A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 339 Bounty Hunter
On the outskirts of Shuofang City, in a manor by the Wuding River, a group of slaves were cutting potatoes.

Potatoes that have been planted in the sun for two or three days in advance, cut out the diseased and rotten potatoes, cut them into pieces, dry the cut edges, and put them indoors for stratification to accelerate germination.

The group of slaves traveled thousands of miles from the west of Sichuan to enter Guanzhong through the Shu Road, and then to Shuofang. They were assigned to manors one by one and worked in shackles.

These slaves are generally short in stature and have dark skin.

Under the supervision of the manor overseer, they were not very active in their work.

"Each potato block must have two or three sprouts, watch carefully, and don't cut randomly!" An overseer waved his whip, and slapped a lazy and slippery slave, "If you cut randomly, you will lose today's potato!" Dinner is gone."

Wu Huaiyu heard the sound and came over, and glanced at the Liao Nu who was very unconvinced after being drawn. He was about 30 years old, and he was quite strong. He might have been a tribal warrior in the past.

"You work hard. Those who complete the task will be rewarded. The one who did the best today will be rewarded with a catty of mutton, and the rest who have completed the task will be rewarded with steamed cakes."

He pulled up the slave, "What's your name?"

"Slender dragon tail."

"Where is my hometown?"

"Yerong Mountain in Rongzhou,"

This man from Liao Nu spoke well, Wu Huaiyu asked a few more questions, and found that he was indeed a tribal warrior, and even a small leader.

Cheng Yaojin served as the governor of Luzhou, Luzhou was surrounded by wild people, many of them belonged to raw Tibetans, and even some familiar Tibetans were not always rebellious.Once Cheng Yaojin took office, he didn't get used to them, he beat them until they were convinced.

Moreover, every time he dispatched troops, he would directly demolish and relocate people. In just over half a year, he forced him to fight fourteen prefectures around Luzhou.

Those who disobeyed were all captured and sold as slaves by him.

Those who know the current affairs and are willing to cooperate will be given a chance to set up Jimi Prefecture and appoint those barbaric leaders and powerful officials as the governors of Jimi Prefecture.

Cheng Yaojin sent troops to suppress the rebellion, and specially recruited the Liaoman who belonged to Jilong Prefecture as forwards. They were not only familiar with the local conditions, but also good at the local terrain, and they fought fiercely.

Later, Cheng Yaojin didn't even send troops in person, and directly authorized the governors and generals of Jiyi Prefecture to attack those disobedient barbarians.

Many Liaoman were very active. Although those Liaoman were originally called Liaoman by the Tang people, they themselves had many tribes and belonged to each other, and they fought constantly. Lao Cheng led the elite Tang army and was stationed in the main traffic road. Occupy the salt well and open the market for trade.

With a few tricks down, the fourteenth branch of Lizhou was opened, and the work was booming. The slaves were sent to Guanzhong batch after batch. The Shu Road leading to Guanzhong has never been broken by the slaves.

Xiluo Longwei is very unconvinced, he used to be the leader of a small tribe in Yerong Mountain, he was very brave, but unfortunately he was attacked by those barbarians who were bribed by the Tang people.

The dignified tribal leader is now cutting potatoes here.

"Give me a knife, I'd rather die than cut potatoes here!"

"You are so eager to fight, it is quite suitable to go to the arena,"

Wu Huaiyu also thinks that people like Xiluo Longwei are not suitable for doing farm work in the manor. Such people are born wolves, and wolves want to eat meat.

What the estate needs are tamer slaves.

"Of course, if you don't want to enter the arena, there is another place to go."

Wu Huaiyu suggested that he join the slave hunting team.

Although the situation of slave hunting in Shuofang Lingwu and other places is not as severe as before, there are still some, but now these slave hunting teams have changed their status and become official mercenaries.

The official issued arrest warrants for some bandits, horse bandits, or rebellious Shanhu and Qiang people, so that these slave hunting teams could take over the task and go to encircle and suppress them.

