Zhao Peng commanded the delegation to train the refugees who were temporarily recruited by tenants, workers and gentry, and were busy on the construction site.

Fei Zhen'e wrung a towel and wanted to hand it to Zhao Peng, but Princess Kunxing snatched the towel. If Princess Kunxing hadn't left only one arm and could not twist the towel, I believe she would be happy to twist the towel for Zhao Peng himself.

"Zhao Lang, take a break and go and have a drink of water." Princess Kunxing personally took a towel to help Zhao Peng wipe the sweat from his forehead. It was already the fifth month of the 17th year of Chongzhen, and it was summer, but the summer of the Little Ice Age was not that hot. The summer in the Laideng area was cool, and the air humidity was low and dry. A gust of sea breeze was very cool and pleasant.

But this pleasant and good weather is not a good thing for farmers. Cool summer means cold winter. Moreover, summer is the growth season for crops, and crops need higher temperatures to grow rapidly.

The porridge shed outside was boiling hot air, and the air was filled with the fragrance of rice porridge.

A team of refugees came from the distance to the west, and the civilians led the refugees to the porridge factory next to the basin construction site.

According to Zhao Peng's requirements, when setting up a pot to distribute porridge, the porridge cooked must meet the standard of not falling into pieces and not falling out of cloth. For such porridge, even if hungry people who are hungry to the ground use rice soup and then use thin porridge to continue with food, ten can save five or six, and hungry people who are about to fall into hunger can save them all. To make such porridge is of course very consuming food. Zhao Peng thought of a solution, which is to make a porridge for a period of time, then scoop out the rice soup on it to stir the soil and lime, and serve as a binder for building the bastion. The thick rice porridge below will be cooked, and then donate it to the hungry people after it is boiled.

Such a porridge factory can kill two birds with one stone, and can save the hungry people by killing them, and provide building materials for the bastion construction site. The porridge factory is quite large and can accommodate 3,000 people to eat porridge at the same time. The hungry people who came to Changyi were already full of food and now are angry, and the hungry people who saw them later can also survive. The hungry people who survived were grateful to the Jinyiwei and the local gentry. According to Zhao Peng's plan, when these hungry people are recuperating some of them in the future, they will organize these hungry people to use labor instead of relief, and reclaim wasteland on a large scale and resettle hungry people. Some hungry people who eat one person and the whole family will join the local people's strong people. In the future, the gentry recruits groups to train the people's strong people, and can also recruit them from the hungry people.

"Don't squeeze everyone, come one by one, everyone has a share!"

"Today, His Highness the Princess and the Prince-in-law personally donated porridge for you. You drink porridge, remember the kindness, who made you live?"

The Jinyiwei, who was responsible for maintaining order, asked the hungry people to line up, and everyone lined up in an orderly manner. The hungry people lined up, each of them received a wooden bowl, and then walked to the big pot of porridge.

More than a dozen large pots were steaming in the porridge, which was a mixture of rice and millet. The rice was first cooked into the pot. After boiling for a while, the rice soup was scooped out to build a burgundy, and then pour half of the cooked millet into another pot and continue to cook. After boiling for about half an hour, the pot will be ready.

Two women with outstanding appearance and noble temperament stood outside the porridge shed and greeted the hungry people into the porridge shed to get porridge. When the hungry people heard that one of them turned out to be His Royal Highness the Princess, people were sensational.

"Your Highness the Princess is so kind! The Caomin is willing to die for Your Highness the Princess!"

"Your Highness the Princess is really a bodhisattva's heart!"

The saved people knelt down one after another and bowed to Princess Kunxing.

"Dear fellow villagers, get up quickly. This palace is just a little girl. The one who really saves you is General Zhao, the prince-in-law of the prince-in-law!" Princess Kunxing made a gesture and asked everyone to get up. At the same time, she pointed at Zhao Peng next to her and said to everyone.

Only then did everyone see Zhao Peng next to the princess clearly, and people knelt on the ground and bowed.

"What a young hero!"

"What a handsome young general!"

"The face is like a jade crown, the eyes are like stars, and the majesty is not without its majesty!"

"Such a handsome young man and the beautiful princess are such a beautiful couple made of beauty!"

"I wish my son-in-law and His Highness a hundred years of reconciliation and aging together until old age."

While the saved people praised Zhao Peng, they also praised Princess Kunxing and made the princess blush.

After eating, people who have used porridge will be sent to the shack to rest. After three days, after these rescued hungry people recover their vitality, they will join the construction site and contribute to the construction of the bastion group.

After three days, tens of thousands of hungry people came one after another. The hungry people from Shandong, northern Zhili, and even Henan brought their families to the construction site of the Laideng Burrow Group. For a time, the construction site was in full swing, with many people and strong forces, and soon the first castle was announced to be completed. After the completion of the castle, Zhao Peng used fire to smoke and dry the mixture of rice soup and soil used to bond the city bricks. After that, the closed fortress became extremely solid and harder than cement in later generations. Even if it was directly hit by the red cannons of the Qing army, it could last for a long time and not collapse.

The little Leiden naturally could not accommodate more hungry people, so Zhao Peng wanted to go to the gentry to accommodate these hungry people as much as possible. In the future, he could let the Zheng family fleet transport the hungry people away and send them to the south.

Fujian where Zheng Family Army is located has many mountains and few lands, but after hearing what Zheng Sen said, Fujian's land can actually feed more people, Zhao Peng was stunned for a moment. Until Zheng Sen explained that there is a kind of food called "potato" in Fujian that is a high-yield crop, and a mu of land can produce hundreds of kilograms, with a yield far higher than rice and wheat. Zhao Peng then realized that it was an imported South American crop.

When Zhao Peng asked Zheng Sen, "General Zheng, is the size of an egg, the outer skin is light yellow and the skin is very thin. When peeled off, it is a kind of golden tuber-like crop inside?"

Zheng Sen laughed: "General Zhao, the kind you mentioned is not called potato, but ground egg. The potato has the red skin with thicker skin. After peeling it, it is red inside. It can be cooked and roasted."

Zhao Peng finally understood. What Zheng Sen said was that the potatoes that had been planted on a large scale in Fujian were not land, but sweet potatoes! Sweet potatoes are high-yield crops. If they could be planted in the north, there would be no famine. After listening to Zheng Sen's explanation, he realized that the ground eggs of this era, that is, potatoes, were actually not as good as those in the time travel novels he had read before.

In this era, the yield per mu is not high, because the unimproved potato tubers are very small and cannot be planted in severe cold areas. More importantly, unimproved potatoes also contain toxins, and people will be poisoned if they eat too much. Therefore, in this era, potatoes are not suitable high-yield crops at all, but are just a kind of food that is grown as a vegetable and used to taste fresh. Improved potatoes did not start to be planted on a large scale until the 18th century.

The corn of this era was not a high-yield crop. Unimproved corn was already planted in large areas in the south, but its yield was not so high, and it would not be much higher than wheat. The high-yield corn that appeared in later generations was only after the improvement in the 19th century. At this time, corn was just a very ordinary crop.

Therefore, the only crop that can solve the famine is sweet potato. In other words, the Kanggan prosperous era in history was actually the sweet potato prosperous era. Because high-yield sweet potatoes began to grow on a large scale in the north and south, the population in the early Qing Dynasty began to skyrocket.

There are sweet potatoes on Zheng Sen's boat, but it will take at least four months to half a year to grow these sweet potatoes to harvest. It is obvious that it is too late to wait until these sweet potatoes are harvested before they come to save people. Therefore, the porridge factory that can save people is still the porridge factory opened by the gentry.
Chapter completed!