Flowers in full bloom

Chapter 720: Making a Deal with Xi'an Prefecture

Because sugarcane tips have the best vitality, high germination rate, good growth, and are easy to get a good harvest. But if there is no choice, all of them will be used.

After the field is prepared, dig a square pit one and a half feet wide at a certain distance, add an appropriate amount of water to make the soil into a muddy state, then place the sugarcane horizontally in the pit, compact it slightly, and wait for the sugarcane seedlings to take root and sprout.

Generally, it takes more than 30 days for the sugarcane seedlings to germinate. After germination, remove the fine ones and keep the thick ones, leaving a certain number of sugarcane seedlings in each pit. The next step is to prevent insects and diseases.

When the sugarcane grows taller, you need to add soil to the roots of the sugarcane and use a hoe to dig and rake the soil in the furrows to the bottom of the sugarcane to form a ridge. In this way, the sugarcane will not easily fall over.

After the soil has been cultivated and the ditches have been dug, the silt at the bottom of the ditch should not be left alone. It is the best fertilizer for sugarcane. Pile it at the roots of sugarcane to promote its growth.

As the sugarcane grows, the leaves on the bottom gradually turn yellow from bottom to top, and it is time to peel off the dead leaves. Sugarcane leaves are sharp and can cut people, so it is best to be "fully armed" when peeling sugarcane leaves, otherwise your hands and face will be cut by the leaves and bleed.

After peeling the dead leaves of the sugarcane, in order to supplement the fertilizer, it is best to chop the leaves and put them at the root of the sugarcane and cover them with soil. In autumn, the sugarcane will grow like crazy, with joints rising day by day.

By the end of October, the sugar cane will be ripe. Then, brown sugar can be made from sugar cane. Hualei decided to ask Liang Xiangyi to help buy a few "sugar carts" in advance from other prefectures where sugar cane is grown, and send them to help the people of Changtong Prefecture make sugar cane.

The method of making cane sugar is actually quite simple. You just need to wash the sugarcane and put it into a "sugar cart" for repeated squeezing.

Get the sugar cane juice, heat it, evaporate the excess water, and finally concentrate it to get brown sugar. Then, the people of Changtong Prefecture will have a new source of income.

Although the process of growing sugarcane is hard, the income is not small. Moreover, when sugarcane can be made into sugar, Xichang will also have a supply of brown sugar, which will also improve the lives of the people.

Just like the people of Changliang Prefecture now, having tasted the benefits of lychees, they are now actively maintaining the lychee trees on the hillsides voluntarily and spontaneously without the urging of government officials.

After staying in Changtong Prefecture for more than ten days and checking the planting conditions in other places, Hua Lei and Rong Jin returned to the government office at a leisurely pace.

As soon as she returned to the government office, Hua Lei immediately wrote a letter to Liang Xiangyi, asking her to help find a few "sugar carts" when her family's ships went to several cities in the south of the Yangtze River.

A few days later, Hualei received a reply letter from the governor Bao of the neighboring Xi'an Prefecture. In the letter, Governor Bao expressed his great joy for Hualei's generosity in selling corn seeds to Xi'an Prefecture at a fair price.

As for Hualei's suggestion to purchase or exchange resources from Xi'an, he also gave several plans. What Hualei was most excited about was that Xi'an Prefecture could sell sorghum seeds to Xichang Prefecture at a fair price.

Among the five grains, the per-acre yield of sorghum is not higher than that of wheat and rice. However, one of the biggest characteristics of sorghum is its resistance to moisture, drought and salinity.

In Xichang, where there is little land, poor soil and water shortage, it is still very suitable to plant sorghum. Although the taste may be worse than rice and flour, it can guarantee a good yield regardless of drought or flood.

For poor families, sorghum is the life-saving food to resist famine. Moreover, in the Great Sheng Dynasty, the traditional "crop rotation system" of the previous life was not mature.

Few people in Xichang know that planting different crops in rotation in different seasons on the same piece of land can maximize the use of soil fertility.

If sorghum is planted, it can become an important part of the "crop rotation". The "crop rotation" order of sorghum - millet - wheat is formed, and then the yield will naturally increase greatly.

Of course, if this was the only reason, Hualei would not be so excited. What made Hualei excited was that Bao Zhifu also proposed that if Xichang Prefecture planted sorghum, he could help introduce buyers to exchange rice and flour at an equal value.

He had a familiar buyer in Yongning Prefecture, who was an imperial merchant who supplied liquor to Shangjing City, and the other party needed a large amount of sorghum for brewing liquor.

Of course, in order to gain Hualei's trust, he also copied the wine-making order of the other buyer and the book of the imperial merchant.

They have all been approved by the imperial court. If Hua Lei doesn't believe it, she can go to Shangjing City to check. The Ministry of Revenue has a list of imperial merchants from all over the country.

Hualei had her own wine-making order, so as soon as she saw the copy of the wine-making order sent by Prefect Bao, she knew that the wine-making order was genuine.

However, the current prices of rice and flour are higher than those of sorghum. Generally, one kilogram of rice or wheat can be exchanged for one kilogram and four ounces of sorghum.

Because the other party was the imperial liquor merchant of the court, this was also a special permission. The 100 kilograms of wheat allowed by the government decree were exchanged for the equivalent amount, but the quantity was 140 kilograms of sorghum.

The output of brewing wine with 140 kilograms of sorghum is definitely higher than that of brewing wine with 100 kilograms of wheat. This is equivalent to directly reducing the cost a lot.

No wonder the people in several cities in Jiangnan are so rich, they really have good management skills! The qualification of imperial merchants is not easy to obtain. However, Hua Lei did not expect that imperial merchants have so many privileges.

Since the Houfu's rice wine shop started brewing, it has had enough land to brew since the Houfu had a lot of land under its name. There is no need to replace sorghum.

Of course, the process of making wine with sorghum and glutinous rice is different. Hualei is not very familiar with this aspect. Therefore, Hualei has never thought about replacing it with sorghum.

As for his own sweet potato winery, he also honestly followed the requirements of the wine brewing order, although he also took advantage of a loophole in the wine brewing order to brew wine. However, compared with the shrewdness of these imperial merchants, Hualei felt inferior.

She was somewhat envious of the imperial merchant of liquor. Could she also become an imperial merchant of rice wine or sweet potato wine? However, Hualei's envy and jealousy were quickly melted away by Rong Jin's words.

These royal merchants of liquor can indeed exchange 100 kilograms of rice flour for 140 kilograms of sorghum to make liquor. However, the tax rate on the liquor made from the exchanged sorghum will also increase accordingly.

As the owner of the winery, he could only get less than 20% of the profits at most, and the bulk of it had to be handed over to the court. Moreover, there were many risks involved, which Hua Lei was unaware of.

Therefore, Hualei also put aside his restless heart and focused on the matter at hand. Looking at the wine brewing order in his hand, he thought about the subsequent development plan that this wine brewing order might bring.

After discussing with Hua Lei, Rong Jin, Pan Wan and Feng Shuangxi from the Household Department, they decided to make this deal with Prefect Bao.

So Hua Lei immediately replied and agreed to Prefect Bao's proposal.