Chapter 184: Agricultural Technician Wan Lihui

Wan Lihui thought that this Fu Bu’er was truly a model supporter of the transmigrator group. Ding Ding should really publicize him. Seeing that the girl was quite tall, and though her skin was dark, it was smooth and lustrous, his heart couldn’t help but stir. He started a conversation out of thin air:

“What was your master’s wife muttering about just now?”

“Of course, it wasn’t anything good,” Fu Xi covered her mouth and smiled. “She said you’re just a long-term laborer, and the master is crazy for giving you such a good room.”

Being taken for a long-term laborer, Wan Lihui also gave a wry smile—speaking of which, wasn’t he just like a long-term laborer at the Agriculture Committee?

“The master’s wife is like that,” Fu Xi glanced outside the door. “The master couldn’t stand her muttering and beat her. Hehe. Serves her right.”

It seemed that Fu Bu’er’s wife was probably quite harsh to the household servants usually. She had no sympathy for her at all.

“Is this the chief’s luggage? Let me help you organize it.”

“Oh, no need to trouble you…”

“It’s no trouble.” Fu Xi helped him open his luggage, lay out his sleeping bag, and arrange his mug, toothbrush, and towel. She then brought a new white wooden basin from outside, poured hot water into it, and wrung out a towel for him to wipe his face. Wan Lihui, at 22, had never been so well-cared for by a girl. He was flattered and felt very awkward.

“I know you all like to be clean,” Fu Xi said with a pursed-lip smile. “You have to change your clothes every few days. The master has ordered someone to make a basin for your bath, and it will be delivered tonight.”

As they were busy, Fu Bu’er came into the room. His face was ashen. Beating his wife was not a pleasant experience, after all. Besides, while his wife took the beating, she absolutely refused to admit defeat with her words, so Fu Bu’er’s ancestors, both those he had seen and those he hadn’t, were all insulted.

Furthermore, he was still very uneasy about his participation in the Heaven and Earth Society, deeply afraid that his wife was a jinx and that her bad omens would come true.

“Chief Wan, are you satisfied with this place?” Fu Bu’er forced a smile.

“It’s great, just great,” Wan Lihui, seeing his unfriendly expression, responded more cautiously.

“Bring tea!”

“Yes, right away.”

The two sat opposite each other in silence. Fu Bu’er couldn’t speak Mandarin, and Wan Lihui’s Lincheng dialect was not good. They had to wait for Fu Xi to bring the tea before they could officially start their conversation.

Fu Bu’er was most concerned about the seeds. He saw that Wan Lihui had come alone with a large bag—it was impossible to carry the seeds for over a hundred mu of irrigated fields like that.

“Master Fu, you can rest assured. Our Heaven and Earth Society implements unified seedling cultivation and unified distribution.”

Seedling cultivation is a crucial part of rice planting, involving temperature management and a series of technical issues related to the base fertilizer for seedlings.

After discussion, the technical staff of the Agriculture Committee believed that to implement a rice-rice-wheat rotation system under the condition of insufficient accumulated temperature in Lincheng in this time and space, it was necessary to use artificial temperature increase to force germination and cultivate seedlings when the temperature was low, and then transplant them as soon as the temperature reached the required level. Artificial temperature increase for seedling cultivation was not a new technology; farmers in the Jiangnan region had adopted this method long ago. However, this method had certain technical requirements and also high demands for fertilizer. To ensure the quality of the seedlings, the Heaven and Earth Society decided to adopt a method of unified seedling cultivation in the farm’s nursery and then centralized distribution to the fields. Not only for seedling cultivation, but in many future agricultural production links, there would be more similar methods of unified distribution of agricultural materials.

Fu Bu’er thought to himself that these Australians were really cunning, probably to prevent others from secretly keeping his seeds. But at harvest time, the fields would be full of rice, and he wouldn’t be able to watch over it all.

Wan Lihui asked Fu Bu’er in detail about the number of people in his family and the number of cattle he had. This made Fu Bu’er’s heart pound—was this Heaven and Earth Society specifically investigating the details of each family before coming to “slaughter the pig”? But since the person was already at his door, he couldn’t lie and had to tell the truth.

