A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 714 Harvesting Three or Five More Bushels

Golden autumn earth,

The wind outside Chang'an is free.
The children of the Prince's Mansion found everything new and exciting, and they made a lot of noise along the way.

"Father, Father, look! There's someone riding a pig!"

Sure enough, on Chengnan Avenue, there was an old man riding a big pig.

The pig must have weighed at least five or six hundred pounds, it was enormous. The old man looked very thin riding on it, but he rode very steadily. The pig looked huge but was docile, and it waddled along at a decent pace.

It's those two big, conspicuous balls on its butt that sway back and forth.

"Why is he riding a pig? Father, aren't pigs for eating meat?" Li Cong asked curiously.

Li Yi laughed and said, "You can even recognize pigs, that's good. This old man is riding a breeding boar. These kinds of pigs, if raised for a long time, become somewhat human-like. Once the pig farmer gets to know it, he can tame and ride it."

"Actually, besides horses, mules, and donkeys, you can also ride cows, pigs, and even sheep, it's just slower."

Pairing cattle, horses, or even pigs can be a small business.

Over the years, the Li family has promoted a cooperative pig farming model, built pig farms, and raised many sows to produce piglets. After the piglets are weaned, they are sent to the homes of cooperative farmers, who raise them in pens. The Li family then buys them back when they are fully grown.

A common cooperative model is that piglets don't need to pay farmers; they only need to pay with bedding and pig manure from the pigpen.

The cooperative model of exchanging pig manure for piglets has benefited both the Li family and the farmers. The farmers receive piglets without any initial investment, and they only need to spend some time feeding them. Once the piglets are grown, the Li family can buy them back and sell them for a considerable amount of money.

This is a significant source of income for farmers. Children can help with things like pig feed, and the Li family also provides assistance such as veterinary care.

Over the years, this cooperative model has become increasingly popular, and more and more people are joining in pig farming.

Of course, some small landowners or self-cultivating farmers also saw the benefits of using pig manure to fertilize their fields, so they paid for piglets themselves or purchased them in installments.

With more people raising pigs,

Of course, some people would start raising one or two sows to have piglets, and at this time, the practice of raising boars also emerged in rural areas.

They drive boars around to breed, which is a decent little business, especially for some older men who are too weak to do other heavy work, driving pigs to the countryside is still a good option.

Suburbs of Gyeonggi City

With the huge pork consumption market in Chang'an, pig farmers don't have to worry about sales and can still make a good profit.

Especially in recent years, with the promotion of corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and pumpkins, farmers have been able to raise three or four pigs instead of just one.

Planting sweet potatoes, corn, and radishes in the corners and edges of the land not only provides food for people, but also feeds pigs with sweet potato vines and small potatoes.

In particular, sweet potato vines can be continuously harvested without affecting sweet potato yield, making them excellent for feeding pigs.

Planting one acre of sweet potatoes can feed two or three pigs.

Pig farming allows people to sell both the pigs and the manure. Nowadays, in the Shenheyuan and Yusu Township areas, almost every household raises pigs, ranging from one or two to three or four.

And there are many pig farms like the Li family's, raising even more pigs.

The nobles of Chang'an disdained eating pork, calling it "cheap meat," and preferred to eat mutton.

But hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians in Chang'an,

Not everyone can afford to eat mutton.
In a city as large as Chang'an, the demand for meat was enormous. Besides mutton, donkey meat, chicken, duck, goose, and fish, the proportion of pork was increasing year by year.

After all, pork prices are low.
Aside from the nobles looking down on it, ordinary people were already lucky to be able to eat meat, so why would they be picky about fat? Besides, pork is quite fatty, and in those days, the people were most lacking in fat. Therefore, the fatter breeds that the Li family selected, the penned fat pigs, were becoming increasingly popular.

Little Fatty Li Yan watched the pig farmer riding a boar and found it particularly interesting. "Dad, I want to ride a big boar too!"

Although this boar can grow to five or six hundred pounds, it is much shorter than a horse. Even the foal that Li Yi bought is taller than this boar.

