Chongzhen's rhetorical question made Wei Liangqing speechless on the spot. He thought in his heart, "This is different from what my uncle explained, didn't my uncle say that as long as I show the strength to be loyal to the country, Your Majesty will definitely be happy, and then exile me to Liaodong to join the army?" My uncle said that although Liaodong was in chaos and the Dongyu was fierce, but if I went to Liaodong, the Chinese officials of the DPRK would not stare at me, and I still had a chance to live, but if I stayed in the capital and dangled under the noses of these civil officials, I might be dragged to the vegetable market that day. ”

Seeing that Wei Liangqing was speechless, Zhu Youzhen continued: "Meritorious service does not necessarily have to be on the battlefield, soldiers defending their homes and defending the country are contributing to the Ming Dynasty, businessmen paying taxes are also contributing to the Ming Dynasty, and the contribution of farmers to the Ming Dynasty is a variety of grains." Since you came from a farmhouse, you naturally understand the suffering of the peasants. I'll give you a task, if you do it well, the title of Uncle Suning will naturally be well deserved. ”

Wei Liangqing suddenly grabbed the last straw like a drowning man, and quickly put his head on the ground and said: "If Your Majesty has any orders, Weichen will definitely do his best to live up to Your Majesty's trust." ”

"You grew up in a farmhouse, so you must be familiar with farm work. More than 9% of the tax burden of our Ming Dynasty comes from agriculture, but there is no institution specifically set up for agriculture in the whole Ming Dynasty, and there are no professional researchers and personnel who teach agricultural technology.

Whether it is the way of farming or the farming tools used by the farmers of my Ming Dynasty, there has been almost no change in the past few hundred years. Some places in the south introduced new crops from overseas, but the north and the interior of the Ming Dynasty did not know about it, or some places only introduced it as a non-staple grain and did not get a large area of promotion.

I plan to set up a special institute to teach farmers how to grow new crops, develop new agricultural tools, and research ways to grow crops that can increase food production. If you want to set up this organization, you must have an understanding of farmers and agriculture, Wei Liangqing, do you have the confidence to do this well? If you have any questions, you can also say them now. ”

Wei Liangqing was originally confused by Chongzhen's words, and after getting Chongzhen's inquiry, he said cautiously: "This, this Your Majesty, do you still need to study any techniques for farming?" Since he was a child, he followed his father to the field, and when he became an adult, he learned to farm. It's not just the villain, it's basically every farmer like this, I've never heard of a farmer who needs to learn how to farm from others? ”

"Bold, are you questioning Your Majesty's idea?" Wang Chengen immediately stood up and reprimanded Wei Liangqing.

Zhu Youzhen immediately spoke out to stop him, "It's good to raise questions in person, what I like the most is that if you don't understand, you have to say it in person, instead of having no problems now, but acting indiscriminately after you go back."

Let me give you an analogy, you have been in the country for so long, have you ever seen two fields of the same size, but the yield is much worse? ”

Wei Liangqing, who was originally scolded by Wang Chengen and was frightened, listened to Chongzhen's tone very gently, and then said hesitantly: "There is such a thing, in my hometown, there are two families whose fields are adjacent to each other, one family receives about 15 stones, and the other family only gets about 12 stones. However, according to the minister, this is the one who has not received the harvest, and the service field is too lazy. ”

"Whether they are lazy or industrious, their efforts in the fields must be different, so the harvest is different. And what you have to do is to find out these differences, what the hard-working people do will increase the harvest, and what the lazy people don't do will cause the harvest to be poor. Only by finding those differences that allow the field to increase the harvest can the farmer's diligence have a correct goal, rather than blindly working aimlessly. ”

Wei Liangqing suddenly said with some sudden realization: "I seem to understand what Your Majesty means, when I first went to the field with my father, my father taught me how to support the plow and how to swing the hoe to save effort. Does Your Majesty mean now to find those ways to save the farmer's energy? ”

Although Wei Liangqing's statement is a bit nondescript, it has not deviated much from the overall direction. Zhu Youzhen didn't continue to explain, he nodded and said affirmatively: "That's pretty much what it means, studying how to grow more food with the least input is what I want you to do." ”

Looking at Wei Liangqing, who was still a little ignorant, Zhu Youzhen asked uneasily, "Then do you know how to do this?" ”

Wei Liangqing immediately shook his head and asked, "Please give your majesty some guidance to the minister." ”

"In this way, first of all, you have to set up an institution, I think it will be called the Daming Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Then you go to find a few literate people, and then go to the countryside in the counties near the capital to find some experienced old farmers, or local farmers. Record their experience first, and then select a few outstanding people to enter this academy of agricultural sciences.

I will give you a piece of the Imperial Village near the capital, and then let these people guide the farmers in the Imperial Village to test whether the method you have recorded is feasible and whether there is room for improvement. When experimenting, it is important to have a field that is planted in the usual way as a reference, and try to spread out the methods of experimentation, otherwise you will not be able to figure out which methods are effective.