They usually find ways to capture them alive, so that they can not only complete the task to get the bounty, but also sell slaves.Of course, now and then, the slave hunting team would occasionally serve as the caravan guards, guarding the merchants.

Now that the management is strict, we can't just plunder and rob people like before. After all, now that the Liang Kingdom has been destroyed, this place has become the governor's mansion of Xiazhou in the Tang Dynasty, and the people in the territory are all citizens of the Tang Dynasty.

Bounty hunters do the blood-licking job, which is dangerous but also highly rewarding.

"Do you have any family?"

"Yes, chop potatoes here too."

The slaves that Huaiyu bought were all bought in one house, and such slaves were relatively easy to control.

"If you want to be a bounty hunter, I can arrange that your family can stay here to chop potatoes first, and when you save enough money, you can redeem yourself and take them away."

Xiluo Longwei was very moved. From Rongzhou to Luzhou, then to Chang'an, and then to this Xiazhou, the shackles had worn his hands and feet into thick calluses, and he didn't want to live like this for the rest of his life.

"Aren't you afraid that I'll run away?"

"It looks like you are a good man, you don't even want your wife and children?"

Wu Huaiyu advocated the maximization of benefits, making Xiluo Longwei reluctant to be in this kind of place, it would be better to let him join the bounty hunter team and give full play to his value of being good at fighting and brave.

Xiluo Longwei shook the shackles on his hands, willing to go to the slave arresting team.

Huaiyu called someone to arrange.

Next to Huaiyu Manor is the Zhuangzi of Helian Jinzhu's family. Her family's Zhuangzi is much smaller than Huaiyu's. Huaiyu's Zhuangzi has a thousand mu of land.

"You don't need to cut these small potatoes into pieces, you can plant them whole, and the larger ones need to be cut. When the sprouts grow to more than half an inch long, take them out to dry in the open air, and then plant them when the sprouts become green and thick."

"It takes about two hundred catties to plant one mu of land. If the harvest is harvested, even a poor land can harvest a thousand catties. If there is enough water and fertilizer, it can even reach three to five thousand catties. Last year, the yield per mu of potatoes planted in our Yanzhou Zhuangzi basically reached one. About fifteen hundred catties."

Wu Huaiyu introduced the potatoes to Helian Jinzhu.

The last time Helian Jinzhu invited Wu Huaiyu to stay, and she was somewhat embarrassed when she was rejected as a voluntary sleeper, but Wu Huaiyu didn't feel relieved, came here to grow potatoes in Zhuangzi, and specially called Jinzhu's family.

Not only gave them many kinds of potatoes, but also taught them how to plant them.

There are not many crops that can be planted after autumn, usually wheat. Last year, Wuhuaiyu Zhuangzi also planted rape, potatoes, and a lot of white radishes and carrots.

Rapeseed was also grown before the Tang Dynasty, but it is generally called cold vegetable and scorpion mustard, and it is planted in spring. This kind of rapeseed belongs to the Brassica napus introduced when the Han Dynasty passed through the Western Regions, and it is somewhat different from the seeds brought by Wu Huaiyu.

Rapeseed is one of the plants with the best oil production efficiency among oil crops.

Rapeseed is not only used to make edible oil, but also used as lamp oil for lighting. The demand is huge. After careful calculation, the income from growing rapeseed to extract oil is actually very cost-effective.

For a large estate like Wu Huaiyu's family, it is actually very suitable for growing these cash crops.

"Mr. Yi knows a lot. Not only is he good at commanding troops and fighting wars, but he also knows how to manage civil affairs. He even knows so much about farming." Helian Jinzhu was amazed holding a small potato, which yielded [-] catties per mu. Ah, not only can it be eaten fresh, it can also be used as potato flour.

"Pursuing agriculture and sauna are the basics of local officials." Huaiyu smiled, "Your family farm has [-] acres of land, and you can plant [-] acres of potatoes, then some rapeseed and radishes, and the rest can be planted with winter wheat, etc. After harvest next summer, millet or buckwheat can be planted again.

