"Your Majesty, all the summer grain in each military camp has been dried and returned to the warehouse, and has been collected, totaling more than 8.26 million stones."
"Okay, on average, the yield per mu is close to one stone. It seems that the military households are usually not lazy and are still doing their best to take care of the farmers."
Zhu Cixiang was overjoyed when he took the booklet and couldn't help but praise it.
Eight million shi of grain is enough to feed more than one million military households, hundreds of thousands of troops, and everyone in the capital for a year. In other words, it has become self-sufficient and does not need to transport grain from the south of the Yangtze River.
And the wheat stalks and ears can be used as fodder for cattle and horses, so it will be a good harvest year.
"The main reason is that His Majesty's sage proposed planting wheat in winter to avoid the drought and scorching heat in summer, so that we can have a bumper harvest. If it is promoted throughout the north, people will no longer have to go hungry in the future."
Liu Xinlan was very excited at the end. It was already the end of May, and it had not rained near the capital for nearly a month. If spring wheat was planted, the consequences would be really disastrous.
"There is no need to deliberately promote it. Just announce the output of this year's winter wheat, and various places will naturally follow suit, especially southern Beizhili and Henan."
Zhu Cixi smiled and waved his hands.
"Yes, Your Majesty, although spring wheat has been planted in various parts of Henan this year, there is still a lot of wasteland. According to the news from shopkeepers in various places, the local gentry is preparing to plant winter wheat this winter. Many gentry have sent people to the south to buy cattle.
Grain, we went to recruit tenants."
Liu Xinlan also smiled and explained.
"Let them do it themselves. The imperial court will not interfere, and shopkeepers from various places should not interfere. They can plant whatever they want."
As for the North, Zhu Cixiang will not make any changes for the time being, at least not until the tax holiday is over. It will not be too late to reform once the vitality is restored.
After all, firstly, he doesn't have that many manpower to organize, and secondly, he doesn't have that much food to feed everyone in the north.
If we reform the gentry and landlords now, they will definitely no longer care about the lives of the people. Last year, they only provided disaster relief in Henan and southern Beizhili for three months, and consumed millions of grains of grain.
"By the way, have the guard system of each army been completed?"
"Back to Your Majesty, except for the rear army in Yongping Prefecture, which has not yet reported, the remaining three armies have been restructured. According to His Majesty's instructions, each household has been divided into two shi of grain per head, including the retired general banner and small banner, a total of three million
Of the more than five million stone grains left, half is being transported to Tongzhou Dacang, and the other half is being stored in various army warehouses."
After Liu Xinlan finished speaking, she said with some worry: "Your Majesty, after many military households distributed the new grain, they sold it to the gentry, landlords and grain merchants who came to collect the grain. The slaves are about to ask for instructions whether to stop it?"
She really didn't understand why they had to sell the food when it was clearly distributed to military households.
"What is the purchase price offered by those grain merchants and gentry?" Zhu Cixiang also frowned.
"It's all one, two, five, and one stone." Liu Xinlan replied.
"There is no need to stop it. Let the royal branches in various places also put up signs for purchasing grain. Just two taels of silver per stone."
Zhu Cixi thought about it and finally sighed and said.
Two dan per person, a little saving, was enough to last for a year, but those military households were obviously reluctant to eat every meal, and wanted to sell most of the refined grains, and then buy rice bran and wheat bran to eat.
This way you can save some money to buy other daily necessities.
Zhu Cixi was helpless about this. The people had their own plans and knew how to live their lives. He couldn't force them to eat food, could he?
What's more, the government definitely can't control this kind of thing. The only thing they can do is to prevent them from being exploited by grain merchants.
"It's Your Majesty. I'll give you your orders as soon as you get down."
"Alas! It seems that we still have a long way to go before everyone can eat white flour steamed buns!"
Zhu Cixi stood up and sighed.
However, he believes that if there is another bumper harvest next year, the situation will be much better. Since there are many people but few people, each person can be allocated ten acres of land.
If the yield per mu can reach one shi next year, each family of three will be able to harvest 30 shi of grain. Even if half of it is handed over to the court, there will still be 15 shi.
The three of them eat white flour every day. In a year, they will consume at most eight shi. They can still have seven shi of food left, which can be sold for 14 taels for two taels of silver and one stone. If the income from weaving is added, it will really turn around in no time.
.
Of course, with peace and prosperity everywhere, the price of food will definitely drop significantly, but as long as there is no oppression and exploitation by officials and excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes, the people can still live a good life, at least they will not have to worry about food and clothing.
However, the fact is that in all dynasties, except for the founding period of the People's Republic of China, the people of the world have never had enough to eat, let alone a daily meal.
"I believe that as long as your Majesty is here, the people of the world will have better days. Those military households are all thinking of your Majesty. When they heard that they were allocated food and fields, they knelt on the ground and cried loudly.
I kowtowed to His Majesty in the direction of Beijing, and many of them had their heads smashed and couldn't even pull them up."
Zhu Cixiang was silent for a while after hearing this, and then asked: "Are all the hundreds of female workers in the weaving workshop skilled?"
"Your Majesty, I'm already proficient. Everyone has knitted a piece of cloth. I've seen it and it's pretty good."
"Okay, more than 20,000 looms have been built. It's time to give the people a surprise. It happens to be the slack season."
