Two Realms: A cartload of rice arrived at the end of the Ming Dynasty

0011 Red Soil

"Even the immortals know about sweet potatoes?"

"This sweet potato was introduced to Wenzhou Prefecture from Fujian Province only twenty years ago. It can be used as both a vegetable and a staple food. It can be produced without intensive farming and is easier to grow than rice. We call it Fujian sweet potato."

"It's just that it's quite demanding on the soil. The loess soil in the mountain fields is infertile, and after one crop is planted, the soil needs to rest for a year before other crops can be planted," Sun Lu explained from the side.

Wenzhou Prefecture is connected to eastern Fujian, and typhoons pass through it almost every year. In the second year of the Qiandao reign of the Southern Song Dynasty, a very serious "sea overflow" occurred.

According to the History of Song, "On the day of Dinghai in the eighth month of the second year of Qiandao, a great wind and sea overflow occurred in Wenzhou, which washed away houses, salt fields and Longshuo Temple, and more than 20,000 people drowned."

According to later research on stone inscriptions left from the Song Dynasty, the highest water level of that tsunami reached 65 meters, almost submerging the entire Wenzhou Prefecture. Local legend says, "In the second year of the Qiandao era, the water filled Yanting'ao, leaving only eighteen families in Jiangnan."

In order to provide disaster relief and replenish the population, the Southern Song Dynasty began to relocate a large number of people from Fujian to Wenzhou to register their household registration.

In mountainous areas like Wencheng, and on islands in Pingyang, Cangnan, many clans even speak Minnan dialect instead of Wenzhou dialect.

It can be said that 90% of the shrewdness and global business acumen inherent in modern Wenzhou people comes from the Fujian region.

The two places share similar customs and are related by blood. As a life-saving food that can help people survive famine, sweet potatoes would naturally spread and become popular among the people quite quickly.

However, as Sun Lu said, the soil in Wenzhou is very poor, mostly yellow-red acidic soil.

The types of crops that can be grown in mountainous areas are very limited. Apart from bayberries and loquats, even oranges and tangerines will turn bitter and astringent after being transplanted to the soil in Wenzhou.

The saying "Oranges grown south of the Huai River are sweet oranges, while those grown north of the Huai River are bitter oranges" describes this situation.

"It is called sweet potato because it is a type of potato that is presented as tribute from foreign countries."

"The sweet potato that came from Fujian is called Fujian sweet potato."

"I see!"

Zhu Shiting took the so-called Fujian sweet potato from Sun Lu's hand and examined it carefully, his memory returning to his childhood.

His grandparents lived in an old rural house near Qianyang Town. During the busy farming season, in addition to growing rice, the elderly couple would also cultivate crops such as sweet potatoes, watermelons, and melons in the cultivated fields.

Every autumn harvest, the sweet potatoes harvested in the fields are more than we can eat. They are either shredded and sold to pig farms as feed, or steamed, sliced, and dried into sweet and sticky dried sweet potatoes for our children and grandchildren as snacks.

However, in his memory, the red-skinned sweet potatoes his grandfather grew could grow to the size of two adult male fists, more than twice the size of the sweet potatoes he was holding now.

Moreover, upon closer inspection, the flesh of this Fujian sweet potato was whitish, with more residue and less water, and its starch content was significantly lower than that of the sweet potatoes grown by his grandfather.

It is clear that the large difference is due to the fact that modern sweet potato varieties have undergone countless generations of improvement, coupled with advancements in planting techniques and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

"Miss Sun, are there many people growing sweet potatoes in Wenzhou Prefecture?" Zhu Shiting asked.

Sun Lu first nodded, then shook her head, and finally answered while wiping away her tears: "When this Fujian potato was first introduced, every household in Wenzhou Prefecture had someone growing it, and countless people survived. After Emperor Chongzhen ascended the throne, the court issued a decree prohibiting the private cultivation of this potato in Jiangnan, saying that it would ruin the country and affect grain taxes. Only rice and millet were allowed to be grown on fertile land, and many potato fields were closed down."

"My father was forced to flee his home and become an outlaw because of this decree that prevented the collection of grain taxes.

"Even if there are still people in Wenzhou who grow this Fujian sweet potato, most of them are like our Sun family, secretly growing it in the mountains."

