Overlord!

Chapter 141 Daxing Water Conservancy
After arranging the important military and political affairs of all the counties and counties, Sun Ce dismissed all the civil and military personnel, leaving only Zhang Zhao and Zhang Hong to confirm the overall situation of the forces.

Although Sun Ce doesn't mind being made public about the situation of money and food, the total population and the area of ​​arable land, it doesn't mean anything to ordinary officials.

Moreover, it is also a tradition of human politics to hold conferences for small matters and small conferences for major events.

Since there were three people discussing the matter, Sun Ce took Zhang Zhao and Zhang Hong directly to Wutong Garden and sat down between the lakeside terraces, leaning on the railing to look from a distance.

Wutong Garden is right on the edge of Taihu Lake. Today's Taihu Lake has beautiful scenery. There are not only fishing boats on the lake, but also sightseeing and sightseeing boats passing by from time to time.

This is enough to see that the famine situation in Wu County has been greatly alleviated, and the wealth is surplus, so that only the children of rich families and famous women can play on the lake carefree.

Don't be cynical. When you see the children of rich families enjoying a good life, you will shout and kill them.

In fact, if even the children of rich families can't relax, the lives of ordinary people will only be worse.

Just like Xia Houyuan's daughters have to go to the mountains to collect firewood, so how can the lives of the people under Cao Cao be better?Xia Houyuan starved to death a son in order to support this slave girl, and the lives of ordinary people will only be more miserable, and I am afraid that they will have to change their sons long ago.

Looking at the bustling scene on Taihu Lake, Sun Ce was in a good mood, and asked, "The lone general will attack Guangling in the north soon, what is the situation of the treasury, may it be given to the charioteers?"

Zhang Zhao said: "Looking at it now, the treasury is still stretched. Jiangdong's best choice is to recuperate. However, what Lu Su said is also very reasonable. Now is Xuzhou's weakness and Jiangdong's best opportunity to expand its strength at the least cost. If you don’t take Guangling with a crowd of [-] today, you will surely mobilize more than [-] people in the future.”

The treasury is stretched.Sun Ce couldn't help smiling, taking pleasure in the bitterness.At the end of the Han Dynasty, the world is really suffering.

Since entering Jiangdong, Sun Ce has heard all the time that the treasury is insufficient and food and grass are in crisis.

But don't think that this is more embarrassing than other princes. In fact, this is far superior to most princes in countless internal affairs.

At least this shows that there are still materials in Sun Ce's treasury, and all state machinery such as the government, counties, and army are still barely functioning.

As for the other princes, they collapsed a long time ago, extorting crazily and even looting the people, and the people under their rule were devastated, the order collapsed, and the people fled.

Except for a few forces such as Liu Biao and Zhang Lu, Jiangdong's internal affairs and government treasury are already the most abundant in the world.

Zhang Zhao said: "The Ming government received the three counties of Yuzhang, Danyang, and Kuaiji, and their treasuries were almost exhausted, and there was still not enough money for the officials, so it was absolutely impossible to support the charioteers."

"Today, with the addition of more than 8000 Beifu troops stationed along the Yangtze River and more than 720 cavalrymen from Wu County, the total number of troops is 24, not counting the needs of the battle. The monthly salary alone is [-] million yuan, and the combined food is [-] yuan. stone."

"There are more than 480 officials in seventy counties in five counties, with a monthly salary of 16 million yuan and a combined grain of more than [-] shi."

"If it weren't for the government to cast money to pay salaries, only the 100 yuan per month and more than [-] shi of grain would be unbearable."

100 million yuan per month, and a total of 3000 million yuan for the whole year. This figure is really not big in the Han Dynasty. When the Han Dynasty still ruled, every year after the balance of Qingzhou and Jizhou, it would be transferred to Youzhou. The amount of money is more than 2 million.

The development level of Jiangdong is a little behind that of Jizhou and Qingzhou, but it is not a big problem for the five counties to pay 3000 million yuan.After all, this has to be converted into min, which is only 13 min.

The poets of later generations once claimed to wear a hundred thousand guan in their waists and ride down to Yangzhou on a crane.

13 yuan will be the property of a wealthy family in later generations.

However, the big man has always been in a state of money shortage, and the purchasing power of currency is much higher than that of later generations.

But even so, the wealth of 13 yuan is easy for the five counties.If there were such wealthy businessmen and rich men, the wealth of one family could solve one-tenth of the annual financial burden of all the official schools in Jiangdong.

But the crux of the problem is that among the five counties in Jiangdong, only Wu County is providing taxes to Sun Ce.The other four counties still need the government to send Tongbao and wealth to the past to solve the hunger of people's livelihood and circulate currency.

After Dong Zhuo's chaos, it is too difficult to resume the trade of money and goods, and to issue currency.

