A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 64 The landlord's family has no surplus

At night, cool breeze.

The tiger-spotted dog and the chow-lion dog loyally guarded Huaiyu's cave entrance, fearing that he would suddenly disappear again.

Huaiyi gave his cave dwelling to Huaiyu and his wife, and he and Ma Zhou went to squeeze in with the fool.It's the first time for Runniang to live in a cave at such a young age, she doesn't dislike it but finds it quite novel.

The dilapidated kiln that Lao Wu refurbished for him below has just started construction, and it is estimated that it will take another two or three months to complete.Now that Huaiyu's focus is in Chang'an, she doesn't really care about the broken cave dwelling for a while.

There is a courtyard in Chang'an and a kiln in Sanyuan, so it is convenient to live when I come back. I can't always go to Er Leng's house to stay overnight.

"After two years, let's build a courtyard. I designed it myself. I built a courtyard with three entrances, front and back. It can be well organized.”

"The concubine wants to live in the west wing." Run Niang snuggled into his arms and said with a smile.

The couch was covered with a gauze curtain, there was a gauze curtain on the door, and there was smoke outside, and the mosquito coil prepared by Huaiyu was lit in the room, but there were no disturbing mosquitoes, only the intoxicating evening breeze.

It was cool in the cave, and the summer night was not too hot.

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Runniang lay on Huaiyu's generous chest with a happy face, and said in a lazy voice: "The night in this country is so peaceful, I like it very much."

The clear river flows quietly outside, with the sound of frogs, and occasionally the barking of cattle, sheep and dogs. The night outside is as dark as lacquer, and the sky is bright with moonlight.

On such a night, it is really comfortable to have a beauty in your arms.

"Actually, you just came back, and it's not so good after you've lived there for a long time. There are endless trivial matters, conflicts and quarrels between the parents and the west, even chickens and dogs jumping on the ground with cow and sheep dung, and endless farm work in the fields. , the housework that can never be cleaned up..."

The aristocratic family and wealthy family are vacationing and relaxing in the country manor. Naturally, they only see the idyllic landscape, and some are just peaceful and comfortable, because they don’t need to get up early to carry water to make a fire, and they don’t need to work in the dew before dawn. There is no need to wear stars and moons, let alone weave until midnight.

This is like those poets who write about war very romantically. They are far away from the battlefield and do not personally experience life and death, so they sing the praises of blood and fire, swords and expeditions.

The Wu family in Longqiao and the Li family in Yongkang have very different family backgrounds. The Li family has been a noble family for generations, but Lao Wu still has to work in the fields by himself, and the Liu family also weaves cloth and raises silkworms every day.

"you are pretty!"

Huaiyu looked at the beauty under the dim light, with a peachy face and a smile on her lips, and wanted to record this moment.

"How about I draw your portrait?"

"Now?"

"Ah."

Huaiyu jumped up from the bed and found paper, pen, ink and inkstone. Runniang also heard that the portraits that Huaiyu made for Qin Qiong and Yu Chigong liked the prince very much, and specially gave him a silver belt.

Run Niang grinds ink.

"Just sit there and don't move."

Huaiyu watched it for a while, then swiped.

When he stopped writing, Run Niang couldn't wait to come over to take a look. When she saw the portrait, her expression didn't surprise Huai Yu at all.

In the past, he used this trick to chase girls a lot. Few girls were not surprised, and some were even shocked directly.

Although he practiced calligraphy and painting, he still learned management in the end, but I have to say that boys can draw, just like girls can dance, which is actually a plus.

Especially this kind of face-to-face drawing, and the drawing is particularly beautiful.

Chen Runniang in Huaiyu's works is not only a portrait, but also obviously like a filter. It has a special and beautiful artistic conception. Which girl doesn't want to be the protagonist who is full of stars.

"Xie Erlang."

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In the morning, Huaiyu woke up later than usual.

