Chapter 126: The Divine Artifact

Xiao Fei tried to deceive him with this. He bullied Fang Jifan, thinking Fang Jifan had never seen anything good.

Fang Jifan remained unmoved. He just smiled.

But the smile seemed a little unsettling. Xiao Fei instantly felt the pressure. He realized that these “treasures” did not interest this Fang Bai Hu at all. This man, despite his young age, had truly seen the world. So Xiao Fei did not dare neglect further. He smiled again and said, “I heard Fang Bai Hu isn’t in good health. I also brought a ten-thousand-year-old ginseng produced in our country…”

After saying that, he solemnly took out a silk bundle from his bosom. He acted very carefully, treating it as if it were a real treasure. He gently opened the bundle while saying, “This ginseng is extremely potent. It grew for ten thousand years, so it’s extraordinary. I bought it for three hundred taels of gold. Please have a look, Bai Hu.”

Xiao Fei didn’t know that every time he claimed to have brought a ten-thousand-year-old ginseng from the Western Regions, Fang Jifan felt like his intelligence was picked up, thrown to the ground, and stomped on thousands of times.

But… Fang Jifan was also curious. What exactly was this so-called ten-thousand-year-old ginseng?

As the layers of silk were unwrapped, a dull gray object was revealed. Fang Jifan couldn’t help but stare curiously. He looked at this large, plain object and froze.

Xiao Fei squinted with a smile, carefully observing Fang Jifan’s expression.

Fang Jifan narrowed his eyes and looked at this “ginseng” which had a dark red hue. This… Was this ginseng? This was fraud!

Fang Jifan figured out Xiao Fei’s trick. He used things that didn’t exist in Great Ming; passing off glass as pearls or luminous pearls. And this so-called ginseng… was actually sweet potato.

But Fang Jifan gasped sharply.

Holy… How could it be sweet potato!

This guy actually brought sweet potato pretending it was ginseng, trying to scam him!

But the problem was, sweet potatoes shouldn’t be here; they should be in America. This crop shouldn’t have spread out during the Hongzhi era.

So why did it appear in the hands of a foreign merchant? Could it be… Had the Europeans already discovered America and brought some crops back, which then passed through hands and were bought by this Arabian merchant?

This… wasn’t impossible.

Fang Jifan closed his eyes, trying hard to recall in his mind. It was currently the twelfth year of Hongzhi, meaning about seven or eight years ago, Columbus had already sailed to America. He first reached San Salvador in Central America, then returned to Europe. So… Could this sweet potato have been brought back from San Salvador seven or eight years ago?

They brought the sweet potatoes back to Europe, but clearly didn’t realize its value. Most of the time, they just treated it as proof from the New World. Maybe they planted some sweet potatoes, but certainly, Europe had not yet considered it a staple food. Fang Jifan even thought it might just be a decorative item to show off the glory of great voyages. Its purpose was merely ornamental.

Xiao Fei was clearly an Ottoman. This empire spanning three continents blocked the Silk Road, but they often interacted with Europeans, especially the Venetians. So it wasn’t surprising that Xiao Fei brought it to Great Ming.

His goal was simply that he thought Great Ming didn’t have this thing. And coincidentally, although this sweet potato was dark red, its shape was somewhat similar to the ginseng revered by Han people. This guy was a big bluffer. He thought such a rare item, once labeled as a ten-thousand-year-old ginseng, could fool people.

Xiao Fei narrowed his eyes, staring intently at Fang Jifan. He saw Fang Jifan’s expression clearly looked different, and thought Fang Jifan truly believed this was a ten-thousand-year-old ginseng from the Western Regions. So, beaming with joy, he said, “This thing grows on the sacred mountains of the Ottoman. It’s rarely seen even in a hundred years. Taken from cliffs, it grew for ten thousand years. People from our place call it the King of Ginseng…”

“Ah…” Fang Jifan stared unblinkingly at the sweet potato and said, “So your country also has ginseng. Admirable, admirable.”

Xiao Fei smiled. Anyway, the Ming people obviously didn’t understand this thing. To be honest, he didn’t really understand it either. He got it from a Venetian merchant. He found it rare, never seen before, and somewhat resembled the ginseng of Great Ming. Wasn’t this the perfect opportunity to find someone to pass it off to?

Since no one recognized this thing, of course he could bluster freely!

Xiao Fei said, “Naturally. Goryeo has Goryeo ginseng. Why wouldn’t the Western Regions have ginseng? Bai Hu, in our place, only the royal family can enjoy this. Its efficacy is unmatched by ordinary ginseng. It’s even more effective than immortality medicine.”

Fang Jifan felt his heart was about to leap out of his throat.

He didn’t want to deal with this big bluffer. His only thought now was: This thing truly is more powerful than immortality medicine. Immortality medicine might prolong one person’s life, but with this sweet potato, it could save the lives of millions, even tens of millions of people.

