Dengzhou governs Rang County. The place is flat, fertile, and has a large population. Since most of the former ditches were abandoned, not much rice was grown, and most of the land was planted with wheat. In early May, the wheat matures, and there are golden waves in the fields.
Wang Xiaolie and Wang Ruohai, together with a group of officials from the prefecture and county, went out of the north gate with the people to watch this year's wheat harvest.
When they arrived at the chosen land, some elders had already come up to toast Wang Xiaolie and other officials.
After drinking wine and burning incense, Wang Xiaolie read the prayer he had written earlier. Then Wang Ruohai came forward. He did not write a manuscript, but wrote an article. He thanked God for the good weather last year and the people had a good harvest. The people cheered.
Two old men stepped forward, each holding a sickle, and said to Wang Xiaolie and Wang Ruohai: "Please let me cut the wheat!"
Wang Xiaolie took the sickle, went to the field with Wang Ruohai, and each cut a handful of wheat. An official on the other side had already caught it and put it on the incense table. Officials and people prayed together.
Wang Xiaolie put down his sickle and saw an old man placing Tian Lu. A row of young men went to the fields together and sang the promise loudly. Following the order, everyone waved their sickles, and pieces of wheat fell around them.
Niu Gao stepped forward and whispered to Wang Xiaolie: "Zhizhi, everything is done. Should we return to the city immediately?"
Wang Xiaolie said: "Don't worry, let's take a look here. Since we returned to Ruzhou last year, this is the first time we have had a bumper harvest, which is unusual. The people are very happy, but we are not the same. With this year's wheat , many difficulties will be overcome.”
Niu Gao promised. Stand quietly.
Looking at the wheat in the field, Wang Xiaolie felt an indescribable feeling in his heart.
Everyone said that this year's harvest was very good and incomparable to previous years. It is said that wheat in Rang County can yield two dan per acre, or even higher, far from the usual one dan per acre. If you pay three buckets of taxed grain per acre, you can still have one stone and seven buckets left. Even if you rent a field for planting, pay the tax on the grain, and then share it equally with the owner, the average customer can harvest more than eight buckets of grain from one acre of land. A household with twenty acres of land would have nearly twenty to thirty kilograms of wheat.
But in Wang Xiaolie's eyes, it was really awkward. I had seen wheat in the fields in my previous life, and it was completely different from what I saw before me. What did the wheat in the fields look like in the previous life? The wheat ears are so densely packed that they may not be able to be cut with a sickle. But now in the field, the wheat is sparse and the ears of wheat look very small. No matter how much you hold, a sickle can easily cut it. For a strong man, cutting wheat is not a very heavy job.
If the wheat had grown like this in the previous life, the host family would have been heartbroken and would probably have given up on it. When this kind of wheat is taken home, the wheat grains produced may not be as high as the cost of harvesting. But in this day and age, this is a good harvest.
Two stones per acre is just over two hundred kilograms. Wang Xiaolie weighed more than a thousand pounds in his previous life. How big is the difference between the two? The yield per mu exceeds a thousand catties, and a family has five or six acres of wheat, so harvesting is very difficult. But in this era, a family normally needs more than ten acres, or even twenty or thirty acres. It’s not that the people of this era are capable, but that the output of this era is too low.
In a previous life, when China's fertilizer output was not high, a marshal planted wheat as an experimental field. With intensive farming and the use of farmyard manure, the yield of wheat per acre is only 700 kilograms. There is no chemical fertilizer, water, fertilizer, and seeds are guaranteed to be complete, and that's about it. At this time, the maximum yield of wheat per acre will not exceed 500 jins. If a large field can produce more than 300 jins, it is a rare harvest.
Not long after, the wheat harvesters arrived in the middle of the field. The old man who directed the wheat harvesting beat a drum to urge everyone.
During the Song Dynasty, when farming was busy, farmers often formed societies, and farmers worked collectively. Before going to the ground, the field drains are set up at the head of the field. According to the time, everyone should go back and forth together and return to the ground. This is borrowing military discipline to guide agricultural production. Unlike later generations, each family worked in their own fields. Especially people in the Sichuan Gorge area use drums when planting rice, and dozens of households work together. The area was narrow and densely populated, and they were often led by a leader out of the river to plant rice in areas with plenty of land.
Standing on the ground and looking at the busy people, Wang Xiaolie seemed to see hope in the world. Since returning to Ruzhou last fall, I have done a lot of things. But there has been no harvest, which always makes people feel uneasy. From today onwards, when the fields are harvested, the situation will be completely different.
For example, in Rang County, two shi per acre can be harvested, and one county can produce more than one million shi of grain. With this food, the army will not be afraid of starvation. If the army can be stabilized, the entire society can also be stabilized.
After taking a breath, Wang Xiaolie raised his eyes and looked around. The ripples of the pond not far away reflected the light. Next to it were cattle grazing leisurely, groups of geese and ducks playing, and a group of sheep playing. Not far away is a mulberry forest, which is growing lushly. The village is hidden among the big trees, giving it a quiet and peaceful scene.
This is a rich land and a group of hard-working people. In a place like this, it is an unforgivable sin to leave such people without enough to eat. If the government cannot protect the peace of this land, it is a crime for the government.
