A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 6 On the White Deer Plateau
Weibei in summer is full of greenery.

Huaiyu was holding a bowl, like Samurai Ke, squatting in the shade of the elm tree in the front yard of the cave, drinking mutton bone soup. The view was wide and the scenery was beautiful. The only fly in the ointment was that today’s mutton soup was not as fragrant as yesterday’s, especially the meat on the bones was gone. without.

Lao Wu drank like a thief, looking at him like that, it was hard to imagine that he was a military attaché of the Imperial Army.

Longqiao Fort lived in kilns dug along the river slopes on both sides of the Dragon Bridge. There were about three floors. .

"When we first came here to resettle, the fifty imperial guards also divided the land and repaired the kiln according to their official positions and the size of the honored officers."

Lao Wu is the highest-ranking officer in the Forbidden Army in Longqiao Fort.

"Aniang, what about the elder sister and the others?"

"I went to pick mulberries, and I'll be back soon."

Datang agriculture can also be called farming and mulberry economy, and the small-scale farming model is mostly men farming and women weaving.Longqiaobao mainly grows millet, soybean millet, buckwheat and other grains. They also grow mulberry and hemp, raise silkworms and weave cloth. The people are basically self-sufficient.

"When your land is divided, you will have to plant mulberry and jujube in the [-] acres of Yongye Field, and the government has regulations." The old man reminded him.

"Isn't it okay if we don't plant it? Can we plant other things?" Huaiyu thought of the few boxes of luggage he brought, which contained a lot of seeds. Plant some millet and millet, and pumpkin, beans, peppers, saffron, and other four-season vegetables are basically self-sufficient.

After dividing the land equally, I should plant these seeds myself.

The old man shook his head, "You can plant whatever you want in the subdivision field, but you have to plant mulberry jujubes in Yongye Field. In the past, Yongye Field was called mulberry field. The government stipulated that at least [-] mulberry trees should be planted in [-] mu of Yongye Field, plus ten elms and ten mulberry trees." For jujube trees, if the land is not suitable for planting, other trees can be planted, but it must be completed within three years after the land is divided."

"Why?" Huaiyu felt that this regulation was a bit strange, why is it not compulsory to plant trees?

"The land is granted by the imperial court. If you don't abide by the law, the imperial court can naturally take back the land. The reason for planting trees is also simple, because the people need silk cloth in addition to food for food and clothing. In addition, the imperial court rents and adjusts the land. The land rent is two Stone millet, and Tiao is two feet of silk and three taels of cotton every year, how to raise silkworms and weave silk without planting mulberry trees, and how to hand in Tiaojuan?"

It turns out that this is to ensure national tax revenue.

"Okay, but it doesn't take much land to plant seventy trees. At worst, just plant them on the corner of the land."

Lao Wu took a sip of the soup and reminded his son, "You have never planted land with the old Taoist before, have you? You can only plant two or three mulberry trees per mu of land. A mulberry tree is a tree every ten steps, and a jujube tree is every step. A tree is three feet, eight trees One line can’t grow too many.”

This made Huaiyu very suspicious. How about planting two or three mulberry trees for one mu of land?
Lao Wu pointed to the river slope under the yard, "Look, there are several mulberry trees there. See how much land a mulberry tree occupies!"

Huaiyu looked down there, ho, that mulberry tree was as tall and big as a canopy.

"This is an ancient mulberry. Shouldn't the mulberry we raise silkworms be short? One person is about the height, and the branches are pruned every year?"

"Mulberry saplings are very small when they are first planted, but they will grow up, and they will not be pruned every year. One mu is 240 square feet, and one tree is ten steps. At most three trees can be planted, usually two, and the trees can be planted again when they are young. Plant some beans."

In the homes of ordinary people, if there is a family, there is a rent.

Two mulberry plants were planted on one mu of land, and silkworms were harvested hard. Half a bolt of silk could be woven in a year.

Although Samurai Ke is an old soldier, he came from a poor background and is very familiar with farming and mulberry. He passed it on to his son without reservation.

"A family can grow about fifty mulberry plants, raise ten baskets of silkworms a year, produce about twelve catties of silk, twelve or three bolts of silk, plant some hemp, and weave five Six."

"We only weave twelve or three bolts of silk and five or six bolts of cloth a year?" Huaiyu asked.

"Hey, although men farm and women weave, it's not easy for women. They have to go to the fields to help during the busy farming season, and they have to wash and cook every day to take care of the family. They also have to sew and mend clothes, shoes and socks. They can only spend time at night spinning. "

Some merchants hire special weavers to weave, and the professional weavers are still very fast. One weaves a day, and the weaving is more than five feet long, and the powerful ones break five in three days. Old weavers can even weave in the dark at night without affecting it.Those top weavers, the complicated and precious astigmatism silk, are worth tens of thousands of dollars each, and they can finish one in two months.

Ordinary peasant women produce about the same amount of silk cloth every year, one is affected by the amount of mulberry and silkworms, and the other is too much housework.

As for the mulberry trees in the Tang Dynasty, they have always been mulberry trees. The kind Huaiyu mentioned is the ground mulberry trees of later generations. They should be pruned regularly, and the stems should be cut off to keep the branches. This can control the growth and facilitate picking, and even leaves early every year. High yields, but require more fertilizer, and more manual careful management.

In the early Tang Dynasty, no matter whether it was growing grain or mulberry, it was under extensive management, lacking both fertilizer and labor, and there was no extra time and energy for repeated pruning.