Fu Bu’er’s land was entirely farmed by himself; he did not lease it out. The farmers were Fu Bu’er himself, his wife, their two sons and one daughter, a few household servants, and one long-term laborer. During the busy season, he would hire a few short-term laborers. Besides rice, he also grew sweet potatoes, which had been introduced from the mainland a few years ago. These were the two main crops. There were also various miscellaneous grains: sesame, peanuts, soybeans, green beans, and so on. Then there were the vegetables in the garden, which didn’t sell for much and were mainly for their own consumption and to feed the pigs.

No matter what he grew, the yield was limited. Both the rice and sweet potato yields were not high. The whole family, including the long-term laborers, worked from dawn till dusk, and all they could manage was to feed everyone and save a little. This saving also had to be preserved—Lincheng was a place with constant minor disasters: droughts, floods, bandits, and the government’s extra levies. Fu Bu’er always felt he couldn’t save up money. He had once tried to grow indigo, madder, and tobacco, learning from the mainlanders, and had also attempted to grow sugarcane. But because he couldn’t afford to hire a skilled foreman from the mainland, all these ventures failed.

After D-Day, thanks to the voracious appetites of the transmigrators, Meiyang Village sold a large amount of vegetables, live pigs, chickens, ducks, and eggs to the Quanfu Restaurant, and Fu Bu’er’s family business finally picked up a little. Now, he had added another cow to his household.

Wan Lihui wanted to see the fields. Fu Bu’er, seeing that he had no airs and wanted to inspect the fields right after drinking a mouthful of water, felt very sorry and said that it was getting late and raining outside, so it would be better to rest for a day and go tomorrow.

Wan Lihui looked at his watch. It was only a little after two in the afternoon. How was that late? He insisted on going to have a look. Fu Bu’er had no choice but to ask his head long-term laborer to accompany Wan Lihui to the fields.

As soon as the few of them went out, it turned into a parade. A group of curious people followed them from a distance, pointing and talking. In such a remote village, there was little entertainment, and watching outsiders was a traditional form of leisure.

Fu’s family’s land was not contiguous. It had been gradually acquired by Fu Bu’er’s great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and himself over four generations through reclamation, purchase, and usury. It was scattered in seven or eight places around the village. There were small vegetable plots of only a few fen, and also large irrigated fields of several dozen mu—the rice in the irrigated fields had been harvested not long ago and was now empty, waiting for the second crop to be transplanted.

“If only the land could be consolidated,” Wan Lihui thought. How could such fragmented land be modernized for agriculture? He looked at the crops in the fields and squatted down at the edge of a field to examine the soil for a long time. He asked Fu Bu’er:

“Do you fertilize here?”

“Yes, we do,” Fu Bu’er said. The fertilizer was mainly from their own latrine pit and the stable manure from the pigsty.

“Do you use soybean cake?”

Fu Bu’er said that it was not the local custom to press soybeans for oil. Oil was basically pressed from sesame and rapeseed. The remaining seed cakes were generally used to feed pigs.

“Not enough fertilizer,” Wan Lihui shook his head. Your land is seriously lacking in fertilizer, especially nitrogen. You could get a higher yield just by fertilizing.

Fu Bu’er didn’t know what nitrogen fertilizer was, but he knew that his land lacked fertilizer and was not fertile. So he replied:

“I know it’s not enough, but fertilizer is hard to find.”

In ancient times, there was no chemical fertilizer; everything relied on farmyard manure. Farmyard manure sounds very environmentally friendly, green, and bourgeois, but its effective components are very few. 1000 jin of human excrement and urine contains only as much nitrogen as 25 jin of ammonium sulfate. Farmers had to spend a lot of time, labor, and money on collecting fertilizer. For farmers in more densely populated areas, there were many sources of fertilizer, the most convenient being the collection of citizens’ feces and household waste from the cities. But Lincheng’s urban population was very small, so the amount of fertilizer that could be obtained from this source was very limited.

Wan Lihui remembered that before he came, Wu Nanhai had sent people everywhere to investigate fertilizer sources—it seemed the Agriculture Committee itself couldn’t get enough fertilizer. He wondered how the development of lignite in Nanbao was going and what the output would be.

Overall, the basic problem with Fu Bu’er’s land was the significant loss of soil fertility. With two rice crops a year, limited fertilization, and no habit of planting green manure, the land suffered from continuous low yields. Wan Lihui knew this was not an isolated phenomenon in the local area. When they conducted their rural surveys, they rarely found land with good crop growth. The lack of fertilizer was a major reason.

