In late spring, grass grows on the block, peanut trees and orioles fly around.

You read that right, this is what Li Su, Zhuge Liang and his party arrived in Yinchuan County at the end of March. They saw a scene where they were supposed to be a bitter and cold place on the frontier. A piece of bellweed and grass grew.

They set off from Lanzhou around March 20, walked down the Yellow River, and visited while walking. After a seven or eight-day journey, they arrived in Yinchuan at the end of the month.

Before this, Zhuge Liang lived in Lanzhou for a while. He either tinkered with various cotton yarn machinery or followed Xu Shu to the construction site of Liujiaxia dike, observed the daily civil affairs of farming, farming, and corvee labor, and occasionally helped Xu Shu. He just felt that this kind of life was a little tired of it and the freshness was over, so Master Li found him a new job.

Zhuge Liang likes this kind of life rhythm that takes more than ten days on the road and lives in a new city for a month. Huang Yueying, who follows him, also likes it very much. She is simply the peak of her life as a hiker.

The various scenery you see on the way to Yinchuan County also made most young people with a little literary heart feel relaxed and happy, whether it was Zhuge Liang, Huang Yueying, or Liu Miaozhou Ying.

In fact, even in the eyes of many people in the 21st century, as long as they have never been to Ningxia or have not learned about it, they will have a great misunderstanding of the scenery of this place, thinking that this is a bitter and cold place in the Gobi Desert, and there are deserts next to it.

In fact, the Yinchuan Basin in Ningxia is definitely a real "supporting Jiangnan". Because of its low-lying terrain, numerous lakes, and pleasant and humid climate, it is equivalent to a basin of 8,000 square kilometers that gathers all the surrounding water. The Gobi and dry grasslands of more than 100,000 square kilometers were used to exchange for the fertility here.

Even in later generations, we can see that when the Yellow River flows through the Yinchuan Basin, the width of the river suddenly becomes more than five times wide! The water flow speed has also become flat. (Note: You can open Baidu Map by yourself. The middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River are generally only two or three hundred meters wide, and it is one kilometer wide at once when you get to Yinchuan)

In fact, this is the effect of using a wider riverbed as a water storage reservoir, similar to the Yunmengze Penglize on the Yangtze River, except that those lakes grow on one side of the Yangtze River, and Yinchuan County is the Yellow River itself, which has become many times wider. Therefore, the surrounding Yinchuan County is as fertile as the Jianghan Plain and the Poyang Plain.

To put it bluntly, as long as the agricultural development is well done, the agricultural production capacity per unit area here can be comparable to that of Jiangling, Nanjun, which is the most fertile Nanjun, in the hands of Liu Biao, and the Taihu Plain in Sun Ce can be more fertile. It’s a pity that the Han people have completely abandoned the rule of this place since the Eastern Han Dynasty.

...

"It's really incredible. Who would have thought that the people in this place really plant rice instead of wheat. Since I left Shujun and Jianwei and went to the north, I have never seen rice-growing fields again. It's almost three years."

Sitting on his newly improved heavy western caravan, flowing on the gentle Yellow River, watching the rice fields that had just been filled with water on both sides of the river, Zhuge Liang's heart was constantly refreshed.

It can be seen that there are many naturalized people from the Tang Dynasty tribe on the shore who clumsily learned to grow rice under the guidance of Han immigrants. The Qiang tribe is also a semi-agricultural and semi-animalized nation, and they can still farm a little, but they have never grown rice before and are not familiar with this high-yield and hard-working crop, and they are not used to it for a while.

Many farmers who plant dry land in the north have never mastered the links of seedling cultivation, transplanting and throwing. Because when planting wheat, there is no need to store water in the fields, and the dry land is sown directly. During the Han Dynasty, the agriculture in Ningxia was not fully utilized, and it has a certain relationship with the people who have never immigrated from the south to return to plant rice.

This year, the southern Han immigrants still traveled thousands of miles from Yizhou, which is also to evacuate the growth of the densely populated Yizhou area, and to stabilize the establishment of the rule of Liangzhou.

