The road to national restoration that began at the end of the century - #330 - Chapter 331: Forced to Eat Sweet Potatoes
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- The road to national restoration that began at the end of the century
- #330 - Chapter 331: Forced to Eat Sweet Potatoes
Nagamasa: “Isn’t it just potatoes? What’s wrong with everyone? Don’t eat them? Do you have to eat rice? Can sweet potatoes only temporarily satisfy your cravings? No! You must eat this potato! Otherwise, it is a waste of food!”
As Zelen knows, there are not many countries in the world that can grow potatoes and know how to eat potatoes, or are civilized.
It can even be described as scarce.
Therefore, as a rice-producing area of the Akitsu Empire, there are obviously many rice fields, but most of the rice can only be exported. As a result, the Takagi Kingdom, where the vast majority of the people can only rely on wheat to satisfy their hunger, is naturally one of the countries that does not know the value of potatoes.
After all, the kobolds were the first countries in the Neoland continent to bring rice seeds from the Elsa continent and plant them extensively in the Neoland continent.
The reason why today’s Orchid Republic and Negan Empire have rice is all thanks to the hard work of the kobolds back then.
But now…sigh.
In order to usurp the throne, the first king of the Takagi royal family used a large number of gray-haired kobolds in the country as gifts and sold them to the Orchid Republic in exchange for military weapons support. As a result, not only were these gray-haired kobolds not treated as untouchables like they were in their hometown, but they later obtained citizenship rights in the Orchid Republic, and they also had a leader – the supreme head of the Orchid Republic, who had the same status as the king of a country.
So the Orchid Republic began to study how to grow rice in cold places at that time, and the Orchid Republic even roped in another great power on the Neoland continent, the Negan Empire, for cooperative research. The final result was not beyond everyone’s expectations. The Orchid Republic and the Negan Empire, which later began to brew rice wine as a disinfectant, became the two major rice research and development countries on the Neoland continent.
As for the Takagi Kingdom, which has completed the change of dynasties, it still maintains the level of hand-planted agriculture, and there are no agricultural tractors from the two countries. Things like fertilizer, how do most farmers in the Takagi Kingdom know this? At worst, everyone will invent a planting method called rotational cultivation to ensure an extremely stable output from a piece of farmland.
But can the small-scale peasant economy, which relies on farmers farming and weaving, be able to compete with mechanized agriculture that uses various agricultural machinery and fertilizers?
The collective farms of the Orchid Republic and the Negan Empire can provide enough food to feed the people of a city.
Note, it is to feed, just to feed. However, a collective farm in a village can feed the people of a city. This is not a trivial matter.
Because there is often more than one rural area or town surrounding a city, urban residents in both countries will certainly not worry about not having enough food to eat. In addition, the two countries have long-term academic and economic exchanges. Almost every town and even village in the two countries has granaries dedicated to storing grain.
To borrow a famous saying from outside, don’t panic when you have food in hand. With food, a country’s security and stability can be guaranteed.
Especially a country like the Orchid Republic, which is said to not use gold, silver and jewelry as collateral, but only uses millet or sorghum as collateral for issuing currency.
Nagamasa now finally understands why this country is so stable.
At the same time, Nagamasa discovered a major problem in his country.
Everyone is “infected” by the pig-headed man and always hopes to eat rice instead of wheat every day.
Dependence on a single staple food is so obvious that there must be some potential crisis without any interest in other crops that can serve as staple food.
If the enemy contaminates the rice fields with biological and chemical weapons, then no one will have any hope of having rice to eat in the future. On this basis, a large-scale famine will officially take place in the areas controlled by the Wanxi Liberation Force in a tragic manner.
Therefore, even if his methods are a bit arrogant, he must let his subordinates understand what it means to be prepared for a rainy day. The weaknesses of their black-haired kobolds are not only known to the black-haired kobolds, but their opponents will also study this aspect carefully.
It’s time to learn from the diversified diet of the Orchid Republic, otherwise it will be a disaster if the enemy in the future does not give us rice to eat.
