The World Online

Chapter 1155 – 200 Million Mu of Farmland

As the Chinese New Year approached, there was little in terms of big news in the wilderness. The focus of the entire world was on the beast wave. After Silver Hand and Azure Badge were revealed, the effects slowly festered.

In the entire wilderness, hidden currents moved.

It was under such a background that Great Xia Dynasty started a large purchase of grain.

Oceans’ worth of gold was slowly transferred to the chambers of commerce who purchased large amounts of grain from Johor, Java, Piao, Peacock Dynasty, Persian Empire, and more.

Sometimes, the chambers of commerce directly bought it, while sometimes, it passed through a middle man.

As the price that the Great Xia merchants bought the grain at was a little higher than the market price, the merchants of various countries did not consider their country’s grain issue and sold the grain that they had amassed.

Even Great Zhou empire had chambers of commerce joining this sale.

One must not look at 20 million being a lot, as when split the amount among hundreds of chambers of commerce and five to six countries, it was nothing big compared to voyage trading, which had millions of gold flowing daily.

Hence, Great Xia’s actions, apart from creating waves amongst the grain traders, did not raise the alert of the entire market.

During this entire process, the Great Xia Imperial Court hid behind the scenes.

At the same time, the agriculture department designed a land reclamation plan to reclaim 200 million mu of farmland to fulfil the daily grain need.

What kind of concept was 200 million mu?

During the Han and Tang time, the entire country had around 500 to 600 million mu of farmland. During Ming and Qing, this amount reached 700 million.

After industrialization, the land size reached 1.8 billion mu, basically reaching a peak.

As a result, with the conditions of the wilderness, 200 million mu of land was not a problem for Great Xia. The problem was who would farm the land after it was reclaimed.

In ancient times, the farmland size was connected to population.

A farmer would care for 10 mu of farmland. Even with the help of the agriculture school of thought and world leading irrigation, Great Xia could only reach 15 to 16 mu per a farmer.

200 million mu of farmland needed at least 12 million farmers.

During this round of population increase, although there were many casual and work occupation players, not many would be willing to farm.

As a result, the Imperial Court especially pushed out the farming model.

The local offices would provide a certain amount of financial subsidy and technological help to encourage players to build farms on the reclaimed land, and they would enjoy tax benefits.

The specifics included tax-free agriculture in the 1st year and half in the 2nd.

The Four Seas Bank was also willing to loan money to players to support them in running their farms.

The series of policies had a huge attraction toward players, especially to causal players.

The update of the achievement values affected these group of people the most.

If they continued to slack and fool around in the game, when they reached Planet Hope, they would not even have the rights to receive basic help.

However, if they were to switch from their work occupation and start from 0, they would not be able to catch up.

Under such a situation, running a farm became a decent choice.

A farm was not just simply planting corn, beans, potatoes, sugarcane, and other produce, as one could also rear chickens, ducks, or even pigs and sheep.

The market even had a huge need for vegetables. With Shanhai City as an example, it used up a shocking amount of vegetables every day. The neighboring villages could not keep up, and a large part was transported through the ocean to the city.

If one ran the farm well, they would even be able to exceed and surpass the current players.

Hence, when the Imperial Court released the prefecture and county level agriculture model, it raised a lot of discussions and many people signed up for it.

The earlier the players registered, the better the land that they could get. They could also do the loans and rental matters earlier and accept professional training.

Even to say that they could start planning for their farm and build their houses.

This winter was destined to be a hot and exciting one.

…

1st month, 20th day, Xia Palace.

Within Wuji Hall, Ouyang Shuo was having a chat with Li Jing.

Along with the Snow-War Rose Mercenary Group moving to Shanhai City, the entire family met up really frequently. When Li Jing was free, she would barge into Wuji Hall to see her nephew and niece.

Ouyang Shuo was naturally glad to see that.

Ouyang Shuo obviously welcomed Li Jing warmly when she moved to Shanhai City, directly giving her a Marquis residence for her and Xie Siyun. It made her jump to one of the heavyweights amongst the relatives of the royal family.

Blood Romance and the others were really envious of such treatment, saying half-seriously and half-jokingly, “That’s great. Now, Blood Evil Mercenary Group’s throne is unstable.”

In truth, using Li Jing’s identity, the development of Snow-War Rose in the future would definitely be better than the Blood Evil Mercenary Group.

