On the fifth day of February, the first batch of Bingzhou refugees left Shaoyuan and Panyuan and headed for Yiyang.
It would take them about three days to arrive at Yunzhongwu, where they would then undergo military control and start spring sowing work one after another.
Shao Xun did not go with them, but rushed back to Yunzhongwu first.
After a few days, a wooden fence has been erected at the foot of the hillside on the south side of the platform.
The leader of the building, Jin San, was holding a sword and a bow, looking majestic and pointing.
The teenage boy was already quite impressive. The Luoyang coolies who were generally at least ten years older than him were respectful. After a while, a few people were assigned to hide in the nearby trees with small flags.
This is setting up hidden sentries and mobile sentries, using small flags to communicate regularly. Once contact is lost, the Silver Spear soldiers will immediately assemble and prepare for battle.
If a big thief arrives, the whole village will ring the bell.
The men in the bankers immediately mobilized and went to the top of the city to fight.
The healthy women served as auxiliary soldiers, carrying the wounded and various defensive equipment.
Children will not be idle either. They will do whatever they can, such as delivering water and meals, taking care of the wounded, transporting medicine for arrow wounds, etc.
In short, when all the people join the battle, no one will be idle.
Shao Xun dismounted from a distance and walked quietly along the valley water, watching silently.
There are still flat fields on both sides of this Luoshui tributary, and people are already plowing in spring. They are all the family members of the former bandits, working hard and numbly on the farmland, living mechanically.
It's not easy for thieves. In this world, they can only rob people or small caravans, and their income is limited. After all, they still have to rely on farming to support themselves.
"Master Shao." Jin San quickly received the notification and rushed over, followed by two honest and honest middle-aged men - this was all an illusion, and thieves could not be honest.
"Who is this?" Shao Xun pointed at the person behind him.
"Li Yu, Qiu Da, and Li Xian, whom I appointed, each manage fifty households." Jin San replied.
Yi and Li are grassroots organizations, and they have been transplanted to Wubao in their entirety.
That's what people did back then. When Yu Gun was in Yushanwu, he ordered "the city to push its elders" and "the locals to push its talents", and divided the residents and households of the village into management units. Therefore, "the orders should be consistent, the superiors and subordinates should be polite, and the young and senior should be polite."
"Have you ever farmed?" Shao Xun looked at the two wise men and asked.
"Grown it."
Shao Xun nodded, and then led them to walk along the Qugu water.
"Did you dig all these canals?" he asked, pointing to the crooked and crooked irrigation canals.
"yes."
"Are you growing millet?"
"Exactly."
“Have you ever grown wheat?”
"Only planted twice."
"Spring sowing or autumn sowing?"
"One spring sowing, one fall sowing."
"Why don't you plant it anymore?"
“There aren’t that many canals.”
Shao Xun understood.
In fact, there is not that much food to support them in extending the existing irrigation canals. To put it bluntly, they are still poor and cannot invest huge resources at once to improve the infrastructure, even if the visible benefits in the future are higher.
"After sowing in autumn, we will harvest wheat in May next year. What will you plant after harvesting?" Shao Xun asked again.
"I planted some miscellaneous grains, all kinds of crops, and harvested them before it snowed."
"Were things a lot easier that year?"
"yes."
Shao Xun looked at the Qugu water winding northward and made a decision in his heart.
If the wheat planting area was only one percent at this time, it gradually increased to two to three percent in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, to forty to five percent in the Tang Dynasty, and to seventy or eight percent in the late Tang Dynasty, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.
Why are people so enthusiastic about growing wheat?
One is that the yield per mu of wheat was higher than that of millet at this time, but this is only one reason.
More importantly, one more season of food can be harvested.
During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the two-year and three-crop system was quite mature in northern dry farming. This planting tradition evolved from the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
The tradition of the Wei and Jin Dynasties was to harvest one crop of millet a year, and only two crops of millet could be harvested in two years.
During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, three crops were planted in two years. Millet was sown in the spring of the first year, wheat was planted after the autumn harvest, and wheat was harvested in May of the following year. After the harvest, a season of miscellaneous grains was planted and harvested before snowfall. Within two years, one crop of millet, one crop of wheat, and one crop of miscellaneous grains (mainly beans) can be harvested. The land utilization rate is greatly improved, and the output is also greatly improved.
This planting model was so common that the government changed the tax collection system, creating a summer tax, an autumn tax, and two taxes a year.
The summer tax collects silk, cotton, wheat and cash (250 wen per household), and the autumn tax collects rice, millet, beans and hay (usually 10 bunches).
From the tax collection objects, we can get a glimpse of the agricultural production model.
After the wheat planting area increases, the planting, processing, and cooking technologies surrounding it will gradually emerge, and you don’t need to worry about this.
At this time, there were a lot of wheat-based foods in the noble manor. Jinguyuan even had more than thirty districts. Each district even built special roads to transport various grains. The processing technology was very clear. Just don't spread it.
This is also an important reason why Shao Xun wanted to take over Jinguyuan. The irrigation canals and processing equipment are all ready, but all the people have fled. The rebels were not interested in these things either. What they wanted was the goods in Jingu Garden.
Things like flowering steamed buns cannot exist only in noble manors forever.
"Spring sowing as soon as possible, don't delay, plant as many varieties as possible, and plant millet." Shao Xun bent down, picked up a handful of soil, looked at it carefully, and said, "After the spring sowing is completed, start digging trenches and sifting the soil."
"No." Jin San, Li Yu, and Qiu Da responded together.
There are also some livestock grazing on the river bank.
Among them, five horses, thirteen cows, and dozens of sheep were grazing leisurely on the left bank of the river. These should be the livestock originally raised in the thieves' village.
