Chapter 132 The Privileged Class
In Yunzhongwu, the soldiers brought several large boxes of bamboo slips and wooden slips, and Shao Xun looked at them all afternoon.
Last year, Yunzhong, Kinmen, and Tanshan villages received a total of 65,000 dendrobiums of grain, which sounds like a lot, but due to the large amount of manpower occupied by Jianwu Fort, too little original farmland, and too few ditches, etc. Various factors are far from sufficient.
The 1,500 pieces of Hanoi silk and the 500 pieces of money obtained from Concubine Pei have long been spent. The 500 pieces of Shu brocade that Pei Kang later gave have also been used up. It is said that money is like running water.
But in troubled times, money is the least valuable thing, and Shao Xun is very tolerant.
The existence of Wubao allows for a relatively stable logistics base.
The existence of the logistics base allows him to feed these six hundred Silver Spear soldiers and support their continuous training to continuously improve their level and combat effectiveness.
In the final analysis, people are the most important wealth.
Shao Xun feels very accomplished now.
His private soldiers slowly changed from "zero-level soldiers" to "first-level soldiers", and then to "second-level soldiers"...
Finally, they go into battle to fight, and those who survive will become "elite soldiers".
This is his greatest wealth, and it is his biggest guarantee that he will not fall into the dilemma of killing a donkey - the people of the Sima family like to do these things the most, how can they be unprepared?
"There are more than 1,300 households of refugees in Bingzhou, with a population of more than 6,300, with an average of less than five people per household. They have opened up 161 hectares of farmland and manage 174 livestock. This family's financial situation is much better than that of Shaoyuan." Shao Xun. Rolling up a bundle of bamboo slips and putting them in the box at his feet, he looked at a white cherry tree outside the window and thought silently.
Because it is necessary to organize manpower to build the Wubao, as well as dig ditches and level the fields, Yunzhongwu did not organize autumn sowing this year, but will wait until spring next year before spring sowing.
The sown area should be able to increase to a certain extent, hopefully to 200 hectares or more.
Newly opened farmland, even if it is not pure wilderness but fertile farmland that has been abandoned, will not have a high yield in the first year.
Shao Xun asked Mao Er from Tanshan Wu to count the farmland harvests of the three docks. Mao Er's arithmetic was good, and the final calculated seed-to-harvest ratio was only 1:4. In other words, if you sow 15 kilograms of seeds, you can only harvest 60 kilograms of grain in the end, which is very painful.
In the first year of planting grain, the harvest was just like Tu Yile.
"Why am I so poor?" Shao Xun sighed, got up and left the courtyard, and began to patrol the Wubao.
The empty courtyard is filled with large and small bamboo plaques, mostly filled with wild products that are dried to dry.
Shao Xun picked up a dried mushroom and looked at it, not sure if it was poisonous.
An old man next to him was turning over dried mushrooms. When he saw Shao Xun, he immediately stopped and respectfully stepped aside.
"There is no need to be afraid of the stick man, I don't eat people." Shao Xun put down the mushroom and said with a smile.
Unexpectedly, the old man was even more frightened. He murmured at the corner of his mouth and wanted to say something, but he didn't dare.
"You picked these mushrooms?" Shao Xun asked.
"Yes." The old man replied.
"Sell it for money or eat it at home?"
"Eat it."
Shao Xun frowned, his verbal communication skills were a bit weak, so he tried his best to think of what he wanted. If you ask, just ask the other person to answer yes or no.
“Do you want to eat it during the lean season?”
"Yes."
"What else can we eat besides mushrooms?"
"Wild vegetables, wild fruits, elm leaves, and mulberries."
Shao Xun nodded.
In the 21st century, if a person eats more than a pound of grain a day, he may not be able to eat it.
But looking forward a few decades, this is not the case. It is not unusual for an adult man who does heavy physical work to eat three kilograms of grain a day, because there is no oil or water in his belly.
He still remembered that there was a man in the village who boarded the ship at the dock to pick goods. After returning home, he was eating noodles with a washbasin. He even ate all the soup and noodles. He didn’t know how his stomach could hold it. It's worth it.
Shao Xun once had a conversation with him.
He said that he went out to eat three large bowls of porridge in the morning. After picking up a few loads of goods, he felt a little hungry after peeing.
People who cannot eat meat and dairy products and only consume carbohydrates, if they happen to do heavy physical work, are so terrible.
Wild vegetables, wild fruits, leaves, mulberries, vegetables and everything they can get are ways for them to supplement their nutrition.
