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Chapter 19 - Chapter 19: My land is at my disposal

 It was the first time Edward had seen a group of people kneeling in front of him without any reservation, even though he had once seen thousands of people kneeling to the emperor on television, this was the first time he had felt it in person!

 It was a wonderful feeling that gave Edward the thrill of being in complete control of another person's destiny! It was a feeling so peculiar that one was unconsciously addicted into it!

 In a moment, however, Edward was free from this feeling

 Disengage in the middle.

 Is this how the ancient Chinese emperor felt when facing his subjects? No wonder so many people are clamoring to get into that position. It's fascinating!

 Edward followed the estate's steward, Howard Charles, step by step past the serfs prostrate on the edge of the dirt floor, thinking slowly as he did so.

 Howard Charles, the steward, is the second son of a knightly nobleman, who not only lost his inheritance from the beginning, but is also too thin and weak to be a wandering knight, and has to take up the profession of stewardship to gain status and survival.

 Howard Charles, with his thinner identity, his head of greasy, meticulously groomed hair, his relatively modest size, his eyes mimicked into a line, and his slightly concave cheeks, looked like a shrewd character!

 Edward and Howard walked ahead, followed by the two sisters, Elizabeth and Luna, and of course, Baron Smith and twenty knights.

 Why did Elizabeth come along? According to her explanation it was to protect Edward, this sentence actually left Edward speechless, but once he remembered that she was bored in the palace from time to time, Edward agreed with a soft heart!

 So when Elizabeth was on the verge of jumping up and down with excitement, Edward had a date with her.

 The first can't go out at will without Edward's approval!

 Secondly listen to Edward during the outing and do not disobey!

 Thirdly you must not tell anyone what happened out there!

 If Elizabeth breaks any of the above three rules, she will immediately be sent back to Windsor Castle and will not be allowed to leave for a year.

 With Elizabeth's lips curled in anger, Edward made this agreement with her.

 "Your Majesty, our Windsor Estate currently farms about twelve hundred acres!" Howard's voice was full of magnetism, "Not only do we have an adult labor force and children under the age of one, but we also raise twenty-four draft horses and sheep!"

 "And the mill on the estate gets pounds a year by grinding wheat grain for the villagers in the neighborhood every year!"

 The average farmer at this time had no possibility of owning a mill and had to pay to use it at the home of the person who owned it. For example, Newton saw the windmill mill after accompanying his grandmother to the mill and made his own.

 Those who owned mills at this time were either noblemen or large local gentlemen, and the average gentleman and homesteader was not in a position to run his own.

 "And we produce a total of pounds of revenue every year, in addition to feeding and drinking the serfs!" Howard's voice was full of pride.

 Edward could understand Howard's pride, because at that time, if an estate as large as this one was usually only profitable in pounds a year, and his hard pulling up the pounds was proof enough of his ability!

 "Then Mr. Steward! How much grain can we harvest in a year?" Edward was now immune to money, it was the lack of food that made him raise the question of food.

 "Your Honorable Majesty, acres of wheat have been planted and about seven hundred bushels harvested; eight hundred acres of rye have been planted and bushels harvested; acres of oats have been planted and bushels harvested; acres of soybeans have been planted and bushels harvested!" All at once, Howard Steward's mouth sprang out like a machine gun with a long list of figures.

 In England, the bushel is equal to the gallon, which is equal to the allotment (the British unit of volumetric measurement), which is equivalent to the liter (metric system).

 Straightforwardly a bushel equals a kilogram, which when converted to our familiar measure is about equal to a pound or so.

 Taking the most productive rye, an acre yields about one thousand one hundred pounds or so, which is the net yield and the highest on record for this time of year.

 And according to an acre is equal to six acres to calculate, an acre only produces about pounds, and at that time, the barren Shaanxi of the Ming Dynasty acres have reached pounds, and at that time the Jiangnan area acres of production even reached pounds, which is a number that makes Europeans despair.

 As England this grows this yields are frighteningly low! Crop time, it's usually a matter of planting barley type grains in the fall and harvesting them the following summer, spanning most of the year.

 So that's why the entire continent of Europe has a smaller population and more arable land area than the Ming, but the price of food is so high that there's not enough to go around.

 Edward had come to Windsor Manor today to direct the work, so when Elizabeth had returned to her cottage on the estate to rest, Edward went out into the hot midday sun to the farmland.

 Coming to the edge of the farmland, it was only a short kilometer or so, and Edward was already tired, although his body couldn't do it, Edward could only endure in silence in order to maintain the majesty of the king.

 Edward looked at a vast field, two plots of land showed a different scene, one already filled with the smell of green wheat grass, while the other side of the still bare covered with weeds. Edward knew that this was the two-bed system of farming that was popular in Europe.

 The two-bed system is one of the zoned rotations of arable land popular in Europe since the Middle Ages. It was prevalent in Europe before the century AD. Its method is that the arable land is often divided into two pieces, each year a piece of plowing, a fallow, year after year to maintain the strength of the land, crop rotation.

 And Edward looked at the wheat field without saying anything, and his heart was full of emotion, I came here today, that is, knowledge determines fate, knowledge changes history, right!

 Edward turned to Howard's butler, who was following him, and said, "Howard, have you ever heard of the three-nursery system?"

 "Ah! Your Majesty, I've never heard that word before, does it have anything to do with the two-nursery system?" Steward Howard was a little puzzled by Edward's words.

 The three-bed system means that it divides arable land into three cultivation zones of roughly equal size: recreational land, spring-sown land, and fall (winter) sown land. Crops are also rotated in each area, with spring-sown crops or barley or oats or beans, and fall (winter) sown crops or wheat or rye. Cultivated land and crops are rotated sequentially from year to year, in a three-year cycle.

 Instead, the three-bed system was enforced within the feudal estates. Peasants owned arable land in the form of narrow strips of land, and the lord's land is scattered in the various cultivation areas; the types of crops planted each year and the time of farming is mandatory, the farmers do not have the right to arrange; recreational land and harvested arable land, are used as a common pasture, common use.

 Compared with the two-bed system, the three-bed system allows for two harvests a year and reduces the area of recreational land from one-half to one-third, which is conducive both to reducing the risk of agricultural disasters or crop failures and to increasing the utilization of arable land and labor, resulting in a higher level of agricultural production than the two-bed system.

 "Howard! I've decided to implement the three-nursery system here" Edward uttered a statement that surprised Howard.

 "But your majesty ..." Howard was interrupted by Edward when he was about to say something else.

 "No more whatsoever, my land listens to me!"