Chapter 3184 Counting the rice

Just as Zhou Dalang poured water for them, there was another sound of carriages and horses outside.

Without waiting for Zhou Dalang to open the door, Mr. Zhuang and the others had already pushed the door and came in. Seeing Mr. Zhuang, Zhou Dalang was overjoyed, he put down his heart in an instant, and left the emperor and Yin Li behind and stepped forward, "Mr. Zhuang, you are here."

Mr. Zhuang smiled and nodded. He and Wei Zhi came forward to greet the emperor. He turned to see Zhou Dalang standing there, and said, "This is Your Majesty, why don't you come to meet me soon?"

Zhou Dalang's eyes widened, he was at a loss, knelt directly on the ground, raised his hand and bowed, "Meet Your Majesty."

"Excuse me," the emperor asked to help Zhou Dalang up and smiled: "Speaking of our two families are still relatives, this is outside the palace, there are not so many rules, come, everyone sit down, let's come together Look at the rice from this new rice plant."

Zhou Dalang felt that the emperor was very amiable, similar to the people in their village, so he talked about relatives first. He glanced at Mr. Zhuang quietly, and when he saw Mr. Zhuang nodded slightly, he said, "Your Majesty, we have some ears of rice left as seeds, do you want to see that?"

The emperor's eyes brightened, "Oh? Come and take a look."

It is normal to pick seeds from the fields every year. In the past, the rice was selected with long ears and full grains, but it has changed since Zhou Lizhong took over. Man Bao did not know where to find some agricultural books and books. The information is given to Zhou Lizhong.

Every year Zhou Lizhong selects very strange ears of rice. Some are very good and some are bad. After they are divided, they are tied and hung under the porch to dry, and then slowly threshed.

Zhou Dalang is not very good at picking their kind, so he always chooses the best, this time of course.

At this time, the ear of rice was hanging under the porch of the yard next door, which was the yard where he and Wu Wulang lived.

The emperor couldn't sit still, so he followed him. As soon as he entered the yard, he didn't have to look up to see the rice ears hanging under the porch. The golden yellow ones hung down, and the grains almost shimmered in the sunlight. With golden light.

The emperor's footsteps relaxed.

Zhou Dalang kept his footsteps, instead he stepped forward and directly hooked the best bundle to the emperor to see, "Look, this is the seed left for next year."

The emperor untied it, picked up an ear of rice, and asked, "How many millets does this plant have?"

Zhou Dalang touched his head embarrassedly and said, "We can't count them. In the past, these were counted by children. This year, a few children haven't come over yet, so I hang them first."

The emperor returned to his senses, "Do you count every year?"

"Yeah, Man Bao said this is called experimental data. How many ears are there in one plant, how many grains are there in one ear, how many grains there are in total, and even the length of the rice ears and the length of the rice plant should be measured and recorded," Zhou Dalang said. Said: "In the past, my eldest son did all these things, but now my eldest son is not in the capital, and we can't count them, so..."

Afraid that the emperor would be unhappy, Zhou Dalang hurriedly said: "But we were helping to count the two days ago. There were 308 grains of millet on one ear, and that one had eleven ears at that time."

The emperor carried the rice plants and Wei Zhishou and said, "Since they don't know how to count them, let's count them." He was very interested.

Wei Zhi glanced at the emperor, but did not object.

When Zhou Dalang saw them sitting under the porch, he counted them, and hurriedly moved a dozen small stools, "Come here, sit and count, I, I'll go to the kitchen to see how the water is boiling."

"Not busy," the emperor said with a smile as he parted the ears of rice in his hands, "Let's talk."

The emperor asked curiously, "What kind of rice did you use to cultivate this rice seed? How many years has it been cultivated?"

Zhou Dalang said: "It's the seed number D. The one I'm taking now is the fourth year of planting this year. Last year, it yielded seven stones per mu, and the year before last, it yielded six stones and seven per mu. It hasn't been harvested this year, but it has already been harvested. We calculated the two acres of land, and the total amount of raw rice is 19 shi, and the output per mu after drying is higher than last year."

Mr. Zhuang said to the emperor: "The new rice seeds are all cultivated in Pu Village, and it must be more suitable for the climate here, so the yield here can be higher than that of Beihai County and Luojiang County."

Although the emperor was very excited about this output, he was not distracted, but asked keenly: "Where did the D seed come from?"

Zhou Dalang glanced at Mr. Zhuang and answered honestly, "Man Bao brought it back."

The emperor raised an eyebrow.

As for where Zhou Man came from, the Zhou family never asked. Man Bao brought back too many things. They couldn't ask them every time they took out something, right?

When the emperor saw Zhou Dalang's expression, he knew that no matter how much he asked, he would not know, so he looked at Mr. Zhuang.

Mr. Zhuang lowered his eyes and counted the rice ears carefully, avoiding the emperor's gaze.

The emperor's fingers tapped on his knees, "Since there are D seeds, there must be A, B, C, and I wonder what they are like?"

So after a while, the emperor stood between several fields, and Zhou Dalang pointed to the sign at the head of the field and said, "The seeds of A and B are no longer planted. That kind of seed is not good. The first year was fine, and the second year. No, we have been planting for three years, and we have been trying to find a way, but we can't save it.

The emperor stared at the ugly words on the sign for a while and asked, "Who wrote these words?"

His little grandson can't even write such ugly words.

Zhou Dalang said embarrassedly: "I wrote it, and I wrote it in the past. When he was not at home, I wrote it."

The emperor nodded and praised: "Well written."

"What does this number mean?" he asked.

"It was made by my son. I just take the seeds according to the number. C is the number of the seeds that I got back at the beginning, and the numbers that follow are all numbers. The number of seeds we took when we planted them was more on the top. Add a number."

Did everyone hear it or not.

Seeing that everyone was confused, Zhou Dalang was a little anxious and didn't know how to explain it.

Mr. Zhuang explained with a smile: "Your Majesty, this field is the No. 2 experimental field. You can see that the one next to it has already been harvested. It is No. 1, and that is No. 3. The cultivation conditions of each experimental field will be different. During the period, differentiated cultivation will be carried out, and the seeds left at the end of the harvest will have a number added to the original number, and that number represents which experimental field they came from and the conditions under which they were cultivated.”

"Zhou Lizhong will summarize it, select the best seeds to continue to cultivate, and also summarize the best farming conditions."

This time the emperor understood, pointed to the words on the sign and said: "So this is the seed of No. C that has been cultivated for five years, the second year is the seed of the No. 1 experimental field, and the third year is the seed of the No. 3 experimental field... "

Zhou Dalang nodded again and again, "Yes, yes, that's what it means. Man Bao said that it will not be chaotic if the numbers are numbered. There are so many seeds every year, if we don't number them, we won't recognize them."