Chapter 132: Privileged Class

Chapter 132: Privileged Class
In Yunzhongwu, the soldiers brought in several large boxes of bamboo slips and wooden tablets, and Shao Xun spent the entire afternoon looking at them.

Last year, the three camps of Yunzhong, Kinmen and Tanshan obtained a total of 65,000 hu of grain, which sounds like a lot, but it was far from enough due to various factors such as a large amount of manpower occupied by building docks, too few original farmlands and too few ditches.

The 1,500 rolls of Hanoi silk and 500 strings of money obtained from Concubine Pei had long been spent, and the 500 rolls of Shu brocade that Pei Kang later gave him had also been mostly used. It could be said that money was spent like water.

But in troubled times, money is the least valuable, so Shao Xun is very open-minded.

The existence of a dock can provide a relatively stable logistics base.

The existence of the logistics base allows him to feed these 600 Silver Spear Army soldiers and support their continued training, constantly improving their level and combat effectiveness.

At the end of the day, people are the most important asset.

Shao Xun feels very accomplished now.

His private soldiers gradually changed from "level zero" to "level one" and then to "level two"...

Finally, they will go into battle and those who survive will become "elite soldiers".

This is his greatest wealth, and his biggest reliance on not falling into the dilemma of being abandoned after his work has been done - people in the Sima family love to do these things the most, so how could he not be on guard?

"There are more than 1300 refugee households in Bingzhou, with more than 6300 people, with an average of less than five people per household. They have opened up 161 hectares of farmland and managed 174 livestock of all sizes. This family fortune is only slightly better than Shao Yuan's." Shao Xun rolled up a bundle of bamboo slips and put them in a box at his feet. He looked at a white cherry tree outside the window and thought silently.

Because they had to organize people to build the fort, and send people to dig ditches and level the fields, Yunzhongwu did not organize autumn sowing this year, but would wait until the beginning of next spring to carry out spring sowing.

The sown area should be able to increase to a certain extent, hopefully to 200 hectares or even more.

Newly opened farmland, even if it was not originally pure wilderness but fertile land abandoned by people, will not have much yield in the first year.

Shao Xun asked Mao Er of Tanshanwu to count the harvest of farmland in the three forts. Mao Er was good at math, and the seed-to-harvest ratio he calculated was about 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 crops, the harvest was just for fun.

"Why am I so poor?" Shao Xun sighed, stood up and left the courtyard, and began to patrol the fortress.

The empty yard was filled with bamboo plaques of various sizes, most of which contained wild produce hanging out to dry.

Shao Xun picked up a dried mushroom and looked at it, not sure whether it was poisonous.

An old man nearby was turning over the mushrooms that were drying in the sun. When he saw Shao Xun, he immediately stopped and respectfully stepped aside.

"Don't be afraid, Mr. Zhang. I don't eat people." Shao Xun put down the mushroom and said with a smile.

Unexpectedly, the old man became even more frightened. He stammered and wanted to say something, but didn't dare to.

"Did you pick all these mushrooms?" Shao Xun asked.

"Yes." replied the old man.

"Sell it for money or eat it at home?"

"eat."

Shao Xun frowned. His verbal communication skills were a little weak, so he tried his best to think of what he wanted to ask and let the other party answer yes or no.

"Eat it during lean times?"

"Yes."

"What else do you 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 food a day, he may not be able to finish it.

But this was not the case a few decades ago. It was not uncommon for an adult man doing heavy physical work to eat three kilograms of food a day because he had no oil in his stomach.

He still remembered that there was a man in the village who picked up goods from a ship at the dock. After returning home, he ate noodles with a basin. He ate all the noodles and soup together. He didn't know how his stomach could hold all that.

Shao Xun once talked to him.

He said that he ate three big bowls of porridge in the morning, carried a few loads of goods, and then felt a little hungry after peeing.

This is terrible for people who don't eat meat or dairy products and only consume carbohydrates, and if they happen to do heavy physical work.

Wild vegetables, wild fruits, leaves, mulberries, vegetables and all the food they can get are their ways to supplement nutrition.

