Chapter 265 40. Shinshu Farmer Jia Dongguo

If you want to talk about people, their subjective initiative is generally poor. But once the heaven forces them, you will find that, my God! The farmers in the Warring States period were simply awesome.

Because it still frosts but does not snow, many fields without ditches and rivers have been abandoned this year. It is useless to plant anything without water.

Then in the fields where wheat has been planted, all the farmers are shivering in the cold wind but holding hands and treading the seedlings side by side. What they do is also done by farmers in the north of our country, and many people should know about people.

Wheat and barley are planted in the field, and the weather is not too cold before the snow. The wheat seedlings have sprouted, but in order to ensure that the wheat can thrive next year and let its root system be more developed before the spring, the farmers will trample all the wheat seedlings that have grown, so that the wheat seedlings will die and not consume nutrients.

Then in the next spring, the wheat with a developed root system can grow better and develop faster, which is the so-called "trampling wheat before spring". Some farmers in Hebei Province of my country even drove a motorcycle with a stone mill to grind the land directly, which is very scientific.

Secondly, in the water-deficient fields where farming is impossible, the farmers in Shinano may have almost zero scientific and cultural level, but most of them actually know the "frost breaking soil method"!

The Eastern Region of Japan has the Kanto Plain with the best water conservancy and terrain conditions. Why is the agricultural development level still lower than that of the Western Region in the Warring States Period?

Baidu Feeding Chicken and Qidian writers, Bihu big Vs always talk about river flooding, incomplete water conservancy facilities, frequent wars, and no unified regime for complete planning and governance.

This kind of thing is just a matter of talking and slapping the forehead. Please treat it as a joke and don't pay attention to it.

In addition to the big problem of water conservancy facilities, the Kanto Plain itself is not suitable for farming! That's right! You can't farm!

The large Kanto region, including Shinano, Kai and other countries, belongs to the Kanto red soil layer in the geographical environment! If you go to the Kanto Plain now, you will find extremely viscous red soil if you find a flat land and dig more than one meter underground.

This red soil is not only very cohesive, but also has a high acidity in the pH test. It is very different from the weakly alkaline soil required by normal crops. Most crops cannot be planted and survive on red soil. Even if they survive, they cannot expand their roots due to the high viscosity of the soil, and finally all fail.

In "Shangshu·Yugong", it is also mentioned that the fields in Yangzhou are only the lowest, because the land in the Taihu Plain and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in ancient times was also a high-acidity sticky soil. It is impossible to cultivate and difficult to produce agriculture.

The development of Jiangnan in my country continued until the Tang Dynasty, when it began to enter the era of Yangyi and Yier. At this moment, it has been more than 6,000 years since the activities of the ancestors such as Hemudu Culture! What a concept!

The transformation of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River lasted for 6,000 years before it successfully turned the local area into a rich land of fish and rice.

Japan's agricultural technology is already weak. Can they have such a long time for agricultural cultivation? Of course not!

So why did Kanto still look dead when Tokugawa Ieyasu entered the country? It was generally considered a poor and remote place by people all over the world. Although the plains were vast, the land could not be cultivated due to insufficient development.

Back to Shinano, the writer himself presumed that Ieyasu had learned the "frost breaking method" in Shinano!

During the frost period in late autumn and early winter, the soil was turned over and at least 30 to 40 centimeters of soil was dug out from the ground. These soil blocks that were not suitable for farming and had already been stuck together were invaded by water vapor under the sun during the day, and the gaseous water penetrated into every corner of the soil blocks.

When night fell, the temperature dropped and the water vapor solidified into solid ice. Because the solidified ice was larger in volume, under the power of nature, countless tiny ice particles were produced in the middle of the sticky soil blocks, and the soil blocks were no longer stuck together.

When the sun shone the next day, the ice melted, and the soil that had been broken into pieces by the ice blocks broke into pieces. All of a sudden, the clay that made it difficult to work with turned into loose soil that could be cultivated. The power of nature is truly infinite.

As long as this process continues for two months, the soil of 30 to 40 centimeters on the surface of this land will turn into loose soil that can be cultivated.

But that's not enough. How can the acidity of the soil be alleviated?

The farmers in Shinano are really smart, you can't even imagine it.

In late autumn, the locals in each village will organize people to dig a square pit that is half a meter deep and five meters long and wide. Then nail wooden stakes around it. They don't need to be too high, just half a meter.

Then use straw to make a thick straw wall to surround the pit and form an artificial fermentation pool.

Then collect the dead leaves all over the mountains and fill the pit. Then chop the straw, chop the straw into pieces and evenly throw it in. Continue to add a certain amount of straw ash and rice bran, and finally human and animal feces and urine. 【Note 1】

Human and animal feces and urine are particularly important. Although not every village in Shinano raises horses and cattle, the feces and urine of large livestock are still relatively easy to find. This is a favorable opportunity for the development of the local composting industry, which is not possible in other places.

In this way, the pit is already full, so let it dry for three days! After it is dried to the point of smelling fragrant, find a few warriors who are not sensitive to noses or are not afraid of stench, and go in to turn it over. It is a pile of fertilizer about one meter deep, and the farmers are only 1.3 to 1.4 meters tall.

Let these warriors turn the soil in the pit for three or four days in a row, and then mix everything evenly. Then use straw to make a huge straw cover to cover the large pile of manure. Let it ferment in a relatively closed environment for three to four months, and after the spring of the next year, it will become the secret technique in "Nobunaga's Ambition" - grass fertilizer (green manure).

Anyway, when you open the cover and use it next year, it will stink you to death, and the rotten stench on your body will not be washed off even after three days of bathing.

But this kind of fertilizer is good. If it is applied to the clay soil after the soil is broken, it can neutralize the acidic soil to weak alkalinity.

The color of the soil will also change from red to black, and it will become a good land suitable for farming and strong fertility.

If this process is repeated three or four times, and no crops are planted in the middle for a few years. This piece of land will be completely revived and become mature land. Finally, plant a few crops of soybeans to gather nutrients in the soil. As long as this land can be connected to water, it will be a first-class fertile land.

Now you can understand why Takeda Shingen thought Shinano was his kingly talent, and why Tokugawa Ieyasu knew how to transform the land of Kanto Plain after ruling Shinano.

After that, the agriculture of Kanto Eight States ushered in a rapid development after soil transformation and water conservancy preparation, and became the rich Kanto Plain.

But just when Kobayata thought that the farmers in Shinano were already great and had mastered such good agricultural technology.

Kobayata saw the farmers shouting slogans, carrying shovels and carrying pebbles up the mountain.

[Note 1]: The development of this composting method in Shinano is indeed closely related to the prosperous breeding and cultivation of large livestock such as cattle and horses in the local area.

I don’t have many manuscripts left. I just got to work. I will update on Tuesday and Friday next week. Thank you for your support in the new year.