Northern Dynasties

Chapter 29 The Great Wei Zhongchen
In the midsummer of June, the countryside is full of vitality.The millet seedlings in the farmland have begun to head, and all kinds of crops are also growing vigorously.

In the ditch at the head of the field, several Zhuang Ding who had worked hard to hoe the grain soaked in the running water, discussing whether there would be refreshing locust tree leaves for dinner in the evening.

Several carriages came from a distance, pulling bundles of hemp materials, across the fields and into the manor.

In the manor in front of the hillside, the original fence has been replaced by a wall made of rammed earth, and most of the houses in the manor have been replaced by half-earth and half-brick tile houses. Compared with more than a month ago, it is completely different. Two screens.

In the southwest corner of the manor, there are several ponds for retting. More than a dozen villagers are busy working here, and the retting materials are drying on the wooden racks.

In the southeast corner of the manor, there is a big house school, and there are constant sounds of schoolchildren reading.

Behind the school is a small square, where many women rummage through and dry dried food. A woman listened to the sound of reading for a long time, then suddenly put down the dustpan and shouted at the school: "Dog, why can't I hear you reading?" If you don’t take it seriously, you will beat your ass when you go home!”

"The leopard's head fell to the mo rabbit and the double cranes..."

Suddenly, a child's shrill voice of reading was heard in the big room. The voice was shouting hoarsely, which made people feel sad, but the woman who was yelling just now laughed happily after hearing it.

"Go work elsewhere, don't disturb the schoolchildren studying here!"

Li Zhusheng, who was on duty at the school today, walked out of the big room, waved his hands at the ladies and scolded them.

Seeing this, all the women spread out with their utensils, but there was also a cheerful and pungent woman pointing at a beautiful woman among them and laughing: "The concubine waited until she couldn't let go of those stubborn and disgusting things before coming here, but Mrs. Su has nothing to do." Come out, come closer just to take a look at the master!"

Li Zhusheng's face darkened when he heard the words, and he stomped his feet wanting to be annoyed, but the women laughed even more wantonly, and Mrs. Su was not shy, she leaned over and whispered: "I have an old duck simmering on the stove, will you come at night? "

"Humph!"

Li Zhusheng snorted coldly with a straight face, turned around and walked back to the school. After a while, his teaching voice sounded again in the room: "Shu Fu, today's duck..."

The countryside is full of fun, and although the people in the village are busy, they are also very happy and peaceful.

But people's sorrows and joys are not the same. Zheng Man, who works in the county, has a sad face, watching Li Tai galloping back and forth on the horse, while shooting bows at the grass figures on both sides.

"Lang Jun, it's almost the end of June, and there are only three months left before the time limit for reintroduction, so where can I find the ten thousand stones and grains?"

After finally waiting for Li Tai to stop to take a rest, Zheng Man hurried up and said with a sigh.

Things have developed to this point, so he can't help but worry.The county had high hopes for this cooperation. Every time Zheng Man returned to the city, the county magistrate Du Yun would summon him to inquire about the details of the manor's management.

In addition, Li Tai took eye drops before, which also inspired Zheng Man's idea of ​​career advancement.In May, a large family in the county went to the county government to borrow statues of staff to pray for blessings. Zheng Man was worried that it would affect the manor's servants, so he argued hard and pushed them back.

But nearly two months have passed, and he only saw the five hectares of millet and some miscellaneous grains in the manor, and some mulberry seedlings were planted in the mulberry field on the hillside, and there was no more farming work.

The construction of the manor house is updated day by day, but no matter how well the manor is built, food cannot be produced out of thin air.Those farm cattle and horses are sometimes lent to the villagers of Zuojin for use. Could it be that they intend to borrow food from the villagers of Zuojin?What a joke!

"Don't worry Zheng Zheng, I regard this place as a long-term career, and I will never betray my trust!"

Li Tai glanced at Zheng Man, who had a sad face, and comforted him with a smile. Naturally, he couldn't say that he had prepared both hands in his heart. He practiced bow and horse diligently to prepare for one day to run.

"But……"

Zheng Man was still about to say something, but Li Tai patted him on the shoulder and said with a smile: "During dinner, I will talk with Zheng again, and now I have to go to Nanpo to supervise the production."

The green brick compound located on the south slope has a higher wall and a larger area. It covers an area of ​​more than an hectare. From the outside, it is impossible to see what is busy inside.

When Li Tai walked into the yard, he saw five mills constantly working under the pull of cattle, and next to the mills were five tall spinning wheels, constantly spinning and twisting hemp thread.

Because of the need to make furnaces to melt copper and newly cast gears, the spinning wheel has only recently been officially put into production after continuous debugging and running-in.

Setting up a mill can make the output of cattle more stable. The milled beans, hemp seeds and other crops are also a by-product. The pressed crop oil and moisture can also play a role in moisturizing the wooden structures.

The disadvantage is that the required cattle power increases, which is not as constant as water power, without consumption, and cannot achieve continuous output day and night.Especially at night, because the materials and products are flammable, fireworks are strictly prohibited, and absolutely dare not work with lamps.

Li Tai also had to sigh with emotion that the ancients were full of wisdom in the details of business management, not that he, a modern person, can think about everything with a single stroke of his head.

Although there were twists and turns in the process, it was finally a phased success.