"How's the harvest this year?" Shao Xun asked again.

"No." The old man shook his head.

"Do you have two hu?"

The old man nodded.

"How many acres of land did your family get?"

"Eleven acres."

"If you plant well next year, there will be more." Shao Xun took out a handful of copper coins from his pocket, stuffed them into the old man's hand, and left. Yunzhongwu is not yet self-sufficient, and this year it is completely rationed. The people of the whole dock, just for daily work and life, 6300 people will eat to hu of grain every year. Considering that they also have to build docks, dig ditches, and level fields, the consumption is even greater. Yunzhongwu's losses this year are really severe.

His requirements for next year are not high. He does not expect to turn losses into profits - in fact, it is impossible - but just wants to significantly reduce the loss margin.

In the third year, the company will break even or have a slight surplus.

In the fourth year, there was a considerable surplus.

This is the best case scenario when he has opened the golden finger of agriculture. In ancient times, collective land reclamation was basically pure investment in the first three years. This is the cruel reality.

Speaking of the agricultural golden finger, Shao Xun soon arrived somewhere at the foot of the mountain.

There are many "earth mountains" here, or more accurately, feces mountains. They are a mixture of human and animal feces and soil, and the smell is very touching.

The most mature batch of manure has been piled up for half a year. Now someone has picked it up and spread it on the farmland.

The "newest" dung mountain is still growing slowly.

Along the banks of the Qugu River, young men who were clearing the silt during the winter dry season pulled in cartloads of silt, mixed it with fresh manure, and then piled it up.

No one knew why they did this, they just followed orders.

Jin San was very resolute in executing orders and was very strict in his management. Although he was away, transporting armor, all orders were still carried out to the letter.

Governing the people with military law may not be very scientific or humane, but in troubled times, what else do you want?

The refugees in Bingzhou had no objection to this.

If you have never experienced the despair of hunger, you will not cherish a stable life.

They are no longer refugees, but real residents of the fortress and the village. They work, farm and eat. Although it is hard, they can survive and the whole family can be reunited, which is better than anything else.

Shao Xun took one last look at the livestock.

The overall number has increased and there will be more next year.

The gentle slopes of the hills near Yunzhongwu are not suitable for farming, but 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, the diets of high-ranking officials and nobles have included a large number of dairy products, and ordinary people, influenced by this trend, have also consumed them.

For example, milk porridge.

This is a kind of porridge made from a mixture of 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 consumed dairy products frequently and invented many varieties, such as cheese, nightshade, etc.

Bai Juyi liked to cook milk porridge for himself.

But for some reason, as time goes by, people consume less and less dairy products.

The biggest reason may be the contradiction between population and land. The population is growing too rapidly, and the per capita resource possession is decreasing.

For example, the gentle slopes of the hills and even the flat lands between the mountains that Shao Xun saw, people at that time had no interest in farming them because there were more and better farmlands elsewhere.

Why don't you cultivate the fertile land, but transform the barren hills?

These gentle slopes of hills, small basins in the mountains and even open spaces in the forests are most suitable as pastures. There is no need to convert them into farmland, and you don't have enough manpower to cultivate them.

The milk produced by livestock is mainly made into various types of cheese and curd.

Ordinary residents of the fort don’t get any share, it’s for the Silver Spear Army soldiers, and it’s distributed every month.

The soldiers of the Silver Spear Army go to the mountains for training regularly and go hunting at the same time. The prey is theirs and has nothing to do with the residents of the fort.

It can be said that the officers and soldiers of the Silver Spear Army 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 to the fruit and vegetable gardens, and other than that, there's nothing else to do but training.

The soldiers are so competitive that it is no surprise that they all get married.

This is a completely new class: professional warriors and military merit group.

It was nurtured and cultivated bit by bit by Shao Xun. It is just a seedling now, but it may grow into a towering tree in the future.

Troubled times are their best soil, and the birth of new things will inevitably burst out with powerful vitality.

Some victories are military victories.

Some victories are political victories.

Some victories are victories of the system.

In fact, the three are inseparable and complement each other.

It is the magic law that makes the magic happen.

(End of this chapter)