Northern Dynasties

Chapter 58 Raising Military Supplies
Soldiers and horses go ahead without food and grass, and the supply of military rations is undoubtedly the most critical factor for the maintenance of the army.

Hearing what Zhou Changming said, Li Tai couldn't help frowning: "Didn't you say that the county allocated grain and fodder?"

"It's like this. Originally, the county should give the township regiment two months of food and fodder for the training and reading after the autumn. But not long ago, there was a Qingshui Dihu in Longbian who moved to Huazhou. It needs to be properly resettled this year. Cut down the farms of the township regiment to lose them. Therefore, the county can only allocate one month's grain for the ceremony this autumn."

Li Quji explained that he had negotiated a lot with the county government recently to achieve such a result.

Li Tai was not without gloating and lamenting that the villagers were unlucky before, but he didn't expect that Dihu's relocation would have such an aftermath of influence, and he couldn't be happy immediately.

There are thousands of families and tens of thousands of people in Dihu who moved to Huazhou this time. It is naturally an extremely large number for an individual, but it is actually nothing for a regime.

With such a large amount of relocation and resettlement, Daxingtai was able to change the previous expenditure plan and transfer the grain that should have been allocated to the township regiment to Dihu, which shows how shallow the plate of the Western Wei Dynasty is.There are few variables in the expenditure budget, and it is necessary to make major adjustments to the stress.

The key point is that there must be expenditures elsewhere, so why use the food from the township group?After all, although the Xiangtuan has been initially integrated, its combat effectiveness and strength are still not taken seriously by Daxingtai, and these Dihu's previous dances have caused a lot of trouble.

Although the township regiment in Wuxiang County is not directly under Li Tai, it is the only Kansai armed force that he can intervene to have a profound impact so far. The formation of combat power is quite attentive.

Now that there is a food shortage for more than a month suddenly, Li Tai is naturally very irritable. He feels that Yu Wentai is really sloppy, you can't afford to support an army of more than [-] people, and you are fighting for hegemony!Go back to your hometown and farm, you can't compare to me in farming!

But I have complained in my heart, and the problems that should be faced and solved still have to be solved.

How much military food does a team of more than [-] people need to consume in a month?

The "Book of Songs" of the Southern Dynasties records a story in the Eastern Jin Dynasty: Today, the barbarians and Di Di are on the other side of the river, and the foreign imperial court is in a hurry.

It's about the soldiers who fought on the front line donating seven liters of rations a day to die in distress, and the overly extravagant jugglers in the court gave five liters of rations a day, which really shouldn't be.

It can be seen that seven liters of rations per day is already a very low supply for a soldier.If it is ensured that the soldiers' consumption throughout the day is adequately supplemented, it is more reasonable to give them a bucket of food every day.

A soldier needs three shi for a month's ration, and the consumption of more than [-] people for a month is a food gap of more than [-] shi!
"Then can you think of a solution?"

Although Li Tai is worried about this, he doesn't want to bring this trouble on him. Not to mention that he doesn't have so much food at all. Make him a private army.

I want to be Lu, not Chitu!He Liuhun is still my big brother after all, what are you black otter.

"Before, I had already negotiated with several military governors for emergency, and hoped that they would be able to give help. But except for the two old governors, the three new ones were rewarded by losing officials, and their savings were not rich, so they could barely make up for it. One thousand two hundred stones of miscellaneous grains."

Li Quji said that during this period of time, the township regiment and the army were also a rather difficult test for him. From the creation of registers to the collection of materials, various problems of various sizes emerged one after another. It's beyond my reach.

When Li Tai heard this, he couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed, because the three new governors paid a price far beyond the ordinary for his troubles.Especially Shi Gong, a poor ghost, who paid back and forth and was blackmailed by himself, the mice in the warehouse might starve to death.

Under such circumstances, more than a thousand shi of grain can be collected, which shows that these local tyrants also value the status of the governor.

Zhou Changming also opened his mouth and said: "I have also visited some uninvolved people in the county recently, and I can transfer [-] shi of grain and goods every week."

This scene and this dialogue are really shabby and pitiful, but it is the current situation of the military supply of the Western Wei Dynasty.

In the early years of Datong, when Dugu Xindong was begging for Luoyang, he used Zhao Su, a village righteous, as a logistics officer to raise military rations from Heluo Haoqiang, so that the army could have supplies, so that Yu Wentai excitedly called Zhao Su "the master of Luoyang".

At the end of the Datong period, when Yang Zhong led his army to attack Shannanzhou County, he also needed local tyrants to subsidize military rations.It’s true that I have a gun with everything in it. If you don’t borrow it, I’ll grab it.

With the supplement of these two thousand shi of grain, there is still more than half of the gap.It is not impossible for Li Tai to take out the gap of the remaining three thousand stones. After all, three thousand stones were extorted from the historians of the Shang Dynasty alone.The county government deducted my military rations, and I owed the county government debts, which is also very reasonable.

But after all, he is not a legitimate leader of the township regiment. If he is asked to provide three thousand shi of grain to support the army for no reason, even if he is willing to do so, he feels uncomfortable.

After pondering for a while, he asked again: "When will the county government pay the grain and fodder? The main thing is to remove the millet?"

"It can be allocated at the end of the month, [-]% of millet and [-]% of miscellaneous beans."

Li Quji replied again.

Li Tai nodded after hearing the words: "It's okay, there is still time. After the millet is in place, immediately replace it with wheat grain!"

