I was the richest man in Da Song

Chapter 42 Pig Raising
What He Shao has to do in the past half month is to first convert Chen Pengnian's ancestral house into a shanty for pigs. After knowing that He Shao wants to raise pigs, Li Hang sent someone to call He Shao over.

Wu Bingzheng and Xiang Minzhong were both there when they came to the prime minister's mansion, and the teacher stayed in the back house when she saw that they were going to talk about business and didn't show up.

"Uncle Wu, Uncle Xiang"

"I heard from those boys that you want to raise pigs?" Xiang Minzhong asked straight to the point.

"We are all senior members of the first and second ranks of the imperial court, and it will be shameful if this story gets out," Wu Bingzheng said.

"Don't worry, just listen to what Feng Lang has to say," Li Hang said.

"Sir, two uncles, at the beginning of the new dynasty, it was supposed to cultivate and live with the people. The Wenjing of the Western Han Dynasty, the Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Kaiyuan of the Sui Dynasty, and the Zhenguan of the Tang Dynasty are all like this.

However, due to the border troubles in the four corners of our Great Song Dynasty, the continuous war between the two dynasties of Taizu and Taizong caused the world to be wasted and the treasury was empty. The first task of His Majesty after he came to power is money and food! "

"During decades of evils in the Song Dynasty, can raising a few pigs solve the problem?" Wu Bingzheng asked with a smile.

How could He Shao tolerate his ability and IQ being doubted by an ancient man.

"Students can really solve the problem by relying on these restaurants and raising pigs"

"tell me the story"

"My subjects in the Song Dynasty like to eat mutton and regard pork as cheap meat. Dare I ask Uncle Xiang how much sheep the palace eats in a year?" He Shao asked.

Xiang Minzhong looked at Li Hang, he really didn't know about such things as being in charge of military affairs.

"This year, the palace eats more than [-] sheep a year, with an average of [-] sheep per day," Li Hang said.

"Sir, do you know how much sheep the entire city of Kaifeng eats in a year, and how much the whole Song Dynasty eats sheep?"

"You guys can't fail me in the exam. After the autumn Fu came up, I happened to look at the national treasury and local expenditures. The Ministry of Households also calculated all the taxes on sheep. This year, Kaifeng City will eat nearly 170 million sheep." As the prime minister, Li Han, Although old, he still has extensive knowledge and strong memory.

"Feng Lang, what does your question have to do with solving the problems of the two dynasties and the emptiness of the treasury?"

In Wu Bingzheng's view, this is clearly an irrelevant matter.

"Of course it is related, and it is of great importance. I also decided to do it after careful consideration."

He Shao prepared these important court officials to teach a good lesson this time. Is it reasonable for Han people not to eat pork?

"Several uncles, most of the pastures that can raise sheep in the world are in the Liao Kingdom, and there are also the Hexi Corridor controlled by the party members and the four prefectures of Xia, Sui, Yin, and You. Most of the sheep we eat in the Song Dynasty come from I bought it from these places”

"Not bad, at least [-]% or more"

"As far as I know, it takes three guan to buy a sheep from the north, and it takes about six guan to go to the livestock market in Kaifeng. The students roughly calculated that it costs 600 million guan to buy sheep from the Party members and Khitan people every year. !"

He Shao also went to the livestock market to find out that one of the main sources of income for Khitan and Dangxiang is to sell sheep. After selling the sheep, the army will be reorganized, and the army will go south to clean up the Song Dynasty!
However, the courtiers of the Song Dynasty didn't pay much attention to it. They only thought that buying sheep, selling sheep and eating sheep was just common sense in life.These courtiers only knew how to govern the country by Confucian classics, but they did not expect that economics could also govern the country.

"There are so many?"

Xiang Minzhong and Wu Bingzheng couldn't sit still when this number came out. This is only the amount of Kaifeng City. If this number is replaced by the whole country, it will be even more scary. The national tax in Xianping five years has just reached 800 million. .