Lao Wu practiced the Vajra Kung Fu he taught in the courtyard, and reminded him, "Young people should be temperate and not greedy for pleasure."

"Where's brother?"

"Go horse racing and practice archery."

"In a while, you follow me to treat guests."

"What kind of guest are you looking for?"

"The farm work has been relaxed, and our family has brewed Fuzi wine. My father and I went to invite the tenants of our land to come and drink."

The landlord invites the tenants to drink, Huaiyu heard correctly, this is still a tradition.

Not long after the summer harvest every year, new wheat will be used to brew some Fuzi wine. After the wine is ready, the landlord will personally visit the door to invite the farmers who are tenants of their own land to drink. This is not only a celebration and relaxation after the harvest, but it also has another meaning. Tell everyone that it's time to pay the summer rent.

The old Wu family used to have [-] mu of land, some of which were planted by themselves, and some were given to Hou San, and the rest were leased to other villagers in the village. Five acres and ten acres.

There are more than 100 households in Longqiaobao, [-] of them have imperial guards, and half of them do not.The Imperial Army granted at least one hundred acres of land, which was the welfare treatment they originally received from the Imperial Army, but few other villagers were able to grant one hundred acres of land, most of them only granted thirty or forty acres, and even small and The Ding Nan and Zhong Nan who entered the middle school did not get any land.

Drinking Fuzi wine has become a tradition of rent collection. After buying Fuzi wine, you have to start paying rent. This has become a tradition every year.

This year's summer harvest is still good. The harvest is not bad, not to mention a bumper harvest, but it is not a bad harvest either.

After eating a bowl of millet porridge in the morning, the father and father both put on clean and tidy robes, and began to invite guests to their tenants from house to house.

Lao Wu was very polite to everyone, without the arrogance of the landlord, let alone the brutal rent urging, and he didn't even mention paying the rent at all.

The two parties were very polite, the old Wu and his wife brought a pot of floating wine, and agreed to come to drink tomorrow, and the tenants also gave some dried fruits and vegetables.

Every family had to visit and invite, and finally invited Liu Cunzheng and several senior official and serving military attaches of the village.

Although the tenants of the old Wu family are all in the village, there are also about [-] households with [-] to [-] acres of land, and they rent some supplements from the Wu family and other forbidden troops.

Walking down a circle carefully, Huaiyu can feel this simple nostalgia.

The relationship between the Wu family and the tenants is actually relatively equal. They need each other. The old Wu family can’t grow so much land and must rent it out. The villagers have to rent some supplementary land if they don’t have enough land. Neighbors in the same village have a good relationship.

Even if the old Wu family is now renovating those cave dwellings, although the tenants have offered to help, the old Wu family will still provide meals, and after the repairs are completed, they will also send some gifts to thank them. Later, their family will repair the kiln to do business, in fact, everyone is the same help each other.

It's a good relationship.

Huaiyu discovered that the biggest difference between this kind of relationship and the kind of employment and part-time jobs in later generations is liquidity. Later generations opened companies and opened factories to recruit workers and hire people. There was a lot of turnover. Or open it if you think it's not good enough.But here, it is rare for land tenants to take it back, unless the tenants have no successors.

Even most of the villagers who share the land do not share the land of several families, and the tenants are fixed, and these families share your land and the other family's land.

"How much rent can our family collect this year?"

"Our family grows 120 mu of land, 150 mu of mulberry fields, and rents out another 150 mu of land." Lao Wu explained to his son that the [-] mu of land rented out by Wu's family can be divided into three situations, one is direct renting, Most of the tenants are in this situation, that is, they only rent the land, and they grow the other cattle seeds and so on. All count.

There is also a kind of joint farming. The landlord produces seeds and even cattle from the land, and the tenants are responsible for farming and management, and finally share. The Hou Sanjia was actually this kind of joint farming before. It is divided in half, or the land is divided into six tenants and four, and some landlords also plant the land together.

