Suddenly a large amount of raindrops fell from the sky.
Shaoshu stopped his horse, and the soldiers stopped as if they were one person.
“Have all the beans in the field been planted?” Shao Shude got off his horse, grabbed a handful of soil, and carefully examined the fertile soil that was full of moisture.
In Dingnan Prefecture, not every piece of farmland has canals for irrigation. Some need to dig wells, and some need people to carry water. If God rains more, the people will be more relaxed.
After several months of battles this year, the people in the Fanhan and Han people in Lingyan will be too hard. The land of the family is farmed by the elderly wives and children.
“Commander, the seeds were planted in August.” Li Renfu replied.
“Can the eight counties in Lingzhou produce 1.6 million grains and beans this year?” Shao Shude asked again.
No one can answer.
“Definitely not!” Shao Shude threw away the soil and said, “It would be great to have 1.3 million dendrobium.”
If 50,000 soldiers go on a seven-month campaign, even if they eat all food, excluding meat and milk, they will only consume more than 300,000 dendrobium. Because the conscription of Confucius has affected field farming and reduced grain production, this is actually a cost, and may even increase the cost.
It must exceed the consumption of soldiers, horses and draft animals.
Writing a war is not a simple matter. There are too many things to consider.
Shao Shude couldn't imagine how the people of the Guandong states lived. The wars they experienced often took place on the "homeland". One moment the enemy came over, and the next they fought over themselves, and the situation was back and forth. Depending on the war waged by the Nanyang Army, almost
Every time it is carried out on the enemy's territory, the damage to the rear is kept to a minimum.
He recalled the incident when Zhu Quanzhong sent Zhu Zhen to Ziqing Town to recruit troops. According to rumors, Zhu Quanzhong gave many instructions to Zhu Zhen to come back before the wheat harvest to prevent Qin Zongquan's people from robbing them of the food they depended on for survival.
The war is actually about the economy!
"Commander, there is no need to worry so much. The difficult states are very different from Guanzhong, Guandong and Jiangnan. There are many livestock." Li Renfu said: "I still remember that a few years ago, the people were in poverty and few had livestock.
The commander-in-chief conquered Taolu in the north, Yuzhou in the west, and then attacked Dangxiang in Hexi. He obtained countless cattle and sheep, which caused the price of livestock in Xiazhou to plummet. Jie sheep fell from 400 yuan a head to more than 200 yuan. At that time, people started to buy sheep.
Already..."
Shao Shude understood what he meant. There are hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land, but only a population of more than one million. The land is vast and sparsely populated.
Moreover, the precipitation in this era is relatively good, the environmental damage is small, and there are many pastures. These pastures are actually the "pressure relief valve" for the society in various states. Once the harvest in the fields decreases, you can still turn to pastures. Grazing is better than farming.
The manpower required is small, so that the people will not starve to death at critical times.
There is such an advantage to having fewer people and more livestock. Shao Shude remembers that during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Ningxia alone had a shocking population of more than 1.3 million, and its area was similar to that of Lingzhou today. During the Qianlong period, Ningxia had not yet climbed
In the small glacier climate, the precipitation was not as good as it is now, and the environment was even worse. In the event of a disaster, there would be no pressure relief valve available.
The eight counties of Lingzhou under the rule of Marshal Shao now have only over 100,000 people, and there is still plenty of room for relief.
The agricultural model of half pastoralism and half farming still has merits.
“Commander, the elders of Lingzhou have been waiting in front for a long time.” Li Renfu reminded softly.
“Let’s go.”
In the thin autumn rain, a large group of people slowly approached Lingzhou.
The meeting place was near Dongcang City. Shao Shude dismounted his horse in advance and went to Li Shao. After taking a closer look, he said: "Li Pushe is still so energetic."
“The affairs of Lingzhou include cultivating the land, constructing the land, and craftsmen. There are dedicated people responsible for these three things, and I only need to ask and supervise them from time to time. I still know how to be an official,” Li Shao joked.
“Li Pushe’s merits must be remembered in my heart.” Shao Shude said.