"When the rape is harvested, I will give you some corn seeds, and you can plant some more corn."

Helian Jinzhu was very grateful.

"Is there any difficulty?"

There are more than a dozen people in Helian's family now, but the problem is that women and children are old and weak, and there are no young and strong men. Fortunately, when Huaiyu gave her family fields and pastures, she also gave some livestock, including cows and horses.

"It's just that there is a lack of strong labor. I plan to buy a few dinus. I can't work in the fields without men."

"That's true. If you don't find a suitable one for a while, you can just pick some from my Zhuangzi."

Seeing how kind he was to her, Helian Jinzhu couldn't help thinking wildly.

When the family returned to their home village, Jin Zhu's grandmother also called her to her side and raised the same doubts.

"Is Yi Guogong interested in you?" The old woman said to herself, "Actually, it doesn't matter, we women have to depend on men, men are trees, women are vines..."

She rambled on, roughly meaning that even if Wu Huaiyu didn't intend to accept her into the Wu family, it doesn't matter. Those of them who survived the catastrophe don't need to worry too much about those, and they can find a reliable person to rely on in troubled times. It's also good.

Wu Huaiyu can see her, that's her luck and so on.

Jin Zhu smiled helplessly, "Grandma, how could she fall in love with me, and why should I make him fall in love with me? I am a bearded girl, I have been a slave and a servant for many years, how could I fall into his eyes?" .”

"Then why is he so nice to you? It's impossible for a man to be nice to a woman for no reason. Besides, you're not bad looking and you're still young. You don't have to be responsible for sending it to your door. How could they refuse."

Jin Zhu told Grandma that she offered to deliver it to her door, but she refused.

This surprised the old woman, and she couldn't figure it out for a moment.

Jin Zhu sat with her knees hugged, dazed.

Wu Huaiyu bought more than a dozen new villas in Shuofang, all of which are one village per thousand mu.Now the population loss in Shuofang is serious, after a round of reshuffle, there are a lot of land.

Like Yanzhou, Wu Huaiyu gave a lot of land to the landless people in Shuofang, and sold some of it to powerful landlords, and some of them were used as military garrison, official tun and commercial tun. It is dead.

If they are sold and divided, they have to find a way to plant them and pay for food.

The land price is as cheap as ever, and Wu Huaiyu will be the first to get the moon if he is close to the water, so of course he will not be polite.

The cost of acquiring land is very low, and the most expensive thing is to plant the land, which requires slaves and cattle and horses. These initial investments are relatively large, but for Wu Huaiyu now, it is not a big problem.

This Zhuangzi on the outskirts of Xiazhou now grows potatoes, rapeseed, winter wheat, carrots and white radishes, and also raises some cattle and sheep, and some chickens.

Zhuangzi is very simple, except for the stewards, chiefs, and supervisors who are Han Chinese, the rest are basically slaves, most of them are wild slaves, and there are also many Shanhu and Qiang slaves.

Stay overnight at Zhuangzi.

Lamb in tortillas, served with mashed potatoes, delicious.

This year the samurai family sells corn, potatoes, and sweet potato seeds. It is estimated that they can make a lot of money. If they keep half of them as seeds, they will be able to harvest more next year. It should be no problem to sell the seeds for the past few years, but the profits will definitely increase year by year. young.

The slaves in Zhuangzi could not enjoy the auspicious foods such as corn and potatoes. They could only eat millet porridge, millet steamed cakes, and some pickles.

The slave who performed the best today, the steward honored Huaiyu's reward, and rewarded him with a catty of mutton. Although it was bone-in, he was satisfied to eat it with the bone in his hand. The rest who completed the task also had to add a piece of steamed cake reward.

As for those who cheated and cheated, they got a few whip lessons.

And Xiluo Longwei had bid farewell to his family, and went to Xiazhou City to report to the Wu family's bounty hunter team.

　The fever has been repeated for the past few days, and my throat is really uncomfortable like swallowing a razor blade.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)