Northern Dynasties

Chapter 18
In the empty storeroom, Gao Bailing spread his hands, with a helpless expression on his face: "The things in the house are like this, and we really can't afford to support too many people. Although the Western Dynasty couldn't help the big family to raise soldiers, but the industry is depressed, people are not as good as things... "

Li Tai looked at the pots and wooden baskets that were half bottomed out, and was a little dumbfounded for a while.He originally thought that the Western Wei Dynasty had strict population and household registration controls, so Gao Bailing suggested that he return the soldiers, but he didn't expect it to be for this reason.

"But last night's meal..."

"It's because last night's meal was too rich, and I ate up the usual ten-day supply of rice and noodles, and even tonight's meal is barely enough..."

After Gao Bailing heard the words, he smiled wryly: "My lord used to be in Dongzhou, so I didn't have much plan, and the battle at Mangshan was even more tragic. When I was detained in Zhao Gui's army, I already had death intentions. Waiting to know Thirteen Lang It's rare to get excited if I ask for help, I'm afraid that Thirteen Lang will be too weak to support him, and he will be forced to live in the world. Although the family is difficult, I dare not report and disturb, so I can only complain to Thirteen Lang."

Hearing this, Li Tai was silent for a long time before he said: "I don't feel sorry for the difficulty of making a living, serving pets arrogantly, it is indeed hurtful. Although Uncle loves you, I should be self-reliant. I will introduce all the soldiers, and I will be free." Liu Gong doesn't have to worry about raising food, I..."

"Thirteen Lang misunderstood, I'm definitely not complaining and chasing you!"

Hearing what Li Tai said, Gao Bailing knelt on the ground with a plop, his old eyes choked with tears, and said: "So when the Great Sima was here, he often led his troops to plunder, and the Westerners also had a lot of resentment. The lord loses power and goes west, and he will inevitably be attacked by malicious people." Take a peek. The persecution of Zhao Gui is just one thing. Since he lived in the city, there have been dogs and blood on the walls. Thirteen Lang has been in the city for a short time, and he has not lost contact with those in power in the Western Dynasty. The whole family will rely on this power to protect them , to live in this village..."

Gao Bailing said that the old Sima was Gao Aocao who died in Heyang several years ago.

Since the separation of the Eastern and Western Dynasties in the Northern Wei Dynasty, Gao Aocao has always served as the general of the Eastern Wei Dynasty. He has never been absent from the previous wars, which naturally caused hatred and resentment among the personnel of the Western Dynasty.As his elder brother, Gao Zhongmi lost his power, and it was inevitable that he would be suppressed and retaliated against.

Li Tai was originally embarrassed to drag Gao Zhongmi's life, and planned to take Shi Wu to find another livelihood, but when he heard Gao Bailing say this, he felt embarrassed to continue.

"Uncle and I are both lost relatives and homes. We depend on each other for our lives. We have our hands and feet but we don't lose our jobs. It's just that the world doesn't make sense right now, and the troubles are only short-term. Let's prepare the meals for tonight first, no need Houzhi, after the meal, I will discuss with my uncle how we can overcome the difficulties together."

After thinking for a while, Li Tai said, whether it is to live with Gao Zhongmi or to stand on his own, the food and survival of so many people under him is also a problem that he must solve.

For dinner, the food provided in the mansion was much poorer than last night. Li Tai still had a bowl of round-grained rice and two spoonfuls of lotus sauce to accompany the meal, but those Wuqu soldiers only had some bran bread and bran rice for food.

In fact, this is the normal state of life in the Western Dynasty. Guanzhong has been in chaos for many years, and it has not been ruled for a long time, and it has suffered a new defeat at Mangshan, and its resources are even more stretched.

Even powerful and powerful households are very strict with the supply of soldiers and soldiers. Private armored soldiers and main laborers may be able to have two meals a day, and it is common for women, children, old and weak to have one meal a day or even less.

That is to say, these people met Gao Zhongmi who didn't know how to live in financial difficulties, and they were in a good mood last night, so they were extravagant. All the men, women and children in the mansion had enough rice cakes.As a result, this meal ate up most of the family's reserves.

Gao Zhongmi still had a poor appetite. While complaining about the lack of wine, he sipped a bowl of buttermilk. When he heard Li Tai talk about how to maintain the family affairs, he waved his hands and said: "There are elders in the household, and there are elders in the household. There is no need for Ah Pan to be sad. Although he was in a hurry when he ran west, he still had some heavy goods in reserve, and his simple life was enough to last the rest of the year."

Hearing what Gao Zhongmi said, Li Tai also breathed a sigh of relief.After realizing the problem of livelihood, he also made a calculation before dinner.

At present, there are quite a lot of people in the family. Gao Zhongmi originally had nearly [-] soldiers, and Daxingtai also rewarded a family of five slaves and maidservants, plus more than [-] trilogy brought back by Li Tai and [-] gifts from several Hui. Mingshiwu, that's nearly two hundred mouths.

In the afternoon, when Dao congratulated Basheng, he also said that he would send him some soldiers, and promised that the number would not be inferior to several benefits.Calculated in large numbers, that is the food expenses needed to maintain [-] people.

In terms of staple food alone, an adult must eat at least five taels a day.In the Northern Dynasties, one stone weighed one hundred and twenty catties, but one catty was only equivalent to about two hundred and twenty grams in later generations. Based on this approximation, one person’s daily ration would be at least one catty today, and one stone of grain could last one person for one season. rations.

But this was an extremely harsh situation, Li Tai was not in the mood to eat just now, the bowl of rice was at least over [-] grams, and it was just dinner.

