A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 340
Next to Huaiyu's Zhuangzi, there is a village with dozens of households.

After Shuofang was pacified, those villagers who hid in the city worked in Shuofang City for a period of time, and then received a notice from the Yamen to let them go home and distribute the land.

It turns out that most of the people in this village have no land, or only have a very small amount of land, but this time the policy given by the yamen is to grant one hundred acres to one person.

The original land will be deducted to arrive at Yongye Field, and the shortfall will be made up.

For the villagers, this is simply a good thing that fell from the sky. They have been subjects of Liang Guo for ten years, but they have not enjoyed any good treatment. Most of them belonged to the people of this village, but Master Liang took away the best thousand mu.

Other Liang Guoxungui also circled here and occupied a piece there. There was always a way to annex and occupy them. In the end, their land became smaller and smaller, and even completely reduced to tenants.

Now dozens of households have completed the land, and all of them are taking advantage of the season to replant winter wheat. Due to the loss of livestock and other things, the villagers are facing the situation of lack of farm tools and cattle, and the yamen also provides some rented help for planting.

However, there are not many farming tools and seeds in the yamen, so the yamen still calls on the landlords from all over the country to come out and tide over the difficulties together, and rent cattle seeds from the people.

Wu Huaiyu's Zhuangzi provided the villagers of this small village with a lot of leases of seeds, cattle, and agricultural tools, and agreed to pay the rent with grain after the summer harvest.

They can also come to the Wu family's village to do part-time work to make money when they are free. This is not free, but wages, and even the wages are very generous.

For Wu Huaiyu, he has a lot of land now, and there is no shortage of cattle, horses and agricultural tools. The cattle and horses can be transported from the spiritual salt plug, and the agricultural tools and seeds can be transported from Guanzhong. These are all problems that can be solved by money.

Zhuangzi is still mainly short of labor. The Wu family now has 2 mu of land in Lingzhou, [-] mu of land in Yanzhou, and more than [-] mu of new land in Xiasui Yinsheng, which adds up to [-] mu of land.

Although it is a large manor model, which is relatively efficient and can save some manpower, agriculture these days is still a labor-intensive industry.

Ordinary people, one husband and one wife can manage a hundred acres of land, and then raise twenty baskets of silkworms, men tilling and women weaving.Collective estates are relatively more efficient, mainly due to the concentration of fields, the availability of cattle, horses and farm tools, and relatively complete equipment such as water diversion and irrigation.

However, in addition to growing grain, the manor generally also develops sidelines such as breeding, and even some primary processing.

There are forty Zhuangzi outside the Great Wall, and each Zhuangzi is now basically equipped with ten slaves. There are four or fifty people, including young and old, and about twenty of them are young and strong.

These people are enough in normal times, but not enough during the busy farming season. Hiring the surrounding villagers as part-time workers, or even hiring some young and strong people to do long-term jobs, is a good solution to the shortage of manpower in the manor.

This is actually a good thing for the villagers. After all, although the land is divided, the land is dead, and the income is only so much.

Even the children in the villagers' families can come to the landlord's house to earn some money, such as herding sheep and pigs.

In the traditional villages in ancient China, it was mainly composed of powerful landlords and ordinary people. This structure is actually relatively stable. Fewer powerful landlords occupy more land resources. The farms of these landlords can produce more new farming and farm tools. And other technologies, etc., and even the ballast stone in rural society.

There are good and bad sides to any business. In the situation where this situation cannot be reversed, it is actually more realistic to actively guide and supervise the powerful landlords than to blindly suppress them.

This Zhuangzi is on the outskirts of Xiazhou, so Fan Wuniang not only arranges to grow potatoes, rapeseed, white radish, carrots, etc., but also raises sheep to feed pigs, chickens and geese. She also plans to build a greenhouse here, so that winter can also be done. Plant some corn and other vegetables, then live in Xiazhou City, and eat fresh pigs and sheep vegetables.

The slaves started cutting potatoes again early in the morning. After yesterday's real rewards, now the slaves want to compete for the top spot in exchange for mutton. Even if they are slow, they must work hard to complete the assigned task. At least two steamed cakes can be rewarded .

Wu Niang, the maidservant, was full of joy this morning. When she got up, she told Huaiyu that she felt that she had hit this time.

"A lot of people from Geda Village came to work today."

"Let's arrange work if there is work. Anyway, we are also busy with autumn planting. In addition, Zhuangzi is newly built, and some houses and sheepfolds need to be added. It is not easy for everyone to rebuild their homes. It is still the old rule that the wages are settled every ten days. They You can ask for food or money, try not to default on them.”