Zhou Changming was startled when he heard the words: "Selling military rations privately, is this...even if it's expedient or not a crime, but the poor food for the soldiers is also a hindrance to morale."

Millet is the shelled millet, which is the main crop and ration in Kansai.Although rice is also grown, it is mainly produced in large manors and official villages near abundant water sources.

As for wheat, in addition to peeling and peeling, it has to be milled into flour to be considered a delicate ingredient.The processing process is too cumbersome and requires a huge labor cost, which is far less convenient than millet husks that can be steamed and eaten.

Therefore, wheat is often used as food for famine, and its mainstream status in Kansai’s diet is far less than that of millet, and its price is nearly doubled.

The county government can allocate [-] shi for the shelled corn. If all of them are replaced with wheat, at least [-] shi can be exchanged, plus [-] shi for miscellaneous beans and [-] shi for donation from the county, then the amount is enough for two months. consumed.

But the reason why the prices of wheat and millet are so different is that the taste of wheat rice and millet rice is too different, and eating too much wheat rice will cause a series of problems such as abdominal distension and constipation.Soldiers are human beings too, and it would be hell if their morale could be high after being treated so harshly.

"Do as I say!"

Li Tai first said without doubt, and seeing Zhou Changming nodded in response, he said again: "There is a new water hole on the plateau, which can grind wheat into flour. It is not a problem to make hundreds of stones a day, which can be enough for soldiers to eat."

The price of corn is nearly twice as high as that of wheat, and the price of wheat processed into flour is nearly double that of corn.The double price difference before and after is the labor cost of processing wheat into flour.

Before today, Li Tai would have to scratch his head anxiously when he encountered this problem, but with the blessing of those hydraulic tools on Luoshui, this problem can be easily solved.The pulp of papermaking only needs water awl for processing, and the water awl can be used to grind the surface.

Nowadays, a wreath is equivalent to a small processing factory, that's why the powerful and powerful are keen to live by the water. Who wouldn't like to buy and sell for money while lying down?

The reason why Liang Chun's family gave up the manor so simply, apart from Liang Chun himself being open-minded and uncontested, is probably because Zhao Gui's slaves are too domineering. It is also a kind of torture to watch the other party give money while the family dare not work.

Although the 碓硙 does not belong to Li Tai's property, he has already planned to use the first batch of dividends from the printing workshop to compensate some benefits.

Shuo Hui himself may not care about these small things, but after all, he has a lot of family members. If the money and affairs cannot be distributed fairly and clearly, the business and friendship will not last long.

The Mid-Autumn Festival has passed now, and there are still more than ten days before the end of the month.It happened that Liu Gong also started to lead the crowd to purchase grain in the village, so Li Tai also asked him to exchange the millet harvested by himself for a batch of villagers' wheat for milling, and then use the processed flour to exchange wheat for recycling.

In Li Tai's manor, the autumn sowing of winter wheat and the autumn harvest of millet had just been completed, and the people in the village went back to grain processing.

On the open space of the manor, several huge wooden drums were installed, and someone was constantly rolling the handle beside them. The drums rotated rapidly, and there were constant crackling and friction sounds inside.

On the other side, there was a long wooden table, on which thick round cakes were placed one by one. Someone chopped these round cakes into pieces with a knife and an axe, and then sent them into the drum with a dustpan for crushing.

These round cakes are the pressed sesame seed cakes in the oil mill, and after being crushed again, they are sent to another workshop.

There are several large stoves in the work shed, and a copper pan with a concave bottom is placed on top of the burning stove, and a person next to him is in charge of the spoon, constantly stirring the flour, soybean powder and sesame cakes in the copper pan.

Li Tai was also guarding a large stove, rolling up his sleeves and frying it himself, while noticing the color change of the fried noodles, he shouted: "The stove should be lower! Add half a liter of sheep oil to suppress the dust... add salt, and half cook it! Operate as I do, and you will take over."

After giving up his position in charge of the spoon, he walked to the side of the wooden shelf and picked up a pinch of fried noodles that had been stir-fried, put them into his mouth, chewed and tasted them carefully, then nodded in satisfaction, and then ordered: "add water, make cakes .Do not add too much water. After forming, press it on the bar and send it to the oven for drying.”

A row of large wooden barrels are used to press the cakes. The big cakes kneaded with water are still fluffy and fat. After being put into the wooden barrels, they are covered with several layers of silk cloth, then covered with wooden boards, and then covered with huge stones. Finally, there are workers who use bars to squeeze.

The extruded and shaped grain cakes are already very thick, but this is still not the final product. It has to be transferred to two wooden boards, and continues to be processed by the method of building rammed walls with boards. A few inches thick, this set of procedures is considered over.

On the grill, the grain cakes that are constantly drying with moisture are hooked out and placed under the shed to ventilate and cool.

He Basheng, who had just arrived in the manor, sat on a bed with a golden knife, waiting for the soldiers to scrape half a bowl of compacted cake crumbs with a knife, then impatiently ordered people to brew it with boiling water, served He drank while blowing on the pottery bowl.

"This is not food for uncle!"

Li Tai saw it from a distance, so he walked towards the arbor.

"Already drunk!"

When he arrived, He Basheng revealed the bottom of the bowl, patted his stomach with satisfaction and said with emotion: "When I was in the army, I never dreamed of such a delicate and delicious meal!"

(End of this chapter)