After all, Yizhou has not experienced much war and is considered to be the best preserved state in the late Han Dynasty. Not counting as the demolition of Dianzhou, Yizhou's hinterland always has more than five million people.

According to the natural growth rate, even if Li Su immigrates 200,000 people every year, the population of Yizhou will not decrease. It will only remove the balance of new births that year, which will also alleviate the problem of extreme poverty in the bottom of Yizhou that is not enough land.

Of course, Li Su is no longer a governor of Yizhou, so he cannot directly issue an order for immigration. He also has to entrust Xu Jing and Zhuge Jin to organize it specifically.

Finally, Zhuge Jin also found more than 20,000 poor families from Guanghan area in the northern part of Yizhou. According to the method last year, the Qinling Mountains began to immigrate as soon as the snow turned into snow at the beginning of the year, and also brought some of the stored grains and enough seeds of Linyi rice, so that after reaching Yinchuan County, he could plant at least one season of indica rice.

After all, Li Su and Guoyuan had already succeeded once last year. They had immigration experience and had better transportation methods and road conditions.

In addition, Yizhou has not fought in the past two years and has a relatively surplus of food. Historically, he could afford to support the Northern Expedition, let alone just spending some food to do immigration.

Once immigration organizations become more efficient, they can definitely ensure that farmers have enough farming land after they settle down.

Indica rice in the south can be planted for two seasons. After arriving in the north, it is only one season and there is no need to sow too early. Because the temperature in the north is low, even if it is wet, it cannot be planted for two seasons.

However, Ningxia's single-season yield and rice quality are better than those in the south. In years where conditions permit, you can wait for one or two months after harvesting the ripe rice ears. When the "two rice crops" mature, it can also supplement about 20% of the yield.

(That is, only sow once, but harvest twice. Be careful to cut off the ripe rice ears when harvesting, and try to keep the poles below intact. In this way, after one or two months, some of the previously suppressed and unripe grains will mature secondaryly, but the yield is only about one-fifth of the first wave of harvesting.)

Of course, Li Su didn't understand these specific agricultural technologies, but he didn't need to understand them. He was the general of the Dianyuan, a county in Liangzhou who was working hard to persuade farmers and popularize agricultural technology, organized his subordinates and technicians to go to the countryside to supervise literacy one by one.

...

After seeing the prosperity of Yinchuan County, Zhuge Liang was quite surprised. Although he had not traveled thousands of miles before, he had read ten thousand books at least. From the geography books, he roughly knew that his predecessors described the Yellow River along the northern part of Beidi County. He generally knew that there was "rich water resources" here, but before he saw it with his own eyes, his feelings were not so intuitive.

In contrast, the women Huang Yueying and Li Su were completely stunned. After all, they had never read related books.

Li Su is still more reliable. Although he had never been to Ningxia in his previous life, he had watched food documentaries such as "China on the Bite of the Tongue" and "One City and One Wei", and had intuitively seen the scenery here from the screen.

His calm expression, without any surprise, seemed very predictable in the eyes of Ma Dai, the guard cavalry officer sent by Ma Chao, and nothing could surprise him.

Everyone drove to the city of Yinchuan on the steady stream of the Yellow River before they were about to land. Li Su's inner impression of "The Bite of the Tongue" was already aroused, and he couldn't help but show off to his confidante and his disciples:

"You are far from seeing the richness of Yinchuan County. Don't look like you have never seen the world before. In a while, I will invite you to eat the mutton here, as well as the soup cakes of gray water."

Of course, Li Su knew the reputation of "Yanchitan Sheep" in this place. The alkaline drinking water and forage grass make the mutton smell lower than anywhere else. Moreover, using the natural alkali water from Yanchi County next to him to knead the noodles can also make the noodles easy to stretch, making ramen is the best

Although later ramen was first popular in Lanzhou, the materials used were not native to Lanzhou. However, in the 19th century, commerce and logistics were already very developed. The natural alkali water around Yinchuan could be easily traded to Lanzhou and was adopted by local chefs. However, the source of the raw materials is still more authentic here in Yinchuan County.

