Chapter 188 31. Rush and Shell Grey Double Barrel

The rush on the mudflats along the coast of Yuanjiang Kingdom, facing the warm and humid Pacific Ocean breeze and sufficient sunshine in summer, grows as fast as a gust of wind. When it is ready to be harvested, it is more than 1.5 meters tall. It grows so well that careless people can get lost in the grass.

Artificially cultivated grass really grows well, just like the green onions on Shandong Peninsula in our country. Wow, that thing, the green onion is more than 1.4 meters tall, taller than a child. Many netizens replied that they got lost in the green onion field when they were young.

This artificially cultivated rush also means that there are some particularities here, and attention must be paid to the selection of grass seeds. If the grass seeds are not selected well, the rush will become a weed after three or five crops. But even if this guy becomes a weed, he can still grow wildly to more than one meter, so the things that can be selected as handicraft materials are really good.

And this thing has another function. The well-maintained rush starts at 1.5 meters high. At this time, according to the ancient saying, it is an ambush for a group of people and horses. When the cannon sounds, they rush out from all directions and kill people and horses. It is simply the best terrain for ambush, especially hidden.

So in ancient times, many people ambushed in the wild, without hillsides, valleys, or tall trees and deep forests. After planting rush, Xiao Pingtai finally understood why thousands of people and horses could be ambushed in the wild. The grass is so long that people can't really see that there are people hiding in it.

It seems that this rush field can also play a role as a "national defense fortification". Xiao Pingtai smiled in his heart and felt that this grass was a bit cute.

Leave the tallest and best rush to bloom and bear seeds naturally, and keep it as the grass seed for the next crop of rush. The others are harvested from the time when it is four or five in the morning to the time when the sun rises completely at nine o'clock. This is also particular. If it is harvested when it is too hot, the grass will wilt. When harvested in the morning, the grass is tender, green, blue, and vigorous, and it looks fresh.

Then the rush is dehydrated. Ordinary rush can be directly exposed to the sun for two days, and there are no special requirements. Triangular rush has another way.

If it is directly exposed to the sun for dehydration, the rush will lose its original green color and the natural charm of grass art. Ordinary rush does not care about this. Anyway, who wears a pair of straw sandals and pays attention to the bright green straw sandals? In this era of hunger, people who care about whether their shoes are good-looking will not wear straw sandals.

So how to ensure that the rush can maintain its original color during the drying and dehydration process?

Xiao Pingtai certainly has a way, which is drying! Use the original thick wooden boards to build a greenhouse and place a stove in the middle. In order to ensure that there is no ash and fire prevention, an independent flue must be set up. The temperature in the greenhouse does not need to be too hot, about 30 degrees is enough. It is equivalent to directly moving a wood stove used in winter and burning it hotter.

The principle is the same as that of the Song Dynasty in my country, which built greenhouses to grow off-season vegetables in winter. People use this method to sell fresh vegetables in winter, which is absolutely unique in the frozen Kaifeng City, so they can make huge profits. After all, the wealthy families will not care about such a small amount of money, and they will definitely be happy to spend money to enjoy this service.

Xiao Pingtai's ideas are almost completely overlapped with this vegetable greenhouse, but the direction of use is different.

Xiao Pingtai built such a greenhouse by relying on controllable heat to accelerate the dehydration of rush. In such a greenhouse, the bundled rush can be completely dried in just four hours. At the same time, the superior triangular rush using the drying method can maintain the natural original color when harvested, and it will even be more beautiful.

Because it avoids sunlight exposure, the grass stems can lose moisture in a gentle environment. At the same time, due to the artificially created high temperature, it greatly exceeds the heat emitted by the sun's radiation from a distance. The dehydration process of the grass stems is faster, making them more flexible. It can be said that it kills two birds with one stone and is very cheap.

After drying, the rush cannot be used yet. There is also a convenient pedal-type grass splitter. First, split the rush in half, and then cut the half-split rush in half again. In fact, a small rush can be divided into 4 strips for weaving. Very few rushes or salt grass can be divided into 6 strips for use, but the texture is really bad, and generally no one grows and uses them.

Then these divided grass strips are woven according to needs. A skilled weaver can weave two tatami mats a day using a mat weaving machine. There is nothing particularly difficult about the mat weaving machine. You can become proficient in it after practicing for a few days. Just wait for people who go to Mimasaka Tsuyama and Bungo Usuki to come back and bring back the looms they bought, and then you can start working.

In addition, when Kobayata was away, Kitabatake University had already dispatched a special person in charge of shellfish purchase at Ejiri Port (probably written as Kai Yoriki in Japanese. If this position was inherited in the Edo period, it would probably be another position that no one would know just by looking at the name.). During this period, a pile of shellfish had been purchased, and the process of removing the meat was all done by hiring women in the town and the countryside under the city. The price was extremely cheap, only five cents a day.

Most of the large amount of shellfish meat removed was pickled or dried, becoming a seafood that can be preserved for a long time. It was sold to various places nearby by sea and land. Since Kobayata required these by-products to be sold at a low price from the beginning, as long as there was a small profit, these seafoods sold very well. Even the poor who had little money and could not afford to eat fish could spend one or two cents to buy a lot of them to take home to supplement protein and salt.

Unexpectedly, after planning so many things, it was the leftover shellfish meat that was least cared about that became the first thing to open up the market and make profits in the development plan of Ejiri. It can also be supplied to Ejiri's regular foot soldiers. After long-term consumption, the physical strength of these foot soldiers may be improved and improved, which will indirectly affect their combat effectiveness.

The women hired to take the meat increased their income due to the jobs that appeared out of thin air. Although it was not too much, it still greatly activated the entire market. After all, 150 sen a month is 1 kan 800 mon a year. Xiao Pingtai worked hard as a tenant farmer for a year and could only earn this much money. This little money is enough for two people to eat thin meals every day and not starve to death.

The families of hundreds of women who could only do housework or help with farm work at home have stood out first. When the military service account is rebuilt next year, 100% of these 100 families can be included in the military service.

Yamauchi Yoshiharu's political task of increasing the number of 500 military service members has been achieved by one-fifth in just two months.