Chapter 1032 Tuduan and Shang

Chapter 1032 Tuduan and Shang

Chapter 1032 Tuduan and Shang (Part )

"You guys take care of the grain planting, don't disturb me." On the bank of Fei River east of Shouchun City, Sun Zuo waved to his followers and continued to listen to an old woman in front of him.

"There are too many wild silkworms, everywhere in the mountains, but no one wants them. They are worthless." The old woman kept muttering, with a bit of surprise on her face.

Although the accent was difficult to understand and required someone to "translate", Sun Zuo was still very interested. He then picked up a silk cocoon, looked at it carefully, and asked, "How many wild silk cocoons can be harvested in a year?"

The old woman didn't need to explain this time. The official accompanying the translator answered directly: "We can always get more than 10,000 shi a year. It's plenty."

"What to eat?"

"It eats oak leaves and forms cocoons that are as big as pears and green in color."

"Guo Yigong's Guangzhi says, '(Qingzhou) oak silkworms eat oak leaves, which can be made into cotton.' This must be the thing," said Sun Zuo.

Oak trees and live oaks are called differently in different places.

In fact, this kind of wild silkworm can be found not only in Qingzhou and Huainan Dongwu, but they may not eat this kind of leaves.

"Henan people pay three catties of cotton per year." Sun Zuo said with emotion, "And Huainan collects hundreds of thousands of catties of wild silkworm cocoons per year. Cotton can be used to make cotton clothes, but the people in the north have no warm clothes when the weather is cold. Isn't this money? It's all over the ground."

"Write it down." He turned and said to a young nephew.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!" A loud cry of killing came from the east bank of the Fei River, which scared Sun Zuo.

Looking closely, it turned out that the soldiers from the Silver Spear Camp were being taken to Bagua Mountain for training.

"All you know is fighting and killing." Sun Zuo said angrily, "I am paving a smooth road for the emperor."

"Do you know how to write it?" Sun Zuo looked at his nephew Sun Song and asked.

"Wild silkworms eat oak leaves to form cocoons..."

"I'm going to have a chat with scholars in various states when I go back, so I can't write like this!" Sun Zuo straightened his face and said, "Wild silkworm cocoons are everywhere. You can pick them up if you bend down. There are no less than 2 million catties, which is equivalent to the annual cotton rent of hundreds of thousands of households. The locals once said, 'There is more of this stuff in Huainan than in Jiangnan.' However, Jiangnan is low and humid, so the people don't use this stuff and throw it away like a worn-out shoe. If we trade it back to the north, Shi Chong and Wang Kai will not be as rich as me."

Sun Song was stunned.

Sun Zuo chuckled and said, if it weren't for my hard work, how could Madam Yang be so favored?
He quickly said goodbye to the old woman and gave her a piece of silk as a reward before leaving.

Huainan and Jiangnan are relatively backward, and silk of such good quality is almost unavailable. One piece is enough for the old woman to use for a long time.

After lunch, Sun Zuo walked around a few more places and asked questions casually.

Sun Song followed behind, taking notes non-stop.

And it is in this record that the prototype of a manor emerged.

On August 20th, Sun Zuo returned to Shouchun, and the Junior Supervisor of the Imperial Household Cao Yi also arrived there.

This man was still in Pingcheng in June, and two months later he came to Shouchun to serve as the vanguard, working very hard.

However, when he saw fog in the morning, he became suspicious and suspected that it was miasma.

"Don't worry, Cao Gong, this is fog." Yang Bao stood at the bow and laughed.

As they were talking, the boat had already turned into Shaobi along the Lijiang River.

There were more than ten boats in the pond, each carrying twenty to thirty soldiers, all armed with swords and bows, ready for battle.

After seeing this, Cao Yi couldn't help but feel a little nervous.

"Don't worry, the Jiangdong navy has retreated." Yang Bao said, "There may be people in Lujiang who are good at naval warfare, but most of them are in the south, and there are very few in the north. Even if there are, we can still fight."

