A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 429

"This Li Yifu is smiling like a cat all day, but I always feel a little annoying, you should be smaller,"

Fan Xuanfu reminded Huaiyu.

Li Yi's mansion chose the daughter of Wu Shiyi, the governor of Yuzhou, the governor of Liuhe County, and asked Wu Huaiyu, the teacher, to come to the door to be a matchmaker. Both Wu Shiyi and his wife Zhugefen were very satisfied with this good thing. Although the Li family is an ordinary family, his father is also a county magistrate after all. , he was able to become a Jinshi at the age of 15, and with the support of the Wu family, he has a bright future.

"Don't worry, everything is under control." Huaiyu smiled.

He flipped through the ledger in his hand. The plan for a year lies in spring, and spring plowing is about to start again. This year, the Wu family plans to expand the auspicious planting area in an all-round way. Except for those good plain irrigated lands, rice and wheat are still the main ones, and other lands This year, corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes will be planted.

Even in the outskirts of Beijing, the Wu family plans to build several large pig farms, but they are not the common type of grazing and free-range farming, but semi-captive breeding, with sweet potatoes as the main feeding food.

There is also a plan to raise chickens, ducks and geese. These manors in Gyeonggi focus on the development of aquaculture. Chang'an's demand for meat, eggs and poultry is constantly increasing. There is a lot to be done in manors in Gyeonggi.

Compared with ordinary planting, its economic benefits have not been improved a little bit, especially for manors, there are conditions and advantages for farming.

"I think Shangguanyi is more reliable."

Wu Huaiyu still admires his wife's intuition. Shangguanyi was a monk for a period of time in his early years and studied Buddhist scriptures. His personality is indeed relatively calm.

In contrast, Li Yifu, who was only fifteen years old, did things with perseverance, but he was also very utilitarian. In history, this later became the prime minister, and he did everything possible to find the Li family of Zhao County to form a family tree, and got himself into Zhao County. As a result, he was demoted later, and Zhaojun Li fired him again. Li Yifu, who was so angry that he made a comeback, retaliated against Zhaojun Li wantonly.

Because of his ordinary background, Li Yifu was greedy for money after he gained power. Not only did he sell his officials, but even his wife, children, and son-in-law also sold officials. Li Yifu was also lustful. Find a way to get the man out and make him a concubine.

In the end, he became a traitor in the history books, and he was not wronged.

Wu Huaiyu knew this and took this guy as a student. The reason is also very simple. This kid is capable but has no background. He needs Wu Huaiyu's teacher very much.As for Wu Huaiyu, he and the Wu family also needed some help.

Those young talents from famous families are also looked down upon by the nouveau riche Wu family.

Li Yifu wanted fame, and Wu Huaiyu could give it to him.

He is only fifteen, and if he wants to be fully-fledged, it will take at least 30 years. For these 30 years, he has to work for the Wu family.

Just get what you need.

Just as Emperor Jiajing said, the water of the Yangtze River is clear, but it will also cause floods and disasters for the people. The water of the Yellow River is turbid, but it can also irrigate countless fertile fields on both sides of the bank to benefit the people.

Clearness and turbidity do not need to be so obvious.

The so-called traitorous and loyal ministers are not that simple.

The nobles in Chang'an didn't like to eat pork, but it was not easy for ordinary people to eat pork, and pork was not cheap, and even the traffickers couldn't afford chicken and goose. Pork was the most acceptable meat.

Aristocrats don't eat pork, but most of the pork in Chang'an is supplied by these aristocrats.

For example, King Li Tai of Wei and Emperor Li Shimin transferred the original Yankangfang mansion of Princess Wanchun and Doulu Huairang, covering an area of ​​180 mu, to his son Li Tai. [-] mu of nearby land was granted as swamp, and Shayuan in Tongzhou also granted land to raise thousands of pigs.

Li Tai's several pig farms can slaughter thousands of pigs a year, making him a well-known big pig farmer in Chang'an.

