Han Zuo Gaomen

Chapter 55
After staying in Jingkou for five days, Shen Zhezi started on the road with his father.

A team of more than a thousand people set out at Jingkou, besides the hundreds of Qujia soldiers brought by the father, there were nearly a thousand civilian husbands, men, women, old and young.These folk husbands and their families are all part of Xu Mao's own tribe. On the one hand, they help transport food, and on the other hand, they go to Wu Xing with the team to settle down, laying a solid foundation for Xu Mao to establish a family in Wu Xing in the future, and reserve a way out.

Shen Zhezi had seen how the tyrants played in this era. As the supervisor of Jingkou along the river, Xu Mao had the responsibility of patrolling and protecting the people.With a big stroke of a pen, two hundred households were missing from the white registers for resettling refugees!

If these people can be registered and registered, and they can choose a place to resettle, they will be able to send taxes to the court within a few years.But now, it has become Xu Mao's private property and is no longer bound by the court's laws.Looking at these people, they are not depressed because of the loss of freedom and self-reliance, but they are secretly excited.

After all, there is no time to wait for resettlement in Jingkou, a gathering place for refugees, and even if they are granted land, it will be difficult to cultivate wasteland, and they will not have enough food.But once you arrive in the hinterland of Sanwu, you will not hesitate to have a good start.

The old man was a little dissatisfied with this, and there was no shortage of complaints to Shen Zhezi in the cabin: "This Xu Suiran is also treacherous, he gave me less than thirty thousand hu in total, and it would cost nearly ten thousand hu to settle down for him. Thousands of dendrobium grains are hardly of much use."

Shen Zhezi also felt sorry for his father's complaints.[-] dendrobium grains may seem like a lot, but for the huge population they own, it's not even enough to support a month's consumption.

The units of measurement in today's and later generations are too confused, and the grain of a dendrobium can be converted into weight, which can be regarded as about one stone.Thirty jin is a jun, and four jun is a stone.But the so-called catty is Han catty, and two catties of Han catty are not equal to one catty of later generations.

Perhaps a more intuitive measurement can be used to calculate the current per capita food consumption. According to the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, Sima Yi heard that Zhuge Liang had only three liters of rice in a solar eclipse, and predicted that he would die. "Book of Liang" Jiang Ge, the general of Zhenbei, was captured in the Northern Wei Dynasty.

From these points of view, regardless of the messy nutrient intake and calorie intake of later generations, it can be seen that the three liters of solar eclipse can only keep people from starving to death.If labor is still required, an adult must have at least five liters of staple food a day, which can roughly meet the consumption of survival and labor.

Twenty thousand dendrobium grains, 20 buckets, 200 million liters, per capita, is really not a big amount, no wonder the old man is a little dissatisfied.It should be known that the Shen family not only maintains its own population consumption, but also supports those small landlords who are attached to the Shen family.Thanks to Dad's premeditated rebellion, these families were also involved, and the crops failed.

Adding up to this, to maintain the new rice harvest next year, at least there is still a gap of nearly [-] dendrobium grains!If it was a normal year, a mere [-] dendrobium grains would not be enough to overwhelm the Shen family, and the output from the fields every year would be more than [-] dendrobiums.

But this year's military disaster has spread, and the price of food has been high. The Shen family has accumulated for many years, and it is almost exhausted.Although it is not yet the moment when the grain is exhausted, the future is worrying because of the rainy day.

In the past few days, Shen Zhezi was also thinking about the experience of famine relief in ancient times. Seeing that his father was frowning, he tentatively said: "Father, my son occasionally asked Ge Hongge Xianshi for advice in Master Ji's mansion. He once said several kinds of famine relief. Fang..."

As he spoke, he entrusted some of the relief recipes he barely remembered to introduce to his father in the name of Ge Hong.For example, soybeans are ground into sesame seeds and rolled into balls, and glutinous rice and sesame seeds are ground into balls. It is said in the book that one grain can keep you hungry for several days.Although Shen Zhezi has never eaten it, but now he is brainstorming, whether it is useful or not, he can try it.

Hearing that it was Ge Hong's teaching, Shen Chong listened carefully, but after listening, he was a little disappointed, and said: "This kind of method to relieve hunger is just to fill the stomach with Qi, so that people don't feel hungry, but the accumulation of Qi is empty. The strength is too weak. The government's relief may be useful, but my family Ding still has to work and produce, which is of little benefit."

When Shen Zhezi heard what his father said, he understood the disadvantages of these hunger relief methods. He filled his stomach with some indigestible food, just to keep his stomach from being empty, but in fact the nutrients needed by the human body were still lacking.

"Qing Que, you don't have to worry, as a father, you have your own countermeasures."

Seeing that Shen Zhezi was a little lost, Shen Chong comforted him with a smile and said: "This is not a year of great famine. Although it has been affected by military incidents, each family has grain reserves. As long as you think about it, you can always buy grain for emergency relief."

Shen Zhezi nodded, but he also knew that the father said it was easy, but in fact the difficulty was that he couldn't buy food.It should no longer be a secret that the Shen family's fields failed in harvest.Such a large food shortage cannot be met by one or two families. If all the families are holding the attitude of making trouble, the situation will definitely be even worse.