On the right bank of the river, there are more than twenty horses, mules, and seven or eight cattle. They are the draft animals of the Silver Spear Army and are managed by a few soldiers. Besides grazing livestock, they were also very diligent in collecting dry firewood and branches.
"How to deal with livestock manure?" Shao Xun suddenly asked.
"Pick them back and pile them in the corner."
"Let's go and have a look."
Li Yu and Qiu Da were a little surprised, but they did not dare to neglect and led the way.
A high-ranking official in the imperial court actually wanted to take the initiative to look at the excrement. He didn't know what to say.
Shao Xun smiled, "What's up, I like this."
Wang Yan's wife, Mrs. Guo, even sent the maids in the palace out to see if there was any dung on the road. If there was any, she would quickly pick it up and take it home.
This is called running a household well and running a business properly.
Cow sheds, horse sheds, and sheep pens are located inside the village. This is understandable. Livestock is important property. It would be very painful if one died of illness, let alone having someone snatch it away.
When approaching the cowshed, Shao Xun smelled a smell from a distance.
He looked carefully at the pile of cow dung without even frowning.
It seems that it has been piled up for a while. It is not that good on the outside, but it is probably "cooked" on the inside.
When people picked up excrement and returned home, they usually piled it up in a corner and cleaned it up after a while.
Shao Xun didn't know if this was good or not, it didn't feel right.
He entered the cowshed again, and the smell inside was even more impressive, as if it had never been cleaned.
He finally couldn't hold it any longer, frowned, and asked, "Why don't you clean the cowshed?"
"The shit has been shoveled..." Li Yu was a little scared when he saw Shao Xun frowning.
"Let's do this..." Shao Xun pondered for a moment and said, "I'll tell you a few things, put them into words, and formulate them into rules in the future."
He said this to Jin San because he was literate and could write.
"No." Jin San immediately asked someone to bring in desks, wooden slips, and pen and ink.
"First, feces within a year are not allowed to be used."
"Secondly, when rivers and canals are dredged, the silt dug out is mixed with feces."
"Third, the stables should be cleaned regularly, and a layer of soil should be spread every half month, cleaned once, and then spread on the manure pile."
"Master Shao, why is this?" Jin San was still thinking about asking questions while writing.
Shao Xun didn't know much about it, so he could only say: "Manure mixed with soil lasts longer."
"Oh." Jin San responded.
"Also, I will raise horses in the future. Of course it won't work if the stables look like this." Shao Xun added.
There are two ways to raise horses. One is to raise horses on pasture; the other is to keep horses in stables, which are "parallel horses that die in stables".
To put it bluntly, it means keeping horses in captivity and letting them out regularly for exercise, which is beneficial to the physical and mental health of the horse.
This method of raising horses is very popular in areas lacking large areas of grassland, and is a desperate alternative.
This was the case for the Nanzhao Kingdom in later generations.
The horses in Dianchi and Yongchang are left in the wild and are not kept in stables.
Hundreds of Yuezu horses (Tengchong horses) were selected and brought to Dali. They were fed with rice porridge and juice within three years. They were slightly older in four to five years and only matured in six or seven years. Horses fed in this way have high tails and are particularly good at galloping.
Stable horses can be managed carefully and fed with grain, so the horses are of high quality.
When charging head-on, the wild horses can be dashed to pieces.
The cost is also really high. A horse eats at least three times as much food as a human. Shao Xun does not have such luxury for the time being.
But raising horses is a must.
Even if you don't form a cavalry unit, there are many other uses for horses.
A scout would take several horses out.
When setting up camp at night, a few horses should also be prepared in the dark bunker set far away, so that when the enemy is attacked at night, they can return to camp in time - change the horses so that they have enough horsepower to run at high speed and send back the news. .
The battlefield messenger wants a horse.
A small group harasses the enemy's rangers.
The baggage troops must draw horses or other draft animals.
Mid-level and senior officers should prepare several horses. One is to charge on the battlefield. When the horse power is insufficient, he can directly jump on the back of another empty horse and continue to fight. The other is to have another horse to ride on when escaping to maintain high speed.
The personal soldiers of high-ranking officers also wanted horses, and more than one.
Pure infantry units are also equipped with a large number of horses.
"Fourth, it is convenient to build livestock pens near the farmland. If there are thieves coming to attack, then move them."
Shao Xun said several more things in one breath, finally clearing out the little inventory in his belly.
After Jin San finished recording, he showed it to Shao Xun for review. After making sure it was correct, he carefully put it away.
"If you have any good ideas, you can put them forward. After they are verified to be effective, rewards will be issued." Shao Xun added.
After the text is formed, it can even be collected into a book, copied and disseminated in the Wubao and manor under your own name, mainly for the Wubao owners and farm dians who are involved in actual management.
If other Wubao or farms have unique agricultural technologies, they can also be exchanged with each other.
He never dared to underestimate the manors of those wealthy families.
They have been in management for many years, some for generations. In long-term agricultural practice, it is impossible not to sum up experience. The key is that they cherish their knowledge and are unwilling to disclose it to outsiders.
This is similar to the so-called general family.
The knowledge of marching and fighting was only circulated within the family, and they even had their own military books compiled, which were kept secret.
This is the foundation of the so-called aristocratic family.
If they were willing to share with each other, they would be able to greatly speed up the spread of knowledge, but no one wants to do that.
When did flowering steamed buns become popular among the people?
Shao Xun was not from a wealthy family, but his heritage came from later generations and was very profound. In some specific fields, he alone is worth the accumulated knowledge of several generations of aristocratic families and tens of thousands of people in their estates.
His Wubao will not be worse than others, it can even be run better.
This is his confidence.