Subsequently, he met with the senior officials and gentry of Lingzhou one by one.
He is also annoyed by these red tapes, but in this era, they represent the "people's heart". If you ignore them, you are cruel and unethical, and you are perverse. Anyway, these people have the right to speak.
After being polite, he finally sent them away. Shao Shude walked up to Li Shao, who was chatting with Fu Cunshen, and said with a smile: "Li Pushe must know what I have been thinking about."
Li Shao laughed, took a stack of official documents from his staff, handed it to Shao Shude, and said: "I know the commander-in-chief is concerned about this, because they are all here."
The three-crop rotation system was piloted for the first time in the first year of Guangqi. This year is already the third year. The harvest was just completed last month, and the output has almost been calculated.
"Sixty hectares of land, harvesting ten thousand and nine hundred dendrobium of wheat..." Shao Shude calculated carefully, and one acre of land probably harvested more than one and eight buckets of dendrobium.
Looking at the seeds used again, it was one and a half buckets per acre, and the seed-to-harvest ratio was about 1:12. Yes, this yield is acceptable, and can even be said to be very good!
I still remember that in the first year of Guangqi, the seed harvest ratio was only 1:8.5, which increased the yield by a full 40%. For two consecutive years, we used a large amount of cow manure to fertilize the fields and used alfalfa beans to fix nitrogen. We finally achieved this result. It is gratifying!
“You can try planting densely. If you sow two bushels of seeds per acre, you can harvest two bushels of dendrobium and four bushels of wheat.” Shao Shude slapped his thigh and said with an excited expression, “Maybe it will be less, but it’s no problem to produce more than two bushels of dendrobium per mu.”
Two husks and four dou. If it is wheat, then converted into the weight of future generations, it is 253.44 jins; if it is corn, then it is 236 jins.
This yield is too high!
In the Tang Dynasty, the yield per mu ranged from high to low. In the military villages in northwest Beijing, the yield per mu was basically around 100 kilograms. Considering that the military villages were operated in an extensive manner and the fields were poorly managed, if farming was done intensively, it should be higher. But others
It is also virgin land, and the fertility accumulated over the years cannot be underestimated. Normally, the yield is about a hundred kilograms, or at most 150 kilograms.
Only the Heyuan Army with Heituochangzhi, when the army was stationed, "opened more than 5,000 hectares of farmland and harvested more than one million shi per year", with an output of two shi per mu. Damn it, the land in Shanzhou is so fertile?
As far as the national average is concerned, it is only one stone.
It was similar in the Song Dynasty. Moreover, the climate in the north began to turn colder in the 11th century, and even colder in the 12th century, and the destruction of the mountains, forests and pastures in the north became more severe. What is even more embarrassing is that there are also human factors, playing with the Yellow River and bursting it several times. Therefore, even if
Agricultural technology has developed compared to the Tang Dynasty, but the yield per mu has not increased much!
Volume 8 of "Fan Wenzhenggong Collection" records: If you steal a stone from a middle acre, you can only get a handful of millet.
"History of the Song Dynasty·Shi Huo Zhi": "It's about one stone per mu at middle age."
This one stone is the average yield of a crop of millet and wheat in the north during the Song Dynasty. Of course, there are higher yields of more than one stone. For example, from Weiyuan to Qinzhou Chengji, "The riverside is five to six hundred miles away, and thousands of hectares (fields) are managed.
"Three hundred thousand dendrobium". The yield of this upper field can reach three shi per mu, mainly along the river in Weizhou and Qinzhou. But don't forget, there are also a large number of lower fields with a yield of less than one shi per mu!
Song stone is slightly larger than Tang stone, but not much bigger. The grain output is quite impressive.
The output of the Jin Kingdom has also not improved. In the third year of Emperor Xuanzong's reign in the Jin Dynasty: "Henan's military and civilian fields total more than 1.97 million hectares, and there are more than 960,000 hectares of cultivators. The upper fields can harvest one stone and two buckets, and the middle fields can harvest one stone.
Shimoda Badou... got 9.6 million dan per year."
