"good."
Han Zhen praised, and then changed his voice: "But it needs to be improved. For example, the upper feeding port can be made into a funnel shape with wooden boards, so that the wheat will fall at a more even speed. In addition, the lower part needs to be installed. The material opening is convenient for bagging.”
"Yeah, why didn't I think of that?"
Carpenter Chen slapped his forehead, his expression suddenly enlightened.
Patting him on the shoulder, Han Zhen looked at the other two carpenters with envy, and said with a smile: "Let's go, follow me to get the reward."
"Thank you, village chief!"
Carpenter Chen beamed with joy, and at the same time he did not forget to glance sideways at the other two people.
Seeing his proud look, the two carpenters spat one after another.
Seeing this, Han Zhen comforted him and said, "Don't be discouraged. You can think more about it on weekdays. If you can make useful farm tools, you can also come to me to receive rewards. In addition, a threshing machine and a blower are not enough. I still need three more, and I will buy them at the usual price of one."
Hearing this, the other two smiled.
According to this calculation, each of them can get two coins.
…
The sun sets in the west.
The golden afterglow shone down, coating the three mountains with a golden coat.
After a tiring day, the villagers carried hoes and strolled on the field ridges.
The village chief stood under a big locust tree and shouted at the top of his lungs: "Everyone, don't go home yet. Let's meet in the grain field. The village chief has something to say."
Hearing this, the villagers looked curious and walked towards the grain field in twos and threes.
Today, Han Zhen's prestige in Xiaowang Village has exceeded that of the village chief.
In addition to being unparalleled in bravery, there are also private rumors that he has a magical ability that turns stone into gold.
In just one day, he made thousands of dollars.
Soon, more than 600 people from the whole village gathered on the threshing floor.
"Be quiet for a moment and let me tell you a few things."
As soon as Han Zhen opened his mouth, the noise immediately disappeared and the crowd became silent.
He didn't do any ink and went straight to the point: "The first thing is, I bought five cattle and twenty donkeys. These animals can be leased to you for use. The cost is two bushels of green fodder. During the lease period, the rations of the animals are also provided by You are responsible. If you want to rent it then, just register with Zhu Zhengze."
The reason for buying these livestock is to benefit the people and free up the labor force.
The rent is almost non-existent, which is equivalent to asking these villagers to provide food rations for their livestock.
As soon as he finished speaking, the villagers suddenly beamed with joy and started talking excitedly.
Han Zhen stood there quietly, giving them time to digest.
After a while, the crowd fell silent again, and each villager stared at Han Zhen expectantly, waiting for him to announce what would happen next.
"The second thing is this thresher and blower."
Han Zhen pointed to the two machines around him, and then ordered: "Carpenter Chen, you three come up and demonstrate for everyone."
The next moment, Carpenter Chen and three others walked out of the crowd.
"This is a good thing, take a look."
After Chen Carpenter said something deliberately to show off, he took hold of the handle and started turning.
Another carpenter picked up a pile of straw and moved closer.
There was only a crackling sound, and the ears of wheat on the wheat stalks were knocked off by the bamboo strips on the rollers in the blink of an eye.
Wow!
There was an uproar in the crowd.
In the past, if you wanted to remove the wheat ears from the wheat stalks, you had to spread the wheat stalks and then beat them with a flail, or drag the stone roller and grind them slowly.
Not only is it time-consuming and labor-intensive, but it’s also impossible to take off completely.
The wheat remaining on the straw needs to be knocked hard again before it falls off.
It often takes several days to thresh wheat in three acres of fields.
If you are unlucky enough to encounter a rainy day, it will be even more troublesome.
Now that we have this thing, we can thresh all the wheat in three acres of land in less than an hour.
How could they not be surprised by this?
However, Carpenter Chen's performance is not over yet.
I saw him sweeping all the threshed wheat on the ground into the dustpan, and then slowly poured it into the blower.
The third person has already started shaking the wind wheel.
As the wheat is poured into the feed port, all the wheat straw chips and broken leaves mixed in the wheat are blown away, and clean wheat grains continue to flow out of the discharge port.
There was another exclamation from the crowd.
After the demonstration by Carpenter Chen and the others, Han Zhen pressed his hands. After the crowd became quiet again, he said loudly: "Threshing machines and other farm tools are also available for rent, and the rent is one pound of bran."