When the boat goes to Wujun, it needs to transfer to Taihu Lake by car.After traveling for half a day, Shen Chong stopped the team and said to Shen Zhezi: "There is my old relative Zhu in Zuojin Guzhang County. It's still early, Qingque, go and pay a visit."

Hearing his father's words, Shen Zhezi was slightly taken aback, and hurried home, why did his father suddenly ask him to visit relatives?Based on his understanding of the old man, there must be something inside.

Sure enough, the father explained the reason next: "The county magistrate Zhu Gong is your son-in-law. I sent a letter to ask for food a few days ago. This stingy man wants to exchange [-] dendrobium grain for my two villages in Panxi. Disgusting!"

When Shen Zhezi heard this, he also understood.This cheap uncle named Zhu Gong is one of those who want to take advantage of the fire.

The two farms in Panxi, not counting the ridges and swamps, have nearly a hundred hectares of arable paddy fields. Based on the yield of three shi per mu, the rice output per season is also [-] shi. After deducting the cost of artificial grain and green manure, there are also nearly [-] hectares. stone surplus.Not to mention that the output of orchard nurseries is definitely more than the value of [-] dendrobium grains!
This Zhu Gong saw that his family was in trouble, so he wanted to use this to threaten him, and wanted to plot his own property.No wonder the father was very angry when he mentioned this person, and he asked him to pay a visit, probably because he wanted him to tell the other party the news that he had already bought food, bluffing, so as to make trouble again.

Knowing his father's intentions, Shen Zhezi smiled tacitly, and then took more than a dozen servants and guards to go to Zhu's Manor in Guzhang County.Not long after traveling, Shen Zhezi saw a group of peasants under the command of his father, starting to dig soil and load it into cars, and covered it with grain.Looking at this posture, the old man is also very good at playing empty city tricks.

Therefore, the area under Zhang's jurisdiction is far inferior to Wukang. As soon as he entered the county seat, Shen Zhezi was told that he had entered the property of Zhu's family.During the journey, Liu Meng, the soldier, introduced the situation of Zhu Gong's family to Shen Zhezi.

This Zhu Gong is a branch of the Zhu Clan in Wu County. Like the Shen family, they are local tyrants. They made their fortune when Chen Min made troubles and wantonly encroached on land.Today, nearly half of the land in Guzhang County is owned by him, and there are more than a thousand disciples. He can already be regarded as one of the newly rising townspeople in Wudi.And the in-law relationship with the Shen family is quite close. His wife is the cousin of his father Shen Chong and the cousin of Shen Zhezi.

However, in times of crisis, the closer the person is, the more ruthless the knife will be stabbed in the back.

If it was someone else, it looked like the Shen family had a great career, but they didn't know much about the current predicament the Shen family was facing.But this Zhu Gong was originally a relative, and he had been with his father for a long time earlier, he knew quite a lot about the inside story of the Shen family, so he was also more aware of the difficulties the Shen family was facing at the moment.

It was precisely because of this person's resolute attitude that he made things difficult for the old man, so that other people could see some clues, which made it more difficult for the Shen family to raise food for the winter in Wu.

After traveling for more than a quarter of an hour, they met the tenants of the Zhu family. Shen Zhezi explained his intentions in a humane manner, and a few people were separated from the tenants to lead Shen Zhezi and his party to the Zhu family's manor.

Now that the autumn harvest is over, there are still many busy figures in the vast fields.It seems that crops are still being planted.Shen Zhezi was quite curious about this. Could it be that the land of Wu has already begun to plant wheat and other crops that can survive the winter on a large scale?
He stopped and invited an old farmer, and asked with a smile, "Excuse me, old man, what are you sowing?"

Facing Shen Zhezi, the old man was a little embarrassed, and he couldn't speak.Shen Zhezi waved his hand to let Liu Meng and the others push away. He lifted up his clothes and led the old man into the field, only to see that the old man had sown a lot of seeds, including wheat, but the grains were slightly smaller than those of later generations.But he couldn't recognize more seeds.

The old man seemed to seldom see the sons of nobles going to the fields, and carefully guarded Shen Zhezi beside him, and then he began to talk about it cautiously.

Shen Zhezi listened patiently, and asked the old man to explain if he didn't understand, and it took a while to understand.It turns out that farming wheat is not for harvest, but as green manure and moisture conservation land.

Others include sweet potato and mallow, all of which are green manure materials for raising land. Sweet potato can not only raise land, but also be used as feed to raise livestock, and mallow is known as the leader of all vegetables, but it is one of the most important vegetables nowadays. First, there is no need to overwinter, and a wave can be harvested years ago.

After listening to the old man's explanation, Shen Zhezi realized that he had made a fuss.He is indeed not very proficient in these common senses of farming. People nowadays already have a deep understanding and mature experience in green manure conservation and soil fertility.

Walking back to the bullock cart to dust off the dirt from his body, Shen Zhezi asked someone to present a gift to the old man, and then continued on the road to Zhu's manor on the hillside.

　There is another update in the evening, a new week, continue to ask for votes against me. . .

　　
　
(End of this chapter)