"Old Wu, Chang Zhi, don't be bewitched by this kid, this kid is talking alarmist words.

Naturally, our dynasty’s trade with the Khitan party has come and gone. The money used to buy sheep from the two countries is indeed a lot, tens of millions of guan every year, but the salt, wine, and ironware produced by our dynasty every year can be obtained from the two countries. earn more”

After all, Li Hang is the prime minister of the court, so how can He Shao be able to deceive him with a few words.

"What you said at the beginning is correct, the old man was almost deceived by you"

"Sir, what you said is naturally correct, but what if I have a way to reduce the amount of tens of millions of dollars that flowed into the party and Khitan by half or more?"

"Feng Lang, just tell us to listen, don't talk nonsense"

This is not a trivial matter. Li Hang was afraid that He Shao would not know the heights of the sky and the earth. If he let the emperor know that even if he was irrelevant, he would have to bite the bullet and do it. If he failed, he would lose his head.

He Shao had already prepared a way to persuade them, and took out a plate from the food box he brought in advance, which contained star anise, cinnamon, fragrant leaves and other condiments.

"Perhaps the greatest contribution of students to Song Dynasty is these few things"

"The dishes made with these kinds of condiments are indeed delicious. Besides adding flavor, do they have other magical effects?"

"Uncle Xiang, one of the main reasons for the continuous enrichment of Chinese food for thousands of years is the change of condiments.

The pre-Qin people discovered that rotten soybeans and wheat would turn into a kind of sauce with aroma. With this sauce, many foods that were originally difficult to eat entered the menu of our Han people.

Later, pepper was discovered, and the recipes of the Han people became wider after cooking with pepper.

The main reason why people in the Song Dynasty didn’t like pigs was that pork had a strong fishy smell. The rich refused to eat it, and the poor didn’t understand how to cook it. The pork cooked with these kinds of condiments was even more delicious than mutton. "

"The price of mutton in Fangshi is [-] yuan a catty, while the price of pork is less than [-] yuan per catty. If this cooking method is really popularized, the people in Kaifeng City will definitely decline to eat mutton. If things go on like this, it will form a trend. It’s no longer a problem to save a few million guan.”

"More than that, raising sheep has very high requirements for pastures, so the price is also very high, while raising pigs does not have so many requirements. This not only reduces the dependence on the Dangxiang Khitan, no need to buy cattle and sheep from the Dangxiang Khitan, but also weakens the The source of wealth of the two countries”

In He Shao's view, this is a way to get the best of both worlds, but after he finished speaking, neither Wu Bingzheng nor Xiang Minzhong responded much, and even Li Hang was a little bit lacking in interest.

In fact, the easiest way is to fight a war, snatch the Hetao grassland and those pastures from the Dangxiang Khitans, and raise sheep and cattle by yourself so that the fat and water will not flow into outsiders' fields.

But thinking about Emperor Taizong's glorious record of defeating the Dangxiang people in five battles and defeating the Gaoliang River in the decisive battle with Khitan, He Shao knew that this matter should not be mentioned, because it would scare His Majesty the Emperor and the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty.

"You and the old man go to a place"

Li Hang, Xiang Minzhong, and Wu Bingzheng took He Shao directly out of the city in a sedan chair, where some farmers lived sporadically.

Knocking on the door of the farmer's house, He Shao finally saw how pigs are raised in this era in this farmer's house, and he could smell a foul smell even if he was far away.

A bare-bottomed child stood outside the pen and had just finished pulling. He yelled a few times at the pigs in the pen, and the pigs ran over grunting.

When he left, He Shao felt his stomach was overwhelmed, and he almost vomited out yesterday's meal.

In these peasant households, the toilet is the pigsty, and the pigsty is the toilet. Human feces are fed to pigs, and pigs’ feces are fertilized to make the best use of everything. The wisdom of the ancestors is really amazing...
"Ugh..." He Shao leaned against the wall and retched again.

(End of this chapter)