The fat boar made these little guys think it was cute.

"Don't be fooled by how docile the pig farmer looks when riding this boar. Others can't ride it. When it gets fierce, it's no less dangerous than a wild boar."

The Prince of Dai's mansion eats pork. Not only the servants eat it, but Li Yi, his wives, concubines, and children also eat it, and the little ones quite like it.

This is mainly because the Li family cooks pork well and offers a variety of dishes. In addition, the pigs raised by the Li family are mostly castrated and raised in a relatively clean manner.

Unlike some families who traditionally raise pigs, the pigsty also serves as a toilet.

The great Song Dynasty writer Su Dongpo loved to eat pork and even wrote a poem saying that the rich would not eat it and the poor did not know how to cook it. He invented Dongpo pork.

In the past, Du Ruhui punished his sons by making them eat pork, which disgusted them greatly. Firstly, they thought pork was lowly and even possibly filthy, and secondly, the pork Du Ruhui gave them was boiled in plain water and had not been processed at all, so it naturally tasted bad.

This is similar to how, after the Manchus conquered the Central Plains, the Qing court held grand spring and autumn sacrifices at the Qianning Palace. It was customary for the king, ministers, and guards to enter and eat the sacrificial meat, a practice known as "distributing the sacrificial meat."
This kind of sacrificial meat was a painful experience for the princes and ministers. The rules stipulated that it could only be boiled in plain water until half-cooked without any seasoning; adding salt, soy sauce, or other condiments was strictly forbidden.
People accustomed to a life of luxury can hardly stomach this.

But if it's for poor people, they won't mind eating it even without any seasoning.

Even if the world is now unified and peace is restored.

Even those who received some benefits from the change of dynasty and were allocated dozens of acres of land were not always able to eat meat regularly.

Being able to eat meat once a month is considered a sign of good living conditions.

On Shenhe Plain,

The wheat has been planted.

By next summer, the plateau will be covered with rolling golden waves of wheat.

Upon hearing the news, Luo San rushed to the plateau to greet him.

This tenant farmer, who was once almost bent over by the weight of life, is now a respected local gentry in Yushu Township, earning over a thousand shi of rent annually. With a rent of five or six dou per mu, this means he owns more than two thousand mu of land.

Everyone in the village knows that Luo Sanlang is someone even the Prince of Dai calls "Third Brother."

The county magistrate of Wannian County often invited this man to the county office for discussions, and the township heads and village chiefs from the surrounding villages had to give him even more face.

"This autumn, there will be a bumper harvest."

Li Yi nodded. Judging from the grain prices in Chang'an, this year was a good year, with a bumper summer harvest and another bumper autumn harvest.

"The price of rice in Chang'an has now stabilized at 20 coins per dou, and the price of millet is even higher at 12 coins per dou."

Luo San said that meat prices are now relatively stable. Pork is basically 20 yuan per jin, which is equivalent to the price of a dou of rice, and the same price as salt, which is also 20 yuan per dou.

"I remember when you were building houses on the ruins of Wuji Temple, buying grain and meat and hiring workers. Back then, a dou (a unit of dry measure) of rice cost more than 300 yuan, and a jin (a unit of weight) of pork cost several hundred yuan."

Those were such difficult times.

In just five or six years, life has really gotten better, just as you said.

Who would have thought that pork now costs only 20 cents per pound?

A chicken now costs only sixty or seventy coins, a duck only thirty coins, and only geese are more expensive, costing two hundred coins each. Even mutton, a favorite among the wealthy, has seen its price plummet due to the large-scale importation from the Turks to the south in the past two years.
A sheep costs no more than a thousand coins, and a smaller sheep costs only four or five hundred coins.

With the price of key commodities like grains and meat falling, people's livelihoods have naturally improved.

Luo collected over a thousand bushels of rent over three years, and also owned other workshops and businesses. He was known as a large landowner in the village.

His family had long since achieved the freedom to eat meat, and now they can eat mutton, pork, chicken, duck, and fish almost every day. Their lifestyle is considered somewhat luxurious by the standards of rural people.

