As spring arrived, people everywhere began the arduous work of spring plowing. But unlike previous years, many people in the north were using rice transplanters this year. This new agricultural tool, comparable to a dry-field seed drill, greatly reduced the labor required for transplanting rice seedlings.
After ten years of growing rice in the Han Tribe, the people could finally plant rice seedlings while standing. They no longer had to bend over. That alone was a tremendous advance.
Compared with the rice paddies elsewhere, the mechanized farming experimental fields in Liuyang Commandery were clearly far more advanced. They not only did not need to bend over—even sitting down, they could cultivate more land.
Twenty tractors and sixty drivers were now working around the clock in three shifts, sowing seeds in the fields day and night. Aside from eating, using the toilet, and refilling the tractors with water and coal, they spent every moment working.
The extra prototype tractor used for verification had now become a support vehicle. It hauled a load of coal and water, specifically supplying fuel to those twenty tractors.
The workload was naturally immense, but it would not need to be maintained for long. The entire twenty thousand mu of corn could be planted in less than four days. No matter how exhausted they became, they only had to endure four days. Once those days passed, they could take leave and rest.
Meanwhile, over in Xingang Commandery, the researchers and workers had already finished their leave in mid-Fourteenth Month and returned to work.
The task Luo Chong had given them was simple: finalize the harvester design as quickly as possible, then begin mass production to prepare for the first-quarter corn harvest.
However, the first-generation corn harvester had no threshing function, so they also had to develop a