Geda Village got its name because it depends on Geda River, a tributary of Wuding River.

There used to be hundreds of households here, but now there are only seventy or eighty households, and half of them were resettled after the pacification of Shuofang. The other half of the villagers were either moved to Lingqing and other places during the siege, or were driven into the city. starving.

A war, although this war was not a fierce siege, but for the people of Shuofang, it was still whitewashed.

Now that the land is divided and the land is allocated, it is too difficult to rebuild the house, buy farm tools, furniture, buy cattle and horses, etc., they can only do it a little bit, and they can't all count on the imperial government. become their best object of attachment.

"Just calculate it first, and it will be good to deduct the money they rented for seed farming tools, cattle and horses."

The monk and servant said.

Huaiyu waved his hand, "Look at the appearance of everyone, everyone is pale and thin, and the family has no food left. It is not easy to rely on the little relief food from the court. Our Zhuangzi is here, and we will often deal with the villagers in the future. There are many places where they can help.

Now in case of disaster and death, if you can pull it, you must pull it. "

"I just want to talk about something, that is, many villagers want to borrow grain from our Zhuangzi. They agreed to borrow it in autumn and pay it back after the summer harvest, but they have nothing now..."

"Don't worry about that, each family will borrow some first. As for the interest, let's not talk about borrowing one and repaying three and two. If you borrow now, you can repay the grain until next year's autumn harvest. The cost is one and the profit is one."

"Is it too low?"

Others borrow one bucket, and the interest is two buckets and three buckets, and this time is only half a year.Huaiyu actually wants to borrow autumn to pay back, for a whole year, the interest is only one bucket.

"It's very difficult, don't think about interest at this time."

In fact, Wu Huaiyu finally set this interest rate, compared to other people who pay two or three times the interest rate in half a year, it is actually only equivalent to five cents in half a year.

The interest rate is very low in today's Tang Dynasty. Under normal circumstances, you can't borrow such a loan. The government will occasionally get some such low-interest loans when helping the victims, but the amount is small, and ordinary people can't borrow it.

In addition, only the ethnic warehouses of the family, or some righteous warehouses, can have such low interest rates.

Wu Huaiyu also had to consider other powerful landlords, and he couldn't set too low all of a sudden, otherwise he would overturn the table and break the rules.

Now it sounds like double the interest rate, which is equivalent to the interest rate of the government's public money. In fact, it is much more conscientious than the private grain loan, which is mainly based on a half-year period.

"Let the water flow steadily, these villagers will be next to our Zhuangzi for generations in the future,"

In this era, Wu Huaiyu still hopes to have a more benign relationship.

In this way, the conflict between powerful landlords and ordinary people will not be so prominent, and powerful landlords can have more prestige, and it will be more convenient to do things in the future.

Even if analyzed from a cruel point of view, even if these villagers are divided into fields now, they are still equivalent to a piece of leek raised next to the powerful family. The ability of ordinary people to resist risks in this era is very low. A flood, drought and frost disaster , or a disease accident, may bankrupt a family.

At least they need to borrow. At this time, they can basically only borrow from the powerful landlord next door. In this era, even if Wu Huaiyu has a conscience, the interest rate is lower than other people's homes, but the interest rate on loans is generally high.

Even if you can sustain it and recover, it may be tantamount to working for the landlord for nothing in the next few years. If you can't support it, you can only sell the fields and land, or even sell your children and daughters to sell yourself, becoming a slave to the landlord's house, or becoming a slave to the landlord. Landlords and tenants.

In the reincarnation over and over again, the people are the leeks, cutting one crop after another, while the landlord earns a lot of money from it.

Of course, you have to be particular about cutting leeks, you can’t uproot them, you can only cut them.

Loans grain to the villagers, and even rents seeds to farm cattle, etc., so that these villagers can grow up healthily, so that they can be harvested when the time comes.

Of course, Wu Huaiyu would not say these essences directly, but the essence is like this.

This is the inevitable result of the fact that the common people do not have much control over the means of production.

Huaiyu hopes that the villagers next door can live in peace.

The common people really can't live on. In fact, the first ones to suffer are often the powerful landlords next door, which is the so-called rich eaters in a disaster year.

Hungry refugees don't care whether you are a landlord or a powerful person. They only remember that you have food at home, and when the refugees get together, they dare to do anything.

