There are many idle and unemployed people, but the amount of farmland capable of producing grain is decreasing. What will be the final result
The first two words that came out of Jiang Da Shao's mouth were famine. Zhang Chen suddenly stopped before he could say the same two words. He, Zhang Wu and Zhang Lu had made countless plans and thought of countless plans before coming to Xingtai, but it was better to do than to say. After actually doing it this time, facing such a chain reaction, he finally gained something different.
After thinking about it again and again, his expression finally changed little by little. The initial laxity and confidence were all thrown away, and was replaced by deep fear.
When Zhang Shou saw his reaction, he knew that Zhang Chen was born into a noble family. Even though he had been a playboy since childhood, he was much more knowledgeable than Jiang Dashao through the influence of his surroundings. If you ask modern people this question, nine out of ten people with a little bit of brains will immediately answer you that the final result is war.
That’s right, it’s war, not famine, because famine will inevitably lead to war.
Zhang Shou didn't look at the panicked Jiang Da Shao, but nodded slightly to Zhang Chen, as if to confirm his guess. Then he said softly: "The famine issue is actually easy to deal with. I have also made some gains in Cangzhou. If it is successful, then in the future we will have other food crops that may not taste as good as rice and wheat, but have a yield several times higher."
Zhang Chen and Young Master Jiang looked at each other, and both felt that they were listening to a book written in heaven. You know, tracing back two or three thousand years, there were indeed not only rice and wheat, but also many kinds of grains such as corn and sorghum. However, since flour milling and various noodle products became popular in the north, and various kinds of rice became the mainstream in the south, rice and wheat became the main food for most people, and the others were just supplementary.
What other grains can be compared with rice and wheat? And the yield can be several times higher
Of course, Zhang Shou would not reveal that Lao Xianyu had corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes, three crops that could be used as food. He was not sure about the yield of corn and potatoes, but sweet potatoes... Hehe, he remembered clearly that in the later generations, when rice fields could produce more than 1,000 kilograms per mu, sweet potatoes could already produce 5,000 to 7,000 kilograms per mu.
Moreover, the skin of sweet potatoes is much easier to deal with than the bran of grains. And if you don't care that much, it's totally fine to eat the sweet potatoes with the skin after washing and steaming them. Of course, eating sweet potatoes as meals all year round is actually a very cruel thing, but eating them mixed with rice was common for a long time in later generations.
Between filling your stomach and eating delicious food, you have to choose to fill your stomach first.
Zhang Shou felt guilty, but he knew that even the founding emperor, Emperor Taizu, could not solve all the problems, let alone him. At this moment, seeing that Zhang Chen and Young Master Jiang were confused but did not question, he said directly: "So, in the final analysis, the most important problem is not the food problem, but the unemployment problem."
"As for how to solve the problem, we can try various methods to solve it in Cangzhou. After all, the new textile machinery has only been introduced here not long ago, and the new looms have not been officially launched. Only when a solution is found in Cangzhou can the new looms be promoted to other places with good reason."