Under current conditions, ordinary rice yielded only about two dan per year. On average, that’s around four hundred jin. Wheat yields in the north were a bit lower. According to “Records of Hejian”: “One man farms thirty to fifty mu of land, each mu yielding more than one dan of wheat.” That is to say, one grown man farming one mu of land could get a little over two hundred jin of wheat. Therefore, a family wanting to maintain basic food needs had to farm thirty to fifty mu; otherwise, the several mouths in the family would likely go hungry.

Rice yields in the south were a bit higher, but still limited to only four to five hundred jin. A family probably couldn’t survive without at least ten mu of paddy field.

With such shockingly low yields, and the coming of the Little Ice Age, how could they feed the tens of millions of people in Great Ming? As a result, refugees began to appear. As refugees grew in number, with internal troubles and external threats, this huge empire would eventually collapse.

And now… there was sweet potato.

Fang Jifan thought maybe in his lifetime, he could exhaust all his efforts to organize a fleet to reach America and bring this treasure back. He never expected such luck—this Hu merchant brought it right before him.

You can wear out iron shoes in fruitless searching, yet find it by mere luck without any effort.

The greatness of sweet potato lay in that it was not only nutritious and could serve as a staple food, but most importantly, its yield per mu could reach two to three thousand kilograms. What did that mean? Converted to Great Ming’s measurement units, that would be twenty to thirty dan. Its yield was ten times that of southern rice, and twenty times that of northern wheat.

This was a Divine Artifact! Originally, ten or twenty mu of land were needed to support one family. Now, just one or two mu would suffice. Of course, the current variety was definitely far inferior to later improved breeds. But as long as the yield could increase by three to five times compared to current rice and wheat, it would be enough to shock the world and solve Great Ming’s most critical problem.

Scholars, Farmers, Artisans, Merchants. Scholars had superior status; that was understandable. But Farmers ranked behind Artisans and Merchants; that was also understandable. It definitely wasn’t that the ancients truly looked down on Artisans and Merchants. This came from countless bloody lessons learned through social practice. When people didn’t even have enough to eat, promoting so-called Artisans and Merchants was simply behaving like someone with too much time after a full meal. If a dynasty focused on Artisans and Merchants as its foundation, drawing large populations into these sectors while causing farmland to lie waste and people to starve everywhere, such a dynasty wouldn’t last thirty years.

But now… this Divine Artifact had appeared!

Fang Jifan tried hard to calm his emotions. He needed to appear unfazed. After all, this was just one sweet potato. Whether it could sprout, be cultivated, and eventually take root here was still far from certain.

He took a deep breath. Fang Jifan looked at the Hu merchant and said, “This is a Ten-Thousand-Year-Old Ginseng? I feel like you’re lying to me.”

Xiao Fei’s heart sank. Truthfully, he didn’t really know what this thing was either. He just knew the Venetian merchant planted it in his courtyard, saying it was a rare item from thousands of miles away. Originally intended as tribute to the King of Spain, the king then rewarded some to his subordinates. Some found it rare and cultivated it as an ornamental plant. Xiao Fei didn’t pay much attention at first, but the roots looked somewhat like the ginseng revered by Han people. So before coming to Great Ming, he brought quite a few, carefully sealed them in brocade boxes, covered them with oriental silk, and placed them together with “luminous pearls” and ivory to create an aura of luxury. After such treatment, it really had a bit of the feel of a ten-thousand-year-old ginseng.

This stemmed from the Ottoman merchants’ ingenious bluffing spirit. Classy!

Fang Jifan suppressed his excitement, let out a breath, and asked, “Only this one piece?”

Actually, Xiao Fei had brought hundreds of them. Bluffing—why not bring more? For so-called life-prolonging items, as long as they didn’t kill people, their effects couldn’t be verified on the spot. However, along the journey, most of the sweet potatoes either sprouted halfway and couldn’t be passed off, so were thrown into the sea, or grew mold. Only this one remained.

Even if he had more, he would definitely insist there was only this one. Ten-thousand-year-old ginseng! He wasn’t stupid; why would he bring a whole bucket?

So he nodded firmly and said, “This item is rarely seen even in a hundred years. There’s only this one piece.”

“I’ll take it! You need something done? Easy!” Fang Jifan was very direct. This gift, to Fang Jifan, was more valuable than ten thousand taels of gold or a house full of ten-thousand-year-old ginseng. Just for this, not to mention bending rules for Xiao Fei, Fang Jifan would even be happy to set fire to Zhu Houzhao’s House of the Crown Prince.

“Deng Jian…” Fang Jifan called out.

Hearing Fang Jifan’s voice, Deng Jian hurried in from outside. “I’m here.”

Fang Jifan said, “Take him to find Steward Yang. Have Steward Yang write a letter to my father to get something done. But…” Fang Jifan looked slyly at Xiao Fei. “Whether it can be done or not, that’s hard to say. You know, my father… is a very upright man.”