Chapter 158: The Heaven and Earth Society

“What about capturing natives from Vietnam and Southeast Asia? They’re closer.”

“The cost doesn’t add up,” Wang Luobin said dismissively. “Unless there’s a ready supply of slaves from a slave trader, the cost of capturing and transporting them is just too high.”

“Let’s learn from the history of the slave trade. The British used ships to transport slaves to Cuba and Jamaica and exchanged them for sugar. We can do the same. Let the British be the slave traders—they’re good at it anyway. We can trade our sugar from Leizhou for slaves.”

“Are you suggesting we bring in black uncles?”

Seeing the conversation veering off course, Wu De tapped the table. “Let’s be realistic! We should take measures to minimize the death rate.” He reminded everyone, “Whether they are laborers or slaves, a high death rate is bad for morale. It will inevitably lead to escapes and riots. Then we’ll have to send in the army to suppress them. Wouldn’t that be a vicious cycle?”

“We need to step up population recruitment,” Wen Desi said to Wu De. “Is it difficult to increase the speed of immigration by one or two times?”

“Yes, food,” Wu Nan Hai interjected without hesitation before Wu De could speak. “The grain we’ve collected locally and seized is about to run out. We’re currently relying on Vietnamese rice from the trade between Leizhou and Vietnam.”

“But we have hybrid rice…”

“Do you think hybrid rice is a magic wand?” Wu Nan Hai had been fuming about the agricultural issues for a long time. “Do you think I can just snap my fingers and have tons of rice? What about the irrigation systems? The water pumps? The fertilizer? I’ve brought these things up in meetings countless times!”

Perhaps due to his easygoing nature and reluctance to argue, Wu Nan Hai’s Agriculture Committee had always been at the back of the line when it came to resource allocation. Although the Executive Committee understood the importance of agriculture and had invested a considerable amount, especially in the infrastructure of the farm, the old adage “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” held true here as well. Because the Agriculture Committee’s investments were always so large, the Executive Committee had a habit of cutting their projects by twenty percent.

Developing Tiandu would inevitably lead to a population boom. And a population boom required a greater investment in agriculture to ensure a sufficient food supply by October.

“I haven’t even planted all my rice seeds yet. There are too few high-yield fields,” Wu Nan Hai complained. Currently, the high-yield fields with improved soil and irrigation only amounted to two hundred standard mu. Wu Nan Hai had replaced the local, varied mu system with the modern standard mu of 667 square meters.

“Rice seeds have a shelf life,” he reminded them. “And their traits are not hereditary. If we don’t plant them all this year, they’ll be useless for anything but making rice next year.”

Thus, the Executive Committee decided to increase the allocation of resources in two areas: agriculture and shipbuilding. The former was to prepare for the population boom, and the latter for large-scale transportation.

Wu Nan Hai returned to the farm and immediately gathered all the members of the Agriculture Department to discuss a plan for an agricultural “Great Leap Forward.”

“A massive increase in food production?” Fa Shilu was taken aback. “This isn’t a game. How are we supposed to ‘boom’ it?”

“That’s the gist of it,” Wu Nan Hai said, relaying the spirit of the meeting. “First, we need to prepare enough reserve grain to support a larger non-agricultural population. Second, we need to increase the protein supply.”

“The second point is an extension of the first. Without grain, where would the protein come from?” Fa Shilu was somewhat dissatisfied. “To increase food production, we need to expand the cultivated area. Has the Executive Committee agreed to give us more people?”

The demonstration farm had only fifty registered agricultural workers, all of whom were skilled farmers and animal breeders selected by Wu Nan Hai from among the immigrants and prisoners. According to his experience, in the 20th century, without any mechanization, one able-bodied laborer with an ox or a horse could cultivate over fifty mu of land. The rice-growing areas in the south required intensive farming, so the area was smaller, but cultivating twenty mu of paddy fields would not be a major problem.

For irrigation, planting, harvesting, and land reclamation, the farm mainly relied on dispatched labor from the Bairen Commune and the army’s “labor service.” This was equivalent to temporary labor during the busy farming season, with work points calculated daily. The quality of farming skills was not a major concern; it was mainly about physical labor.

The farm occupied a large area of undeveloped land along the river that was suitable for cultivation, but reclaiming land in Lin’gao was not easy. The area had distinct dry and wet seasons, requiring irrigation during the dry season and drainage during the wet season. The demands on the water conservancy system were high. According to the Agriculture Committee’s research, extensive, low-yield reclamation was not effective. It was necessary to adopt a high-yield, intensive farming model, with proper irrigation, soil improvement, and all the necessary agricultural infrastructure in place to achieve high yields. This development model required a large input of labor.

“They have. I plan to expand the high-yield fields to one thousand mu.”

“A thousand mu?!” Fa Shilu asked doubtfully. “Will Wu De agree to provide so much dispatched labor?”