When I finally did the experiment, I had to record not only the climate of each day, but also the growth of the crops in each field..."Zhu Youzhen was very patient and said all the various plans he had in mind.

Wei Liangqing was able to keep up at first, but in the end he was completely listening to the book of heaven, he never knew that there was so much knowledge in farming, although the things Chongzhen said were very fresh, some of which he had never heard of, but judging from his previous farming experience, these things were quite reasonable, but he had never thought about it.

Wei Liangqing himself is illiterate, and what Chongzhen said is a plan that has been repeatedly scrutinized, so the speed of speech is relatively fast, at the beginning he can still record some with his memory, but in the end he can only be in a daze.

Zhu Youzhen said it up, but soon he noticed that Wei Liangqing, whose eyes were a little straight, was kneeling on the ground and was a little at a loss. Realizing that he might have spoken too quickly, and Wei Liangqing couldn't remember it, Zhu Youzhen ended in a hurry.

"That's all for the time being, the Academy of Agricultural Sciences has not yet been established, so some problems are not visible yet, you can record the problems found in the establishment of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences one by one, and then report them to me. Of course, even if you don't encounter problems, you should write about what you have done during this period of time and what the Academy of Agricultural Sciences has done. Well, it's a week's limit, and every week you submit a work report to me. Wang Chengen, you remember. In the future, Wei Liangqing must not be stopped from entering the palace, and he must report to me as soon as possible. ”

When Zhu Youzhen was explaining the task, Wei Liangqing opened his mouth, but closed it again without speaking.

"What do you want to say? Let's just say it, don't take the doubts home with you. After Zhu Youzhen's eyes met Wei Liangqing's expression, he asked him.

"Dare to ask, how long is Your Majesty's week?" Wei Liangqing asked honestly.

"A week... That's seven days. Zhu Youzhen was a little speechless for a moment, and he remembered that in this era, except for Western missionaries and a few scholars and doctors who knew about Western studies, the way of counting the days of the week was basically unknown to the people of the Ming Dynasty.

However, Zhu Youzhen quickly related to other things from this time problem, and the biggest difference between agricultural society and industrial society lies in the measurement of time. In the feudal agrarian society before the Republic of China, manpower and time were the least valuable things, so the biggest feature of this kind of society was that it strived to produce everything by itself and advocated a self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy.

In the Ming Dynasty, in terms of time measurement, the countryside calculates morning, noon and evening by the rooster and the sun, and even in the city, it is only accurate to the quarter of an hour and the hour. In the unit of time above the day, the unit of week is missing, and only the year, month and day are missing.

This vague and inaccurate way of calculating time has led to a huge waste of social productivity. For example, the officials of this era had no concept of commuting time at all, except for a rest day once every ten days, and the rest of the time must theoretically be on duty at the official office.

Perhaps when the People's Republic of China was founded in the early Ming Dynasty, under the pressure of Ming Taizu, a workaholic, this kind of work system with no personal time at all could still be implemented. By the time of Chongzhen, this system had already existed in name only.

Most of the officials often work half-day shifts and then run back to their homes. And although the low-level officials are there, but there is no chief official to sit in the court, they can't do anything, either drink tea and chat and mingle, or run out for recreation under the banner of going out on business.

In this agrarian society, where there is no concept of time, talking about work efficiency is a joke. In order to transform an agricultural society into an industrial society, the first step must be for the Ming people to re-understand the importance of time, and have a basic concept of time in their minds.

For the West, their concept of time also started from the Age of Discovery, and the time in agriculture can be accurate to the day. But in the Age of Discovery, time was accurate to the hour, because every hour at sea was equal to a difference of 15 degrees of longitude. By calculating the exact time, the ship can determine its position in the middle of the sea without losing its way.

In the era of the Industrial Revolution, time needed to be accurate to the minute, because in the eyes of the capitalist, every minute was the source of his profit for the wage-workers.

"It seems that if you want to change the Ming Dynasty, you must first change the Ming people's precise concept of time." Zhu Youzhen said to himself.

After explaining a few questions raised by Wei Liangqing, Zhu Youzhen hesitated and continued: "As for the funding of this Academy of Agricultural Sciences? ”

Wei Liangqing seemed to be blessed to the soul at this time, he immediately put his head on the ground, and said loudly: "The minister is afraid, he has received a lot of money and grain that should not be collected in the past two years, please be gracious and let the minister use these money and grain on this Academy of Agricultural Sciences, which can be regarded as the uncle and nephew of the minister to atone for some sins in the past." ”

Zhu Youzhen smiled slightly when he heard this, and said noncommittally: "It costs a lot to build this Academy of Agricultural Sciences, how much can your uncle and nephew come up with?" ”

Wei Liangqing gritted his teeth and said stubbornly: "The minister is willing to offer 300,000 taels of silver." ”