When the group arrived at Wolong Village, the craftsmen were completely disappointed.
It seems that I will have to work in such a shabby little village from now on. If I had known that this was the case, I wouldn’t have come even to death!
Well, a few craftsmen just thought about it. Manager Wang of the ordnance warehouse came forward. Let alone let them work in the village, even if they wanted their wives, they didn't dare to fart.
What made the craftsmen even more depressed was that the convoy did not stop in the village, but went straight to the north gate of the village.
Oh my God, the work place is outside the village. This is not even as good as the village!
However, as soon as the convoy came out of the north gate of the village, the eyes of several craftsmen became clear.
What's that big thing that's spinning?
Is it a keel waterwheel?
The large waterwheel, which was several stories high, had a thick frame, huge water leaves, and exquisite design, which fully demonstrated the skills of the craftsmen and the beauty of mechanics. It shocked several craftsmen and stunned them.
The waterwheel is not Yunchao’s original creation.
It existed a long time ago, and it is also called a rollover car or a keel car.
Several craftsmen from Dongping Mansion have never seen this thing before.
It’s not that the waterwheel is difficult to process, it’s mainly that no one in Dongping Prefecture uses this thing.
A waterwheel, especially a large waterwheel like this, requires a considerable amount of silver.
Yun Chao once calculated that a large waterwheel with a height of more than ten meters like the one he built would cost almost a hundred taels of silver including the work and materials, not counting the subsequent maintenance costs.
However, the cost is high and the effect is great.
A large water tanker with a height of more than ten meters can irrigate two to three hundred acres of fields.
There was no machinery for pumping water in the Dawu Dynasty, and irrigation of the fields relied entirely on rain.
Fields near water sources can also be watered by carrying water.
For those fields far away from water sources, it is better to save energy and do other things by carrying water. The input and harvest are not proportional at all.
Therefore, most of the people in the Dawu Dynasty relied on the sky for their livelihood.
If the weather goes well in a year, you may be able to collect an extra three to five buckets.
If it doesn't rain any year, the people will be miserable, ranging from starvation to death!
Therefore, there were so many wastelands in the Dawu Dynasty. It was either that people did not want to plant them or that they simply could not take care of them.
Without water to irrigate the land, even if you plant food, you won't be able to harvest much.
The little bit of harvest is not enough to pay taxes.
Having a waterwheel is different. It can turn dry land into irrigated fields. Building a large waterwheel is equivalent to adding two to three hundred acres of irrigated land. Any fool can clearly calculate the pros and cons.
Some people may say, since the waterwheel is so useful, why doesn't anyone use it?
Even if ordinary people don’t have that much land and don’t have that much money to make, aren’t there still landlords?
The landowner has land and money. If he spends some money to build a waterwheel, wouldn't he be able to earn more?
In theory this is true, but in practice few people do it.
Just because my family has thousands of acres of land, it doesn’t mean that I farm all of it.
Without mechanization, if you wanted to plant thousands of acres of land, you would need a lot of manpower.
Landowners will hire so many long-term workers to build large farms when they are full.
Not only do you have to keep an eye on them, but you also have to take care of their food and drink, and even their birth, old age, illness and death. It can be really troublesome.
These days, the usual practice of large landowners is to set aside a small amount of land for their own cultivation, and rent the rest to tenant farmers.
For example, if you have a thousand acres of land, you will usually leave 180 acres to hire long-term workers, and rent out the rest for easier management.
Guys like Yun Chao who used hundreds of helpers to open up wasteland at the same time were not absent in the Dawu Dynasty, but they definitely did not exist in Qingyang County, not even in Dongping Prefecture.
Therefore, Dongping Prefecture cannot find a second large water truck that can irrigate hundreds of acres.
Not to mention large waterwheels, there are not even small waterwheels.
The small waterwheel can only manage about ten acres of land around it, and the cost is about ten taels of silver.
In other words, without food or water, the output of ten acres of land for two full years is enough to build a small waterwheel. Unless you are a crazy landowner, there is usually no one to do it. What are the long-term workers used for? Let them Isn’t it nice to carry water?
When the weather is good, the average yield per mu in the north of Dawu Dynasty is about one stone, which is more than one hundred kilograms.
Plant wheat in the fall and harvest it next summer.
After harvesting the wheat, plant some cereals such as millet and beans.
This is the so-called two crops a year.
Harvesting one stone in one season, harvesting two stones in two crops.
Excluding labor and seeds, the output of an acre of land is two stones a year, and what ends up in the hands is just over one stone.
Ten acres of land can produce a little more than ten stones of food throughout the year.
However, ten shi of grain does not mean that it can be sold for ten taels of silver.
The price of grain in the grain store is one tael or one stone, but when farmers sell grain, they cannot get it at this price.
When farmers sell grain, it is good if one stone can be sold for five qian.
To make money, grain merchants need money for storage and transportation. If a grain store sells one tael, the purchase price must not be one tael. Even because of the difficulty of transportation in ancient times, the purchase price is much lower than the retail price.
Therefore, ten taels of silver is almost two years’ worth of harvest from ten acres of land.
This is still under the condition that the weather is good and God provides food.
Plus, that’s not counting taxes.
The tax burden in the Dawu Dynasty was extremely heavy. If you pay taxes, let alone two years, even ten years will not be enough to save ten taels of silver!
Anyone who lives a good life has a certain relationship with the government. If the relationship is not in place, no matter how much land the family has, they will still live a poor life.
Take Maemura Zhicheng of Wolong Village as an example. He lives in a house where he can stand up and lie down on the floor. It is said that he should reach out his hands through his shirt and open his mouth when eating.
In fact, this was not the case. Lai Zhicheng could not make much money from working on thousands of acres of fertile land for a year. The reason was that there was no one in the government and he needed to pay taxes.
The reason why Yun Chao dared to organize large-scale land reclamation was certainly related to the fact that he was a quasi-doctorate from the Agricultural University and could increase the yield per mu and improve grain varieties, but it was not the main reason.
The main reason is that Yunchao has no intention of paying taxes honestly!
Just kidding, why should the crops that I have worked so hard to grow be given away to you, the exploiting class, for squandering?
It’s okay to pay taxes, but you have to pay them reasonably.
You can't say how much you pay, I will pay as much as you want.
Why did Yun Chao first think of buying weapons and equipment when he earned money?
The purpose is to protect the fruits of one's own labor.
If we increase the yield per mu and improve grain varieties, if we don’t have enough power to protect ourselves, even if we can grow mountains of gold and silver, it will be in vain.
However, now everyone sees that this large water tanker is not used for irrigation.
Spring sowing has not started yet, so there is no need to water the ground yet.
The first large waterwheel built by Yun Chao was an experimental product.
It is not only necessary to test the investment and income ratio of water trucks, but also to test the application of water power in other aspects!