Fu Bu’er himself was also very troubled by this, but the problem was not easy to solve. Organic fertilizer has low fertility and requires large quantities. It’s best if it can be sourced locally. If it’s too far, the labor cost for the farmers is not worth it.

After inspecting the land and crops everywhere, Wan Lihui formulated a plan in his mind.

He proposed to Fu Bu’er that the area for the late rice crop this year should be reduced by half, and it should only be planted in the fields with better soil fertility. The other fields in poor condition should be drained and planted with fava beans instead.

The purpose of planting legumes was to fix nitrogen. Rice needs nitrogen fertilizer the most. Currently, the Heaven and Earth Society was unable to provide a large amount of nitrogen fertilizer immediately, so they could only use this method to increase soil fertility.

After harvesting the fava beans, he planned to plant another season of alfalfa as green manure. Alfalfa could be harvested several times, and the harvested stems and leaves could be used as feed or compost. The remaining part would be plowed into the soil in the spring to rot and increase the organic matter. In this way, the soil fertility could be restored to a certain extent.

When Fu Bu’er heard that this agricultural technician, upon his arrival, wanted him to leave half of his land fallow to plant fava beans and also to plant grass in the winter, he shook his head vigorously, saying that this would mean half the harvest would be lost. No matter how poor the land’s fertility, there would still be some harvest. Who would eat so many fava beans?

“We’ll buy all the fava beans you grow.”

Beans were now a crop that the Agriculture Committee urgently needed, whether for supplying the cafeteria, feeding horses, or processing into food, they had many uses.

Fu Bu’er remained silent. Wan Lihui then told him that the rice seeds provided by the Heaven and Earth Society would have no problem doubling the yield per mu. These fava beans would be extra income. There was no need to worry about where to sell the product—the Agriculture Committee would buy it. The circulation coupons he received could then be used to pay the Heaven and Earth Society’s service fee. It was a risk-free measure.

“Pat, pat,” Fu Bu’er just smoked his water pipe, his face wooden, not saying a word. Wan Lihui got anxious and said loudly:

“You know the policy! When has our transmigrator group ever not kept its word? Think about it carefully, it’s only good for you, no harm!”

This statement had a miraculous effect. Fu Bu’er had experience in a prisoner-of-war camp. Last year, when he was outside the tent listening to the interrogations inside, he often heard someone inside saying sternly, “You know the policy!”—if someone “didn’t know,” they would be driven out to circle a bonfire endlessly until they “knew.”

Under the threat of dictatorship, Fu Bu’er finally agreed to his plan, but he weakly made a request: the Heaven and Earth Society must sign a document with him, guaranteeing to buy all his fava beans.

“No problem. We’ll buy as much as you have,” Wan Lihui readily agreed. Fava beans were very useful to the Agriculture Committee, whether as a vegetable or as a concentrate feed. Moreover, the fava bean husks were an excellent source of nitrogen fertilizer—in the Jiangnan countryside, in the old days, farmers would go to the city to collect fava bean husks as fertilizer during the fava bean season.

That night, Fu Bu’er and his wife had another fight. Wan Lihui thought that his wife was his nemesis, always opposing him in everything.

The next morning, Fu Bu’er gathered his whole family. Wan Lihui had the honor of seeing Fu Bu’er’s wife, a dark and thin middle-aged woman, dressed in homespun clothes—not at all like the legendary fair and plump, silk-clad landlord’s wife. This landlord’s wife looked at Wan Lihui with a guarded, suspicious, and even hostile gaze, which made his hair stand on end.

Fu’s three children seemed friendly enough. The girl was the eldest daughter, about sixteen or seventeen. Like Fu Xi, she had braids. The two girls stood close together, occasionally whispering to each other. The two boys were about in their teens. Their appearance and clothing were no different from the household servants.

Wan Lihui exchanged a few pleasantries with everyone and then began to assign work tasks. The first task was composting.

“Starting today, except for those plowing and preparing the land, everyone else will prepare fertilizer,” Wan Lihui said to Fu Bu’er.

“Alright,” Fu Bu’er was naturally happy to hear that he had a way to get new fertilizer. He and his long-term laborer went to plow the fields, and he assigned Fu Qing, Fu Xiang, Fu Xi, and his own three children to Wan Lihui.