"Do you see the water gate over there?" He pointed and said, "That is the Daxiang Gate built by Deng Ai when he was managing Shaobei. Quan Cong of the Eastern Wu Dynasty once dug it up, and Shaobei was a vast expanse of land for farming. Liu Song, the prime minister of Huainan during the Jin Dynasty, repaired it, so it could be used for farming again, but unfortunately there is no one there."

"Now that we have Yangquan, there is no need to worry about the northern part of Shaobei. All we need to do this winter is to dredge the ditches and restore the old fields, and we can start farming next spring."

"What if the enemy's navy comes again?" asked Cao Yi.

"Commander-in-Chief Zhang intends to attack Lujiang after winter." Yang Bao said, "The enemy will surely have a large number of troops stationed in Hefei, so attacking Lujiang will be a surprise attack. If we succeed, we can also take advantage of Shaobei, isn't that wonderful?"

"We fought in the summer, and we're fighting again in the winter?"

"We shouldn't fight in the summer, but we should fight in the winter." Yang Bao said nonchalantly, "We have plenty of soldiers."

Cao Yi was speechless.

"We will cultivate land in Deng Ai's old farmland." Yang Bao said, "If the food can fill up the mansion, we can also call in more soldiers."

Cao Yi looked carefully at the vast and misty Shaobi.

According to the current situation, we can only cultivate 5,000 hectares of land.

If the ponds and irrigation canals can be properly repaired, the area can be increased to tens of thousands of hectares.

The maximum amount of farmland that can be irrigated in Shaobi should not exceed 20,000 hectares.

But it's already amazing.

According to the emperor's plan, rice and wheat were rotated and harvested twice a year. The harvest of this kind of farmland that could be fully irrigated was often very high. Based on 5,000 hectares, 5 million hu of grain could be accumulated in a year in the early stage. After a few years of cultivation, the harvest could be greatly increased.

With such food and grass, we can certainly support a large-scale war, and it is not impossible to capture cities in the Huainan area.

But he didn't know who was in charge of the military affairs in Huainan in the Southern Dynasty. He would not have a peaceful life in the next few years.

On August 22, Cao Yi returned to Shouchun and immediately began to write a memorial to the emperor and send it to Luoyang.

******
The drizzling autumn rain washed away the dust in Luoyang.

In the government hall, Prime Minister Wang Yan picked up a letter and read it carefully several times.

"Maohong, ah Maohong, human power is limited. Stop struggling." Wang Yan sighed and put down the letter.

In the long run, it is necessary to establish a county-level local government, but it seems petty no matter how you look at it.

When Liu Hong was stationed in Jingzhou, many refugees came. He directly opened up the mountains and swamps. Since the mountains and swamps were not enough, he gave the wasteland created after Zhang Chang's rebellion to the refugees. All the refugees were registered in their own states and counties.

But when he arrived in Jiangdong, he had to establish an overseas county. Why was that? Of course, the situation in Jiangdong was complicated, so he couldn't speak carelessly. But Wang Dao worked hard to paste the wall, and he was able to make his orders go smoothly. In contrast, he felt very comfortable.

"Where is the emperor?" Wang Yan asked the clerk who was sorting files nearby.

"We have arrived in Hongnong."

"Why is it so slow?"

"The two ladies are pregnant, so the journey will be a little slow."

When Wang Yan heard this, he waved his hand to indicate that he understood.

After getting up and going to the corridor to admire the autumn rain for a while, Wang Yan slowly walked back to the hall and sat behind the desk that Shao Xun had specially made for him - so he didn't have to kneel.

He Lun, the left chief secretary of the Shanyu Protectorate, requested to set up a market in Pingcheng.

The "fang" is naturally the "lifang" in Luoyang, Yecheng and Bianliang, which is a residential area surrounded by walls.

Fang is closely related to Shi, and as the name suggests, it means a market enclosed by a wall.

The reason for setting up the market town actually originated from the slave trade.

Xu Chengzhi, a farmer in Liangcheng, sent more than a thousand slaves to Pingcheng, and Cao Yi, a junior supervisor of the Ministry of Households, offered to buy them. According to custom, regardless of gender, age or status, each person was given two rolls of mixed silk - actually a kind of silk produced in Hedong and Pingyang.