"How will the harvest be this year?" Shao Xun asked again.
"No." The old man shook his head.
“Do you have two husks of dendrobium?”
The old man nodded.
"How many acres of land will your family be allocated?"
"Eleven acres."
"If you plant well next year, you will have more land." Shao Xuncong He took out a handful of copper coins from his arms, stuffed them into the old man's hand, and then left. Yunzhongwu is not yet self-sufficient, and this year it is completely on a rationing system. The common people in the whole dock, just for daily work and life, 6,300 people eat 70,000 to 80,000 dendrobium grains every year. Considering that they also need to build dock forts, dig ditches, and level the fields, the consumption is even greater. Yunzhongwu will suffer losses this year. Really awesome.
Next year his requirements are not high, and he does not expect to turn losses into profits - in fact it is impossible - as long as the loss range is greatly reduced.
In the third year, it reaches breakeven, or a slight surplus.
In the fourth year, there was a considerable surplus.
This is the best situation when he opens the agricultural cheat. In ancient times, collective land reclamation was basically pure investment in the first three years. This is the cruel reality.
When it comes to agricultural golden fingers, Shao Xun quickly arrived somewhere at the foot of the mountain.
There are "earth mountains" here, more precisely, dung mountains. The ingredients are a mixture of human and animal excrement and soil. The smell is very touching.
The most "ripe" batch of dung has been piled up for more than half a year. Someone will have already picked it up and spread it on the farmland.
The "newest" dung mountain is still growing slowly.
On the bank of the canal valley, Ding Zhuang, who was desilting during the dry season in winter, pulled over cartloads of silt, mixed it with fresh manure, and then piled it up.
No one knows why they do this, they just follow orders.
Jin San is very resolute in executing orders and is very strict in management. Although the others were away and had gone to transport the armor, all the orders were still carried out to the letter.
Governing the people by military law may not be very scientific or humane, but in troubled times, what else do you want?
The refugees in Bingzhou have no objections to this.
If you have never experienced the despair of hunger, you will not cherish a stable life.
They are no longer refugees, but serious residents of forts and docks. They work, farm, and eat. Although it is hard, they can survive and the whole family can be reunited. This is more valuable than anything else. good.
Shao Xun took one last look at the livestock.
The overall number has increased and will be more next year.
The gentle slopes of the hills near Yunzhongwu are not suitable for farming, but they are very suitable for grazing. The number of cattle, sheep and horses will increase year by year, and a large amount of fresh milk will be produced every year.
Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, a large amount of dairy products have been included in the diets of upper-level officials and ministers. Affected by this trend, ordinary people also eat more dairy products.
For example, milk porridge.
This is a kind of porridge mixed with millet, milk and wild vegetables. It is popular all over the country and is a very common food.
Even in the Tang Dynasty, people still often consumed dairy products and invented many varieties, such as cheese, physalis, etc.
Bai Juyi likes to cook milk porridge for himself.
But I don’t know why the later I go, the less dairy products I eat.
The biggest reason may be the contradiction between man and land. The population is growing too fast, and the per capita resource possession is less.
For example, the gentle slopes of hills and even the flat land between mountains that Shao Xun saw, people at that time had no interest in farming at all, because there were more and better farmland in other places.
You don’t cultivate the fertile land, but go to transform the barren hills?
These gentle slopes of hills, small basins in the mountains, and even forest glades are most suitable as pastures. They do not need to be converted into farmland, and you do not have so many people to cultivate them.
The milk produced by livestock is mainly made into various types of cheese and milk residue.
Ordinary fort households do not have a share, it belongs to the Silver Spear Soldiers and is issued every month.
The Silver Spear soldiers regularly go to the mountains to train and hunt by the way. The prey is also theirs and has nothing to do with the castle.
It can be said that Silver Spear officers and soldiers are a privileged class.
The best treatment, the most sophisticated weapons and equipment, the most rigorous training, helping out in the fields during the busy farming season, and tending some fruit and vegetable gardens myself, other than that, there is nothing else, except training.
The "competitiveness" of soldiers is so strong that it is not surprising that they are marrying wives one after another.
This is a brand new class: professional warriors and military merit groups.
It was cared for and cultivated by Shao Xun little by little. It is just a seedling now, but it may grow into a towering tree in the future.
Troubled times are the best soil for them, and the birth of new things will inevitably burst out with strong vitality.
Some victories are military victories.
Some victories are political victories.
Some victories are victories of the system.
The three are actually inseparable and complementary to each other.
Only magic can counter magic.
(End of this chapter)