A Journey Through the Worlds of Film and Television.

Chapter 651 The war is about to begin

In the autumn of the third year of Zhongping, it was harvest time again.

On the Liaodong Plain, thousands of acres of corn are being harvested. Countless civilians and soldiers are busy in the fields, breaking off thick corn cobs, putting them into baskets, carrying them to the fields, and transporting them to warehouses on wheelbarrows.

Lu Cheng came to the field and looked around for a while. Then he called the agricultural commander who was in charge of farming and asked, "Ziqing, in your opinion, what is the yield per mu of crops this year?"

"My Lord, the corn is growing well this year. With favorable weather and good harvests, the yield per mu should be similar to last year..."

The fine varieties that Lu Cheng brought were the fruits of the latest biotechnology in the 22nd century, and were fine varieties that had been cultivated for many generations. They were drought-resistant, flood-resistant, lodging-resistant, and resistant to various diseases and insect pests, and there was basically no seed degradation within several generations.

Even in Liaodong, in this era without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, it is possible to achieve a yield of 1,000 kilograms per mu.

Throughout the dynasties, a grain yield of 200 to 300 kilograms per mu was considered an absolute bumper harvest.

Zhang Liao, Zhao Yun, Taishi Ci and others who followed Lu Cheng were all surprised after hearing about the yield: "My lord, is the corn really so high-yielding?"

"Of course, you can see that this corn can produce several taels of grain, and one mu can produce a thousand kilograms of grain. This is not an exaggeration. By next year, the entire Liaodong will be truly self-sufficient, and the people will no longer have to endure hunger. Moreover, this corn can also replace beans to feed war horses.

By then, we can expand our cavalry again. Let the Liaodong cavalry sweep across the northern desert and gallop across the world."

Upon hearing this, all the generals couldn't help but get excited.

After checking the corn harvest, everyone came to another piece of land, where sweet potatoes were planted.

Lu Cheng borrowed a shovel from an old farmer, dug up the soil, dug out a sweet potato, looked at the size of the sweet potato, and nodded with satisfaction: "In half a month, the sweet potatoes can be harvested. Zilong, Ziyi, Wenyuan, Guorang, come with me, I will treat you to roasted sweet potatoes today."

Upon hearing this, all the soldiers followed.

The man named Guo Rang was a young man of about fourteen or fifteen years old. Although he was young, he had quite a heroic spirit. He was also a talent who had just arrived in Liaodong recently. His name was Tian Yu.

Tian Yu was from Yuyang County, not far from Liaodong. In history, he had followed Gongsun Zan and became good friends with Liu Bei. Liu Bei once said to him, "I wish I could accomplish great things with you."

After Gongsun Zan's defeat, Tian Yu persuaded Xianyu Fu to surrender to Cao Cao together. After that, he guarded the northern border for Cao Wei for many years. He once divided the Xianbei tribes. Later, he made many contributions to Cao Wei and was promoted to the rank of Nine Ministers. He was also a man of both civil and military talents.

Now, although Tian Yu is young, he has already shown some wisdom and bravery, and is a rare talent with great potential.

Next to a small slope in the field, Lu Cheng asked the soldiers to dig a simple pit, found some corn stalks as firewood, and guided the soldiers to roast sweet potatoes on the spot.

A group of Liaodong generals watched curiously, wanting to taste what the sweet potato tasted like.

Last year, because there were not many sweet potatoes planted, even Lu Cheng himself couldn't bear to eat most of them in order to save seeds. This year, the yield of sweet potatoes from these two to three thousand acres of land is also considerable, and some of them can be eaten.

Moreover, even the sweet potato leaves can be used for cooking or fed to poultry and livestock.

Soon, the soldiers smelled a sweet scent coming from the soil, and they couldn't help but feel hungry.

After waiting for a while, Lu Cheng felt that it was almost done, so he had someone dig the roasted sweet potatoes out of the soil. He broke one of them open, revealing the golden, steaming sweet potato inside. He took a bite and nodded with satisfaction: "Not bad. Come on, Guo Rang, you try it first."

Lu Cheng handed half of it to the youngest Tian Yu, and let the other soldiers help themselves. Everyone rushed forward to grab it. Each of them took one in their hands and did not care about the heat, and broke it open to taste it.

"Oh, it's delicious. It's sweet, soft and very tasty."

"Why have I never seen something this delicious before?"

"I don't know where the governor found it. It's so delicious. It tastes sweeter than honey."

"I've eaten glutinous rice cakes before, but none of them were as delicious as this."

Sugar had already appeared in this era, but it was called "Yitian" and was not very sweet. Some wealthy families would also collect honey and make honey water for drinking.

For example, brown sugar made from sugarcane did not appear until the Tang Dynasty.

Among the various seeds Lu Cheng brought, there were a small amount of beet seeds. Beets are very suitable for planting in the Northeast. A lot of them were planted last year, and some more were planted this year. When the time comes, they can be used to make sugar.

Zhao Yun was eating sweet potatoes and couldn't help asking, "My lord, what is the yield per mu of sweet potatoes?"

"If the yield is good, it will be two or three times that of corn, and it can be used as food for ordinary people."

"With these two things, the people of Liaodong will no longer have to endure hunger. The soldiers will also have sufficient food and weapons! Congratulations, my lord!"

"Congratulations, lord!"

In this era of low productivity, the ratio of population to soldiers in a place was usually about 10:1, which means that it would be good for Liaodong's 70 people to support 7 soldiers.

But with these high-yield grains, we can feed more soldiers and horses, and attract refugees from all directions to join us, thus rapidly expanding the population base.

With food, soldiers and generals, we have the foundation to dominate the world.

"Haha, let's celebrate together."

Now, three months of training have ended. The three generals Zhao Yun, Zhang Liao and Taishi Ci have successfully completed their training, successfully integrated into Liaodong, and convinced all the soldiers to become commanding generals.

Of course, since the three of them have not yet made any meritorious contributions, they are currently only military officers commanding a group of 500 soldiers.

In contrast, Zhou Cang, who was the earliest to follow Lu Cheng, is now a county commander, in charge of all military affairs within the county and has become a general in charge of a region.

Now, with the end of the first period of training, Taishi Ci and the other two can't wait to make achievements and conquer the world.

Just as Lu Cheng was planning to attack Wuhuan in the north, conquer Korea in the south, and go west to Liaodong, an operation against Liaodong was also underway.

Since last winter, Liaodong has purchased a large number of war horses from the Xianbei and Wuhuan tribes by selling glass products, and its strength has grown.

This also made the Xianbei, Wuhuan, Fuyu and other tribes in the north feel threatened. Later, they controlled the flow of war horses into Liaodong and reduced trade with Liaodong.

Seeing that Liaodong was becoming more and more prosperous and food was becoming more and more abundant under Lu Cheng's governance, the northern ethnic groups decided to unite and plunder Liaodong together.

So, just when Liaodong had just completed the autumn harvest and the grains were stored in the granary, spies distributed among the tribes in the north brought information that the Xianbei tribes in Liaoxi and Liaodong, as well as the Buyu in the northeast, had gathered troops and approached the border.

Lu Cheng received the intelligence, read it through, and then passed it to Taishi Ci and other generals to read.

After reading the intelligence, the generals volunteered to fight: "My lord, Yun is willing to lead our troops to fight!"

"Zhang Liao is willing to go!"

"Taishi Ci invites you to fight!"

Lu Cheng stood up and said, "Okay, beat the drums and call the troops to prepare for battle!"