Poor but talented scholar

Chapter 35 Before the Falsehood

On the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, Li Ji and Zhang Fugui were unusually attentive to each other for the past two days.

Lu Chuan sat by the window. He got up to tidy up his bookshelves. Apart from a few changes of clothes, the most eye-catching item was the book "Duobao Pagoda Stele".

Besides Yan Zhenqing's calligraphy copybook, the thick manuscript of "Complete Treatise on Agriculture" became another battleground for Lu Chuan.

In between practicing calligraphy and studying the classics, he devoted almost all his energy to the section on medicinal plants in Volume Twenty-Six, "Tree Cultivation".

He skipped over the expensive ginseng and lingzhi, focusing instead on studying varieties suitable for growth in the hilly and barren slopes of the south: pinellia, poria, and rehmannia.

Lu Chuan sat in a corner of the study, with a thick, brick-like copy of the "Complete Treatise on Agriculture" spread out in front of him.

His way of reading was very strange; he didn't read those fancy words, but only stared at the records about soil, phenology, and water.

Every ancient agricultural term came to mind.

For example, the book records: "Pinellia ternata grows in the shade, prefers fertile soil and dislikes dryness."

He thought of the wild lacquer forest behind Lujia Village.

Those forests provide more than just timber; they also offer a natural, low-cost shading system.

If intercropping is carried out in the gaps between trees, the expensive cost of building artificial shelters can be saved.

He skipped over those esoteric water conservancy designs and instead delved into methods for improving the acidic red soil of the south.

In Lu Chuan's view, the composting, burning, and use of wood ash mentioned in the book are the best solutions.

Having planting techniques alone cannot bring power; Lu Chuan needs to understand the economic realities of this era.

He borrowed several books of miscellaneous books from Master Zhao.

This book is not an official history, but rather a collection of casual observations and anecdotes from the countryside recorded by a retired official of a previous dynasty. It contains scattered records of rice prices in a certain year, the purchase prices of medicinal herbs in a certain place, and even the travel expenses incurred by caravans traveling between the two places.

"The cost of the seedlings is about six coins per pound. If we consider the humidity of the area behind the mountain, the survival rate is about 70%."

"By applying wood ash and humus, the yield per mu can be increased from the original 100 jin to 160 jin."

"If shipments are made during the Dragon Boat Festival, there will definitely be a price war between Ji'antang and Baicaotang, with profit margins fluctuating between 20% and 30%."

The next day after school, the students in the academy had already scattered like birds.

Li Ji wanted to take Lu Chuan to a restaurant in the south of the city to try the newly harvested yellow croaker, but Lu Chuan politely declined, citing his work on organizing classical texts.

Lu Chuan, holding the "Complete Treatise on Agricultural Administration," knocked on the door of Master Zhao's study once again.

"Come in." The teacher's voice sounded weary.

Lu Chuan pushed open the door and entered, only to find the Master staring intently at the few green bamboo stalks outside the window.

Without any further pleasantries, he presented the thick stack of notes with both hands.

"Master, I have recently been studying Volume 26 of the Complete Treatise on Agriculture and found that it contains detailed records of the cultivation methods for herbs such as Pinellia ternata and Poria cocos."

"The student thought of our Qingyang County, especially the terrain behind Lujia Village, where the forests are shady and damp, which coincides with the description of the medicinal herbs in the book. Based on the information in the two books, the student has drafted a proposal for the transformation of the barren mountain, and asks the teacher for his corrections."

Master Zhao put down the scissors and took the notebook.

He originally thought the child had just gleaned some insights from reading books and wanted to learn from him.

When Lu Chuan saw the Master flipping through the book, he did not rush to take credit, but instead first guided the Master to look at the resources and endowments of Lu Family Village.

"Master, please look, Lu Family Village is backed by hills with many barren slopes. Although the soil is not suitable for growing grains, it is always damp and shady because of the forest of wild lacquer trees."

"In the eyes of ordinary farmers, this is 'abandoned land'; but in the eyes of pharmacology recorded in the Complete Treatise on Agriculture, it is a natural light-blocking fence. Although paddy fields are expensive, they require a lot of manpower and taxes. On the other hand, barren slopes only require a small investment to plunder the yield from nature."

Master Zhao nodded slightly. He also owned land and knew that although paddy fields were stable, their yield was extremely low and they were very susceptible to natural disasters.

Lu Chuan keenly noticed the subtle change in the Master's expression and immediately got to the point.

"Master, I have seen several records of prices in the medicine market of the previous dynasty in the 'Miscellaneous Books of Jianghan', so I tried to calculate them on straw paper according to the 'yield loss per mu' recorded in the book."

He pointed to a series of seemingly naive but actually incredibly precise numbers in his notes:

"The seedlings of Pinellia ternata cost about six coins per catty. If we use the existing fallen leaves from the mountains and forests as fertilizer, after deducting the labor cost of clearing the land, the investment per mu would be at most four hundred coins. According to the method of 'investigating things' in the book, if we can ensure that seventy percent of the seedlings survive, by the Dragon Boat Festival, even if we buy them at the lowest market price of thirty coins per catty in the county town, the income per mu would be more than three times that of rice cultivation in paddy fields."

Lu Chuan deliberately obscured the description of dynamic games in modern actuarial models, entirely thanks to his in-depth exploration of "Jianghan Zashu" and "Nongzheng Quanshu".

"The student dares to deduce that if Lujia Village can turn those hundred acres of barren slopes into medicinal herb fields, not only will the Lu family be able to settle their old debts, but the entire village's taxes, tuition fees, and even winter clothing will all come from the surplus in these accounts."

"I am but a humble student, and I do not know whether this deduction is too far-fetched. I would appreciate it if you, Master, would judge it based on the principles of 'investigating things'."

"The right time is not as important as the right place, and the right place is not as important as the right people. But even the use of the right place has its own inviolable laws."

Lu Chuan's voice was not loud, but every word was clear. He had pondered this statement about how geographical environment determines the planting patterns of medicinal plants for a long time.

It contains the core logic of modern environmental economics, and cleverly disguises itself with the concept of "paying for things according to their nature" from the Great Learning.

Master Zhao fell completely silent.

He was not the kind of pedantic scholar who only knew how to nod his head and was ignorant of practical matters. As a renowned figure in the village, he managed his farmland and dealt with merchants, and he knew very well that in Qingyang County, where people depended on the weather for their livelihood, every aspect of farming was a matter of life and death, and every profit was tied to blood and sweat.

The young man's analysis, though based solely on the classic "Complete Treatise on Agriculture," revealed a remarkable grasp of the soil quality of every inch of the hill behind Liutang Village, a deduction of the growth cycle of medicinal herbs, and a keen awareness of fluctuations in the county's medicinal herb market. The logical chain was so complete, and the data comparisons so clear, that it was as if he had personally spent decades rolling in the mud to summarize his findings.

This completely exceeded Master Zhao's understanding of a ten-year-old child.

His heart was in turmoil, but he tried his best to maintain the dignity of a teacher.

He slowly reached out and took Lu Chuan's notebook again, then, in the afterglow of the sunlight streaming in from the window, he began to read it aloud, word by word.

The table clearly lists the purchase cost of Pinellia ternata seedlings in different months, the shading ratio of intercropping in mountain forests, the average annual output surplus, and even suggestions for preventing Pinellia ternata rot disease using lime water.