase and cash in at the current market price. The counties and counties can directly pay in cash. The original 20% share of the army farming system will remain unchanged.
At the same time, the Prefecture Overseer will strictly restrict the sale of large quantities of grain in and out of Qingzhou. He will restrict all online grain transactions between the counties and counties, and forbid the counties and counties from privately selling grain to Outsiders. This will ensure that the commoners of Qingzhou have enough to eat and wear.
The commoners of Qingzhou can use a set amount of other resources, such as wood, stones, ores, horses, and so on, to exchange for grain. When the time comes, the Prefecture Overseer will set up a resource exchange office in each county and county to implement this. At the same time, each county and county has the obligation to protect the commoners and collect all kinds of resources.
During the implementation of the army farming system and grain sales ban, everything will be done according to the rules. If there are any violators, they will be strictly investigated and punished. What do the governors and ministers think? "
Yang Rui explained the contents of the "grain sales ban" in detail to the governors and ministers present. The general method was to let the counties and counties exercise the responsibility of the army farming system and only pay in cash. The grain was not allowed to pass through their hands. Everything would be managed by Yang Rui alone.
"We will follow the Prefecture Overseer's orders!"
After hearing Yang Rui's words, the governors and ministers were slightly confused. However, after exchanging glances with each other, they respectfully agreed.
In fact, to these governors and ministers, there was not much difference between taking in grain and taking out cash. Directly exchanging the grain for gold would even save them the trouble of going through the formalities. As for what Yang Rui meant by ensuring that the commoners of Qingzhou had enough to eat and wear, they did not really care. Furthermore, they did not care about the "resource exchange office" that Yang Rui wanted to set up.
Yang Rui's introduction of the grain sales ban to alleviate the famine of the commoners of Qingzhou was only one of the reasons. The main reason was to encourage the NPC commoners of Qingzhou to participate in the collection of resources. The NPC commoners only needed to collect enough wood, stones, ores, and other resources. It would not be too difficult for them to make ends meet or even feed a family.
According to Yang Rui's orders, the governors and ministers of the various counties began to promote the army farming system after returning. Compared to the promotion of the army farming system, Yang Rui set up the "resource exchange office" much faster. Within a day of announcing the grain sales ban, Yang Rui spent more than 200,000 gold coins to recruit people from various counties and counties to set up the "resource exchange office".
Moreover, after the relevant notices were posted, the news that other resources could be exchanged for grain quickly spread. In less than a day, many towns and villages within Qingzhou knew about this matter. Some commoners had already gone to the "resource exchange office" and began to try to use the resources in their hands to exchange for grain.
Although the five counties other than the North Sea Nation had just started to implement the army farming system and had not caught up with the sweet potato harvest, Yang Rui had already paid a lot of grain at the "resource exchange office". Those who came to try exchanged for rations as they wished!
At this time, the famine was severe. The news of the "resource exchange office" being able to exchange for grain quickly spread throughout the entire Qingzhou. The commoners who were suffering from hunger immediately became excited. A large number of people brought their resources and rushed to the resource exchange office of each county. As a result, the function of the exchange office was almost paralyzed. In the end, it could only temporarily accept the exchange from the town level. After the town level gathered the resources to exchange for grain, it was distributed to the various villages and finally reached the hands of individuals …
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