Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Chapter 63 State Love ([-])

In Suizhou in August, the rainstorm is coming.Shao Shude took a group of people to find a village for temporary shelter.

The arrival of a large group of warriors made the people in the village a little nervous.However, after seeing that they were just looking for a place to shelter from the rain and not looting, people finally felt relieved.A few daring teenagers even looked at the armor on the sergeant's body and the bow in his hand from a distance, and their envy was beyond words.

"Water conservancy is the lifeblood of agriculture." Shao Shude was sitting on a pony, looking at the heavy rain outside the house, and felt a little pity.It won't take long for this water to drain, seep, and evaporate, making it unusable for agricultural production.

"The state has always attached great importance to water conservancy." Song Le said on the side: "There are officials from the Ministry of Water, and members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who are in charge of the decrees of Chuandu and Peichi in the world, to guide ditches and weirs to cut rivers. , Meng Dong is finished. If Qiu and Xia Lin are stagnant, overflowing and destroying, they will not wait for the time to repair."

"It's a pity that over the past few decades, the vassal and towns have invaded each other, the military competition has been fierce, and the people's strength has gradually been overdrawn, so that the Pei pond has not been repaired, and the Chuandu has been blocked." Shao Shude felt that Song Le had a tendency to incarnate into an angry youth.Guanzhong was really a waste of water conservancy, but Xia Sui had never built any water conservancy facilities.It was the first time in the history of the dynasty that the Yanhua Canal was opened during the Zhenyuan period. If you want to scold you, you will scold him for the next hundred years.

But there's really no reason for that.Xia Sui is an important military town, and it has never been a big rear area. In the past hundred years, they have been at war with Tubo most of the time, and occasionally suppressed the party tribes in the area.When the Tiande army in the north is in trouble, they have to go north to help them defend against the Uighurs, which is almost a war machine.You let those big and small military leaders engage in production, it's really difficult for them.Back then, when Xiazhou opened the Yanhua Canal, it was still a trick given by the imperial court, and professional bureaucrats were dispatched to help.

"Last night, I read Bai Letian's "The Story of Qiantang Lake Stone", and I was very emotional. Song Biejia, if there is a will, things will come true. Xia Sui needs your help in this great cause." Shao Shude said.

Song Le heard that he said "Xia Sui" instead of "Suizhou", smiled softly, and said, "I don't understand about fighting and killing, and Song is responsible for other matters."

"This is more important than fighting and killing." Shao Shude sat upright and said, "I climbed the bell tower a few days ago and watched the night view of Suizhou. Although the Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated, the lights in the city are sparse. There is no surplus food, even if it is a festival, I can't celebrate it properly. This is not the Suizhou I want."

Song Le also sighed and said nothing.

It was already evening when the rainstorm stopped.Fan He asked the sergeants to warm up the dry food, while Shao Shude carefully observed the life of the farmhouse.

Just through inquiries, I learned that there are 34 families in this village who cultivate farmland along a stream leading to the Wuding River.Millet and wheat are planted in spring, harvested in autumn, and the days are barely by season.But these are normal years. If there is a severe drought, the stream will dry up, and the farmland will not be irrigated, and there will be no harvest.

The family sheltering from the rain has about 40 mu of land, and there are 19 other families in the village who are in the same situation. The number of cultivated fields is generally between 20-50 mu.The other 6 are stronger than them, but they are less than 2 acres, and all of them are soldiers in the prefecture.There are only [-] in the village with more than [-] acres, and their ancestors are all the military schools in the prefecture.

In addition, there are 20 others with less than 6 acres of cultivated land, so life should not be very good.At least, when he came in from outside the village just now, Shao Shude saw that some families did not have large livestock.

Without cattle and horses, how to farm?

"A strong cow ploughs ten acres of land a day, and a man often sweeps a moat" is no joke.

Zhang Tinggui also said: "The ruler depends on the people, the people depend on food, the food is used for farming, and the farming is used for cattle. If the cattle are abandoned, the farming will be abandoned, and if the farming is abandoned, the food will go away. If the food goes away, the people will perish, and the people will perish. How can you be your king?"

A cow consumes ten kilograms of roughage a day, which is generally made from a mixture of crop stalks, leaves, bean husks, glutinous rice (the shriveled grain of immature corn) and pasture.When Shao Shude was in Hedong, he heard from his sergeant that he needed about 40 mu of land to maintain the consumption of cattle.

But those are Henan and Hebei. If it is in Xia Sui, because of the existence of large hills and grasslands that are not suitable for farming, the conditions may be lower. It is estimated that families with 20-30 mu of land can also afford cattle. What has just been observed is correct.

Xia Sui, where animal husbandry is so developed, should logically not be short of cattle!I still remember that during the Yonglong period of this dynasty, in Guangxia Prefecture, 18 cattle and horses died at one time because of the epidemic.Today, some areas of Yinzhou are rich in water and grass, and the imperial court set up Yinchuan Ranch (Yinchuan County was Yinchuan County when Tianbao), and an average of [-] to [-] military horses are donated every year.

