The reason Qiao Yan gave to the system wasn’t the whole truth.

Having the agricultural book in hand wasn’t just about how many people she could save during its implementation; more importantly, it was about how many additional people she could support.

Once the Han dynasty collapses, getting the Imperial Seal before Sun Jian, or even snatching it from his hands, would be a feasible task.

However, asking Qiao Yan to select the best farmers from Bingzhou, then dispatch them to different counties to teach others, and to rack her brains to come up with methods to increase agricultural yields would be too much effort.

Previously, when she was confined in Leping, she had some leisure time before Emperor Ling(Liu Hong) passed away.

During that period, she could afford to study the “Book of Fan Shengzhi” and experiment with pig farming methods, and to draw up tips for planting crops.

However, now that her control had expanded from Leping to the entire Bingzhou, doing these tasks seemed less appropriate.

Weighing the pros and cons, the result was clear.

It was better to use the Imperial Seal, which didn’t truly represent the mandate of heaven, to exchange for the agricultural book.

Once the grain production was sufficient, she could even use the Xiongnu and Xianbei people as laborers for the two open-pit mines, rather than relying solely on the interests of the Bingzhou aristocracy to get them to hand over their hidden labor force responsible for mining.

So, she decided to make the exchange!

This strategist system of hers was really a bit naive.

The other side had explicitly said that stockpiling grain was for the purpose of rebellion, yet it still remembered Qiao Yan’s previous claim that all her actions were imitating the Bingzhou Inspector Liang Xi of Cao Wei, not suspecting that she harbored the same intentions.

After Qiao Yan made her decision, it immediately contacted the other party.

This time, there was no need for a three-day search period.

Shortly after, it handed Qiao Yan the guarantee document for the transaction.

Once she signed the contract, what appeared in her hand was a book on northern agricultural practices.

Qiao Yan flipped through a few pages and realized that her previous assessment of the transaction being worthwhile might have been an understatement.

Although the agricultural book was tailored for northern planting, meaning it was more suitable for the environment and climate of the north in terms of seed selection, cultivation, and farming seasons, it didn’t mean the content was limited to just that.

Whether it was due to the other host’s experience and knowledge or the agricultural system’s stored information, this book contained a lot of information on local fertilizers.

For example, it mentioned local ammonia water and local sulfuric acid.

The latter didn’t literally mean sulfuric acid but referred to the fertilizing effect of ammonium sulfate.

And the benefits of these two fertilizers were…

Creating these fertilizers under Han dynasty conditions was entirely feasible.

The only slightly special material required was gypsum powder.

Did the Han dynasty have gypsum? Of course, it did.

In the Western Han period, Prince Liu An of Huainan made tofu using gypsum.

This agricultural book even thoughtfully noted that there were gypsum mines in the Linfen area of Shanxi, and if one went a bit further north, more could likely be found.

This was extremely convenient.

As for the process of turning raw gypsum into processed gypsum, Qiao Yan still had some recollection.

She continued reading the agricultural book and found information about compound base fertilizers.

The materials required for this were indeed more complex, including animal bones.

But as a nitrogen-ammonium-phosphate compound fertilizer, its effectiveness was high enough to significantly increase grain yield through slow-release nutrients.

Animal bones…

Seeing this, Qiao Yan’s thoughts drifted northward.

Where could she obtain animal bones? Aside from the pigs she had people raising in Leping, there were the cattle, sheep, and horses of the nomadic tribes.

During the winter, when these animals were slaughtered, their meat naturally went into the bellies of the nomads, but what about the bones?

Aside from those made into bone tools, the rest were likely buried in the grasslands.

This could be an invaluable resource!

Compared to the current situation in Bingzhou, where eating meat and collecting animal bones is rare and difficult, the nomads’ meat consumption is due to insufficient crops to meet their food needs.

They have the environment for extensive pastoral farming, which gives them a numerical advantage.

These animal bones could be processed into raw bone meal or defatted bone meal as described in the agricultural book, becoming an essential component of fertilizers.

Indeed, targeting the nomads beyond the border was the key!

She calmed her excitement at the prospect of immediately launching an attack on the nomads and continued reading the agricultural book.

Besides fertilizers that could be produced with current technological conditions, the book also covered various farming tools with universal applicability for both the north and south.

Qiao Yan wasn’t an expert in farming.

At most, she could recall historically significant innovations like the curved plow, which she had already instructed the academy’s agricultural experts to study and replicate.

The principle of specialization in different fields certainly held true.

According to the book, selecting and cultivating superior seeds would take at least five or six years, a long-term process.

For short-term results, the most crucial practice was deep plowing.

Deep plowing relied on…

The agricultural tools.

It was due to the detailed descriptions in the agricultural book that Qiao Yan realized her previously commissioned curved plow was far from perfect.

The innovation of the curved plow wasn’t just about changing the straight shaft to a curved one, making it shorter and easier to turn, thereby saving human and animal labor.

Another crucial innovation was the addition of the plowshare and the plow arrow, used to adjust the depth of the plowing to suit different crops and soil conditions.

The precision farming system that complemented the curved plow was also detailed in the book.

This system, known as plowing, harrowing, and raking, was developed in the northern environment during the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties.

What is plowing, harrowing, and raking? In the dry northern environment, plowed land often left large clods of earth.

Therefore, the soil was first broken up with plowing and then further crushed with raking.

The new plowshare and plow arrow on the curved plow, like the plow itself, were made of wood.

The rakes, however, were mostly equipped with iron teeth, making them similar to hoes and other iron agricultural tools.

This brought her back to a crucial issue.

The largest iron mine in Bingzhou was in Yanmen!

To expand the production of iron agricultural tools, they still needed to deal with the nomads!

The Xianbei people, who were entrenched beyond Yanmen and Yunzhong, had already been harassed by the joint efforts of Zhang Liao, Zhang Yang, and Guo Yun.

They were struggling to fend off internal conflicts while also dealing with the fierce resistance that hindered their plans to raid the border for winter supplies as they had in previous years.

They would never have expected that the newly appointed governor of Bingzhou had even more formidable plans.

Qiao Yan took a deep breath, tempering her excitement and focusing back on the practicalities detailed in the agricultural book.

If she could fully implement these techniques and tools, Bingzhou’s agricultural productivity would see a significant boost, providing a solid foundation for her future plans.

Not only did she need to fight them to ensure that mining in Yanmen and Dingxiang would not be disrupted, but also to increase labor for the open-pit coal mines.

She needed a reason to avoid sending troops to Luoyang, to obtain more animal bones for producing compound fertilizers, and to reassign the identities of her bandits and future captives to regular citizens—

She still needed to fight them!

Anyone who heard this would have to light a candle for these nomads.

When Guo Jia was summoned by Qiao Yan and handed the list of reasons for the three-year campaign against the nomads, he couldn’t help but pause for a moment.

Slowly, he shifted his gaze from the paper to Qiao Yan’s face.

He considered himself and his friends to be quite unscrupulous in their conversations, but it seemed that Qiao Yan was a master in this regard.

On second thought, this was undoubtedly good news for his plans.

In years of frequent famine, the lengths people would go to for food were beyond imagination.

To survive, people ate tree bark to stave off hunger.

Now, faced with Qiao Yan’s extensive and ruthless plans, this was only the beginning.

Guo Jia understood that desperation drove people to extreme measures.

If Qiao Yan could harness this desperation, channeling it into a well-coordinated effort to boost agricultural productivity and secure resources, the benefits would be immense.

Her plans, while harsh, were pragmatic and necessary for the survival and prosperity of her people.