Wu Nan Hai nodded. “This is the Executive Committee’s decision. He will definitely prioritize it. Also, Commissioner Ma has promised to allocate some engineering machinery.”

“That’s great!” Fa Shilu said. With machinery, the workload for land reclamation and water conservancy construction would be much lighter.

“If we plant all one thousand mu with rice, fifty agricultural workers will not be enough,” Wan Lihui said. He was from a farming family and knew how to farm. He had studied electronics in college but had not worked in his field after graduation. Dissatisfied with his life, he had angrily persuaded his brother to join the expedition. But in the Ming dynasty, his electronics major was even more useless. The great development of the electronics industry that Dr. Zhong had spoken of had not materialized. After a few months of tinkering in the machinery department, he realized he wasn’t getting anywhere and returned to agriculture. His specialty was animal husbandry—after all, raising livestock and poultry was a common task for farm children. Now, he and his brother were in charge of all the animals on the farm, except for the horses and donkeys. They were much better at it than Ye Yuming, who had raised rabbits by reading books.

“We need to recruit another batch of agricultural workers,” Wu Nan Hai said. “Besides the paddy fields, we also need to expand the dry fields, especially for sweet potatoes. We should aim for another one or two hundred mu. And the cultivation of corn and alfalfa also needs to be expanded. To get more protein, we need to increase the feed supply for animal husbandry.”

“Expanding animal husbandry means expanding the breeding area,” Wan Lihui reported. “And we don’t have enough manpower.”

Pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks, which were commonly raised in intensive systems in the modern era, were all raised in a low-density, free-range manner on the Nanhai Farm. The land utilization rate was not high. This was not because Wu Nan Hai was a fan of “all-natural,” “green,” or “free-range” gimmicks, but out of necessity. Modern animal husbandry relied heavily on animal vaccines, antibiotics, and disinfectants. The only thing the Wan brothers could use was lime. Recently, the pharmaceutical factory had sent some kasugamycin and oxytetracycline for trial use, but it was far from enough for large-scale application. Under these conditions, intensive farming would only lead to mass sickness and death of livestock and poultry.

Ye Yuming spoke up. “I think we can’t just focus on our own planting. We should harness the production enthusiasm of the local people.”

Wu Nan Hai’s interest was piqued. “Promote cultivation?”

“Yes,” Ye Yuming said. “I have a plan…”

Ye Yuming proposed the establishment of the “Heaven and Earth Society.” Of course, this was not the same as the Heaven and Earth Society that Chen Jinnan would later create. Its official full name was the Agriculture Committee Mutual Aid Group. It was called the Heaven and Earth Society because agriculture depended on heaven and earth, which was a very vivid image.

The basic idea of the mutual aid group was to promote crops and poultry and provide agricultural technical training.

“The farmers are still very indifferent to us now. We need to win their favor. Suppressing bandits is one way, and providing high-yield crops is another.”

If the farmers could harvest more crops, besides their own consumption, they could only sell them to the market. And in Lin’gao, the only one who could purchase agricultural products on a large scale was the transmigrator group. In this way, the increase in production would be county-wide, not just on the thousand or so mu of land of the Agriculture Committee.

“I disagree with that. Not to mention the problem of spreading improved varieties, without proper care, it will just be a waste of seed resources,” Wu Nan Hai immediately objected.

“My idea is to promote sweet potatoes. Don’t sweet potatoes become toxic?”

By utilizing the toxicity of sweet potatoes, even if the improved varieties were to spread, they would gradually degenerate because the farmers did not know how to detoxify them. If the local farmers saved their own seeds, they would be of little value after two or three years. Only the Agriculture Committee, with its detoxification technology, could continue to provide detoxified sweet potato seedlings, which would give them a form of control over the seeds.

“That’s feasible.”

“Hybrid rice could also work. But we only have this one batch,” Ye Yuming sighed. “If we could successfully breed hybrid rice, the lifeline of rice cultivation on the mainland would be completely in our hands.”

“It’s not impossible. I hope to succeed in my lifetime,” Fa Shilu said, very interested in the topic. He had been conducting experiments in this area himself. In the modern era, Lin’gao’s main agricultural pillar was hybrid rice seed production, and its rich wild rice resources made it a must-visit place for anyone working on hybrid rice.

Everyone agreed that promoting sweet potato cultivation was a good idea. Ye Yuming then continued:

“Not just sweet potatoes, but also animal husbandry. I think we can distribute the raising of chickens and ducks to the farm households. Raising them ourselves takes up too much space and manpower.”

He proposed a “poultry promotion plan,” which was essentially a “factory + farmer” model for poultry farming that would maximize the use of the professional incubation technology controlled by the Agriculture Committee.

In simple terms, the Agriculture Committee would centrally incubate the eggs, and the hatched chicks would be given to the farmers on credit. When they matured, the farm would buy back the eggs and meat chickens at a uniform price. The farm would also provide supplementary animal feed like earthworms and maggots.