After a slight pause, Han Zhen continued: "The third thing is that we are currently recruiting thirty workers for the lime kiln and the salt factory, with a monthly salary of three hundred cents, including two meals in the morning and evening. Secondly, I am planning to build a cottage on the hill in front of the village. , to stop the officers, soldiers and bandits, and to build the stronghold, we also provide food and pay for the workers, twenty coins a day for men and ten coins for women."
Without waiting for the villagers' reaction, he raised his fourth finger: "The fourth thing is, the recruitment will start from now on!"
conscription?
Upon hearing these two words, the expressions of the originally cheerful villagers changed and they looked at him in surprise.
Han Zhen was not surprised by their reaction and calmly said: "All men over the age of sixteen and under forty can join the army. After joining the army, they will be provided with three meals a day of dry rice, one meal of meat every three days, and a monthly salary of 500 coins. Money and some benefits.”
Three meals a day or dry rice?
One meal of meat every three days?
And five hundred salary?
Suddenly, the crowd was in commotion.
Without him, the treatment is really great.
Many people made some calculations in their minds and found that joining the army was actually more cost-effective than farming.
In fact, Han Zhen prescribed basic conditions, because if you want to train an army with combat capability, three meals of dry rice and meat a day are necessary, otherwise it is impossible to maintain high-intensity training.
It can only be said that it all depends on the support of peers.
In the early Northern Song Dynasty, the treatment of soldiers was pretty good. Taking the Forbidden Army as an example, the monthly salary for the upper-level Forbidden Army was one thousand coins, the monthly salary for the middle-level Forbidden Army was 700 coins, and the monthly salary for the lower-ranking ones was 500 coins.
In addition to the monthly salary, there are also many benefits, such as monthly food, spring and winter clothes, special money, snow and cold money, firewood money, silver shoe money, etc.
Moreover, the Northern Song Dynasty was a military recruitment system. When one person enlisted in the army, his whole family would be transferred to the military. At this time, an additional amount of money, the so-called resettlement fee, would be given, which was about 5-10 guan.
By the time of Renzong and Yingzong, this was no longer possible.
Due to financial constraints, military benefits have been reduced again and again.
Now that Huizong is in power, he has completely fallen to the bottom, not to mention the Xiang army that is rotten to the core. Even the Western army on Qinfeng Road, the soldiers can only eat seven cents full every day.
As for military pay...
Only when war is about to begin, a symbolic additional month of military pay will be given to boost morale.
Doesn’t the imperial court know that poor treatment of soldiers will affect their combat effectiveness?
Of course all the officials in the imperial court knew.
But the problem is, there is no money!
The prosperity of Tokyo gave many people the illusion of prosperity in the Song Dynasty.
But in fact this is not the case. The annual tribute coins paid to Xixia and Liao in the Northern Song Dynasty accounted for almost 20% of the annual tax revenue.
The reason why the Northern Song Dynasty could not popularize silver as a transaction currency was because most of the domestic silver had to be paid as tribute to the Xixia and Liao kingdoms, and the remaining silver was kept in the homes of officials and wealthy businessmen.
During the Jingkang scandal, the golden man and the lion opened their mouths and demanded twenty million taels of silver.
As a result, Song Huizong searched the entire city of Tokyo, even the beggars were not spared, and only managed to collect 1.8 million taels of silver.
Just in May of this year, Song and Jin jointly attacked Liao.
Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty appointed Tong Guan as the envoy of Xuanfu and Zhong Shidao as the governor of the capital, and led 150,000 Western troops in the Northern Expedition.
As a result, the Liao army, which was defeated steadily by the Jin people, beat the Western army, the strongest combat force in the Northern Song Dynasty, to the point where they cried for their fathers and cried for their mothers, throwing away their helmets and armor.
In desperation, Song Huizong had to send people to discuss with the Jin people, hoping to spend money to buy back the sixteen states of Yanyun.
Fortunately, Wanyan Aguda was quite trustworthy and agreed to sell the land in Yanyun Six Prefectures, but the price was a rental fee of one million yuan a year.
The entire imperial court couldn't afford this one million yuan, so it had to rely on temporary collection of exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes to make up for it.
With this kind of virtue, how can you get the money to improve the salary of soldiers?