If other places don't matter, can Xia Sui be lacking?

Well, this knowledge refreshed Shao Shude's three views. He really didn't understand it before, but now he knows how difficult people's livelihood is.

The dry food was quickly heated up, and Shao Shude was eating hard and hard cakes.I used to think that the taste was not very good, but seeing the people's hard-pressed livelihoods, I didn't find it unpalatable at all.He remembered the envious gazes of the youths in the village just now. What they envied might not be the majesty of the warrior, but the improvement of the quality of life, right?
The army is a machine of violence, and the warriors of the late Tang Dynasty are even more fighters in the machine of violence.Would you give them a try with locust leaf rice?Keep your head moving in no time.

There are only the common people, who eat bran and swallow vegetables for half a year and work hard. In the end, the few surplus grains have to be taken away by the soldiers, and even the rations for survival are taken away.Alas, this world!Huang Chao's group must have been unable to survive when they first started, right?

After leaving the village, Shao Shude wandered around for a few days before returning to the prefecture.

"Yu Niang, help me memorize something." After dinner, Shao Shude sat on the top spot that was specially made by someone, and said, "Don't be too polite, just write down what I say, I'm afraid I forgot."

Zhao Yu nodded, and after grinding the ink, spread out the pen and paper and looked at Shao Shude.

"The first one is to build a pond and dig a canal."

Zhao Yu wrote it down.

"The second rule is to find someone to build a water truck."

"The third rule is to make more farm tools and stock up on cattle and horses."

"Article [-], use troops against the party and tribes."

Writing this, Zhao Yu shuddered, and looked at Shao Shude with big eyes that seemed to be able to speak, full of worry.

"Forget it, cross out the last one first." Shao Shude sighed and said, "Now is not a good time. If something happens next year, and the rear is uneasy, how can I leave the apprenticeship with peace of mind."

"Lang Jun is going to go out?"

Shao Shude noticed Zhao Yu's new name for himself. He used to be "General", which seemed a little bit different. Now he was called "Lang Jun", which obviously explained a lot of things.In a good mood, he directly hugged Mei Jiao Niang in his arms, looked at her charming eyes, and said, "I won't hide it from you until now. Huang Chao has broken through the layers of interception and left Gao Pian, who is holding a heavy army, in his arms. Behind him, he is now attacking the city in Henan, numbering hundreds of thousands of people. If he has the will, he will definitely enter the customs and approach Chang'an. At that time, the sage is afraid that he will have to tell the world again, and order the soldiers and horses of the Dao to King Qin. The eight towns in the northwest of Beijing, Su How can you not send troops to screen for the imperial court?"

"But don't worry too much. Xiasui Town has fought against Tubo, Uyghur, and Dangxiang for more than a hundred years. It's not a problem to come out in full force and bring three to 40,000 people south. Maybe they can't defeat Huang Chao head-on, but self-protection shouldn't be a big problem." Seeing that Zhao Yu didn't speak, Shao Shude explained again.

"Lang Jun is already the ruler of a state, with elite soldiers in his hand, and all generals obedient, can't he guard this foundation in a safe and secure way?" Zhao Yu sighed faintly, as if remembering his own unbearable past, using low The voice like a gnat said: "Langjun can treat our mother and daughter well, and the concubine doesn't want to be kidnapped."

"If you're in this game, how can you get out?" Shao Shude inexplicably remembered the Tuoba party regime that ruled the Northwest for more than 300 years. They digested the four prefectures of Xia, Sui, Yin and You for a long time, and then occupied Lingzhou. The food logistics base, just now has the capital to be the emperor behind closed doors.

Now that he has no more than [-] or [-] people under his control, even Tie Lin's army can't support it, so what qualifications are there to choose?In the melee of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses in Guanzhong, what about the traversers?One is not good, and it was also ground into powder.

"What is Guo'er doing recently? Every time she goes home, she avoids me."

"The concubine is teaching her to read and write." Zhao Yu said.

"Do you need a gentleman?" Shao Shude asked.

Zhao Yu said helplessly, "Those gentlemen in Suizhou are not as knowledgeable as concubines."

This was not unexpected by Shao Shude.The Tianshui Zhao clan, although not a top clan in the imperial court, is also a middle-class clan.Zhao Yu's ancestor Zhao Cijing married Li Yuan's fifth daughter, Princess Changguang. For more than [-] years, there have been dozens of officials above the fifth rank, and four of them were prime ministers.

Zhao Yu's father was an official in Taiyuan Mansion and died in his post.Now there are two closest relatives, an uncle named Zhao Guangfeng, who just became a jinshi the year before, and is currently serving as a censor in the court, and a man named Zhao Jian is a general in Pinning.Shao Shude was also startled when he heard it. He had taken a big risk by taking Zhao Yu home when he saw it.

He was both a court official and a town general, and he almost cured his lustful old problems on the spot.

　Recommend a piece of history.

　　"The Great Rogue" written by the arrogant heart, the author liked the previous book very much, and the new book is also very good. It has a million words and is very fat. You can go and read it.

　　


(End of this chapter)