Reform Steps

Although he had decided to reform,

Shen Changchuan did not immediately rush into action.

Having been a Chosen Wage Slave in his previous life, he knew all too well the consequences of amateurs leading professionals.

Some things might have had good intentions at the outset,

but in actual implementation, they could gradually stray from their original purpose and become even worse instead.

He had only transmigrated here two and a half years ago, and most of what he knew about this world came from the original owner of this body.

And the original owner had no experience related to farming Spirit Fields.

If he simply acted according to his own ideas,

he would definitely lose touch with reality.

If he made a mess of things and left the Twelve Mu Spirit Field barren,

where would he find One Hundred Spirit Stones to cover the Shen Family's required tribute?

Shen Changchuan was fairly steady by nature,

so he naturally would not act rashly.

He decided to first get a clear grasp of the specific situation.

Thus,

after several days of personally traveling throughout Great Bay Village, with the help of his Maternal Grandfather Han Qinhu and others, he gathered a great deal of information related to Great Bay Village.

Afterward,

drawing on his life experience from the highly efficient society of his previous life, Shen Changchuan racked his brains, considered every aspect, and ultimately devised several steps for reform.

First,

the first step of reform was to gain control over and reorganize Great Bay Village's personnel.

Shen Shiying and the others had far too rough a grasp on Great Bay Village. They did not even know its population. If this part was not sorted out, there would be no point even thinking about the changes to come.

Thus, with the help of Han Qinhu and the servants he had brought along, Shen Changchuan spent a day compiling and registering the entire population of Great Bay Village.

A total of Two Thousand Three Hundred men, women, young, and old were counted.

Next, these Two Thousand Three Hundred people were divided by household, with young and old balanced together, into Twelve Teams,

with each team having close to two hundred people.

Within each team, the members themselves publicly elected a Head Captain, while members of the Han Family brought by Shen Changchuan's Maternal Grandfather Han Qinhu served as Supervisory Vice Captains.

After that,

Shen Changchuan planned to divide the twelve mu of Spirit Field into Twelve Shares, one mu each, with each team responsible for one mu of Spirit Field.

This would allow for more detailed management.

Under Great Bay Village's previous method, whenever the Spirit Fields needed tending, the village's more than two thousand people would swarm into the fields all at once,

and there was no need to think twice to know that plenty of people would show up without working, loaf around, and muddle through the day.

"Although a team of two hundred people is still bloated even after subdivision, its efficiency will at least be much higher than having two thousand people work together."

"At the very least, every team's responsibilities will be clearly defined. Team members can supervise one another, undoubtedly reducing a great deal of loafing and boosting work efficiency."

This was Shen Changchuan's plan for reforming Great Bay Village's personnel व्यवस्था.

At the same time, however,

he understood another matter perfectly well.

"But while this can raise work efficiency and greatly reduce wasted manpower, it will ultimately have little effect on increasing Spirit Grain production!"

Improved work efficiency could increase output only if there were more Spirit Fields to cultivate.

Only with enough Spirit Fields could work efficiency bring a positive increase to Spirit Grain output.

But the problem was that Great Bay Village had only twelve mu of Spirit Field!

Even if work efficiency improved, it would at most mean finishing the work a few days earlier than before.

The Twelve Mu Spirit Field would still produce however much Spirit Grain it was meant to produce.

That would not change just because they worked faster or slower.

"Spirit Fields are limited, and cultivating new fields capable of growing Spirit Grain cannot be done without three to five years of hard labor."

"Then the only way to increase production is to improve existing planting techniques and raise the yield per mu!"

And this

was precisely the second step of Shen Changchuan's reforms, as well as the most important part.

The first step of dividing the personnel into twelve groups was merely preparation for completing the second step more effectively.

"I may never have grown spirit rice, but the ways to increase crop yields in a short time are nothing more than deep plowing, seed selection, raising seedlings and transplanting them, and fertilizing."

"The cultivation of spirit rice should be more or less the same."