Cao Yi proposed to buy one piece of silk for each person, on the grounds that the Qinghe silk and Henei silk he carried were soft and dense.

Xu Chengzhi initially agreed, but needed to consult with Daiguo Taifu Lady Wang. Ultimately, his request was rejected on the grounds that the Western Regions Hu merchants did not think that one piece of Qinghe silk or Henei silk was worth two pieces of Hedong miscellaneous silk.

The slave trade ultimately failed.

This is actually very normal.

There was more than one kind of silk in Hedong and Pingyang counties, and there was more than one kind in the other counties as well.

Wang Yan did not count them carefully, but there were at least hundreds of kinds of silk within the territory of Daliang.

Some are harder, some are softer.

Some are denser, some are sparser.

Some are dyed, some are not.

Some have colored threads, some don't.

Some are even woven with hemp or rabbit hair, and some are made entirely of silk.

There are so many different things.

Silk is something that is originally made for people to wear, so naturally different types of silk are woven according to different uses.

Furthermore, the skills of weavers vary and their weaving methods are also different, so naturally the price of silk will be different.

Not to mention the difference between new and old, the price of one-year silk and three-year silk is very different.

You used the silk as money and said it was worth one thousand coins, but I said it was only worth five hundred. It is normal for us to keep arguing with each other.

To put it bluntly, this kind of thing is not suitable to be used as money.

But the Shaofu Supervisor Yu Hua refused to give in and flew into a rage. It was heard that he cursed for a long time in the office, saying some very unpleasant things, and always talked about matters between men and women.

Wang Yan just wanted to laugh after hearing this. Don't you know what kind of character the emperor is? He is old, and anger is harmful to his health.

Yu Hua should have also submitted a memorial to criticize Lady Wang, because the emperor knew about it.

His response surprised Wang Yan greatly. The emperor actually wanted to hold a forum and summon scholars and businessmen to attend.

Wang Yan thought about it for a long time and always felt that this matter was not simple.

Perhaps it is not just related to business, but there are other things, and it is something that the emperor has been planning for many years.

He couldn't guess, but he was very curious and eager to know what tricks the emperor was playing.

He always felt that after the emperor turned his attention to Jiangnan, he became less and less willing to conceal his intentions.

"Not doing the right thing!" Wang Yan secretly complained: "Are these few things more important than cleaning up the world?"

However, the tasks assigned to you still need to be done.

Wang Yan thought carefully and recalled which aristocratic families were engaged in business. He was shocked to find that he didn't know until he thought about it.

Compared to twenty or thirty years ago, there are really more scholars doing business now.

Before Jia Nanfeng's rebellion, the country was generally peaceful. At that time, the Wang family of Taiyuan, the Bian family of Jiyin, and even the Wang family of Langya all ran one or more businesses.

But after all, there were manors everywhere and forts in clusters, and most of the wealthy families were still self-sufficient. Apart from salt and iron, very few of them needed help from others.

After all, this is the highest pursuit of scholars: to be self-sufficient and not rely on others.

After the twenty counties of Liang State were surveyed for land, things began to change slowly.

Many wealthy families could no longer maintain their previous estates and began to buy things at the market.

Don't tell me, my old wife Guo hired craftsmen to make gold and silver wares, which were sold far and wide and made a lot of money. In the past, the owners of the manor often asked their own gold and silver craftsmen to make various utensils, and rarely went to the market to buy them, unless a batch of exotic goods came.

This year, another 19 counties are measuring the land - in fact, a cleanup had already been done last year, but the emperor was not satisfied.

After the land is measured, who dares to say what the world will become?

Wang Yan couldn't see clearly and felt a little confused. It seemed that he was gradually unable to keep up with the emperor's pace.

At the end of August, a large team appeared in the western suburbs of Luoyang.

Everyone knew that the emperor's western tour was over and he had returned to loyal Luoyang.

(I have something to do during the day, so the third chapter will be at night, so it shouldn’t be too late.)
(End of this chapter)