mtl008 Let's call it sweet potato in chapter 1341.
Let's call it sweet potato in chapter 1341.
Naming a new crop?
The Empress Dowager looked slightly dazed.
She gave names to the palace maids.
They named the flowers and plants in the palace.
He even named the birds, cats, and dogs in the palace.
But... they never gave the crops names.
A feeling she had never experienced before welled up inside her, and for a moment, she was speechless.
But everyone was waiting for her to speak.
“This crop has a purplish-red skin, so let’s start its name with the word ‘red’,” she said.
Shen Zheng was taken aback.
Does it start with red text?
Isn't that a coincidence?
What she didn't expect was that there were countless coincidences in the world.
Then the Empress Dowager said, "艸 (cǎo) means 'grass,' a creeping herbaceous plant that grows with tubers. This crop is similar to yam, so let's call it... sweet potato."
sweet potato.
sweet potato?
sweet potato?!
Shen Zheng's mind went blank.
The original intention was to have the Empress Dowager rename it, but unexpectedly, after many twists and turns, the sweet potato of the Great Zhou Dynasty still ended up with the name "sweet potato".
It was at this moment that she became almost certain that she... had never left China.
This is how their family members grow flowers.
Regardless of whether they are in the same time and space, they still share the same mind and act according to the same logic.
"Sweet potatoes are great!" Ba Lezhan was the first to applaud: "They look similar! They sound similar! And they're easy to pronounce!"
The Empress Dowager looked at Shen Zheng, who remained silent, and asked, "Zheng'er, do you have other ideas?"
Shen Zheng suddenly came to her senses, looked at the sweet potato in her arms and shook her head: "No, the sweet potato is good. The sweet potato... is very good. Thank you for naming it, Madam."
The Empress Dowager chuckled: "I was just saying it casually. If the Ministry of Revenue has other ideas, then we should listen to them."
Shen Zheng slowly shook her head and murmured, "They won't."
No matter how many times it happens, the sweet potato will still be called "sweet potato".
She gently placed the sweet potato in her arms on the edge of the field, and Wang Youfu volunteered, "Sir, let me go and carry the large scale over!"
She nodded and looked at the Empress Dowager: "Madam, this one plant alone is not enough. Shall we dig up a row first and estimate the approximate yield per acre?"
There are sixteen rows in this potato field.
Once you obtain the yield of one row, you can quadruple it to get a rough estimate of the yield per acre.
Initially, the system gave a yield of 10,000 jin per mu for sweet potatoes, but this was too outrageous. Therefore, before handing over the sweet potato seeds to the Ministry of Revenue, she only reported a yield of 6,000 jin per mu to Ji Benchang.
Even though production was reduced by 40%, Ji Benchang still didn't believe her.
Today is the day to reveal the truth and see the real results.
The Empress Dowager rolled up her sleeves: "I will dig with you."
Granny Chang was slightly startled: "Madam, no..."
"You join us too." The Empress Dowager interrupted Granny Chang's advice and looked at Huang Jin, who was eager to try: "You're such a clumsy girl, just rest on the side."
Huang Jin was on the verge of tears: "Yes..."
The Empress Dowager withdrew her gaze, squatted down, parted the sweet potato vines with one hand, picked up a sickle with the other, and, imitating Shen Zheng's earlier actions, forcefully cut the sweet potato vines.
Seeing this, no one dared to hesitate. They quickly lined up, chose their own sweet potato, and squatted down to dig.
They breathed shallowly and moved extremely gently.
The first person to dig out the sweet potato was still Shen Zheng.
Because she was different from the others, she was already used to sweet potatoes, so her movements were much smoother and more natural.
"rustle--"
"rustle--"
At that moment, it seemed as if only the sound of people digging in the ground remained in the world.
"I've dug it up!"
Suddenly, the Empress Dowager's joyful voice broke the silence.
Everyone paused, turning to look at the Empress Dowager.
Granny Gu was slightly startled and quickly whispered to the Empress Dowager, "Madam, you've let something slip..."