It is still one stone per acre.
Not to mention the Tang and Song dynasties, even in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the average wheat yield per mu in the north was only more than 100 kilograms. Agricultural technology has improved, but there is no substantial progress. The labor intensity is actually greater than in the Tang Dynasty, but the yield per mu is not fundamental.
Sexual improvement.
Three-crop rotation system can increase the yield per mu to more than 200 kilograms, which is equivalent to turning ordinary fields into farmland. This alone can greatly increase grain production.
With this matter, Marshal Shao can also increase his prestige in the town so that no one dares to rebel. Anyone who rebels will be killed in a group.
“Li Pushe, how many cattle are needed to promote the whole area of Lingzhou?” Shao Shude asked excitedly.
“Commander, one acre of land requires one cow to fertilize the field. If there are no cows, other large livestock can also make do, but I don’t know what the effect will be.”
Fu Cunshen stood aside and looked at Shao Shude intently.
As soon as Prince Lingwu came, he directly asked him about farming matters and forgot about him. However, he did not feel dissatisfied at all, but felt a little emotional.
It is better to focus on agriculture than to indulge in pleasure.
He could see that Prince Lingwu really wanted to increase the yield per acre. Although there was an element of competing for world supremacy, wouldn't the people's lives also be improved? Why should they be divided so clearly?
The deeds of King Lingwu have far surpassed those of other generals in the world. To put it bluntly, only such a person deserves to be worthy of the world.
“One acre requires one cow, and ten thousand hectares requires one million cows!” Shao Shude was stunned for a moment. Where could he find so many cows?
There must be a lot of cattle at home, but it is far from the figure of one million, not to mention that after the cattle are fully rolled out, the demand is likely to be more than one million.
He knew that the ratio of cattle to sheep on the grasslands today is about 1:4 to 1:5. One million cattle means at least four to five million sheep. How much space is needed to support such a large number of livestock?
Anyway, he knew that in the current area under the jurisdiction of the Dijinze Inspection Envoy, the tribes headed by the Weicai clan had approximately more than 100,000 people and more than one million livestock. Ordinary herdsmen only had dozens of livestock, large and small, at home, but this kind of
There are not many people. Most of them are poor people who graze for the tribal chiefs and have a low status. Strictly speaking, one person in each tribe can only get a little more than ten livestock.
Bought all the cattle in the Dijinze area, which is more than 200,000 head.
Pingxia Dangxiang has about a hundred thousand people, and definitely no more than two hundred thousand. At this level, it is equivalent to more than two million livestock, with a maximum of three hundred thousand cattle.
The Dangxiang herdsmen in Hexi under their control only have at most 100,000 cattle on hand.
The Yinshan Tibetan tribe only has 300,000 cattle at most.
Hengshan Dangxiang only has 200,000 cattle in total, maybe only more than 100,000. After all, they don’t all herd cattle, they also farm.
In other words, if all the tribes under your control sacrificed all their cattle and left none alive, you would probably only be able to make up one million cattle.
But it is impossible for them to hand it over for nothing! In fact, this cost should not be borne by the shogunate, and can only be completed through commercial exchanges.
A prairie beef cow can now be sold for three to four cents, which is probably worth seven or eight bushels of grain. But except for the families of sergeants, few people can spend so much money or grain at one time.
It would be great if there was a beef cattle bank that could give them a loan, which would be repaid with grain after the harvest. But the bank needs principal, which will be at least one million cows. Where will it come from?
Do you want to go back to your old business... robbing?
Or, win over the chiefs of various tribes and make them shareholders of the bank? Share the benefits of the increase in agricultural production of the Han people by lending cattle?
Marshal Shao asked someone to move a chair and sat down quietly to think.
Li Renfu held a big umbrella on it and remained motionless.
Fu Cunshen, Li Shao and others looked at the contemplative Prince Lingwu in silence.
In the camp not far away, people from the Central Plains were standing on tiptoes to see what their new commander looked like.
In the slanting wind and drizzle, it seemed as if someone was deciding their fate.