Therefore, a stone of grain is really not worth eating, especially when doing some physical labor, each person needs at least two to three catties of staple food per day, so a stone of grain can last at most two months.

Just now Li Tai took a cursory glance, and found that the proportion of the population in the mansion is still healthy, there are nearly one hundred strong soldiers, and the same number for women, children, old and weak.If He Basheng gave [-] to Buqu tomorrow, and the ratio was the same, the strong men would have enough to eat, and the women and children would be slightly reduced. In two months, nearly [-] shi of grain would be consumed.

In addition to human consumption, there are more than [-] horses in the stable.The raising of horses is not like people who can be rich and thrifty. If the feed is insufficient, good horses will be turned into bad horses, so it is also a huge expense.

It's not that I don't know, it's a shock.Just looking at the current population size of the trilogy, if they want to maintain it, at least thousands of stones of food and grass will be consumed every year.

Li Tai also planned to raise a private army, and the food and grass that needed to be raised would cost at least tens of thousands of shi every year!
"Now that we are based in Kansai, we need to make a long-term plan. It may be possible to maintain it in the short term, but if it is planned for the long term, we still need to make a more detailed plan!"

Even though Gao Zhongmi said firmly, Li Tai also wanted to find out how much money they had now.

After Gao Zhongmi heard the words, he said with a smile: "I am living in decadence and don't look forward to the long-term, but you, Apan, are not. It's rare to have such a heart for business, so our uncle and nephew will plan something."

After saying this, he beckoned Gao Bailing to come in, and said: "All the household affairs are accounted for, and I will pay A Pan. In the future, the expenses will be determined, so don't bother me again."

Gao Bailing nodded yes, then turned around and handed an account book to Li Tai.

Li Tai just glanced at it and felt dizzy. This account book was written in traditional characters vertically, and it was also full of receipts and expenditures. The records of various materials were messy, which greatly violated his reading and calculation habits.

In order to make his own accounting more clear, he needed a pen and paper again, outlined the form, listed the income, expenditure and balance, recorded each material separately, and then filled in the figures in the form.

"A Pan is so good at calculating, but earlier you, A Ye, often blamed you for being incompetent!"

Gao Zhongmi couldn't help being amazed when he saw that Li Tai was putting his head down to sort out the books so fast. He walked around the case and looked down, pointing to the formula on the paper Li Tai listed in Arabic numerals and asked curiously: "What kind of symbol is this?" Draw?"

"I hated prose and combativeness since I was a child, and I hated complicated characters the most, so I often replaced them with simple ones."

Li Tai replied casually, he rarely remembered the memory of burying his head in the scriptures, but there were quite a lot of scenes of being chased by his father to persuade him to learn, and now that his father is not in Guanzhong, there is no need to worry about revealing the truth by talking nonsense.

The addition and subtraction of these basic numbers is not complicated. He neither knows how to use the calculation tools Gao Bailing sent, nor is it necessary to use them, so he quickly sorted out the account books and calculated them clearly.

"According to this, there are still more than [-] money in the treasury, [-] catties and [-] taels of gold, eight buckets and six liters of rice, noodles..."

Li Tai held the form and said that Gao Bailing's eyes widened in shock when he saw this scene: "Thirteen Lang is not only good at calculating, he is really good at calculating! I also keep records of old things in Dongzhou household, and I am conceited that I can be called good at calculating. But it took several hours from last night until now to determine the number of families, but Thirteenth Lang only took more than a quarter of an hour!"

In fact, it didn't take a quarter of an hour at all. Li Tai spent most of his time on making watches and writing, and he didn't spend much time on calculations at the elementary school level.This bookkeeping is only done in the wrong way, and the amount of discrepancy involved is not large.

The biggest income of the family is still a reward from Yuwentai, [-] yuan, or [-] guan, [-] bolts of silk, [-] hu, or [-] stones of miscellaneous grains and rice, and many other miscellaneous materials. not big.

As for the gold, it was Gao Zhongmi who brought [-] catties with him when he traveled west from Hulao, but it was lost and some expenses were added, so now only these are left.

From such a rough look, the family property is quite solid, with more than [-] yuan in money alone, more than a dozen catties of gold, and a hundred bolts of silk that have not been touched.

But whether the amount of money is more or less, after all, it still has to match the price.It is also often recorded in history books that in famine years, thousands of dollars or even tens of thousands of dollars are spent for fighting rice, and the rich starve to death with gold and jade in their arms.

"Buying tomorrow, I will enter the market with Liugong."

The family still had more money, but the reserves of materials, especially food, were seriously insufficient and needed to be supplemented urgently. Li Tai also wanted to know the specific prices of goods in Kansai during this period, so he said again.

Probably because of Li Tai's influence, Gao Zhongmi also said: "The reward in front of the Daxingtai is still a farm in Xiaxian County. But these days I just look forward to Apan's arrival, and I have no time to send someone to collect it. Gradually, it’s true that we can’t just eat and not work, and we will send people to collect the garden property tomorrow.”

Li Tai was overjoyed when he heard this. Since he was determined to develop farming in the village, the premise was that there was land to grow.When I was doing the accounts before, I was still thinking about how to get the land, but I didn't expect that Yuwen Black Otter had already given it generously.

"Everything in the world accumulates little to much, and gathers sand to form a tower, but if you can do it well, you will be rewarded with hard work! It is indeed painful to lose power suddenly, but since there is still little work to rely on, Uncle and I will be able to make a comeback!"

Knowing that there is still a considerable career foundation at the moment, Li Tai is full of confidence in his heart.

(End of this chapter)