Not long after, the people who had set out to cut the wheat came back again, and the people cheered.
Wang Xiaolie did not continue to look. An hour later, he returned to the city with Wang Ruohai and others.
When we sat down at the Yamen, the officials served tea, and several people drank tea and chatted.
Wang Xiaolie said: "Looking at today's situation, this year is a rare year of good harvest. When I went to the field today, I asked my men to measure the yield of the field where wheat was being harvested. One acre can yield about two stones and five buckets -"
Wang Ruohai asked curiously: "The wheat has not been collected yet, how can we measure the yield?"
Wang Xiaolie said: "What's so difficult about this? Choose three places in the plot, cut the wheat in one square step, take out the wheat grains and weigh them. From this, you can calculate the yield per acre. This can be done for any farming. Do."
Wang Ruohai nodded, thinking about the algorithm Wang Xiaolie said. I can roughly understand what Wang Xiaolie means, but I don't know how to calculate it. Most scholars of this era can do simple arithmetic, but when it becomes slightly more complicated, it is difficult to explain clearly. For example, if you measure acres of land, if you don't know plane geometry, you can only make rough calculations. For many people, even simple calculations are impossible. The most effective person in measuring acres in the Northern Song Dynasty was Guo Shen. He only divided the acres into pieces without careful calculation.
After eliminating the influence of local powerful people, Wang Xiaolie planned to re-measure the acres of land. Among the education I promote, the most important are two. One is literacy, and the other is simple mathematics. After teaching for a few months, you will naturally have the talent to measure acres of land.
Wang Xiaolie continued: "Of course, the moisture in the wheat grains will naturally decrease a little if it is exposed to the sun for a few days, but not much. Let's calculate the yield of two stones of wheat per mu. The 600,000 acres of fields in Rang County can produce one hundred wheat. More than two hundred thousand dan. Rang County is the first county in Nanyang, with a population of more than 110,000. Each person has more than ten dan of wheat. If you add in the rest of the grain, one person has more than fifteen dan of grain."
After hearing this, Wang Ruohai was shocked: "So many? Zhizhi, this is not a small amount!"
"Of course it's not a small amount. If we only count the food rations, four dan per person per year is enough. Even if we can eat, it will not exceed five dan. In other words, Rang County alone has a surplus of over one million dan. . If we collect them all, we can support an army of 200,000."
Wang Ruohai's mind was a little confused for a moment. Of course he knows that this year is a good harvest year and a lot of food can be harvested. But I actually have no idea how much I will charge. After listening to Wang Xiaolie's calculation, I realized that the number was astonishingly large.
Wang Xiaolie added: "We collect three bushels per acre, and the total tax grain should be 180,000 shi. In addition to the tax grain, there should be a surplus of about 800,000 shi among the people. When the people are full, they need to have a surplus of grain. What's the use? Whether the government can take it back depends on your ability."
Wang Ruohai said: "Save food to prevent disasters. Even if there is some surplus food, the people will save it."
Wang Xiaolie couldn't help but laugh after hearing this: "It is usually said that three years of food storage can prevent one year of famine. The people of Dengzhou only need 500,000 dan even if they have no harvest for one year. Divide it into three years , but only saves more than 160,000 shi of grain a year, and there is still a lot of surplus grain."
Wang Ruohai nodded silently. I have been an official for many years, but I have never calculated it so carefully. Listening to Wang Xiaolie's talk, I couldn't help but be a little shocked. By doing this, many things become clear at a glance.
Wang Xiaolie said: "So, we can collect 600,000 shi of grain from the people this year. If we can't collect it, it means that the government is not good at doing things. If you want to collect grain, you must have money. There are five counties in Dengzhou. , the remaining four counties are worse. If two counties are considered as Rang County and one county, the money to collect grain will cost more than one million guan. This is not a small amount."
Wang Ruohai smiled bitterly: "Where did the more than one million yuan in Dengzhou come from? It's a joke."
Wang Xiaolie said: "This is the money we need. With this money, the food in the hands of the people can be useful and can be converted into money to buy the things they need. Without this money, the food can only be in the hands of the people until it decays." .”
Wang Ruohai didn't know how to answer, so he could only nodded silently.
Having said this, Wang Xiaolie couldn't help but sigh: "When Taizu founded the country, a cup of rice cost only ten or twenty cents. Now, even in the peaceful years, a cup of rice cost nearly a hundred cents. After all, the price of food is so expensive now. , or the money price has become cheap, no one can say clearly. According to common sense, having enough food is the foundation of human beings, and food prices do not change much. The food price is high, or the money price has become a bit cheap. In the end, it should How to do it? Think of a solution during your free time. As the saying goes, cheap grain hurts farmers, and expensive grain hurts farmers. Farmers cannot be harmed."
Wang Ruohai just nodded silently. I had never thought of such a calculation before. When Wang Xiaolie mentioned it, he suddenly felt that there was something profound in it. It's just that it's hard to tell clearly for a while.
For Wang Xiaolie, these calculations are not difficult. But for economic problems, it is often easier to calculate them clearly, but how to solve them is a big problem. If you don't pay attention, things will often backfire.
