Although he had decided on implementing reforms, Shen Changchuan wasn't in a rush to begin immediately.
As a top-tier corporate drone in his past life, he was all too aware of the consequences of an amateur leading experts.
Some things might start with good intentions,
but during implementation, they could gradually deviate from their original purpose and end up making things worse.
He had only been transmigrated for two and a half years, and his primary understanding of this world still came from the body's original owner.
And the original owner had no experience related to cultivating Spirit Fields.
If he simply acted on his own ideas,
he would surely be out of touch with reality.
If he messed things up, the twelve plots of Spirit Fields might yield no harvest at all.
When that happened, where would he find a hundred Spirit Stones to pay the Shen Family's tribute?
Shen Changchuan had a relatively prudent personality,
so he would not act recklessly.
He decided to get a clear picture of the situation.
And so,
after several days of personally touring Dawan Village, and with the help of his maternal grandfather Han Qinhu and others, he gathered a vast amount of information about the village.
Afterwards,
Shen Changchuan combined this with his experiences from his previous life in a high-efficiency society. After much deliberation, considering every angle, he finally devised a multi-step plan for reform.
First,
the initial step of the reform was to gain control over and reorganize the people of Dawan Village.
Shen Shiyin's grasp on Dawan Village had been far too crude; he hadn't even known the total population. If this wasn't sorted out, any further changes would be impossible.
Thus, with the help of Han Qinhu and the servants he had brought with him, Shen Changchuan spent a full day compiling a census of the entire Dawan Village.
The count came to a total of two thousand three hundred men, women, and children.
Next, he divided these two thousand three hundred people into twelve teams, grouped by family and with a mix of ages.
Each team consisted of nearly two hundred people.
Each team publicly elected a captain from amongst themselves, while a member of the Han Family—brought by his grandfather, Han Qinhu—was appointed as a supervising vice-captain.
After this,
Shen Changchuan planned to divide the twelve plots of Spirit Fields into twelve equal sections. Each team would be responsible for one section.
This would allow for more detailed management.
Under Dawan Village's old system, whenever the Spirit Fields needed tending, all two thousand-plus villagers would swarm the fields at once.
Needless to say, this meant a large number of slackers were mixed in, showing up for work but not actually doing any, just trying to get by.
'Even after dividing them, a team of two hundred is still bloated, but at least it's far more efficient than two thousand people working together.'
'At the very least, each team's duties are now crystal clear. The members can keep an eye on each other, which will undoubtedly reduce slacking and increase productivity.'
This was Shen Changchuan's plan for reorganizing the people of Dawan Village.
However,
he also clearly understood something else.
'But even though this will boost productivity and drastically cut down on wasted labor, it ultimately won't have a major impact on the Spirit Grain yield!'
Increased productivity only leads to a higher yield if you have more Spirit Fields to cultivate.
Only with enough land to farm can that increased productivity translate into a real increase in the Spirit Grain output.
But the problem was, Dawan Village only had its twelve plots of Spirit Fields!
Even with higher productivity, at most they would just finish their work a few days earlier than before.
The total amount of Spirit Grain harvested from those twelve plots would remain the same.
It doesn't change whether you work quickly or slowly.
'The amount of Spirit Fields is limited, and creating new ones suitable for growing Spirit Grain would take at least three to five years of hard labor.'
'So, to increase the overall harvest, the only way is to improve the current cultivation techniques and boost the yield per plot!'
And this,
was precisely the second, and most crucial, step of Shen Changchuan's reforms.
The first step—dividing the villagers into twelve teams—was merely a preparation for this second step.
'I may have never grown Spirit Rice myself, but I know the basic ways to quickly increase crop yield are deep plowing, seed selection, transplanting seedlings, and fertilization.'
'Cultivating Spirit Rice should be more or less the same.'
This was Shen Changchuan's idea for how to increase the per-plot yield of Spirit Grain.
As the saying goes, you don't need to have seen a pig run to know what pork tastes like.
The biology and history classes he took in high school in his previous life had covered the relevant points.
The principles should be universal.
The knowledge he remembered from his past life ought to be useful to some extent.
Of course,
it came back to the same principle:
leave specialized work to the specialists. An amateur must never lead the experts.
So, despite having ideas on how to increase the per-plot yield,
Shen Changchuan wouldn't just make a snap decision and order everyone to follow his methods.
After all, who knew if his ideas would be incompatible with local conditions?
What if cultivating Spirit Grain was completely different from growing rice in his past life?
Without real-world trials,
no one could beat their chest and guarantee success.
So, he continued his research.
Using the census he had conducted, he identified many villagers with experience in cultivating Spirit Grain.
He went to each of them for their advice.
He carefully noted down their answers, comparing them with his own ideas and making adjustments.
This process took several more days,
after which he had compiled two distinct proposals for cultivating Spirit Grain.
One proposal was primarily based on the scientific knowledge from his previous life, incorporating local experience with Spirit Grain.
The other was mainly based on local cultivation experience, supplemented with suitable methods from his past life.
'All that effort, and it's finally done.'
'Now, let's hope these plans work!'
Next,
Shen Changchuan took his two summaries of cultivation techniques and gave them to Team Eleven and Team Twelve.
Shen Changchuan planned to use Team Eleven and Team Twelve as test subjects.
He would test how his two summarized cultivation methods affected the per-plot yield of Spirit Grain.
As for the other ten teams,
Shen Changchuan didn't intend to change anything for them.
They were to continue farming using the old methods, sticking to established practices and past experience.
Clearly,
even after conducting his own investigation, Shen Changchuan still opted for a conservative approach.
His reasoning was simple.
He wanted to avoid the worst-case scenario: a problem with the new methods leading to a total loss.
Shen Changchuan was well aware that the production-enhancing methods he'd compiled were not guaranteed to be correct.
If he made rash changes that caused a major problem with the Spirit Grain harvest, he wouldn't be able to meet the fixed quota and would find himself in serious trouble.
'Reforms can't be rushed. Stability must come first!'
When it came to matters of life, fortune, and family, Shen Changchuan was as cautious as could be.
With the harvest from ten plots of Spirit Fields as a safety net,
the worst possible outcome was that the two experimental plots would yield nothing. Even then, he could still meet the Shen Family's quota.
It wouldn't cause a major disaster.
Of course,
since he had this safety net and was only using Team Eleven and Team Twelve as experimental groups,
Shen Changchuan didn't mind letting them be a bit more radical.
For instance,
to ensure Team Eleven and Team Twelve followed his new cultivation guidelines as closely as possible, and to stimulate their initiative and motivation,
Shen Changchuan promised both teams that they would bear no responsibility if the new techniques failed.
On the other hand,
if the yield from either of their two plots exceeded one hundred pounds of Spirit Grain, the surplus would be split. They would receive thirty percent of the excess as a reward.
Spirit Grain was a food that contained faint Spiritual Qi. Frequent consumption gave Innate Martial Artists a chance at achieving Qi Introduction, allowing them to step into the Qi Introduction Realm and begin the path of Immortal Cultivation.
For a Mortal Martial Artist, the value of Spirit Grain was self-evident!
But in the six years that Shen Shiyin had been in charge of Dawan Village,
not a single Martial Artist in all of Dawan Village had ever received so much as a single grain of the Spirit Grain!
A thirty-percent share of the harvest above one hundred pounds might seem exploitative.
But compared to Shen Shiyin, by giving them a chance to obtain Spirit Grain at all,
he, Shen Changchuan, was already being an exceptionally benevolent master.