Immediately, Zhu Cihong made corresponding arrangements.
In the next few days, the military households in various guard posts near the capital were all excited.
According to the division of each army, four capital divisions were also established this time. Yongping Prefecture was divided into Ji Zhen capital division, and the 30 military camps under its jurisdiction were transformed into fifteen guards, with each guard having about 20,000 people.
Similarly, the two production brigades were merged into one thousand-household house, with about 2,000 people, and the two production teams were merged into one hundred-household fort, but they did not move, they just lived next to each other.
Compared with the three capitals of Datong, Xuanfu and Shuozhou, each of which has between 7.8 million and 1 million people, the four capitals of Beijing only have a pitiful 300,000 people.
There was no way, most of the old and children died of starvation, disease, or were even eaten, leaving only young men and women.
The capital's northeastern capital was called Shunyi Capital, and its seat was in Shunyi County. The east capital was Yutian City, and its seat was in Yutian County.
The southern administrative office was located in Gu'an and was called the Gu'an Dusi. The prefectures and counties under the two governments were not abolished, but they could only control the people in the city. Almost all the people in the four fields became military households.
Most of the official offices of various guards are also established in cities and larger towns.
At this moment, in a hundred-household fort under the jurisdiction of Shunyi City, nearly two hundred military households from two production teams were all gathered on the grain drying field at the entrance of the village.
Looking at the racks of looms on display, they were all pointing and talking curiously. It was obvious that most of the women no longer recognized the looms.
The two hundred people were almost all young men and women and a very few girls. There were no children under ten years old, and there were no elderly people over forty years old. Young men who had not married had also joined the army.
But almost half of the women are pregnant.
If it weren't for the small banner commanders who were just assigned here, I'm afraid the entire Baihu Fort wouldn't even be able to gather 200 people.
"Brother, Mr. Baihu seems to be talking about selling these looms to us, and he also said that he would let us weave cloth in the future."
A girl looked at her brother and said.
The elder brother's name was Da Gou. He was in his twenties. There were originally a family of nine. When they followed Wu Sangui from Jinzhou to Shanhaiguan, his father and youngest son died on the road.
Later, the family was driven from Yongping Prefecture to the capital by the Tatars. The 15-year-old sister was robbed by the Tatars, and the mother starved to death.
When he arrived in the capital, his five-year-old daughter died of illness again.
As a result, of the nine members of the family, only his wife, ten-year-old sister, and a sixteen-year-old brother who went to join the army were left, a total loss of five members of the family.
Fortunately, the land is now divided, the wife is pregnant, and the younger brother has joined the army. The family of three is full of hope for the future.
However, having four people like them left is pretty good. Most of the others are just two couples, or two brothers and three people.
"Little sister, you heard it wrong. It's not sold to us, it seems to be given to us. Let us weave the cloth and send it to the imperial shop in the Acropolis. A piece of cloth costs five silver coins."
The pregnant sister-in-law looked at the loom with anticipation.
"No, sister-in-law, you heard it wrong. It's four coins. By the way, sister-in-law, can you weave?"
The girl looked at her sister-in-law and asked.
The sister-in-law shook her head in embarrassment.
The big dog ignored the two of them, but straightened its ears and listened to the words of the adults above.
Unfortunately, after listening for a long time, I still didn’t fully understand what it meant.
Baihu obviously also noticed that he had been talking for a long time, and the people below seemed not to understand, so he asked: "Do you understand everything?"
Everyone shook their heads in unison, obviously not understanding his Henan dialect.
"Mr. Li, it's better for you to come." Baihu had no choice but to hold a knife and awkwardly said to a scholar on the side.
Naturally, this scholar was trying out hundreds of households. He wanted to ridicule him for not overestimating his abilities, but thinking that he would have to work together for a long time in the future, he had to suppress the contempt in his heart, nodded, and took a step forward.
"The Emperor's kindness is so great. Your Majesty, thinking of the hardships of your life, has specially ordered a batch of looms to be built and sent to you, so that the women in your family can make a living by weaving in their spare time..."
"Mr. Li, how can we spin and weave without cotton or a spinning machine?"
"And is this loom given to me or sold to me?"
"How much does one cost? I can't weave, either?"
It was obvious that everyone understood the scholar's official dialect, and everyone was excited and asked a lot of questions.
"Quiet, wait for me to finish what I have to say. Then you will understand."
Li Xiucai frowned and raised his voice. After the silence below, he continued: "The court will provide the yarn for weaving. Each person can go to the royal shop to get a piece of yarn and take it home to weave it."
After making the cloth, take the woven cloth to the royal shop. If it passes the inspection, you can get five coins of silver as wages.
Of course, the cost of the loom of one dean of silver is also deducted for each piece of cloth. Each loom sells for two taels, which means that after deducting twenty pieces of cloth, the loom will be owned by you and so on.
You can also get five denarii for a piece of cloth."
"As for those who don't know how to weave, don't worry. This is Miss Wang, who has been specially sent by His Majesty to teach you how to weave. You must not be rude to Miss Wang in the future. Violators will be severely punished."
When Li Xiucai finished speaking, he pointed at a little girl standing next to him. This little girl was only thirteen or fourteen years old. She was very nervous and shy when everyone looked at her.