Not to mention other things, the official coinage is a huge problem.Minting coins in this era is not as simple as in later generations, just turn on the printing machine.

If you want to mint [-] million coins, you need to transport a large amount of copper and lead to Jincao. The cost of mining and transportation is extremely high.

Even if Jiangdong is allowed to open up the casting, casting [-] to [-] million pieces of Jiangdong Tongbao a year, the pressure will be enormous.

Therefore, in order to assist the minting of coins, Jin Cao will also collect folk five baht coins and small coins, and re-melt them.

At this time, don't talk about Cao Cao.Sun Ce has the urge to dig graves and rob graves. After all, hundreds of thousands of coins, or even millions of coins, will be dug out of a large tomb, and the cost and pressure of minting coins will be greatly reduced.

As long as the bottom line is broken once, this kind of thing is no longer a taboo.

Fortunately, Sun Ce finally resisted this urge.It's not that he has much stronger willpower than Cao Cao, but that he hasn't reached the point where Cao Cao is at the end of his life.He also has the biggest hole card!

Sun Ce's hole card is his wife Zhou Cheng.

The Wu County Weaving Bureau founded by Zhou Cheng finally no longer lacks production materials this year. Wu County has resumed production for two years, and every family raises silkworms for silk reeling, so raw materials are abundant.

In fact, the scale of the silk industry in the Central Plains has always been spectacular. Hundreds of households in a mile raise silkworms and reel silk, which can produce thousands of pieces of raw silk!

Small officials and merchants who collect silk often need to transport it by boat.

There are thousands of raw silk produced in one village, and hundreds of thousands of raw silk can be produced in one township or county.

Even in order to sell the raw silk as soon as possible, the women who raised silkworms and reeled silk would accompany them to send the raw silk to the city for sale.

All this made the production capacity of the Wuxian Weaving Department finally reach the limit of the technology of this era, with a daily output of more than [-] pieces of silk and hundreds of pieces of brocade.

This is the greatest wealth that Sun Ce can control, and a large amount of money has been harvested from the people continuously, including those privately minted by the powerful.

It is not unreasonable for Cao Wei to use cloth as currency.This kind of thing, once the stability of the rule is restored, and after the officials persuade farmers to teach farming and mulberry, the textile workshops in the hands of the court can continuously produce a large amount of cloth, and it is a hard currency. In addition to being inconvenient, its transaction and currency attributes are full.

Of course, Jiangdong currency can be circulated, in addition to cloth, gold and silver as guarantees, it is also because Wu County indeed produces the most abundant grain.

This is also something that the other four counties in Jiangdong are in urgent need of. You can buy a lot of food and cloth when you go to Wu County with money. This is a real demand that the other four counties can't resist.Tongbao, grain, and cloth are all produced in Wu County, so how can the currency not be circulated in the other four counties in Jiangdong?This is also the most real, currency upfront investment.This is to use the wealth of Wu County to subsidize the other four counties to restore the livelihood of the people in the four counties and ensure the passage of Tongbao in the four counties.

Regarding this situation, Zhang Zhao, as an important minister in charge of military and political affairs, naturally had to report to Sun Ce emphatically, saying: "Today, the thirteen counties of Wu County have a total of 56 households with a population of 600 and 430 million acres of land. , including 520 acres of fields. The total grain yield of all fields is estimated to be between 500 million shi, which is equivalent to [-] million shi."

"With the 9000 million shi of grain supplied to Wu County itself, the households will have a surplus, but to supply the land of the five counties, there will be starvation. The heroes and the people of Wu County have quite a lot of complaints."

This scale is indeed stretched, and it still needs to be intensively cultivated.

Deng Ai used 5 people to farm in Huainan. At the end of the year, 500 million shi was left over as military funds. In six or seven years, 3000 million shi were stored in the Huai River, which could feed [-] people. five years.

There are nearly 11 households in Wu County, with a population of 56, ten times that of Deng Ai. Before deducting the expenses of the people, it is only 9000 million shi.

The difference lies in the yield per mu.

Deng Ai farmed in Shaopi, taking advantage of the convenience of water conservancy, and the yield per mu was extremely high.

As for the more than 600 million mu of fertile land in Wu County, Shangtian only accounted for a quarter, but the output accounted for half.

The area from Taihu Lake to Ningshao Plain is definitely a land of abundance.This is the real Jiangdong granary, Sun Ce's pocketbook.

When all these places are fully developed, Jiangdong's level of wealth will far exceed that of Huainan.

However, what Zhang Zhao said made Sun Ce and Zhang Hong look sideways.

Zhang Hong said: "The population is more than [-], which is already comparable to the population of Wu County at the peak of the Han Dynasty?"

