As soon as Zhou Dalang poured water for them, the sound of carriages and horses sounded outside again.
Before Zhou Dalang could open the door, Mr. Zhuang and the others had already opened the door and came in. Seeing Mr. Zhuang, Zhou Dalang was overjoyed, and put his heart down in an instant, leaving the emperor and Yin Li behind and stepped forward, "Mr. Zhuang, you are here."
Mr. Zhuang smiled and nodded, and Wei Zhi stepped forward to greet the emperor, turned his head to see Zhou Dalang standing there, and said, "This is Your Majesty, why don't you come and see us soon?"
Zhou Dalang's eyes widened, he was at a loss, he knelt down on the ground, raised his hand and bowed, "See Your Majesty."
"Excuse me," the emperor asked Zhou Dalang to be helped up, and said with a smile, "Speaking of which, our two families are still relatives, and this is outside the palace, so there are not so many rules. Come on, everyone sit down, let's come together Look at the rice grown from this new rice plant."
Zhou Dalang felt that the emperor was very amiable, similar to the people in his village, so he talked about relatives first. He quietly glanced at Mr. Zhuang, seeing Mr. Zhuang nodding his head slightly, he said, "Your Majesty, we have some ears of rice reserved for seeds, would you like to see that?"
The emperor's eyes brightened slightly, "Oh? Come and take a look."
It is normal to select seeds from the field every year. In the past, the rice with long ears and full grains was selected, but it has been different since Zhou Lizhong took over. Manbao did not know where to find some agricultural books and Information to Zhou Lizhong.
The ears of rice that Zhou Lizhong selects every year are very strange. Some grow particularly well, and some grow poorly. After dividing them, they are tied up and hung on the porch to dry, and then slowly threshed.
Zhou Dalang is not very good at picking their kind, so he always picks the best one, and this time it is naturally the same.
At this time, the ears of rice were hanging on 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 could see the golden ears of rice hanging on the corridor without raising his head. The long ears of rice were hanging down, and the grains almost shone under the sunlight With golden light.
The emperor's steps were lightened.
Zhou Dalang didn't stop walking, instead he stepped forward quickly, and directly hooked off the best bundle to show the emperor, "Look, these are the seeds to save for next year."
The emperor untied it, picked up an ear of rice, and asked, "How many grains does this one have?"
Zhou Dalang rubbed his head in embarrassment and said: "We can't count them. In the past, these were counted by the children. This year, the children haven't come here yet, so let's hang up first."
The emperor came back to his senses, "Do you count every year?"
"Yes, Man Bao said that this is called experimental data. How many ears are there in one plant, how many grains are in one ear, how many are there in total, and even the length of the ears and the length of the plants should be measured and recorded," Zhou Dalang said. Said: "My eldest son did all these things before, but now my eldest son is not in the capital, and we can't count them, so..."
Zhou Dalang was afraid that the emperor would be unhappy, so he said hastily: "However, two days ago, we were helping to count, and there were 308 grains on one ear, and that plant had eleven ears at that time."
The emperor held the rice plants and said to Wei Zhiji: "Since they can't count, let's count." He was very excited.
Wei Zhi glanced at the emperor, but did not object.
Seeing them sitting on the porch, Zhou Dalang started counting them, and hurriedly brought over 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 while sharing the ears of rice in his hand, "let's talk."
The emperor asked curiously, "What kind of rice seed did you use to cultivate this strain of rice? How many years have you cultivated it?"
Zhou Dalang said: "It's the number D seed. The plant I'm taking now is the fourth year of planting. Last year it produced seven stones per mu, and the year before last it produced six stones and seven per mu. It hasn't been confiscated this year, but it has been harvested." We counted the two acres of land in our country, and the total raw rice is 19 shi, and the yield per mu after drying is even higher than last year."
Mr. Zhuang said to the emperor: "The new rice varieties are all cultivated in Pu Village. It must be more suitable for the climate here, so the yield here is higher than that of Beihai County and Luojiang County."
Although the emperor was very excited about this yield, he was not distracted, but asked sharply, "Where did the No. 1 seed come from?"
Zhou Dalang glanced at Mr. Zhuang, and replied honestly, "Man Bao brought it back."
The emperor raised his eyebrows.
As for where Zhou Man came from, Zhou's family never asked, Man Bao brought back too many things, they couldn't just ask every time they took out one, right
The emperor saw Zhou Dalang's expression and knew that he would not know even if he asked him carefully, so he looked at Mr. Zhuang.
Mr. Zhuang lowered his eyes and carefully counted the grains of rice with the ears of rice in his hand, avoiding the emperor's gaze.
The emperor tapped his knees with his fingers, "Since there are D seeds, there must also be A, B, and C. I wonder what they are like?"
So after a while, the emperor stood between several fields. Zhou Dalang pointed to the sign on the field and said, "Seeds A and B are no longer planted. That kind of seed is not good. The first year is fine, and the second year is good." Well, we have been planting for three years and have been trying to find a way, but we just can’t save it. This is the C seed, the C13421 seed.”
The emperor stared at the ugly characters on the sign for a while, and asked, "Who wrote these characters?"
Even his little grandson can't write such ugly characters.
Zhou Dalang said embarrassingly: "What I wrote was written by Li Chong in the past. When he was not at home, I wrote it."
The emperor nodded and praised: "It's well written."
"What does the number mean?" he asked.
"It was compiled by my son. I just take the seeds according to the number. C is the number of the seeds I got back at the beginning, and the numbers after that are also numbers. The number of seeds we took when we planted that year will be more on it." Add a number."
Did everyone understand
Seeing that everyone was confused, Zhou Dalang was a little anxious and didn't know how to explain.
Mr. Zhuang explained with a smile: "Your Majesty, this field is No. 2 experimental field. You can see that the field next to it has been harvested. It is No. 1, and that is No. 3. The cultivation conditions of each No. 1 experimental field will be different. Differential cultivation will be done during the period, and the seeds left in the final harvest will add a number to the original number, and that number represents which experimental field they came from and the conditions for cultivating them."
"Zhou Lizhong will sum it up, select the best seeds to continue to cultivate, and also summarize the optimal farming conditions."
At this moment, the emperor understood, pointed to the words on the sign and said, "So this is the number C seed that has been cultivated for five years, the seeds from the No. 1 experimental field were selected in the second year, and the seeds from the No. 3 experimental field were selected in the third year..."
Zhou Dalang nodded again and again, "Yes, yes, that's what it means. Man Bao said that the numbers will not be messed up. There are so many seeds every year. If we don't number them, we won't be able to recognize them."