Wu Huaiyu really hates the kind of greedy and insatiable people who specialize in killing chickens and taking eggs, with short-sightedness.These days, anyone with a bit of background can generally create a charitable personality for himself, and this is the long-term way.

"In the future, the villagers will come to work, as long as there is work, they will arrange it, but they will have to work points, and the kind of stealing and cheating will not be used in the future. The work will be paid according to the performance of the part-time job.

If there is something in the family and you want to borrow something, whether it is food or money, lend them."

Wu Huaiyu looked at the slaves in the field, the villagers of Geda Village, and the stewards and heads of the Zhuangzi, "I plan to invite a teacher to come over and run a school in Zhuangzi. When the time comes, the school-age children in our village and nearby villages can come to school.”

"It costs money to hire a teacher to run a school, and the paper, ink, brush and inkstone are not cheap." The monk and maid felt that this was another additional expense.

"I think so. We don't charge tuition fees for this school. The students themselves can give the teacher a little amount of training every year."

"You still don't charge tuition?"

"We work part-study, study for half a day, and then work in the manor for half a day. We waive their tuition fees and provide them with pens and paper,"

The monk and maid found it difficult to understand that such a purely money-making thing was not necessary.

But Wu Huaiyu thinks this school is worth doing. Firstly, it is difficult to study nowadays, and providing everyone with such an opportunity will surely gain a good reputation. Second, these students who work part-time in the Wujia Manor, if they have good seedlings, they will naturally become famous in the future. You can also choose to work as a buddy in the manor or business of a samurai family.

This is cultivated from an early age, and you know the roots better.

"The children of Liaonu also go to school?"

"It's better for the Wu family to do things for the Wu family if the son of the family reads some books."

The maidservant thought for a while, "Then let's fill up these forty Zhuangzi, all of which are running schools?"

"Well, step by step, I will definitely have to do it in the future."

On the same day, in Xiazhou City, the Wu family began to recruit Mr. Cunxue.

Because it is just a first-time teacher, it does not require any advanced education, and there is no age limit.

If you can master two or three classics, you are already qualified.

At this time, after the war in Xiazhou, there were still many down-and-out scholars, and when they saw the recruitment of the Wu family, they all rushed to sign up.

This is the Dudu family's recruitment, even if it is in the manor, it is worth a try, and it will be a qualification in the future.

What's more, the conditions offered by the Wu family are indeed not bad, including food, lodging, paper, ink, brush and inkstone, etc. In addition, the wages are paid in two parts: monthly rations and monthly money.

At present, there is no hesitation for such a job with such an income, especially for some older poor scholars.

There were too many people who signed up, but fortunately, the Wu family also needed many gentlemen. This time, they also recruited some accountants for the farm saltworks and others.

In the end, more than 100 recruited people were all very happy, and after Wu Huaiyu met them in person, he specially asked them to take each of them to measure a set of clothes and shoes, and then paid two months' wages in advance to settle down.

"Erlang, your reputation is getting louder and louder now, and you actually invite the slaves to be a gentleman."

Cheng Chumo, who just came from Chang'an to serve as governor of Yinzhou, first came to Dudu's mansion to meet Shangguan.

I haven't seen him for more than half a year, Wu Huaiyu's birthday is a bit unrecognizable, and he has become thicker again. Now this guy is exactly the same as Cheng Yaojin, like a bear.

"Your family used to raise horses, and you also know that you need to train them well, so that they are more valuable."

Cheng Chumo took one bite of an egg and ate fourteen in a row, but he actually said that it was just to fill his stomach first.

"Why do you have such a good appetite now?"

"What is this? I eat at least twenty eggs a day, two roast chickens, and a few catties of mutton..."

Huaiyu was very surprised when he heard that, no wonder he looks like a bear now.

"Listen to my brother's advice, don't eat like this again, your body will break down easily, you have to mix meat and vegetables,"

"I'm about to fight, is it normal to eat more?"

He is very happy with his current body shape.

He was able to serve as the governor of Yinzhou this time, mainly due to the merits of Lao Cheng in Luzhou. Cheng Erlang, son of Feng County.

Cheng Chumo was a little concerned about this, he hoped that he could make meritorious deeds, just like Wu Huaiyu.

"I'll check your pulse with you later, and I'll prescribe you two medicines to take care of you later. You can't take the same kind of medicine anymore. Your body can't take it anymore. If your body is gone, how can you make any contribution?"

Cheng Chumo looked at the half-peeled boiled egg in his hand, whether to eat it or not.

"Forget it, I'll listen to you," Cheng Chumo stuffed the egg into Huaiyu.

(End of this chapter)