Chapter 441

The new street continued to be built, and the experimental field had not yet come to fruition. Lu Yunkai took song Xintong with him when he had time to ride a horse in the eastern sheep herding area.

It's the first time the twins ride horses when they are so big. They are so happy that they are going crazy. After being taken around for a while, they shout that they have to ride a few more laps.

Nuan Nuan has learned how to ride a horse, but she dare not let her ride a horse. She can only ride a pony and trot a few times slowly.

"Mother, look at me. I can ride a horse."

"Mother, I'm so powerful." The twins yelled with excitement.

Song Xintong looked frightened, "run slowly, be careful."

Twins open their hands, let the wind blow on their faces, "run, run, wow, I'm flying."

When they were tired of playing, they ran to song Xintong again, "mother, have fun."

"Mother, can I support it?" Mantou asked, pointing to his pony.

"Mother, I want it."

"No way." Song Xintong didn't want to veto it. They were too young to ride a horse. What should they do if they fell while others didn't notice?

The scroll pursed, "why not?"

"Because if you take him back for a few days, you will forget him."

Steamed bread way: "won't."

Song Xintong said: "no wonder, the rabbit you caught last year was raised for a few days, and then it was put aside for the servant girls to raise. You're so hot that you can't take the foal home for a few days. "

Huajuan can't remember the lovely rabbit. She said with a guilty heart: "mother, you believe me, I won't, I will feed it every day in the future."

Children play heart, song Xintong can not believe their words: "do not believe."

"Niang, we promise that we won't be three minutes hot." Mantou likes this jujube red foal very much. If he keeps it, he will take good care of it.

"You're still young. When you're older than your sister, I'll promise you." In fact, song Xintong also wants to test them. If they want to raise them in half a year, they will.

"Niang..." they have to wait until they are seven years old for a long time. Mantou looks at Lu Yunkai with drooping shoulders and wants to find his father to help him

Song Xintong said: "don't look at your father, it's useless to look at him."

"Listen to your mother." Lu Yunkai touched his nose and said, "ponies are raised in Shahe county. If you want to see them, go to the stables. If you still want to raise them in two years, my father will let you raise them."

Twins see dad said so, know no change is possible, taut a unhappy face, carefully touched the foal, "that I go to see you every day."

The foal snorted as if in response.

Song Xintong doesn't want to restrict them, but some things are too easy to get, so she wants to teach them well.

After they went to play with the foal again, they turned around to look into the distance. The distance was green.

The direction here is very different from that of Shahe county. On the one hand, the wind is blowing and the grass is low. On the other hand, the sky is covered with yellow sand. Who would have thought that there is only less than 30 miles between here?

Song Xintong looked at a shallow river in the distance, "is that the rice you planted over there?"

"Yes." Lu Yunkai pointed to the land reclaimed near the bend of the river, "it doesn't grow as well as Taohua village."

Song Xintong far see a lush rice, "grow very good."

Lu Yun said: "the agricultural official said that because of the land, let me not report too much hope."

Song Xintong saw that the land was hard and there were a lot of stones. Even if it was cultivated, the harvest would not be good.

"Let's see. Our seeds are coming soon. We'll see the results next season." Song Xintong road.

"It can only be so."

They walked along the bend for a while, and when the sun gradually tilted to the west, they rode slowly back to Shahe county.

As soon as he got back to the county government, Lu Yunkai was called by master Lin to discuss things. He didn't come back until very late. When he came back, Lu Yunkai's face was heavy, as if something had happened.

Song Xintong asked: "what's the matter?"

After sitting down, Lu Yunkai sipped his tea and sighed: "the Garrison has come to borrow food."

"Borrow grain?" Song Xintong was stunned, "if you want to borrow it, you should go to Xinzhou to borrow it. How can you come to Shahe county to borrow it? The counties near Shahe county are the poorest counties in Xinzhou. Three year olds know that. "

Lu Yunkai said, "because of the late spring this year, the grass on the ground grows late, leading to a shortage of food and grass."

Song Xintong didn't quite understand, "shouldn't the imperial court allocate food?"