Although the copper-cast bevel gears are not as good as those made of fine steel in later generations, they are enough for simple processing machinery such as spinning wheels, and the melting and casting of copper is relatively simple, so there is no need to invest a huge amount of artificial materials to open a new one. The steel industry can maintain production at this stage.

"Ah Lang, yesterday we spun more than [-] catties of hemp thread. If we are more skilled, we can achieve a daily production of [-] catties!"

Li Quji, who was in charge of the work here, came up to him and reported to Li Tai the production status of these spinning wheels.

The five spinning wheels spun [-] catties of flax a day. If converted into a big catty system, it would produce more than [-] catties of twine per day, which is nearly double the efficiency of turning the large spinning wheels with water.However, compared with traditional spinning yarn, it is more than ten times more labor-intensive, which is also acceptable.

"Very good, keep working hard!"

Li Tai was quite satisfied with the result, and then asked: "Is the hemp material you bought recently sufficient?"

After Li Quji heard the words, he shook his head: "We only collected more than [-] catties today, and the nearby villages have already bought them all. After all, the villagers themselves need to store hemp for work."

Hearing this, Li Tai couldn't help frowning again. Although the price of hemp material is relatively cheap, it is also a necessity for the production and life of the villagers, whether it is for self-clothing or tax collection.

Although Shangyuan is a fertile township, it is also a narrow township, and the vast majority of land-sharing households receive far less than the number of acres stipulated in the land-sharing order.The limited arable land naturally needs to be used as much as possible. Even if hemp is grown, it is only a small amount, and its own reserves are not much.

After the spinning wheel was run-in and put into production, Li Tai exchanged gold for cloth and sent people nearby to buy flax.After harvesting more than [-] catties, the savings in the village near the bottom will be exhausted.More than three thousand catties of hemp material is only a few days of processing by the big spinning wheel.

The production capacity here has increased, but the raw materials for production are insufficient.If you go further to purchase, the transportation cost will increase sharply.

The trouble Li Tai is facing right now is not only the insufficient supply of hemp materials.After standing in the compound for a while, he turned to inspect the weaving field next to him.

In the past two months or so, in addition to other kinds of labor, the trilogy has produced dozens of looms.The twine is only a semi-finished product, and it must be spun into cloth before it can be put into trade.

Although Li Tai knew how to make a large spinning wheel, he was not omniscient, and he was relatively unfamiliar with weaving.Therefore, these dozens of looms are only the current form of craftsmanship, and weavers still need to weave them into cloth one by one.

"My lord, yesterday all the ladies weaved more than sixty pieces of cloth."

Miss Xu, who is in charge of the weaving field, came forward to report, and Li Tai smiled and encouraged after hearing this.

"The new weaving is artificial, so the weaving is artificial. One piece of weaving is a day, and the weaving is more than five feet."

This is the content of the weaving efficiency described in the Han Yuefu's "Going up the Mountain to Pick Wuwu", and in another Yuefu poem "The Peacock Flies to the Southeast", in addition to the stalk of "hanging the southeast branch", there is also a description of the heroine. Liu Lanzhi is good at weaving the sentence "Break five horses in three days".

It can be seen that in the ancient technological environment, it is relatively normal for a weaver to weave one piece of silk a day.Even the heroine of the eternal love story can't do two horses every day.

The weaving of cloth is less demanding than silk knitting, and the hemp thread is also thicker. Skilled weavers can weave two to three strands a day.A piece of cloth is two feet two feet long and forty feet long, and about seven or eight catties of hemp thread can be woven into one piece.

Today, there are more than thirty weavers working in the weaving field, which is already the number of people who know how to weave in the trilogy.

As for the female corps sent by the county government, most of them are Hu women, who don't know weaving skills.After all, weaving is printing money, and there is no difference between idleness and busyness. Naturally, the county government will not give the fine weaving lady to Li Tai for use.

"The situation is very bad, do you really have to pack up and prepare to run?"

After leaving the weaving field, Li Tai squatted in the field, using a branch to write and calculate on the ground.

As the season entered midsummer, the fields gradually became more productive, and prices in Guanzhong also dropped. It was no longer as exaggerated as when Li Tai first came to buy a bucket of bean for a piece of cloth, but the price of a stone of rough millet remained stable at around five pieces of cloth.

Now the weaving field weaves sixty bolts of cloth a day, which is twelve shi when converted into grain, or three hundred and sixty shi a month.This kind of output is actually quite impressive, it is more than enough to support a family, and the other output in the manor is a net profit.

But the problem is that Li Tai is still carrying a huge debt of [-] shi for grain, which can only reach one-tenth of it in three months. The huge gap is a serious problem.

Although he looked calm on the surface, Li Tai was also panicked in his heart.If the food shortage in Wuxiang County is just to maintain administrative consumption, he can try to delay the debt for a while.But this batch of materials is for the military parade after autumn, so the impact will be great!
If there is a lack of this ten thousand stone grain, Yu Wentai may not be able to make a big review, he will not be able to build a military army, the twelve generals of the Eight Pillars Kingdom will be impossible to talk about, Yang Jian will not be able to ascend, and the great empires of the Sui and Tang Dynasties will all disappear what!
King Gao, I am our loyal minister of Wei!I'll help you handle things that hundreds of thousands of you can't handle. Is it too much to be crowned king?

(End of this chapter)