But Li Tai is only eight years old now, and he hasn't officially opened the mansion yet.

Although the other nobles can't compare with Wei Wang Li Tai, they raise tens of thousands of pigs a year, but they all have their own pig farms. Most of their pigs are free-range and grazing. pig.

This grazing method of raising pigs is slow, and often without castration, resulting in slow growth of pigs and poor meat quality, especially the variety of pigs is also very mixed, mainly black pigs, spotted pigs, and some white pigs, But it is not the big white of the later generations, it is the soil variety of the Central Plains.

The result of hybrid pigs is that they don't grow fast enough, nor can they grow very fat.

Wu Huaiyu has investigated the market, and now the population of Chang'an is increasing, and the demand for meat is increasing. Although it is definitely not as good as Kaifeng City in the prosperous Northern Song Dynasty, after all, there is such a large population market here.

It is said that when Kaifeng was prosperous in the Northern Song Dynasty, at least [-] to [-] live pigs were slaughtered a day. Every evening, more than [-] live pigs were driven in through the special Nanxun Gate.

It is said that the people in Kaifeng have a per capita daily pork supply of half a catty.

The number of households in Yongzhou is about 20. This is the two counties of Wannian in Chang'an and more than a dozen counties in Gyeonggi.

Chang'an City alone has a large household registration population, and there are also a large number of Fanshang garrisons, court personnel, officials, craftsmen and slaves, etc., with a population of several 10.

With the current population of Chang'an, if the supply of half a catty per person can be achieved, at least 30 to [-] catties of pork will be supplied a day, and at least one or two thousand live pigs will be consumed a day.

In fact, Chang’an is now the capital of Kyoto, but even the food security is still not good enough, and the price of food often fluctuates greatly, especially because a large amount of food needs to be transported from Kanto to the customs every year, and the cost of water transportation is very high, especially in the area of ​​​​Shaanzhou. It cannot be transported by water, it must be transported by land, and the old road of Hangu Pass, which is full of difficult mountain canyons, has limited transportation volume and extremely high freight costs.

The imperial court spends huge manpower and material resources every year to ensure grain.

But other supplies cannot be guaranteed like this. Meat, vegetables and eggs have always been in a state of shortage in the market. If nobles want to be able to eat meat freely, they have to raise or sell it by themselves. I sigh with the high price of meat, and I can only eat some during the holidays.

However, raising pigs requires land. After all, if there are too many pigs, according to the stocking model, there must be a large swamp for grazing. Captive breeding is unrealistic. Captive breeding requires additional feed, and the price of food is high at the beginning of the country. Who has food to feed pigs? ?

So now, even ordinary farmers rarely raise pigs and chickens. There is not enough food, and there is no extra food to feed them. Chickens can't lay eggs, and pigs can't grow meat.

Wu Huaiyu is now planning to take a new path. The pigs are raised semi-scattered, and there are many Wu family manors. Each manor raises a group of pigs, and they are raised in a piece of land. They are castrated and then fed some feed every day. Sweet potatoes, corn, potatoes, add some bran, bran, etc.,
Sweet potato is a miscellaneous grain that is relatively easy to grow and has a high yield, but it has a high water content. Under today's transportation conditions, fresh sweet potatoes cannot be sold locally if they are too much, and it is not worthwhile to sell them long-distance. The processing cost is not low either.

If you feed pigs, you can directly convert them, and then the pork will be supplied to the capital.

In addition, sweet potato planting, before the sweet potato matures, the sweet potato seedlings can actually be harvested continuously, and they can be used to raise pigs.

Fan Xuanfu was not too worried about raising pigs.

Her main energy is to buy fields and land. As for how to manage the purchased land and build a Zhuangzi, she has no patience.

However, for Wu Huaiyu, the management of the farm is actually very challenging.