Zhuge Liang was a little unbelievable: "Isn't it just eating mutton? When I was in Chang'an, after the autumn harvest last year, the king had eaten mutton many times, and there were also many sheep herding in Guanzhong. There were also sheep sold by Beidi County and Hetao Qianghu Xianbei to the south. Could it be that they were not as good as this?"

Li Su smiled and patted him on the shoulder: "So my teacher told you that you have to travel thousands of miles to read books. You must practice it yourself. Just say that you only read geography books and tell you that the water and grass are abundant in the Diannong Towns in Yanhe River in Beidi County. Can you imagine that it looks like this? You will know after eating it."

Zhuge Liang was instructing the drivers to put all the wheels of the caravan on straw to facilitate the shock absorption of the bumpy terrain and increase the service life of the wheels.

After hearing Li Su's words, he put down the experimental work at hand and asked with his waist, "Sir Li, have you never been to Yinchuan County? You are also a geography known in the book, why are you just making a fuss out of your mouth?"

Li Su's preaching was suffocated and hurriedly said, "After all, I have gone to more places than you. I have seen all kinds of environments in the northwest, and I can learn from other things. Besides, I didn't say how good it is. Isn't this still maintaining an open mind and ready to accept new cognition at any time?"

Only after these words did Zhuge Liang stop, Zhuge Liang wiped his hands and continued to work.

To put it bluntly, the caravans that Li Su and his party are currently riding on a distance were also the ones Zhuge Liang had thought about and improved when he lived in Lanzhou a month ago because last year's original version of caravan was Li Su who studied and reviewed them based on his western film impression and design functions. In fact, he did not rely much on Zhuge Liang's IQ during the research and development process.

Therefore, Li Su must be bound to be swept away by technical prejudice. After Zhuge Liang personally sat on the road for ten days and half a month, Zhuge Liang's IQ quickly discovered from practice that there was something worth improving.

What's more, this time Huang Yueying, a guy who is also quite ingenious, follows Zhuge Liang. The two can discuss it, and occasionally it can stimulate Zhuge Liang's male desire to perform and compete for strength.

Therefore, in a month, Zhuge Liang put forward several opinions and changed these caravans again. Of course, Zhuge Liang's magical modification does not mean that he completely denies Li Su's old plan, or that he thinks that Li Su's old cars must be renovated.

He just discovered that Li Su's old plan was not widely applicable enough and was not optimal in certain specific environments, such as the efficiency of navigating rivers by amphibious and land.

However, if you are in an environment with very few rivers, such as walking along Ruoshui to Jiuquan County and continuing to go west, passing through Dunhuang County and leaving Yumen Pass, Li Su's car would be perfect and there would be no need to change anything. The Li Su version caravan that had been built before can also be used for pure Western Regions commercial transportation outside Yumen Pass in the future.

Zhuge Liang's transformation was mainly aimed at the areas between Lanzhou and Yinchuan, as well as Lanzhou to Huangzhong, Wuwei and Jiuquan. Zhuge Liang completely changed the wheels of the car. With the unchanged cross-sectional area of ​​the wheel spokes, the width of the spokes four times and the thickness was reduced to one-third.

In other words, each spoke was originally two inches wide and thick. After Zhuge Liang improved it, it became eight inches wide and six inches thick. The thickness of the rim was also halved, but the width of the rim was widened together with the spokes. Such spokes and rim support strength were sufficient, but when the spokes were in water, it formed a front as wide as a paddle.

Of course, because the original wheel was installed under the car, after the car was in the water, the entire process of the wheel rotation was underwater, so it was meaningless for paddling.

In order to solve this problem, Zhuge Liang also installed two axles symmetrical to the bottom of the car on the upper edge of the car, and it was also a crankshaft with a bend of foot pedals in the middle.

The wheels were also changed to be easily disassembled from the axle. Once you want to get into the water, the wheels were removed from the bottom axle and installed on the horizontal axle on the upper part of the vehicle body. Then the people on the vehicle could ride a boat on the pedals in the car like riding a bicycle. The wide and thin wheel spokes directly turned into paddle blades, almost reaching the level of the Song Dynasty's vehicles.

