Guo Zhiyuan stepped forward and helped the old woman up first, and said with a kind look: "I'm welcome to you quickly. Respecting the elderly is my duty. I will make the decision for you and let you enjoy your old age!" As he said that, he turned his head and said sternly to the loyal and honest man: "As a son, it's okay if you can't be filial to my mother, how can you bear to send my mother to the tomb of the Living Dead to die?!"..."

The honest and kind man was so scared that he couldn't even say anything. He only knew that he was kneeling there and trembling. Guo Zhiyuan also knew that no matter how much he said to such a person, he wouldn't be able to hold back any more. He had to turn his head and sternly to the daughter-in-law: "You woman is even more vicious. If you are your own parents, would you bear to treat them like this?!"

The daughter-in-law was more courageous and raised her courage to cry, "When the county magistrate said, the mother of the civilian woman had already passed away, and she was less than fifty years old when she died. Her father of the civilian woman lived to 60 years old. She also entered the grave of the living dead the next year before, but now she is no longer here. It is not that the civilian woman is vicious, but her family is too poor and she has no rice to be put into the pot. If the mother-in-law does not enter the grave of the living dead, the family of the civilian woman will starve to death!..."

The old woman also quickly said, "Mr. County magistrate, this fact is not my son and daughter-in-law. Entering the grave of a living dead is a voluntary person. If you are old and old, you are powerless. If you live, you will be useless to eat food and drag down future generations..."

Guo Zhiyuan touched his nose awkwardly. He wanted to educate his sarcastic daughter-in-law, but he didn't expect to ask such a result. He also knew that the daughter-in-law should not be lying. Seeing that the family couldn't even light the lamp oil, he knew that it was indeed extremely poor. He had to cough and say, "As long as I am here, I will never allow the bad habit of sending the living old man to the tomb of the living dead! I will send some money and food to your family tomorrow. After the New Year, I will repair the official road. You can ask your husband to apply for the civil servants. You can get six cents of silver a month and take care of food. It should be enough to support the family!"

The three of them were overjoyed and kowtowed without any hesitation. However, Guo Zhiyuan was reluctant to stay any longer. After comforting a few words, he waved his hand and quickly walked out of the courtyard gate of the house. When he walked to the door, he still felt that his heart was unrest. He turned to Xu Guangqi behind him and said firmly: "Sir, the bad habits and vulgarities of the tombs of the living dead are too cruel. The Japanese official issued a decree to prohibit such bad habits and vulgarities! Never allow such human tragedies to happen in Gutian!..."

Xu Guangqi shook his head and sighed, "Young Master loves the people as much as his son, and it is a great kindness. However, such bad habits and vulgarity are not prohibited by a mandate. There are many mountains and few fertile lands. A mu of fertile land only produces two or three stones of grain. Apart from taxes and rents, farmers are not left, and they can barely support their families. This is the time of good year. If there is a natural disaster and no grain harvest, people will starve to death. Even the labor force in the middle age will starve to death. Where can we get the surplus grain to support the elderly? The young master can help the family, but it is impossible to have so much money and grain to help the people of the county. Although road construction can temporarily alleviate this problem, it is difficult to fundamentally solve it..."

Guo Zhiyuan was also silent. Later generations summarized the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, which were mainly three major factors: one was natural disaster, two was party struggles, and three was institutional corruption. The Qing Dynasty just seized the opportunity to act as a gravedigger for the Ming Dynasty. The most powerful force was natural disasters, especially during the Chongzhen period, affected by the climate of the Little Glacier, the climate turned cold, flooded south and drought in the north, crop yields decreased, and starved to death. The desperate people had to join the bandits. The Ming Dynasty army was exhausted, but the bandits were more and more suppressed. In the end, Li Zicheng captured Beijing, forcing Chongzhen to hang himself, and the Ming Dynasty collapsed!

The problem of food and clothing is always the basic problem that a country must solve first. If even the problem of food and clothing cannot be solved, the country will not be stable, let alone development. However, it is not easy to solve this problem. Even in later generations, China did not basically solve the problem of food and clothing in the country until the 21st century. With the production conditions of this era, it is impossible for Guo Zhiyuan to solve this problem, so it is no wonder that Xu Guangqi is also very pessimistic about it!

Guo Zhiyuan grabbed his hair with a headache. If he hadn't encountered this today, he might have chosen to be an ostrich. He would not care about this problem for the time being, but now that he has encountered it, he cannot sit idly by. Being an official and not making decisions for the people, so it is better to go home and sell sweet potatoes. Hey, sweet potatoes! Guo Zhiyuan suddenly had a flash of inspiration in his mind. Yes, ancient fields are mostly mountains and are not suitable for growing rice, but they are suitable for growing sweet potatoes! Sweet potatoes are much better than rice. As long as they are planted, they will naturally grow. The yield per mu is much higher than rice. Moreover, sweet potatoes can not only satisfy hunger, but also cook sweet potato leaves. You can also feed pigs if you can't finish them. It is definitely a treasure in this era of food shortage!

Sweet potatoes were first discovered by Columbus in South America and brought back to Europe to the Queen of Spain. Spain began to plant sweet potatoes on a large scale in the early 16th century. Later, Spain occupied the Philippines as its colony and brought sweet potatoes to the Philippines, which gradually grew and gradually grew in Asia. Sweet potatoes first entered China in 1593. Chen Zhenlong, a businessman from Changle, Fujian, went to Luzon, which is now the Philippines, to do business. He discovered sweet potatoes and realized the great value of sweet potatoes. At that time, Spanish colonists were very strict in controlling sweet potatoes and prohibited outsiders from carrying them away. Chen Zhenlong risked his life to hide the sweet potatoes in the horse's belly before bringing the sweet potatoes back to China.

So at this time, China actually already had sweet potatoes, so why can’t sweet potatoes be quickly promoted nationwide? There are several main reasons. First of all, people in this era are quite repulsive to foreign species, so sweet potatoes are also called "sweet potatoes", which means they come from the Manfan land. In addition, the taste of sweet potatoes is far less than that of rice and flour. Eating too much will cause bloating and pantothenic acid. To put it bluntly, it is easy to fart if you eat too much. Everyone should have experienced this. Even ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty were very proud of their face. Farting in public is a very shameful thing, so the enthusiasm of ordinary people is not high.

In addition, the impact of the small glacier climate was not so obvious at this time, and the pressure of food shortage was not so great. Only a few knowledgeable people realized the role of sweet potatoes and promoted them vigorously, but they still had little effect and had not been able to promote large-scale planting across the country. However, by the Chongzhen period, the impact of the small glacier climate became increasingly greater and large-scale droughts occurred across the country. At this time, it was too late to promote sweet potato planting.

Thinking of this, Guo Zhiyuan couldn't help but glance at Xu Guangqi. In history, Xu Guangqi was one of the few knowledgeable people in China who realized the great role of sweet potatoes at that time. Among his many historical achievements, he promoted sweet potato planting. In his "Complete Book of Agricultural Affairs", he specifically recorded the relevant knowledge of growing sweet potatoes, corn and other foreign crops. In order to promote sweet potato planting, he also wrote "Sweet Potato Shrimp". Unfortunately, he was excluded by those in power at that time, and his opinions were not taken seriously, and he could not save the fate of the Ming Dynasty's demise!

:.:
Chapter completed!