Wan Lihui took the six half-grown children out of the village to cut grass. The large expanse of wasteland outside Meiyang Village was covered with all kinds of lush green wild grass. The crowd didn’t know what he was cutting the grass for. Since they didn’t raise sheep locally, the amount was too much for pig feed. Wan Lihui instructed everyone: the more grass you cut, the better. Try to harvest the stems and leaves that are bright green, juicy, and soft. Cutting grass was the most common job for these half-grown children. They each took out their newly sharpened sickles and cut a large patch in no time. Wan Lihui noticed that the two girls were very fast, but they would often stop to search for something in the ground. He curiously went over to look. It turned out that while cutting grass, they were also gathering wild vegetables. Their rattan baskets were already half full. Wan Lihui was secretly surprised. This landlord’s family clearly had their own vegetable garden, yet the girls were still gathering wild vegetables. This was too stingy, wasn’t it? No wonder the novels said that landlords were all stingy old misers.

After cutting the grass, he took Fu Bu’er’s eldest son, Fu Er’yin, and Fu Xi to the small river outside the village. Wan Lihui carefully looked at this small river. This river was both the source of domestic water for Meiyang Village and the sewer for discharging sewage. The water was greenish, with reeds growing along the banks, and it emitted a foul smell.

“This river stinks!” Wan Lihui frowned. Logically, the pollution of ancient rivers should not be so serious. It shouldn’t stink so much. But now, the stinkier the better for him. A clear, bottomless river would be useless to him.

As he had instructed, they brought manure ladles, rattan baskets, wooden rakes, iron shovels, and wooden sticks from the threshing ground, as well as ropes. He told everyone to use the manure ladles and iron shovels with extended handles to scoop up the river mud and aquatic plants from the bottom of the river. This novel activity attracted many onlookers—no one in the local area knew about scooping up river mud for composting.

The black, smelly river mud and aquatic plants were piled on the riverbank. After some of the water was removed, they were thrown into baskets and carried to Fu Bu’er’s fields in shoulder poles. Wan Lihui gained a full appreciation for the hard work and endurance of the ancient people. Fu Bu’er’s eldest daughter, Fu Yijin, and Fu Xi carried loads no lighter than the boys. And Wan Lihui himself could definitely not carry their loads.

“Alright, our next step is sanitation,” Wan Lihui said, taking out all of Fu Bu’er’s brooms and giving each person a large basket.

“Everyone, go into the village. If you see any garbage on the streets, roadsides, or open spaces, except for broken bricks, tiles, and pottery shards, pick up everything else into the baskets and bring it back to the fields.”

The few of them looked at each other, not knowing what this Australian was up to. What was the point of sweeping the village? Could that messy garbage also be used as fertilizer?

So, this group of half-grown children, under Wan Lihui’s command, swept and collected garbage throughout the village, causing a great sensation. The reputation of the Australians for being clean was not for nothing! Fu Bu’er’s family was already considered excessively clean in everyone’s mind, and now this young Australian was even cleaning the village. Some people made sarcastic jokes about Fu Bu’er: not farming properly, but bringing a father back for no reason to boss him around at home. Others thought the Australians were enthusiastic about public welfare.

Wan Lihui had long noticed that there was a lot of garbage in the village. There were garbage piles almost everywhere in the open spaces along the roads, and some were simply thrown on the road. This garbage could not be used as fertilizer directly, but after composting and maturing, it could become good base fertilizer for the fields.

The various types of garbage collected from the whole village soon filled the baskets: straw from repairing roofs, all kinds of chicken and duck feathers, broken baskets thrown outside, worn-out straw sandals, and dismantled wooden basins…

“Chief Wan, are these things for fertilizer?” Fu Xi finally couldn’t help but ask.

“That’s right.”

Fu Xi didn’t ask any more questions. Wan Lihui took the initiative to explain to her what organic matter was, what bacterial decomposition was, and why these things couldn’t be used as fertilizer directly… He did his best to instill the principles of fertilizer into Fu Xi. It wasn’t that he had a strong spirit of nurturing the next generation, but that this way, he could talk to Fu Xi justifiably and at the same time reap the infinite admiration in the girl’s eyes.