Horses.
The moment horse raising was mentioned, everyone in Ganlu Hall immediately became even more focused.
Strictly speaking, the Tang dynasty had only been founded for thirteen years.
Among those present, even the least senior, Chu Suiliang, who was quietly copying down the words, had first followed his father in submitting to Xue Ju, the Western Qin Overlord.
After Xue Ju was defeated, the Chu father and son were recruited into the Qin Prince's household.
During the chaos at the end of Sui, anyone who managed to rise to fame had strong cavalry at their side.
And in the end, only those who could command elite cavalry and overpower all rivals were able to stand here and grasp the lifeline of the empire.
Almost everyone involved in that process had difficulty avoiding dealing with horses.
Now, those who could stand in Ganlu Hall were either skilled in civil strategy or strong in military planning.
But whether civil or military, all of them understood horses.
For this reason, even the earlier scattered remarks about horse raising and horse administration had been given unprecedented attention by Li Shimin.
He had personally written to Zhang Wansui and even sent envoys to convey concern, causing this Assistant Minister of the Court of Imperial Horses to be deeply moved.
But at the time, no one thought too deeply about it.
After all, the emperor's fondness for old Qin Prince household connections was something well known to everyone.
As for those scattered words about horse raising, they were probably gathered from memorials submitted by horse experts across the realm.
Standing here now, with no need to copy down what the light screen said, Du Ruhui thought it through for a moment and understood the simple relationship.
The Ming dynasty had more people and also faced a cooling climate.
Only by emphasizing agriculture could they support the entire population.
In that process, soybeans, which both enriched the soil and suited crop rotation, were naturally favored.
The result was that more and more soybeans were planted.
And since people were forced to eat soybeans, generations of people threw themselves into research, eventually making tofu look better and better.
Looking back from this angle, the reason Tang did not particularly favor tofu became extremely simple.
The climate was just right.
The rice and wheat from the fields were enough to fill people's stomachs.
Who would go out of their way to labor over researching tofu?
Du Ruhui chuckled and quietly shared his line of thought with Fang Xuanling.
Fang Xuanling raised his eyebrows in approval and also said quietly:
"It seems that mathematics truly has the effect of clarifying principles. Kemin and I have studied together for less than a year, yet your analytical ability has grown again."
Thinking of those complicated numbers and strange problems from later generations, Du Ruhui could only give a bitter smile.
Classics could at least be learned one book at a time.
But mathematics truly made him deeply understand Zhuangzi's saying that with a limited life chasing the limitless, one would only exhaust oneself.
If what that junior named Wen Mang said was not empty talk, then mathematics could reach up to the heavens and down into people's livelihoods.
It could be called a pillar-holding discipline.
In four more years, Du Ruhui would be fifty.
With white hair and endless study, he did not know whether he would be able to glimpse even a fraction of the splendor of mathematics.
However, these melancholy thoughts of Du Ruhui were quickly swept aside by Li Shimin.
"Order the Minister of Agriculture to discuss soybean matters, and propose establishing a Bean and Pulse Office to oversee soil fertilization, crop rotation, and soybean meal affairs."
"Order the Dao Guan Office and the Granary Bureau to trial-produce soybean meal, and coordinate with the Pasture Office to test its effectiveness."
"Order the Imperial Kitchen and the Delicacies Office to refine tofu so that it matches the appearance of later generations, and promote it throughout the realm so the people are willing to plant soybeans."
This was truly the style of a young emperor.
For Li Shimin, the earlier scattered remarks about horse raising were too broad.
They were best left to horse experts like Zhang Wansui to research carefully.
But the role of soybeans was extremely straightforward.
Press them for oil.
Grind them into slurry to make tofu.
Use the leftover soybean meal to fatten horses.
One bean, three uses.
If one also counted that root-nodule bacteria effect on soil fertility, then it could be said to have a hundred benefits and not a single harm.
On this point, what later generations said was indeed correct.
Even if he did not understand, it did not matter.
He only needed to know that soybeans improved soil fertility.
That horses grew fatter when fed beans was no secret.
As early as the Former Han, there were methods of feeding horses bean cakes.
But those were made from whole, high-quality beans, and the cost was naturally different.
Li Shimin also understood clearly.
Setting aside the fantasy of every household owning a horse, if soybeans could allow each village to have three to five more horses, then he believed the appearance of the Tang realm would be completely different from now.
…
Liu Bei was overjoyed.
"This thing is simple, yet it benefits the people without end."
What he was referring to was naturally the iron-toothed harrow that flashed by on the light screen.
In fact, this was not unfamiliar to him.
Leveling land was a hard requirement for farming in the north.
The people of Guanzhong also used harrows in farming, but they were all made of wood or bamboo, with no iron harrows.
And making an iron harrow was quite simple.
There was no need to even drag a blacksmith to measure.
Just bring a bamboo harrow and have the blacksmith forge one according to it.
The greater significance of seeing this thing with his own eyes was that it suddenly opened Liu Bei's mind.
After coming to Guanzhong and farming together with the people for several months, Liu Bei's greatest realization was that his previous farming methods were often unsuited to Guanzhong.
The curved plow that worked extremely well in the hilly south was only average on the flat lands of Guanzhong.
Rice paddy farming methods were also difficult to apply across the vast dry fields of Guanzhong.
But now, seeing this iron harrow, which differed from bamboo harrows by only a thin line, Liu Bei suddenly realized his own limitations.
Bamboo harrow and iron harrow seemed to differ only in cost.
But in reality, because of differences in weight and hardness, the leveling effect could be completely different.
Since the curved plow was not well suited to Guanzhong, why not invite Kongming to jointly design a new curved plow suitable for the north?
After all, even the curved plow that worked so well in the south had originally been created by people adapting to local conditions.
If that was the case, then he and Kongming and the others should also try creating new engineering tools themselves.
After all, just as he had thought at the beginning, as ancestors, why should they rely on later generations for everything?
[Lightscreen]
[In fact, the role of soybean meal is of course not limited to being horse feed.
For example, soybean meal is a high-quality nitrogen fertilizer.
Wood ash is the lowest-cost potassium fertilizer.
And when mixed with crushed bones rich in phosphorus, then after processing and maturation, it becomes the most primitive form of compound fertilizer.
In addition, because northern China had an extremely cold climate during the Ming, fertilizer maturation required high temperatures and was relatively difficult.
So at that time, transporting northern soybean meal to the south by sea to sell was an extremely lucrative business.
Even without making compound fertilizer, for southern poultry and fish farming, soybean meal was also an extremely high-quality feed.
In addition, starting from the Song dynasty, soybean oil together with sesame oil, rapeseed oil, and tea seed oil pushed down the price of cooking oil.
Combined with iron-smelting technology that was at the forefront of the world at the time, iron woks began to spread widely.
Stir-frying, familiar to everyone today, began to flourish.
How delicious the eight great cuisines are needs no elaboration.
And the rise of stir-frying cuisine in turn pushed soybean-derived products to be developed to the extreme.
At present, the list of soybean products is actually very hard to count.
From common soy milk, tofu skin, and dried tofu, to more complex fermented tofu and stinky tofu, and then to dozens of dishes derived through frying and stir-frying, it can be said that in the realm of eating alone, Huaxia stands peerless in the world.
Among all of this, soybeans firmly occupy a central position.
Even during the New Year, they are completely indispensable.
Grinding tofu before the New Year, seen this way, truly lives up to its reputation.
After all, even today, the food war over soybeans between us and our rivals across the Pacific has never truly stopped.]