Zhang Zhao shook his head and said, "I have checked the files of Wu County's plan. At the peak, there were 14 households in Wu County's thirteen counties, with more than 20 people. Now Wu County counts the more than [-] people who moved south from the Central Plains, nearly [-] people, only between [-]% and [-]% of the population at its peak."

That's pretty good too.

Being able to maintain [-]% to [-]% of the population at the peak should also be among the best among the hundreds of counties in the world today.

Including the other four counties in Jiangdong, the other counties are all empty.The common people fled from their homeland, or took refuge in the mountains, or gathered people to hide in the wilderness.

There are thousands of people gathered in one place.

Compared with these dilapidated counties, Wu County, with 10,000+ households and a population of more than 50, can already be called a wealthy county.

The key point is that the population has decreased, but the area of ​​cultivated land has increased by 600 million mu, with an average household of nearly 150 mu.It can probably be compared with the land occupation system in the Western Jin Dynasty, and each household owns the same amount of land.

This is obviously due to Sun Ce's implementation of the non-land system, which prevented the population of Wu County from decreasing too much, but the average cultivated land increased significantly.

Powerful households, clans and common people are all producing with all their might, leaving the wilderness empty and opening up a large amount of farmland.

The distribution of 56 people in Wu County is not evenly distributed among the thirteen counties. Most of the people living in the north and south are in the northern counties, especially Wu County and Wuxi. This is the coast of Taihu Lake and has a vast plain. Moreover, the infrastructure is well developed, and the government is doing its best to build water conservancy projects, so the homeless people and powerful families are all trying their best to develop fertile land here.

The number of households in these two counties alone exceeds [-], or more than [-].The area of ​​arable land must also be more than six million mu.

Sun Ce asked: "There are so many good fields, how much wealth does the treasury have?"

Zhang Zhao replied: "This is exactly the problem. The government spends tens of millions of money every month to distribute to officials and officials, and the money also goes to buy grain. The other four counties also go to Wu County to buy grain. With all the expenses, the treasury of Wu County only has 7000 million yuan, and the treasury plus Changping warehouse has a total of more than 120 million shi of grain."

More than 120 million stones of grain!

This figure seems majestic and majestic, but if it is counted as official and military salaries, it is only worth three months of expenditure.

And if there is a drought, the 100 million shi of grain is not even enough to relieve the people in Wu County and Wuxi.

All of this is still without the premise of a large-scale rebellion.

Otherwise, once the army is mobilized to quell the chaos, the turnover cost of the [-] army will be able to spend the million stones of grain in a few months.

Sun Ce did some calculations, and according to the taxation, he should have received nearly 300 million shi of grain, but now more than half of it is used to subsidize the other four counties and restore people's livelihood and famine.

Even if the government is like this, it is no wonder that the people of Wu County complained everywhere.

In order to promote Jiangdong Tongbao, their wealth was indeed sucked away by the other four counties.

But Sun Ce was determined, and said: "The common people only focus on the present, and it is normal to complain. The government must take a long-term plan and firmly implement it. When the other four counties begin to harvest next year, Wu County will be able to benefit from the current investment. At that time, the four counties were prosperous, and the people's livelihood was in decline, and all kinds of wastes were waiting for prosperity. All walks of life in Wu County would benefit from it. Even food prices might be reduced. At this time, we must not give up the Jiangdong plan because of temporary public grievances. "

Zhang Zhao nodded solemnly, and said, "I will summon the magistrates and chiefs of the counties to inform them about this matter, and make sure they stabilize the hearts of the people. If there are no disasters in the land of fish and rice in Wu County, it should not be difficult to support this year."

Sure enough, the small peasant economy is all about stability.

As long as there are no droughts or large-scale military disturbances, the small-scale peasant economy can run smoothly, and even save a little wealth, allowing society to progress slowly.

But this is only enough food for three months' salaries of officials and the army, which is also worrying.

Sun Ce said: "Since seeking stability, we should increase investment in water conservancy. Now July is the harvest season, and it can be expected that the money and grain will increase in the next few months. In October, the counties will be taxed Don't pile up so much wealth in the treasury, organize the people to build water conservancy projects, change dry fields into paddy fields, store water for irrigation, and make droughts and floods worry-free. Next until the end of the year, the top priority of the five counties in Jiangdong is to build water conservancy projects !"

The construction of water conservancy is no longer as petty as before. A lake, a few ditches will be built to irrigate hundreds of hectares of fertile land.

This time, with the strength of the whole territory, hundreds of townships in the [-] counties of Wu County will go all out to build it.

At least one time to open hundreds or even thousands of lakes, tens of thousands of ditches, irrigated millions of acres of fertile land.

Only in this way will it be possible to survive the severe drought next year.

However, Sun Ce has expectations. Maybe next year will be just a severe drought in Huainan under Yuan Shu's rule?
The drought and flood in the south of the Yangtze River should be different from that in Huainan.

(End of this chapter)