Established a thousand-year family from the end of Qin Dynasty

Chapter 338 Cao Qin ([-])

Two months later
冬初
Xu Chang
suburban farm
The cold wind was blowing, and many farmers were shivering in the farmland. Although they were sallow and thin, they did not have the slightest sorrow, but joyful expressions on their faces.

In the Liaodong area, there is one crop a year, planted in spring and harvested in autumn.

In the Central Plains, there are two crops a year, planting in spring and harvesting in summer, planting in autumn and harvesting in winter.

Cochin area has three crops a year, planting in spring and harvesting in summer, planting in summer and harvesting in autumn, planting in autumn and harvesting in winter.

Now, the farmers of the Xuchang Tuntian Farm are harvesting the winter.

"Nowadays there is famine all over the world, but there is so much grain harvest here in Xuchang. It's really rare." Guo Jia, who just came to Xuchang, watched the old farmers harvesting grain and couldn't help sighing.

Three years ago, he had already gone to Yuan Shao's camp, but after staying by Yuan Shao's side for a few months, he found that Yuan Shao had too many advisers, and the intrigue was too serious.

So he simply left Yuan Shao and went back to his hometown to talk about world affairs with other celebrities every day.

Not long ago, Xi Zhicai, one of Cao Cao's most important advisers, died of illness suddenly, so Cao Cao asked Xun Yu, a talented man with Wang Zuozhi, to recommend new talents.

Therefore, Xun Yu recommended his old acquaintance Guo Jia to Cao Cao. Guo Jia also got rid of unemployment and came to Xuchang to work as a counselor for Cao Cao.

Guo Jia's hometown is in Yingchuan, and Yingchuan County was ravaged by the Yellow Turban Army, Xiliang Army, and Yuan Shu in turn, making the local people miserable and full of refugees.

"Since Duke Ming implemented [Tuntian], the people here have starved to death much less." Dian Wei was sent to protect Guo Jia's safety, which shows that Cao Cao still attaches great importance to the talents recommended by Xun Yu. It can also be seen that Xun Yu is Cao Cao's true love. As long as it is a talent recommended by Xun Yu, even if he has never met him, Cao Cao believes that the other party must be a real talent, so he sent a strong general to be a bodyguard in advance.

"Tunning?" Guo Jia naturally knew about farming. As early as the time of Emperor Xiaowen Liu Heng, the Han court began to move the population of the Central Plains to Guanzhong to open up wasteland and farmland, enrich the population of Guanzhong, and strengthen the strength of the imperial power.

However, during Emperor Xiaowen's time, there was no such thing as farming, and no corresponding system was formed. It was just that one day he suddenly felt that a certain piece of wasteland needed to be reclaimed, and the population was migrated from the Central Plains.

Until the famous official Wang Changjiong made improvements based on the precedent of Emperor Xiaowen's migration of population to open up wasteland, and then created the term "Tuntian", which solved the problem of refugees for Emperor Xiaowu.

It's a pity that Emperor Xiaowu abused the people's power too much in the later period, which caused the speed of absorbing refugees in the fields to be far behind the speed of refugees in the Central Plains, and finally made the big man almost die early.

Although they were all farms, the main purpose of Emperor Xiaowu's farms was to enrich the frontier population, prevent the Huns from invading, absorb refugees and produce food by the way.

On the contrary, the main purpose of Cao Cao's farming is to absorb refugees and produce food, and by the way, enrich the local population and prevent foreign enemies from invading.

"In our farmland, if you bring your own cattle, you will only be charged five floors, which is one floor less than those rented by powerful gentry. If you ask the government to provide cattle, you will receive six floors, which is the same as rented by powerful gentry."

"Theoretically, all farmers do not need to perform corvee or military service."

Dian Wei said carelessly, Cao Cao’s farming policy is definitely a good policy at present, and there is no problem with it. As for whether he will increase the rent collection or require corvée and military service in the farming, that is a matter for the future. .

The tenancy of the powerful gentry is not constant, but changes according to the actual situation.

The lowest tenancy period was when Emperor Xiaoxuan of the Han Dynasty was sick, and only the third floor was accepted. At that time, it was the happiest era for the common people in the 400 years of the Han Dynasty. In the 400 years of the Han Dynasty, it was the only era in which no one died of starvation.

Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty used Legalism and Confucianism at the same time, which was both overbearing and kingly.

It's a pity that other monarchs either only have the kingly way like Emperor Yuan and Wang Mang, or they focus too much on domineering like Emperor Wu and Shihuang.

Even during the reign of Wenjing, some people starved to death, but fewer people died of starvation, not as many as under Emperor Wu of Han, Wang Mang, and Emperor Huanling.

The period with the highest tenancy was Wang Mang and Emperor Ling, both of whom reached the terrifying eighth floor.

After the Yellow Turban Rebellion and Dong Zhuo Rebellion, the population of the world decreased a lot.

In the past, there were many people and little land, and there was no extra land to cultivate outside, so the tenant farmers had to endure eight-story tenancy.

Now a lot of people have died outside, and the fields are empty and no one is farming, so why should I continue to endure the eight-story tenancy as before, can I just run away from the famine and plant those unowned fields?
Therefore, more and more people fled from famine, and many tenant farmers who fled from famine eventually became owner farmers of princes and warlords, who were protected by princes and warlords to prevent them from being annexed by gentry land.

In the face of large-scale fleeing from famine, the gentry could only reduce the rent from eight floors to six floors, which slowed down the trend of fleeing famine.

Cao Cao’s rent collection for farmland was just as high as that of the gentry’s tenants. It was six floors without cattle, and five floors with cattle.

There are too many people, and the introversion is serious. If you don’t grow people, you will have more people, and the rent will naturally be higher. Now that a lot of people have died, the introversion is not so serious. The emperor's time was so bitter.

However, farming also requires costs, that is, during the gap before the grain harvest, the ruler needs to provide a large amount of food to the farmers, and then wait a few months for the food to grow, and then let the farmers use the harvested grain to pay off their debts.

Later, you can use the grain from the last harvest to feed yourself.

It's just that it's so troublesome to farm the fields. You must know that the cycle of farming is only half a year.

If it’s an upgraded version of [land reclamation], the period is three to five years, and you have to build water conservancy facilities yourself. Unlike Cao Cao’s garrison, there are ready-made water conservancy facilities that can be used. All of them have existed for a long time, so the upfront cost of [opening up wasteland] is dozens of times higher than that of farming.

This is why Cao Cao has a population of several 10 in a random village, and the Wang family only has a few thousand people every year in land reclamation, because cost and cycle are not the same concept.

The cost of the Wang family adding a few thousand ruling population overseas is higher than the cost of Cao Cao increasing the population of several 10 in the Central Plains.

Short-term hegemony fighters would not consider such things as opening up wasteland outside. With this money and time to open up wasteland, dozens of cities have been laid down, and there will be ready-made fields immediately.

That is to say, the Wang family has no interest in fighting for hegemony, and has a long-term plan for hundreds of years, so it can do such an extremely costly thing as opening up wasteland overseas.

The first wave of grain Cao Cao provided to the farmer was mainly snatched from Xuzhou, and some were smuggled from Xu You. The success of Yanzhou's farming was achieved only by sacrificing hundreds of thousands of people in Xuzhou.

There is no time to be quiet, but someone is moving forward with a heavy load.

"In this way, in the future, we can use the grain harvested from the farm to continue to expand the scale of the farm. One day, Cao Gong will be able to have enough food and grain, and he will have [-] soldiers. At that time, the world will be in the hands of Cao Gong!" After arriving in the city, Guo Jia began to praise Cao Cao.

(End of this chapter)