The family farming model of ordinary people is very inefficient, but if it is replaced by a manor of thousands of acres, it will have a lot of maneuverability, and the efficiency will be doubled. For example, the plow can be plowed deeper, and even Fertilizers can be used if conditions permit, and irrigation is also much stronger, and conditions can be used to drill wells and repair ditches.
Another example is that in addition to planting, you can also engage in farming sidelines, and even grow vegetables and trees in addition to growing grain, etc. These are incomparable to the ordinary small family model.

Now that the world is gradually stable, grain prices will no longer fluctuate greatly in the future, and prices will stabilize, or even be in a process of continuous decline.

However, the demand for non-staple food is still huge, and people with better conditions will be willing to spend money to improve their lives in various aspects.

Not only pork, chicken, duck, goose, fish, and even eggs, the demand will always be great.

"Grow corn and sweet potatoes, then feed them to pigs, and then sell them for money? Why not just sell the corn and sweet potatoes for money? It's so troublesome?"

Wu Huaiyu smiled, "This year, the Yongzhou Yamen will try out street shops in some squares in Chang'an. At that time, some shops related to life will also be opened in the squares, such as medicine shops, vegetable shops, grain shops, etc. I plan to buy them at that time." Some shops sell our agricultural products directly on the street in the square,

We sell pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, fish eggs, live ones and freshly killed ones, raw meat, and cooked stewed meat, etc. The vegetables we grow at home can also be transported and sold in various vegetable shops."

"It can also be supplied to the three cities in the east, west and south."

"You refused to be prime minister, just to raise pigs and sell vegetables?" Fan Xuanfu laughed.

"Don't look down on this vegetable basket, it will be several times or even ten times as profitable as growing food."

"Is it that high?"

"of course,"

"Then hurry up, when the street market in the square opens, let's buy more shops. If we can't use them ourselves, we can also rent them out. I think these street shops in the square will definitely be very popular."

"You have a keen sense of smell."

"I still have to buy some more slaves." Fan Xuanfu wrung his fingers and began to calculate how many more people to buy.

"I don't think it's entirely necessary to buy. You can also hire some people around the manor to work, hire some long-term workers, and then hire some short-term workers. This is also to provide some work for the surrounding neighbors so that they can earn some money and food."

"I think it's still a good deal to buy a slave. Although it costs a lot of money, the slave will work for a lifetime, and slaves can be paired with slaves, and slaves can be regenerated, which is very cost-effective."

As he said that, Fan Xuanfu began to complain about Wu Huaiyu again, "You said that you are too, but now you have thousands of hectares of farmland in your home, but you want to change the collection of grain from households to mu, and pay the grain as a whole.

Originally, the 10,000+ mu of land in our family only needed to pay five shi for grain, but now we have to pay more than 2000 shi. "

When it comes to paying more than 2000 shi, Pei Xuanfu feels distressed. Ten shi in Gyeonggi can hire a strong laborer to work as a long-term worker for a year. This extra food can hire more than 200 young and strong long-term workers in Chang'an for a year. .

Huaiyu smiled, and kissed her in his arms, "You can't just calculate it, you have to count it in. For more than 1000 hectares of land, one stone per mu is an annual income of 10,000+ stones. Ersheng Yicang grain, that’s only in the upper-class fields, there aren’t that many in Zhongtian and Xiatian.”

"Also, we all own thousands of hectares of land, so can we always keep an eye on that little bit? Those who are able work harder, and the greater the ability, the greater the responsibility. As big landlords, we should pay some food to the court."

As the Duke of Yi, Wu Huaiyu does not need to pay the regular rent for the more than 1000 hectares of land in name. One hundred thousand mu of land also pays two stones.

Now in Wu Huaiyu's land, only two liters of grain per mu is paid, which is really nothing.

He is a dignified emperor's favorite minister, and he can't only seek personal gain and not public interest.

"The truth is the truth, just thinking about it makes my heart ache." Fan Xuanfu was kissed, and the sky thunder stirred the fire
"Oh, it's getting late, let's go to bed early."

(End of this chapter)