Another advantage of tree mulberry is that it can interplant grain, and about half of the normal grain can be harvested per mu of mulberry land.

Lao Wu said that the land on their side of Qinghe River is well irrigated by white canals, and can produce at least one stone and five acres per mu. Twenty acres of mulberry trees are planted with grain, and when the year is good, they can still harvest fifteen stones of grain.

The Wu family is a landlord, but they are also short of manpower and fertilizer. Apart from planting dozens of acres of mulberry elm and jujube trees, the remaining 200 acres of land are divided into three parts, and they are cultivated in rotation for storage. fertility.

"You will divide another [-] mu of land soon, and you will probably allocate it to the northern plateau. There is a lack of water and drought there, which is worse than our land. We can't grow it far away, so we can only rent it out."

"Can't you hire someone?"

"It's not so easy to hire people now."

Landlords have a lot of land, and they usually rent it out to others directly, and collect the rent. There are also direct hirers. There are two types of hirers. One is to recruit employees. The buddies agreed to share, because the landlord gave out a lot of things, so the landlord's share was more than that of the direct lease.

Another way is to recruit long-term workers, the landlord provides food and housing, agrees on how much food will be given for a year, and may also provide some meat to the long-term workers during the New Year's festival, and all the harvest in the field will go to the landlord.

There are also those who recruit fewer long-term workers at ordinary times, and more short-term workers to help when the farming is busy.

However, at the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, many common people were allotted some fields, so most of them rented out some land, and it was difficult to recruit long-term workers.

An ordinary household can cultivate about [-] mu of land. If you plant another [-] mu of mulberry and raise [-] baskets of silkworms, this is already the maximum production limit. If the year is peaceful, you can still maintain food and clothing after paying the rent adjustment after harvest. , with a slight surplus.

But if the land is not all his own, but the official land or the landlord's family, and he has to pay rent, he can only barely eat and wear.

"Boy, what kind of woman do you want to find, I will help you find it. Get married earlier, get married earlier, and have more helpers." Lao Wu reminded his son, hoping that his son could settle down sooner.

Before the mutton bone soup was finished, Qu Hou San's family of the Wu family came back with Wu Liu, the eldest sister and Aunt Wang, followed by the children of the Wu family Hou's family. They returned with a big basket of mulberry leaves on their backs.

As soon as they entered the courtyard, Wu Huaiyi and Cheng Chumo also came back.

"How are things going?" Lao Wu stepped forward to greet him.

"We first went to Lijiazhuang to meet with Lizheng, and then we went to the county seat together, and met with County Magistrate Zhang. Huaiyu's household registration is fine, and our land is the same as what Uncle Liu said. There is no land in the village to divide. County Magistrate Zhang He was very helpful, and asked Hu Cao to read the land files, and finally said that he would give Huaiyu [-] mu of land in Bailuyuan Chang'ao, and give me [-] mu in Fengyuan and Menghouyuan." Huaiyi was very happy, although he woke up early in the morning Just run non-stop.

But the result was good, the household registration was completed, and the land was confirmed. Zhang County Magistrate did not dare to neglect Cheng Chumo's work with the teaching of the King of Qin. The whole piece of land was originally the criminal property of no official, but now it is official land, which is specially distributed to them.

The name of Sanyuan County originally originated from the three northern plateaus, Menghouyuan, Fengyuan, and Bailuyuan.Guanzhong is a plain area, but there are also many plateaus.

Compared with the Weibei Plain on the Qinghe side, the conditions in Sanyuan are much worse.

"Then I have to thank the county magistrate next." Lao Wu has also moved here for ten years, and he knows the situation of Sanyuan very well. The south is the plain beside the Qinghe River. This is the best land, irrigated land.The three plateaus in the north are much worse, the more north you go, the more dry.

To the north of Sanyuan is a mountainous area, and there is no flat land in Huangtumao, Huangtuliang, and Huangtugou.At that time, Li Yuan sent 3 yuan to the imperial army and distributed the best land in the seven counties along the Baiqu River in the Weibei Plain to them. Many people who returned home after the war could only become tenants of the imperial army or migrate to the northern plateau. Or go to the mountains.

"Magistrate Zhang said that we will go there someday when we are free, and he sent someone to take us there to reclaim the land."

Everyone is happy when things are done well.

Even if the [-] mu of land cannot be planted, it is still in the bag. Even if it is rented out, it can still have a rental income.

"Everyone is tired after going out early in the morning, so hurry up and drink some lamb bone soup."

Hou San's eldest son Shitou put down the mulberry leaves and came to help Huaiyu collect the bowl. After taking the bowl, he did not forget to pick up the sheep bones thrown away on the ground and put them back into the bowl.

"This bone has no meat at all, even if you pick it up, a dog won't chew it up, so don't pick it up." Huaiyu said.

Hou San's son Shitou is seven years old today, and he looks like charcoal. "Erlang, take this bone back and wash it, and you can make soup again."

Huaiyu's complexion became unsightly, "Could it be that the mutton bone soup used today is the bone that was gnawed yesterday?"

Shitou nodded, "Erlang, don't worry, my father and I washed it several times before cooking it yesterday, it's clean!"

Huaiyu felt his stomach churning. Although he is not the kind of person who is too particular, he has never eaten this kind of twice-cooked mutton bone soup.

Lao Wu was very calm beside him, still sucking a piece of sheep bone.

Cheng Chumo laughed a few times beside him, "We ate a few steamed pancakes in the county town, and we were still full, so we stopped eating."

(End of this chapter)