Chapter 22: Do I have relatives on earth?
Niu Jinda was very ugly, with a dark complexion, a lion’s mouth, a leopard’s nose, ringed eyes, a bushy beard, and a broad back and muscular shoulders. He was a real hulk who could run a horse on his arm and stand a person on his fist.
He was a natural born soldier, brave and good at fighting, resourceful and able to follow orders to the point of risking death. It was with such a large number of brave men that Emperor Li II rose to power, conquered the world, forced his way into the palace and took the throne. I thought these butchers who kill like mowing grass would see everyone’s head as a military achievement and be ready to take your head at any time to achieve their own dream of becoming a god, exchanging their bones for a bright future.
But now this unruly tough guy is apologizing to himself. His methods are childish, his words are poor, and his threats are powerless. He didn’t have to humiliate himself like this. He only lost his composure and was in a panic when he heard about a possibility, a myth of 15 tons of grain per mu. This is not the reaction of a veteran who has been through many battles. He only cares too much about the quality of the harvest, how many people are hungry, and how many people will starve to death.
Yun Ye had never experienced hunger, and the words “thousands of starving corpses” and “eating one’s own children” were only recorded in history books. Lao Niu had experienced it and knew how terrible hunger was.
Yun Ye tried to lift his hand to grab Lao Niu’s sleeve and lift his leg to walk out. Lao Niu was stunned? Yun Ye smiled and followed him out.
The rain continued to fall slowly. Zhuang San stopped early and moved the potato seedlings out of the grass pavilion to let them receive the nourishment of the rain. The dark green leaves rustled in the rain, and the one-meter-diameter pot was almost completely covered with leaves. For some reason, Yun Ye had never seen potatoes in later generations with such vitality. Could it be that they had been modified by a wormhole? Seeds would mutate when they went into space. Could potatoes also change their genes when they went through a wormhole?
Lao Niu was happily crouching in the rain, stroking the potato leaves, as if caressing a beloved woman, which made the onlookers feel sick. Yun Ye suppressed the malicious speculation in his heart and said to Lao Niu, “Uncle Niu, each potato plant can produce more than five jin of potatoes, and 1,500 to 2,000 plants can be planted per mu. As long as the planting continues, the seeds will sprout and pile up the soil into ridges, and then it’s just a matter of waiting. As long as it’s not a year of drought, 15 dan is still guaranteed.”
Yun Ye knew that if the yield of potatoes in the future was less than 8,000 kilograms per mu, it would be considered a failure. Considering that one mu in the Tang Dynasty was only 0.871 mu in the future, and one dan was 59 kilograms, he said that the yield of less than 2,000 kilograms was to scare these ancient people. If he said 15 dan, he would almost be crushed to death. If he said 50 dan, he would be buried in a pit.
“These potato sprouts are probably the only ones in the whole of the Tang Dynasty. An overseas friend of my teacher brought them here from afar, intending to let him try a rare food. My teacher ate two of them and, hearing about the terrifying yield, decided to try growing them. A peach blossom flood left my uncle stranded in the wilderness. Fortunately, he met Zhang Cheng and the others who were delivering food. After hearing that the army was short of salt, they helped him make salt. After all the busy work, he almost forgot about the potatoes. They were planted in June and are not expected to mature until October. By then, it will be clear how much can be produced per acre. Uncle is worried about the suffering of the world, and I admire him very much.
Old Niu took some soil and put it on the roots of the potato seedlings. He didn’t even care about his hair getting wet in the rain. He looked at the potato seedlings and said to Yun Ye, “I heard that you are from Lantian, Chang’an. When I was checking your past, everyone knew nothing about you. At that time, Yang Xuangang of Chang’an was defeated in battle, and 30,000 people were killed, many of them innocent. There were many people in your Yun family, and except for Yun Dingxing, who was safe, everyone else was ruined. I guess you are the orphan of those who were implicated. In the chaos of the world, you, a young child in a swaddling cloth, son in a swaddling cloth could meet your master is your fortune, pity those who have no one to take care of them, have no food or clothing, some are slaves, some are prostitutes, but it is strange that even if they do all the menial work in the world, they still keep the ancestral temple of the Blue Mountain, and the offerings are constantly made in the four seasons and eight chapters. The top is full of peach wood plaques. Do you know what is going on?”
As soon as he said this, Yun Ye felt like he had been hit in the head with a heavy blow. His eyes were filled with stars, blood rushed to his head, a fishy smell came from his mouth, and blood dripped from his nostrils. Yun Ye knew all about the ancestral temple of the Blue Mountains. When his son was eight years old, he specially carved a peach-wood nameplate and sent it to the ancestral temple to be kept. When he was 18 years old, he took it back and carried it with him.
Yun Ye’s name tag has been hanging around his neck since he was 18 years old, and he has never taken it off. The peach wood has long since turned black and red, and is now oily and slippery from sweat and grease.
When he lifted his hand, he didn’t feel any pain. He tore open his shirt to reveal the peach-wood plaque on his neck. He asked in a menacing voice, “But this kind of wood plaque?”
This is a standard wooden plaque, one inch long, half an inch wide, and one centimeter thick. Lao Niu looked at the wooden plaque on Yun Ye’s neck and nodded: “Not bad, this one. It seems that there are not many male descendants in your family. The Hundred Cavalry Division sees that all the people entering and leaving are women. Presumably, all the wooden plaques are dedicated to the deceased male descendants?”
Yun Ye felt that his mind was in a state of confusion. He had inexplicably traveled to the Tang Dynasty, and he had thought that he had no more relatives. He had casually mentioned his family background because the ancestral temple was in the ancient county of Lantian, outside of Chang’an. He had never imagined that there would be an ancestral temple in the early Tang Dynasty. Later generations of the Yun family had always thought that the Yun ancestral temple was only in the middle of the Tang Dynasty. Thousands of thoughts were intertwined in his mind, and he felt that he had a lot to say, but he couldn’t say a word. The loneliness and sadness that had accumulated over the past few days were all expelled from his body with a mouthful of blood.
Niu Jinda sighed and carried Yun Ye into the tent. This little guy, why did he react so strongly when he heard the news about his relatives? But it wasn’t easy to be an orphan for more than ten years. When he heard that all his relatives were suffering, he couldn’t stand it. The insistence of the widows, widowers, and orphans of the Yun family was still reasonable. The prosperity of the family was just around the corner. It was a good thing that the blood was just spit out. Didn’t you see that the depression in the boy’s eyebrows had all disappeared?
Cheng Chumo crept in quietly, looked at Yun Ye with concern, and only let out a sigh of relief when he saw that he had only fainted. He asked Niu Jinda, “Uncle Niu, is Xiao Ye okay? Why did he react so strongly when you told him about his background? If I had known, I would have told him myself.”
“You told him, what right do you have to tell him? Tell him you are checking his background? I am the deputy commander and the inspector general. It is only natural to investigate him for official reasons. No one can say anything. However, in my opinion, this kid has nothing to investigate. He has made great contributions to the salt production method, improved military rations, and established hygiene regulations. He is a great talent who can accomplish such great things, not to mention the potatoes in the back, not to mention the fifteen loads. As long as there are seven or eight loads, my father and I will guarantee him a hereditary marquis. Who dares to bully him in Chang’an? I can make his life or death difficult.