The Empress Dowager paused, then coughed lightly: "What I meant was... 'Oh dear, it's been dug out.'"
Shen Zheng smiled, and Shen Xingjian and Mu Ruojue looked away, pretending not to have heard.
Ba Lezhan quickly exclaimed, "Oh dear!" "This humble official dug them up too! Oh my, so many! One, two, three, four... four big ones!"
After a brief disturbance, everyone resumed digging.
Before long, Wang Youfu returned carrying a large scale and joined the sweet potato digging team.
As the sun grew stronger, more and more sweet potatoes piled up on the ridges of the fields. Some stalks had three or four sweet potatoes on one stalk, and some even had six or seven. After more than half an hour, they had dug up the entire ridge of sweet potatoes.
Everyone wiped their sweat and stood up, supporting their backs.
Even though they knew there were quite a few sweet potatoes in the row, they couldn't help but stare wide-eyed when they actually turned around and looked at the edge of the field.
"So...so many?" Ba Lezhan stared in disbelief, turning to look at the hollowed-out furrow they had dug. "We only dug one furrow, how could there be so many...?"
On the ridge of the field, sweet potatoes were piled up in layers, forming a "small red mountain".
Shen Xingjian calculated in his mind several times before speaking in a trembling voice: "This row of sweet potatoes weighs about... five or six hundred jin."
"How many?!"
Ba Lezhan exclaimed in surprise, "Lord Xingjian, would you like to calculate again? If one row of sweet potatoes is worth 500 jin, then sixteen rows would be..."
"Eight thousand catties?!"
Except for Shen Zheng, everyone stared at Shen Xingjian.
A grain yield of 8,000 jin per mu?
Simply...
Arabian Nights!
Shen Xingjian took a deep breath and said confidently, "I should have made no mistake in my calculations."
Even if he doubts his own eyes, he will never doubt his own mind.
Everyone turned their heads, and the freshly dug sweet potatoes, still covered in sand and soil, lay quietly on the edge of the field.
At first glance, these sweet potatoes seem, perhaps, probably, estimated, roughly... to really weigh 500 jin?
“The sweet potatoes are right in front of us. We’ll know the exact yield per acre once we weigh them,” Shen Zheng said to Wang Youfu. “Go find another trustworthy person to carry the scales.”
Just as Wang Youfu was about to run away, Ba Lezhan volunteered: "Lord Shen, let me do it! I'm quite strong!"
Shen Zheng glanced at his protruding belly, hesitating slightly: "Lord Ba, carrying the scales is tiring..."
"What I fear most is getting tired!" Balezhan said, waving one end of a thick wooden stick at Wang Youfu, "Come on, don't waste time, there are still more than a dozen rows of sweet potatoes to dig!"
Seeing Shen Zheng nod, Wang Youfu picked up the other end of the thick wooden stick.
The scale beam hangs in the center of a thick wooden stick, with a large basket attached below it, the bottom of which is lined with dry straw.
One sweet potato after another was carefully placed into the basket by Shen Zheng and the others.
The weight on his shoulders grew heavier and heavier, and Ba Lezhan's expression gradually turned pained.
As the baskets were filled, Shen Xingjian stepped forward and began reading the scales: "First basket, eighty-six jin."
Beside her, Shen Zheng took out paper and pen and wrote "86" on the paper.
A moment later, "The second basket, ninety-nine jin."
Shen Zheng wrote "99" on the paper.
"The third basket, ninety-two jin."
"The fourth basket, eighty-eight jin."
"The fifth basket..."
"The sixth basket..."
"The seventh basket..."
Because they were afraid of damaging the sweet potato skins, everyone moved very gently, which made them slow.
The first row of sweet potatoes was divided into seven baskets. By the time they were all weighed, it had been almost half an hour. Ba Lezhan was in so much pain that he was grimacing and didn't pay any attention to what Shen Xingjian was saying.
After setting down the thick wooden stick and observing the expressions on everyone's faces, he suddenly asked, "Lord Shen, how many kilograms are there in total?"