Obviously, Nagamasa’s idea is good, but it will obviously run into various obstacles in its implementation.
However, such an issue is one of those things that has no meaning in discussion in the Crurod Empire.
The black-haired kobolds, and even the entire kobold clan, are an intelligent race that grows rice.
In order to eat rice, the kobolds are the first intelligent race in the world to successfully grow rice in cold areas. Therefore, after the Orchid Republic accepted a large number of grey-haired kobold slaves, it was natural for them to carry them forward. There are even rumors from the outside world that the Orchid Republic is trying to cultivate rice that can be grown in shallow areas.
Whether or not that’s true, it was a very powerful event. Being able to solve a country’s food problem and having the ability to export food to other countries is itself a sign of a strong country.
Therefore, Zelen drank a cup of mint tea before going to bed and couldn’t help but feel grateful that his country had introduced sweet potatoes and peanuts a long time ago.
Gamelia: “Aren’t you afraid of being unable to sleep if you drink mint tea at night? Or…”
Zelen: “This is what your grandfather gave you. You can’t waste it, right? Moreover, mint itself is used as medicine, which can be used to treat muscle pain.”
Gamelia: “At the same time, it can also increase energy. To be clear in advance, there are only three of us left to sleep with you. You drink a cup of mint tea, and we…”
Zelen: “Don’t worry. I’m not the type who can’t control myself.”
It is true that the purpose of Mr. Mike sending mint tea is to hope that he will work harder for everyone in the family. However, Zelen is often busy designing and improving military weapons during the day, and he really can’t bear not having a cup of mint tea at night.
At the same time, he also had to say that countries in the world were not like the Crurod Empire in being able to delve into the potential value of various plants. Like this sweet potato, Zelen heard that sheep-headed people, many humans, and even other strange races are not willing to eat it.
For example, the high-spirited people actually believed that this was food for dogs and firmly resisted it.
On the contrary, the dark elves of the Negan Empire are smarter than their compatriots in the United Kingdom of Eri. They have developed sweet potato flour to cook various vermicelli or pastries to replace the wheat flour that is not very abundant in the Negan Empire.
Yes.
Smart countries always have various ways and means to convert their staple foods.
People in a noodle country like the Negan Empire actually like noodles very much.
It’s comparable to the pig-headed man’s rice-polishing craze.
However, the territory of Negan’s empire is mountainous and the number of wheat fields is limited. Therefore, as an alternative method, the farmers of the Negan Empire followed the Queen’s call to grow sweet potatoes in the mountains, and then made sweet potato flour into sweet potato flour to replace wheat noodles.
Although there are obvious differences in taste, the sweet potato vermicelli is not rotten after being cooked for a long time, is fragrant and delicious, and can be eaten in a variety of ways, making it popular among the people of the Negan Empire, especially farmers. After all, the requirements for growing sweet potatoes are not high and can be grown in mountainous areas, making it easier to harvest than wheat.
However, it is such a high-yielding crop that can guarantee an output of 600 kilograms to 700 kilograms per 600 square meters. Few countries in Nylande, where sweet potatoes are native, can discover such a strong value.
Take the Takagi Kingdom as an example. I don’t know if the black-haired kobolds in this country are out of hostility to the Negan Empire. They directly set off boycotts again and again in the country, and even publicly claimed that sweet potatoes are low-level and are not needed by the Takagi Kingdom. crops, and then let everyone work harder to destroy them, so as not to have their living space swallowed up by the cheap things.
As a result, this matter greatly benefited the Negan Empire. The Negan Empire purchased a large number of sweet potatoes at a very low price and planted them extensively in their own country. At the same time, farmers in the Negan Empire also discovered that the stems and leaves of sweet potatoes are edible, and the white sap flowing in raw sweet potatoes can be used as a medicinal material to treat wounds caused by poisonous insect bites. And after planting a round of sweet potatoes, farmers in the Negan Empire first discovered that rotating sweet potatoes and peanuts could ensure that the fertility of the land would not be lost…