Li Yi's uncle, Village Chief Guo Erlang, had been doing some business and making money in recent years, following in the footsteps of the Li family. It was much better than before, when he relied solely on tenant farming, lending money, and exploiting the people. But he couldn't bear to indulge in such lavish feasting.
Eating meat once every ten days feels like a luxury.

Guo Erlang was frugal with food and drink, but he had a particular fondness for buying land. This year, when Li Yi was selling land, Guo Erlang specially sent his wife, Du Liuniang, to Chang'an with local specialties. They had a good chat with his niece, Shi Niang, and in the end, Guo Erlang bought eight hundred acres of land.

Guo Erlang almost emptied his family's coffers, but he was very satisfied. He thought like most landlords, believing that land was the most important thing.

"How's the experiment of intercropping corn in wide strips in Mai Li Di going?" Li Yi asked.

Luo San excitedly told Li Yi, "Originally, planting corn alone would only yield about 120 to 130 jin per mu. Now, with wide-row intercropping of wheat and corn, the corn yield is not reduced, and each mu can yield an additional 60 to 70 jin of wheat. Ah Lang's method is really good, increasing the yield by half."

When planting wheat in autumn, reserve two to three feet for intercropping with corn. Plant two rows of corn every six to eight rows of wheat, with a spacing of one foot and three inches between the two corn rows. The distance between the corn and wheat rows should be about half a foot.

Corn is sown about a month before the wheat harvest, with about 3,000 seedlings left per acre.

The experiment showed good results.

"We also tried intercropping wheat and soybeans, with two rows of wheat and one row of soybeans. About half a month before the wheat harvest, we dug furrows and planted soybeans, which also increased our income considerably."

"However, if you intercrop, you need to apply additional fertilizer to the field."

When it comes to fertilization, the Li family is undoubtedly in a better position, with pig manure from their own pig farm, as well as manure collected from pig farming in cooperation with other farmers.
In addition, places like Wuji Primary School and roadside public toilets can also collect a lot of manure.

Luo San told Li Yi about the experimental rice paddy on the south bank of the Hao River.

The paddy field totaled eighty mu (approximately 1.3 hectares), and it was fully fertilized with wood ash from the tofu workshop's stove, manure from the pig farm and public toilets, as well as fermented straw and river mud that was dug up, dried, crushed, and added to the field.

After such ample fertilization, the 80 mu of land yielded an additional 44 shi of rice this year, which is more than 5 dou per mu.

Even if we factor in the cost of labor and manure, it would only require twenty shi of grain. So, in the end, it's equivalent to earning an extra twenty-four shi of rice.

"Buying a field of manure is like buying a field of land."

The yield per mu increased by at least 30%.

These rice paddies along the Hao River have ample water and good soil. Now, with the addition of fertilizer, each mu (unit of land area) can yield three shi (unit of dry measure) of rice.

Luo San has been growing rice in this paddy field on the banks of the Hao River for so many years.

I've never seen a rice paddy that yields three bushels per mu before.

Even producing two shi (a unit of dry measure) would be remarkable.

Now, the experimental rice paddies of the Li family yield three bushels per mu.

You can plant another crop of radishes or rapeseed, and you'll still get some harvest.

Radishes can be sold in Chang'an, dried, or used to feed pigs. Rapeseed can be pressed for oil, and oil cakes can be used as feed or fertilized in the fields.

Meticulous cultivation,
It's definitely much better than the usual extensive farming.

Ordinary people didn't even own oxen, so they could only shallowly till the land and lacked fertilizer to replenish its fertility. As a result, they cultivated extensively but harvested little, and even had to rotate crops and leave the land fallow to maintain its fertility.

In such cases, the yield is often only seven or eight dou per mu. After deducting one dou for seeds, the harvest is very low. If the yield is one shi per mu, it is considered a good harvest.