“This was life; one could only envy!”

Blood Romance could only accept such a cruel fact.

In truth, when the guilds left the imperial city, the supernatural positions they had were all lost, and their statuses were not the same as Lords anymore.

Toward this, Blood Romance had a clear understanding.

“The agriculture plan you guys made caused such a storm!” As the two of them talked, they reached the topic of the farms. Li Jing joked, “Now, even I am interested in becoming a farmer.”

To the people in the city, becoming a farm owner was one of their deepest dreams.

As a result, the moment the plan was released, it made waves amongst the players. Not only causal players, but even work occupation players were interested.

Especially those who were related to agriculture, these people were the most excited.

Now, even guilds were tempted. Although they did not hope to rely on the profits from the farm, but to build a super farm as the logistics base of their guild would not be bad.

It could also act as a relaxing holiday resort for the members, killing two birds with one stone.

In just three days, three million people registered, and it was still increasing at a shocking rate. Even Ouyang Shuo did not expect this.

Such a prosperous situation made Ouyang Shuo think back to olden times where officials fought to buy houses. The two situations were so similar.

“Is Great Xia going to develop a new era of land owners?” Ouyang Shuo mocked himself.

Of course, that was a joke, as the two had a huge difference.

In Great Xia, where commerce was the main priority, agriculture would only be a basic industry and would not be the only one like in ancient times.

Along with the developing industrialization, there would naturally be no talk of landowner hierarchy.

Listening to Li Jing say that she wanted to be a farm owner, Ouyang Shuo laughed, “Little Aunt does not need to ask for something so far when you have something so near. On the west outskirts of Shanhai City, there’s an emperor farm known as Xilin farm; there’s everything inside. When you want to have a feel of the farming life, you can just head over.”

“There’s such a good place?” Li Jing’s eyes lit up.

Ouyang Shuo gave her a rough introduction of the Xilin farm.

Speaking of which, that place had a deep history, right to the beginning when the territory was still a town. It was the first farm of the territory, and at the start, apart from vegetables, it was used to rear sheep and Qingfu Horses.

Once the territory developed, this farm naturally became the emperor farm.

As Bing’er liked it, Ouyang Shuo spent a lot of effort on it. Apart from sheep, the farm had cows, Qingfu Horses, and even leopards, tigers, and rhinos.

Apart from vegetables, there were also fish ponds and flower gardens.

Basically, the Xilin Farm could be regarded as a royal courtyard. Be it rest, hunting, or holiday, one could fulfil it there.

When Li Jing heard that, she was instantly attracted and lost interest in opening up a new farm.

Seeing that, Ouyang Shuo changed the topic.

In truth, the grain problem was just one of his goals behind pushing out this agriculture plan. The real goal of Ouyang Shuo was probably one that few could understand.

No matter what Ouyang Shuo did, his goal was linked to Planet Hope. He attracted people to join in the construction of farms, and his real goal was to strengthen the recognition of Great Xia from the players.

Although the players lived in Great Xia, their way of thinking had not changed, and they did not think of themselves as a part of Great Xia. They came over to Great Xia purely to survive.

Between the two, it was more like a cooperation or a parasite-like relationship.

Didn’t Li Jing refer to Ouyang Shuo as you and you all?

Players who had modern thinking ingrained in them could not have a sense of belonging to a feudal dynasty like Great Xia.

Who knows, some people might be annoyed.

As a result, when Ouyang Shuo defined the dynasty, he did not want it to be a feudal system, as this had no market on Planet Hope and would not be recognized by the players.

Which was all the more reason why he needed the support of the players.

Without mentioning loyalty, they must at least agree with Great Xia’s ideals and recognize themselves as a part of it. Only then could they link them all together.

Building farms was a test.

To increase the recognition of the players, Ouyang Shuo had many other ideas. However, as the players had just moved in, he could not rush it and needed to take it step by step.

The farms were undoubtedly the best breakthrough point and aimed at the easiest group to infect. Using it as radiation, they would use the connection of players to slowly seep into the entire player base.

In the future, he would aim at the most core combat occupation players group. He also had a full set of plans. However, through his conversation with Li Jing, Ouyang Shuo realized that the time was not right.

“Let’s go on slowly!”

Ouyang Shuo laughed in his heart.