The Rise of the European Emperor

While organizing the spring ploughing, Marin did not stop sending troops to Newcastle. Danish pirates have been employed by Marin to launch raids off the southeast coast of England and attract the attention of the English navy. The ships under Marin's command also began to circle the North Sea quietly, and then transported the soldiers to Newcastle.

In fact, Marin could have put the 20,000 troops ready to be transported to England temporarily into spring ploughing. After all, these soldiers are all children of farmers, and they all cultivate the land and do farm work.

But the action to take England was very important. Therefore, Marin resisted the temptation and insisted on transporting the 20,000 troops to Newcastle in batches.

Because, in Marin's view, now he has too much grain to eat, and it is difficult to sell it, so he is forced to brew and sell it. Therefore, the issue of spring ploughing in the newly acquired three provinces is not so urgent. Big deal, less food.

Moreover, because the three provinces were just acquired at the end of last year, Marin had not even had time to set up large-scale fertilizer processing plants in the three new provinces of West Friesland, Bremen and Jutland. If there is not enough fertilizer, even if the newly acquired land is tilled by spring ploughing, the income will not be high.

Therefore, it has become easier to give up this year's spring ploughing and build a fertilizer processing plant first. After all, there is plenty of time now.

The key to the fertilizer processing plant is the unified collection and treatment of the residents' excrement - it takes several months to dissipate the odor of the excrement and make it into a fertilizer cake with little taste. Then, it was crushed and added with phosphate rock powder from Western Sahara and potash from the Harz Mountains... Thus, a fertilizer containing nitrogen (manure), phosphate (rock phosphate powder) and potash ( Potash), the compost of these three main fertilizers, was born...

The use of mixed fertilizers with all the three main fertilizers can increase the per-mu yield of rye to four or five hundred pounds per mu, a completely primitive European farming method.

Moreover, the spring ploughing hosted by Marin is not so simple. The traditional Germanic spring ploughing is nothing more than a Saxon heavy plow pulled by a light plow or a few horses, ploughing the ground once, loosening the soil, and then spreading rye seeds... After that, water it and it's OK... …

If the land is irrigated with high-quality water by the big river, it may be possible to irrigate it well with a waterwheel (the European waterwheel technology is quite advanced). But if it is far away from the river, it will depend on the sky to eat... The serfs will at most pick up the water from the sky on the day they sow the rye seeds. Next, don't care...

Fortunately, the vitality of rye is as tenacious as weeds, and it can survive like an immortal. Wheat, which requires a lot of water, cannot be grown far from the river.

Therefore, in the current German region, rye is the mainstream. And wheat, even in the warmer South,

It is also mainly grown in irrigated fields by large rivers in river valleys. Because, the waterwheel can provide enough irrigation water...

But how precious and scarce is the irrigated land by the big river? Therefore, there is very little wheat in the German region. In terms of price, it is also 5 times that of rye. Because of the introduction of the Arabs' ditch irrigation technology in southern Italy, there is more wheat planting area. The perfect irrigation system and the fertile volcanic ash soil made southern Italy a golden area in the eyes of Europeans. And Sicily is known as the "Golden Basin" by Europeans because it is rich in Duran wheat, which is specially used for making pasta...

It wasn't easy for Marin to farm the land in the three newly acquired provinces. In addition to the need to use the mixed fertilizer that has collected the three major fertilizers, Marin also needs to dig a large number of ditches and moisture ditches in the fields to divert water for irrigation.

The ditches are the main roads for water diversion, and the moisture ditches are the key to flood irrigation in wheat fields. In the wheat field, every few meters, there will be a shallow moisture ditch. When irrigating, the water flows into the moisture ditch. Because the moisture ditch between each field ridge is only a few meters apart, the irrigation water introduced into the moisture ditch can penetrate into the root system of the wheat and make it drink full of water. Of course, the key to irrigation is actually when the wheat is just planted, when the water demand is the greatest. Only when the humidity is high enough, the wheat can germinate and grow better...

Although rye is not as delicate as wheat, it does not require much water. However, if there is enough irrigation water, it can also promote the increase of production.

However, although this irrigation technology is today, it is a pity that a large number of ditches and ditches need to be excavated, and the workload is very large. Therefore, even if Marin now has enough labor to develop those three new provinces, it is too late to dig ditches and ditches.

On the contrary, with this year's time buffer, in the months from the end of the spring ploughing to the autumn harvest, Marin can organize the idle laborers of the old provinces to dig in three new provinces. Ditch and Moisture Ditch. By the spring of next year, the new ditches and entrainment ditches will be ready for use. In addition, the fertilizer processing plant can also provide a large amount of mixed fertilizer, and there will be ghosts if the production does not increase...

In a previous life, Marin's father told Marin that in the era of no excavators, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the state organized farmers many times to take advantage of the slack season (mainly winter) to focus on agricultural "big battles", especially to take advantage of the slack season. At this time, trenches were dug to facilitate irrigation. This kind of "battle" of digging trenches, also known as "challenging great diligence" in Marin's hometown, is a labor-intensive activity, and generally only men are recruited. The reason why it is called "Pick Daqin" is that when digging rivers, the soil is placed in baskets, and the men can carry it and climb up the embankment. Therefore, it is called "pick" Daqin. As for the word Qin, it means attendance. Because, at that time, it was a work point system, and attendance was calculated by work points. Digging rivers is a matter of great effort, so it is called Daqin. And the soil is all carried on the river embankment by manpower, so it is also called "carrying great work"...

In the era when there were no excavators and muck trucks, all irrigation rivers were basically dug out by "pick-up". In the Jianghuai region where Malin lived in his previous life, because of the two crops a year and the rotation of rice and wheat, only winter can count as slack farming. And "pick big diligence" is generally organized in winter. It is said that it is very hard to "pick the big diligence". In the cold climate like the cold winter and the twelfth lunar month, the uncles of the peasants were sweating all over because of the heavy labor. Many people took off their cotton-padded clothes, and only wore single clothes to pick the soil. Moreover, at this time, men are particularly able to eat, and it is normal to eat several large bowls of rice for one person. Because they consume a lot. Coupled with the lack of meat and oil and water at the time, there were not a few bowls of brown rice at the bottom, and it couldn't last at all...

If Marin wanted to make good use of the land in the Grand Duchy of Beihai, he could not do without this model of "challenging great diligence". why? This is because only by organizing a large number of laborers can they dig ditches and open ditches. If it is normal, which peasants have nothing to dig a river? Not even a manor can do it. Therefore, a major event such as digging an irrigation river must be organized by the official government before it can be done. Of course, it is not difficult to dig small irrigation ditches and moisture ditches, and each manor can organize its own labor force to do it.

Of course, in order to dig irrigation rivers, the organization must provide enough food for the labor force, which is much more than usual. Otherwise, young men can't stand it either. Why did so many people die when Emperor Yang of Sui dug the Grand Canal? It's not that they didn't eat, it's that they were given less. When digging the canal, the labor force's food intake is several times as much as usual. If they only give the amount of food they usually eat at home when they are not moving, they will run out of energy in a short time.

Then, those overseers didn't understand, thinking that the farmers were lazy - in fact, they ran out of energy, and your whip was useless...

Without the provision of double the food and the persecution of the foreman, so many people died when the Grand Canal was dug. In other words, it may be a mistake made by a layman. After all, no one wants to kill so many people while digging a river. Marin guessed that it was the civil servant who didn't know how to use the food that was allocated less and not enough to consume, so so many people died... After all, the excavation of the Grand Canal is in a temperate region, and there is no such harsh climate as the excavation of the Panama Canal. ...