Lu Yun said: "the number of soldiers in the garrison increased sharply last year, and the number of horses increased several times. However, the grain and grass allocated by the imperial court was not enough for the garrison. This year, it was cold again, so the grain and grass were used up before the autumn harvest. General Zhang had no choice but to borrow food from nearby residents and state capitals. "

Song Xintong Oh, so it is, "how much do you want to borrow?"

Lu Yun said: "if you want to borrow hundreds of thousands of stones, you have to support the autumn grain."

Song Xintong frowned, "it's only may now, at least three or four months to go."

After the autumn harvest, after the people paid taxes, the government sent the autumn grain together, and then the imperial court speedily sent it to the border. Four months less is definitely not enough.

"Isn't it miserable if you can't borrow it?"

Lu Yunkai nodded, "there is not much grain in Xinzhou granary. General Zhang may have to go out to buy."

Song Xintong said: "at this time, the price of grain is high, and the number of military camp purchases is not small. It's a big expense. Does the military camp have any silver?"

"No, I have to buy it." Lu Yunkai sighed, worried that the garrison might starve to death because of lack of food. "The main reason is that it was too late to melt snow in Xinzhou this year, which led to insufficient fodder for the horses. The barracks moved a small part of the food out, which resulted in that they could not survive."

"Also, this horse can't starve to death." I'm starving. If there's a war, we'll have to run with our legs.

When song Xintong said this, he suddenly had an idea in his mind, "does the military camp often go out to buy fodder for horses?"

Lu Yunkai nodded.

Song Xintong said, "we might as well plant grass in Shahe county to provide grass for horses."

"Grow grass?" Lu Yunkai has never heard of grass specially planted for horses. Horses usually eat green beans, wheat straw and other crops, as well as grass and hay cut in the wild, but horses don't like ordinary grass.

"It's not ordinary grass. Horses will like to eat it, and this kind of grass can be cut in a month, and it's very convenient." Song Xintong stopped, "anyway, the barracks also have to buy grass from time to time. We plant it fresh and good. Why don't they buy ours?"

"And I happen to have seeds." Song Xintong happens to have a large bag of forage seeds here, which she brought back last year when the Xu family went out to sea. At that time, she still thought it was useless and kept them in the warehouse. She just came to Shahe county and didn't know what she thought, so she brought them with her.

God help me!

Do what you say!

The next day, song Xintong led the people to circle a part of the bend near yesterday's horse. It was like a circle of 50 mu.

Then let people turn the ground simply, then sprinkle the seeds, and then cover about one centimeter of soil, and then pour water. In addition, people collected a lot of horse manure and sheep manure, fermented a little, mixed some water and applied fertilizer again in a few days, and then they were waiting for the harvest.

Five days later, all the grass seeds germinated, cage by cage green, looking like spring.

"Ma'am, it's all sprouting."

"Just sprout." Song Xintong is also relieved, and then ordered people to try the fertilizer again, and then wait for the harvest.

In addition, song Xintong wrote a letter to send it to Lingnan, asking the Xu family to help find more forage seeds. Otherwise, after cutting this year, there might be no seeds planted next year.

Without waiting for a reply from the Xu family, the grass had grown to the height of its forearm and could be harvested.

Lu Yunkai looked at nearly 50 acres of grass, extremely happy, immediately sent to inform the garrison.

The garrison was in Heihe County, 200 li away from Shahe county. It was evening when they came back quickly.

"Lord Lu, do you think you have grass here? But really? " The man who came was Li Xiaowei, general Zhang's confidant. They had met in Xinzhou before, so they were not polite when they met. They went straight to the subject.

Lu Yun nodded, "yes."

"That's great." Li Xiaowei was overjoyed. After the fodder was cut off, there was not enough wild grass on the mountain, and many horses were starving. The general could not bear it. He used part of the grain to feed the horses. Although he borrowed a lot of grain later, he still didn't buy enough fodder. So when he heard Lu Yunkai say that he had fodder, he rushed over immediately.

Lu Yunkai did not delay, immediately took Li Xiaowei to the place where he planted grass. "Li Xiaowei, you see, these are all fresh grass."

"This..." Li Xiaowei thought it was green beans, wheat straw and other grass, but he didn't think it was green grass. He was a little unhappy immediately. "Lord Lu, to tell you the truth, if the horses would eat such common grass, we wouldn't worry about it."

"Don't worry, Captain Li." Lu Yun told people to cut a handful of grass and feed it to Li Xiaowei's horse.