After hearing the whole story, Zhu Shiting first looked surprised, then shook his head and sighed softly.

There were clearly crops in the countryside that could save lives and alleviate famine, but the government was stubborn and focused on rice taxes, which had low yields per mu. They made a series of incompetent decisions and blocked sweet potatoes, a crop that could save the country and its people, from the government's reach.

"I've often heard people say that the Ming Dynasty experienced a Little Ice Age at the end of the dynasty, which caused widespread crop failures and made it impossible for ordinary people to afford food, leaving them with no choice but to revolt. If potatoes and sweet potatoes had been more widely available earlier, perhaps the Ming Dynasty wouldn't have fallen so quickly."

"From this perspective, the demise of a feudal dynasty cannot be reversed by just one or two high-yield crops."

Zhu Shiting pondered for a moment, looking at the Ming Dynasty sweet potato in his hand.

Seeing that he was silent, Sun Lu stood nervously to the side, her eyes lowered as she stared at his slender fingers that he was fiddling with.

She was a little worried that she had said something wrong and offended this deity.

……

After a moment of silence, Zhu Shiting tossed the sweet potato he was holding back into the simple wooden bucket.

Shining his flashlight around the dilapidated Jiyun Village, he slowly walked to the campfire and sat down on a large rock.

Seeing that the immortal was deep in thought, Sun Lu moved the exquisite rice bags she had collected during the day to Zhu Shiting and said, "Immortal, these bags are celestial objects. I was afraid that if I damaged them, it would delay your return and cause you to have trouble reporting back. So I had my clansmen carefully store them after taking the celestial rice. All twelve bags are here."

Seeing that the other party was treating these bags, which even the recycling station wouldn't accept, as treasures, Zhu Shiting found it somewhat amusing and praised her, saying, "Miss Sun, you're very thoughtful."

However, looking at the neatly folded rice bags, Zhu Shiting suddenly remembered that he still had hundreds of unopened bags of Wuchang rice in his warehouse.

Then, his eyes lit up, and he instructed, "Miss Sun, you mentioned during the day that there are four villages near Jiyun Mountain? Could you contact them and have them send their leaders over? I'd like to bring some rice over tomorrow at noon to discuss a business deal with them."

"what?"

"To discuss business?"

Sun Lu thought she had misheard.

During the day, this celestial being who delivered goods to the Heavenly Court was willing to bestow those 12 bags of celestial rice upon them, mortals. According to her imagination, it was because the bags containing the celestial rice had broken, and the rice had accidentally spilled into the wild grass.

In her view, those hundred or so pounds of celestial rice, now tainted with the dust and dirt of the mortal world, were definitely not something she could bring back to Heaven to report.

Therefore, this deity demanded her jade hairpin as a bribe to the heavenly soldiers guarding the South Heavenly Gate, thus managing to slip through the gate unnoticed.

Unexpectedly, the other party even wanted to steal the celestial rice from heaven and sell it privately for profit!

Could it be that the heavenly court where the immortals lived in her imagination was as vulgar as the mortal world?

For a moment, Sun Lu felt an indescribable crack appear in her fantasy of the beautiful heavenly realm described in the novel.

Seeing that the young lady from the Sun family had suddenly become stunned, Zhu Shiting waved to her to bring her back to her senses: "Miss Sun, whether this deal goes through or not, I will give you fifty bags of rice from Jiyun Village to help you get through the food shortage."

Upon hearing that there were another fifty bags of rice to take, and having just tasted the flavor of Wuchang rice cultivated with modern techniques during the day, Miss Sun instantly put aside all her complicated thoughts.

Her eyes shone brightly in the firelight, and she nodded her head like a woodpecker. She swallowed hard and replied, "Yes...yes, Immortal! Our Sun family and the other four villages often keep in touch. Tomorrow at dawn, I will send a few nimble clansmen to deliver the message. I promise it won't delay your important business, Immortal."

Seeing that the girl was quite perceptive, Zhu Shiting smiled slightly at her and said, "You're teachable."

Then, in a flash, it disappeared beside the campfire.

The young woman was left staring at the still-warm stone, muttering to herself, "Shouldn't we move this stone, where the immortals sat, into the house and enshrine it?"