Even if they were allocated a hundred mu of land, twenty mu would be used to grow mulberry and hemp for silkworm rearing, silk spinning, and weaving. The remaining eighty mu would be used for crop rotation and fallow, meaning they could only cultivate fifty or sixty mu a year, yielding only forty or fifty shi of grain. However, a family of four or five would need thirty or forty shi of grain for rations, leaving very little for themselves.
They had to pay rent and taxes, and also buy farm tools, etc.

In places like Chang'an, which are close to the capital, people often only receive half the land, or even just thirty or forty mu, and sometimes they have no land left to receive.

The Tang Dynasty followed the system of the Western Wei, Northern Zhou, and Sui Dynasties, implementing the equal-field system, and on this basis, the rent, labor service, and tax system.

The government provides public land and public funds, and uses these funds to lease land, lend money, and collect rent and interest to maintain operations.

Officials were given official land, and soldiers were given military land, so that officials did not need to be paid salaries, and soldiers did not need to be supported.

The taxes levied were in kind, consisting of millet and silk.

It seems simple.
But at its core, all of this still boils down to land allocation.
The idea of ​​granting a hundred acres of land to a single person seems wonderful, but in reality, it is impossible to achieve.

Land consolidation was severe, with land mainly concentrated in the hands of landlords and nobles. Ordinary people received insufficient land allocations, or even none at all.

Then the foundation of this empire will be unstable, and everything will be nothing but a castle in the air.

Li Yi had served as prime minister for several months and had a good understanding of the finances of the Tang Empire since its founding.
The household registration system has never been properly sorted out.

Coupled with years of war, the revenue from taxes and levies was highly unstable and simply insufficient to cover the court's expenses.
For the past five or six years, the court's operation has not actually relied on normal tax revenue, but rather on the accumulated wealth of the Sui Dynasty. When Li Yuan raised his army, the palaces in Taiyuan and Jinyang had stored up a large amount of money, grain, and weapons.
When they went south, Li Xiaochang presented them with Yongfeng Granary, which was one of the major granaries of the Sui Dynasty, and they obtained a large amount of grain.

They captured Chang'an and seized the Xijing Treasury.

The money and silk in the Western Capital Treasury have sustained the operation of the Tang Dynasty, and they are still not exhausted to this day.

Although the Li Tang dynasty suffered repeated defeats at the hands of Liu Wuzhou during its eastern and western campaigns, its overall operations were relatively successful, with the Tang dynasty conquering cities and seizing territories.
They maintained their massive war machine through war spoils.
But these are not normal conditions.

The biggest problem Li Shimin faced after ascending the throne was actually the financial issue; the Sui Dynasty's reserves would eventually run out.

There were no more large-scale wars, so it was no longer possible to obtain large amounts of spoils through war.

Next, Li Shimin could only rely on taxes.

However, the Tang Dynasty's taxes only included rent and taxation; salt tax and commercial tax were not yet available in the Tang Dynasty.

For this reason, Li Yuan had already begun implementing the system of public granaries and household tax revenue two years prior, which was essentially a way to subsidize the shortage.

The grain stored in public granaries was essentially a form of local tax.

Why did Li Shimin previously order a nationwide census to strictly investigate those who falsely claimed to be old or young? It was because the population was too small and tax revenue too low.

Today, there are just over three million households in the country, but only two million of them are registered as taxpayers.

Two million tax collectors—this is the foundation of tax revenue.

Each person received two shi of grain as rent annually, two zhang of silk, three liang of cotton, and twenty days of free labor.
This is a very simple calculation. The basic taxes of the Tang Dynasty were four million shi of millet, one million bolts of silk, and some cotton per year.

Such a large empire,
The annual tax revenue amounted to only four million shi of millet, one million bolts of silk, and one million shi of cotton.

With such meager income, frankly speaking, it's difficult to even keep the empire running at its most basic level.

Li Shimin later personally led an expedition against Goguryeo, spending over ten million strings of cash on military expenses in a single campaign.

Looking at the bountiful harvest in the countryside, Li Yi thought to himself, "Being an emperor isn't easy. Luckily, I ran away quickly, otherwise this mess would be on my shoulders now."

(End of this chapter)