When Li Xiaowei was about to refuse, he saw that he, the most picky horse in the ordinary life, had already started to eat grass. After eating, he went to eat the grass in the planting field again. "He really ate it."

"Xiaowei Li, this kind of forage is specially for horses, cattle and sheep. It's not comparable to ordinary weeds." Lu Yunkai pointed to the other horses. "Look, Captain Li."

Li Xiaowei watched the other horses eat happily, and finally decided to pay attention, "how to sell?" At the same time, I kept thinking, don't be too expensive. If it's too expensive, I'm afraid they can't afford it.

"A penny a pound." Lu Yunkai reported the price to Li Xiaowei after discussing with song Xintong.

Li Xiaowei didn't expect to be so cheap?

"This is the price of wet fodder. If it needs to be dried in winter, the price will be more expensive." Lu explained.

One mu of land can cut at least 500 Jin of grass at a time, and 50 mu of land can earn at least 25 liang of silver at a time. This is not a small sum for selling grass, and basically they have to sell it every month. They can sell it for five or six months a year. They can make a fortune by relying on these grass.

Li Xiaowei didn't think much about it, so he agreed to buy it for two or three hundred taels at a time, and then mixed it with some other fodder. He could eat hundreds of horses for half a month at least.

Lu Yunkai ordered people to harvest, and then sent nearly 30000 Jin of forage to the barracks overnight.

When the foragers came back, they said that the war horses in the barracks preferred to eat the forage they had sent. Hearing this news, Lu Yunkai couldn't help saying to song Xintong, "lady, if there is more forage, I think the ones sent away today are not enough for the horses in the barracks."

Song Xintong nodded, it's not enough, but she didn't have any extra seeds in her hand, "wait for Xu Mingzhao to reply."

Lu Yunkai asked, "can't you keep your own seed?"

Song Xintong said: "it's OK, but if you keep the seeds, I'm afraid you can't harvest them next time."

"Then wait a little longer." Lu Yun said, "after that, if the seeds are sent, can they be distributed to the people?"

Lu Yunkai has a heart of benevolence and benevolence for the people. Naturally, song Xintong is willing to help him manage this poor land. "I hope the Xu family can find more seeds. At that time, each family will get some grass seeds and plant one or two mu of them. According to the price of a pound of money, they can earn two or three liang of silver a year."

Lu Yun nodded, "I'm afraid General Zhang will also want to ask for forage seeds."

Naturally, Lu Yunkai is willing to help General Zhang, but he is more willing to help the people under his jurisdiction to improve their lives than the garrison.

"We don't give it. If they purchase a large quantity in the future, we can give him a cheaper price." It's her seed, and she has the right not to give it to others. Of course, song Xintong can't say if the military camp is willing to go overseas to find forage seeds from other places.

Lu Yunkai nodded: "good."

As they expected, twenty days later, when a new crop of grass could be harvested, Li Xiaowei came again. At the same time, I put forward the idea of buying seeds.

Lu Yunkai refused, "to tell you the truth, we don't have grass seeds in our hands for the time being. All the grass seeds in my wife's hands have been planted."

Li Xiaowei asked again, "when will it be available?"

Lu Yunkai didn't beat around the bush with the general. He said straightforwardly: "to tell you the truth, Xiao Wei Li, my wife got this kind of grass from overseas. It's very precious. I don't know when I can find it. Even if the number is not large, and I want to give the grass seeds to the local people to improve their lives. "

Li Xiaowei frowned, "Lord Lu, you and I work for the imperial court. It's also a great merit that this grass can help the military camp."

"Li Xiaowei, there are not many kinds of grass. Even if all the grass is given to the military camp, it is not enough for all the horses to use all the year round. The military camp still needs to purchase grass materials such as green beans and wheat straw." Lu Yun said, "besides, the people in Shahe county live in poverty. They don't have enough food and clothing. If they can get enough food and clothing, it's a virtue."

Li Xiaowei was speechless. He thought that was the truth.

Lu Yunkai road“ Li Xiaowei, I'll find grass seeds again next year. If there are more grass seeds, I can share some of them with the barracks. If there are less grass seeds, I may love them and help them. "

Li Xiaowei sighed, but could only give up!