When Li Sugang saw this kind of magical modification that was still a bit flashy, he almost sighed that this was the power of love. Well, maybe Zhuge Liang didn't know what love is, and Huang Yueying was too young. Zhuge Liang was a conspicuous product that just happened to stimulate his brain's imagination and was tinkering with the show of his skills in front of girls.

After all, Zhuge Liang's design is too troublesome. Although it improves the efficiency of navigation in the water, it introduces more problems. For example, after the wheels become thin and wide, the load-bearing and compressive resistance per unit area is actually reduced. Once the ground is not very flat and the wheels do not touch the ground in the entire line, the wood will easily break when it is knocked to by pointed stones.

For example, because the wheels are made detachable and there were no bearings in ancient times, animal grease was used as engine oil to lubricate between the wheels and the axles. Now, after disassembly, the animal lubricant caused by the car going into the water is washed away much faster. Originally, there might not be any oil replenishment when crossing a small river, but now I will not be able to get the water for a while. After getting ashore, I want to continue driving as a car, so I have to get the oil replenishment.

Zhuge Liang also worked hard to solve these problems, but failed to solve them all. For example, he has not solved the problem of fast oil loss so far.

The problem of wheels being easily broken was solved by "When the car drove on ashore, he would put a soft outer tire with straw or wheat straw on the outside of the tire, which would disperse the pressure and also reduce shock."

But it is not easy to make up large-scale sturdy straw and wheat weaving, not to mention that it is a consumable. In order to show off in front of Huang Yueying, Zhuge Liang had to invent something new to solve new problems.

For example, he tinkered with the "straw weaving machine" from the principle of the foot-pedal loom, which can quickly and cheaply weave straw and wheat straw into outer tires, and replace them when worn out. At the same time, after tinkering with this machine, he found that it can also be used to weave straw mats and straw sandals, which is at least five times faster than pure hand-woven.

To put it bluntly, about ten days before leaving Lanzhou, when Li Su first saw Zhuge Liang's mower, he screamed at the good guy.

If this thing you had appeared twenty or thirty years ago, history would have been rewritten. When Liu Bei wanted to weave mats and sell shoes when he was a child, he would have to be unemployed by the "weaving and grass industry industrial revolution"!

I don’t know if this is considered to be the sadness of Liu Bei by chance: he is not even as professional as Zhuge Liang’s mat and footwear.

Zhuge Liang was not finished yet, because Li Su told him at that time: Yinchuan County is a semi-agricultural and semi-announced farmer, and the stems of crops such as straw and wheat straw cannot be wasted, and they should still be fed to sheep and raised animals.

In the past, even if there were no chopped whole straw and wheat straw, the digestive efficiency of sheep was very low and the food was not smooth. Now you have directly weaved it into a wheel tire. Even if it is crushed in the future, it cannot be recycled. If you take the waste tire to feed the sheep, the sheep will not be able to eat it. It is such a complicated piece of weaving! Isn’t this a waste of forage resources?

Zhuge Liang didn't want to be embarrassed in front of the girl. After hearing the problem pointed out by Li Su, he gritted his teeth and pulled Huang Yueying into seclusion for another week. Then when Li Su saw them again, he found that Zhuge Liang had made a new supporting equipment.

It was a machine improved from a foot-type wooden lathe, but the rotating plane knife head of the wooden stick, which was similar to a pencil sharpener, was replaced with a rotating guillotine similar to an electric fan blade, but with a sharp blade.

Then, this thing can also be like riding a bicycle, with a rotating knife and a hopper on it, which can throw the discarded outer tire of a straw tire into it. When it comes out like a meat grinder, it will be easier to digest and absorb than to feed the whole straw to sheep!

This is really a feed crusher. Maybe it can be turned into a hand-crank meat grinder if it is improved.

At that time, Li Su was so dumbfounded. He just followed the technology tree to find a problem and cut it hard on the spot, from the Nantianmen of the technology tree to Penglai East Road.

In order to solve one problem, three types of machines were invented in succession, which was too cruel.

Fortunately, several days have passed. During this period of travel, Li Su's mood has calmed down, and he is confident to show off in front of Zhuge Liang.

Let’s let tonight’s mutton ramen regain Li Su’s omniscience.
Chapter completed!