Chapter 266 The Busy Minister of Agriculture

Chapter 267 The Busy Minister of Agriculture

"In addition, we must make more use of the power of the church. Joseph ordered, "In many cases, the efficiency of the church is much higher than our bureaucracy, and the farmers are more convinced of the priest's words. "

Venio nodded with great approval: "That's true, Your Highness. The church has done a lot of work in promoting new composting methods before."

Joseph smiled and said: "We can't let them get so much tithe in vain."

In order to minimize resistance during this action to weaken feudal privileges, Joseph did not touch the church for the time being. After all, the current chief minister was from the Archbishop of Toulouse. Although Foreign Minister Talleyrand was a "fair-weather monk", he was also an archbishop in name.

Since the French church is more closely attached to the royal power and can be regarded as cooperating with the royal family, it will just be reformed slowly in the future. After all, it will be much easier to deal with than the aristocracy.

However, Venio was surprised when he heard this. After all, the church was not something that could be ridiculed casually these days. He immediately turned his head and pretended not to hear anything.

Joseph continued to talk about his agricultural plan: "Now there are a large number of former lords' hunting grounds that will gradually become cultivated land."

The abolition of hunting privileges is an extremely important item in the just-promulgated "Abolition of Noble Privileges Decree". Many public lands occupied by nobles as hunting grounds were returned to farmers for farming, which increased the cultivated land area a lot - of course, we still have to wait. Only when farmers have a plan on how to redeem their land can it truly become cultivated land.

"You need to carry out some planning to encourage farmers to sow vegetables, especially in parishes that are relatively close to the city. For example, some financial subsidies can be given in the early stage, and the government can organize vehicles to transport vegetables to the city for sale, reducing farmers' transportation costs."

In France right now, due to the high freight costs, farmers can hardly make any money as long as the distance exceeds four kilometers.

Joseph said and looked at his feet: "So we still need to build more rail transportation. If there are wooden rails, vegetables in the countryside can be transported dozens of kilometers away."

Venio hesitated and said: "Your Highness, as far as I know, there are enough vegetables such as onions and carrots in the city..."

onion? carrot? Joseph couldn't help but raise his eyebrows. For him who was born in a big foodie country, the words of the Minister of Agriculture were like a thunderbolt.

But he also knows that these are the daily diet of French residents. In other words, if you can have some vegetable soup with every meal of brown bread, your living conditions are pretty good.

"You can't just limit yourself to these things." Joseph helped him broaden his thinking. "The first is pepper. Just grow a little of this stuff and it can greatly improve the taste of food.

“Then there are tomatoes. Well, tomatoes are indeed harder to grow and easier to preserve, but you can advertise that they can be made into tomato sauce – it’s easy to do, just have a glass bottle. More on this later.

"In addition to these two things, we also need to grow some asparagus and artichokes in relatively barren land. These things are easy to survive and have high yields."

The vegetables he mentioned have been introduced to France a long time ago and are available in the Palace of Versailles, but their private cultivation area is still very limited.

Venio carefully wrote down the items ordered by the Crown Prince, but he still didn't quite understand: "Your Highness, why do you spend energy on vegetables? I mean, grains and potatoes are the most important."

"Commercial value." Joseph smiled. "With only a small amount of land resources, the quality of life of farmers and citizens can be greatly improved. Why don't we do it?"

Joseph knew very well that after the abolition of the privileges of the nobility, the people at the bottom could only barely survive, and they were still far from eliminating their dissatisfaction with society.

This is a bit dangerous when the old aristocracy and the military are both unpopular.

Therefore, improving the quality of life of the people at the bottom is also an extremely important task at present.

In fact, if it can obtain the absolute support of a large number of people at the bottom, then the royal family will not be afraid of anyone... Of course, with the current level of productivity, it is basically a fantasy to satisfy more than 96% of the population.

But it can still be done to improve their quality of life as much as possible.

For example, make their meals richer.

And this only requires some cheap vegetables and some cooking methods to achieve it.

As for cooking, French chefs are quite capable. At the same time, Joseph can also teach everyone the traditional techniques of the big foodie country, ensuring that ordinary cabbage can be stir-fried into delicious food for you.

When the people came back from a busy day and could eat some stir-fried vegetables, soup, etc. in addition to eating black bread, they would definitely be very grateful to their Majesty the King.

Joseph said to Venio: "You also need to cooperate with the church to publish a simple cooking manual, and let the priests or nuns organize women to learn cooking every week.

"Well, remember to add this slogan - if you want to capture his heart, you must first capture his stomach."

As he was speaking, the carriage suddenly stopped.

Emang glanced out the window, turned to Joseph and said, "Your Highness, the wooden track has reached the end. We have to change to a carriage later."

Joseph nodded, and now the wooden track was barely paved to the west of Reims. The cost of building this thing is still very expensive, so it only centers on Paris and radiates to surrounding cities for dozens of kilometers.

Before he boarded the carriage, he accidentally caught a glimpse of the three horses pulling the carriage. Suddenly he remembered something and turned to look at Venio: "By the way, do you know soybeans?"

Verniaud was quite knowledgeable and nodded immediately: "Are you talking about the beans from the Far East? Some botanists are very interested in them. Oh, some farmers in Georgia, USA, grow this stuff to feed cattle."

Joseph was relieved when he heard that France had introduced soybeans. He was really worried that he would have to go to Asia to get seeds back.

"I need you to promote this crop in France, especially in the northern provinces."

"Yes, Your Highness. Do we also have to use this thing to feed cattle?"

Joseph gestured for him to get in the car: "Usually you can feed cattle, or brew soy sauce... oh, it's just a seasoning. But in the event of war, soybeans are the best warhorse feed - small in size, easy to carry, just feed a little to the warhorse, it can significantly improve the horse's physical strength."

Compared to oats, which are currently used as "nutrients" for warhorses in Europe, soybeans have an incomparable advantage. Only one-third of oats are needed to achieve the same effect as oats.

This will be a great improvement for logistics and transportation - warhorse feed accounts for the largest part of logistics and transportation.

Moreover, soybeans are easy to carry. Cavalrymen only need to put a few handfuls in their pockets to sustain their horses for several days, and there is no need to repeatedly return to the camp for supplies.