This was Shen Changchuan's idea of how to raise Spirit Grain yield per mu.

As the saying went, even if one had never seen a pig run, one had still eaten pork.

The biology and history he had studied in high school in his previous life had both touched on relevant knowledge.

The principles should be universal.

The knowledge he had not forgotten from his previous life should be able to help, at least somewhat.

Of course,

the same saying still applied:

leave professional matters to professionals; never let amateurs lead experts.

So although he had ideas for increasing yield per mu,

Shen Changchuan would not simply slap his forehead and order everyone to follow his own ideas.

After all, who knew whether the methods would fail to suit local conditions?

Or whether cultivating Spirit Grain was completely different from cultivating rice in his previous life?

Without actual practice,

no one dared pound their chest and guarantee it one hundred percent.

So he continued his investigation.

Using the population census of Great Bay Village from earlier, he found many villagers experienced in cultivating Spirit Grain.

He consulted them one by one.

He recorded every answer they gave, then compared and revised them against his own ideas one by one.

During this period,

he spent several more days at it,

eventually organizing two plans related to cultivating Spirit Grain.

One was based primarily on the scientific experience of his previous life, while incorporating local experience in cultivating Spirit Grain.

The other was based primarily on local Spirit Grain cultivation experience, while incorporating certain methods from his previous life that suited local conditions.

"After putting in all that effort, it's finally done."

"Now, I can only hope these methods prove useful!"

Next,

Shen Changchuan handed these two summaries of Spirit Grain cultivation methods to Teams Eleven and Twelve.

Shen Changchuan planned to use Teams Eleven and Twelve as test sites.

He would test the effects of these two cultivation summaries on Spirit Grain yield per mu.

As for Teams One through Ten,

Shen Changchuan did not intend to make any changes at all.

Instead, he would have them continue farming according to the previous planting methods, following the old rules and doing everything according to past experience.

Clearly,

even after personally investigating the matter, Shen Changchuan still chose a conservative approach.

The purpose was simple:

to avoid the worst possible outcome of losing everything because the improvements went wrong.

Shen Changchuan knew full well that the production-improving methods he had compiled were not necessarily correct.

If he changed things rashly and caused major problems with Spirit Grain production, making it impossible to submit the fixed quota, then he would be in serious trouble.

"Reform cannot be rushed. Stability must come first in all things!"

When it came to matters tied to his fortune and life, Shen Changchuan could not have been more prudent.

With the harvest from ten mu of Spirit Field as a safety net,

the worst outcome would merely be that the other two mu of Spirit Field produced nothing. He would still be able to meet the Shen Family's required tribute.

No major problem would arise.

Of course,

now that he had a safety net and was using only Teams Eleven and Twelve as experimental groups,

Shen Changchuan did not mind letting them be more aggressive.

For example,

to ensure that Teams Eleven and Twelve followed the cultivation methods he had summarized as closely as possible, stimulate their enthusiasm and initiative, and achieve the best possible results,

Shen Changchuan promised Teams Eleven and Twelve that if the new planting techniques failed, they would bear no responsibility.

On the other hand,

if the two mu of Spirit Field they cultivated each produced more than one hundred jin of Spirit Grain, then the excess would be divided thirty-seventy, with thirty percent given to them as a reward.

As food containing faint spiritual energy, regular consumption of Spirit Grain gave innate Martial Artists a certain chance of successfully drawing in qi, entering the Qi Drawing realm, and embarking upon the path of cultivation.

To ordinary people and martial artists, the preciousness of Spirit Grain went without saying!

Yet during the six years Shen Shiying had guarded Great Bay Village,

not a single Martial Artist in the entire village had ever received even one grain of Spirit Grain!

A thirty-seventy split of the harvest exceeding one hundred jin might seem somewhat too exploitative.

But compared with Shen Shiying,

by giving them a chance to obtain Spirit Grain,

Shen Changchuan was already an exceedingly benevolent lord.