The last type is to recruit workers. Landlords produce seeds and cows from the land, recruit long-term workers to plant the land, and hire short-term workers when the farming is busy. They not only provide seeds and cattle, but also provide farm tools, and even provide rations, and lend them housing to produce food. Finally, if the seeds are removed, the land will be divided into six tenants and four tenants. If the seeds are not removed, the land will be divided into two tenants and one tenant. If the landlord also participates in the same labor, then the land will be eight tenants and second-class.

Half of the Wu family's land was planted by themselves, and they planted [-] acres for Buquhou's family. The Wu family provided seeds, farming tools and cattle, and even participated in labor when the farming was busy, so they split half and half.

The other 20 mu of land is rented by more than [-] villagers, ranging from a few mu to a dozen or twenty mu. Only the land is rented and nothing else is provided.

Due to the lack of people now, there is no place to recruit buddies for the time being.

"Take Wu Cheng's family to Chang'an. You still need to have a few trustworthy people around you." Wu Cheng is now a servant of the Wu family who has signed a slave contract. He lives and dies in the Wu family, so he is naturally trustworthy.

The Wu family’s land is all fertile land irrigated by the white canal, with a production capacity of more than two stones per mu. When the weather is good, the 120 acres of land planted by the family can harvest about 250 stones, and the 150 acres of land rented out can be rented for [-] acres. The rent per mu is about six Dou, which is only sixty shi a year, and the rent for [-] mu is cultivated, and the rent is one shi per mu, which is only fifty shi a year.

360 stone grain, this is all the income in good times.

For one mu of good land, five liters of seeds are used.For the 170 mu of land that the Wu family planted and planted with companions, the seeds cost eight stones and five.

"The grain in the Yicang is two liters per mu, and our family gets six stones of grain for [-] mu of land."

"There is still money."

"There is also a sum of money and food on the canal."

Fortunately, the old Wu of the Wu family is an official official, Cheng Ding Wu Huaiyi is an official military officer, and Huaiyu is temporarily white but not yet a adult, and does not need to pay rent transfers for the time being, so there is no other official burden.

Therefore, after one year, there are actually 340 stone grains left, which are unhulled raw grains.
However, the rations for the five members of Hou San's family are also borne by the Wu family. A small male has two liters of solar eclipse, a small female has one and a half liters, a middle-aged man has one liter, and the young and old are even smaller. Hou San's family has two liters and three small ones, and five liters a day. In fact, after shelling the millet, there are only more than three liters of millet, and two meals a day must be accompanied by some vegetables. If you really want to eat, you actually need five liters of rice a day.

But even if it is five liters of grain a day, it is at least five shi for a month, and eighteen shi for a year.

The Wu family still has nine members, not including Huaiyu.

"Our family's ration last year, not including Hou San's family, was eight shi of wheat, seven shi of millet, seven shi of beans, three shi of green wheat, three dou of millet six shi, and seven dou of flax," Lao Wu added later, " The food for raising horses and feeding cattle is not counted.”

In fact, a strong man can eat twelve stones of millet and seven stones of rice in one year.If a family of five really wants to eat freely, it will cost more than 30 shi.

There are nine people in the old Wu family, five big and four small, and only more than 30 stone grains a year. It can be seen that they are usually very frugal.

It costs more than 60 shi to eat, but raising horses consumes more food. The samurai family is an imperial army, and they have war horses. These things are not all for eating grass. A war horse eats more than five men.

Not all the cattle and mules raised in the family graze on grass, especially during the busy farming season.

Lao Wu counted with his fingers for Huaiyu. Last year, the family had two horses, one mule and three cows, not counting sheep and pigs. Just six horses, mules and cows would consume a lot of money in a year. In the Forbidden Army, he was the commander of the brigade, and the horse materials were subsidized, as well as his salary.

In addition to raising cattle and mules for their own land, they can also rent them out to earn some money.

In short, although it seems that the [-] mu of land does not receive food, the expenditure is also high. The court fights every year, and officials often have to donate their salary and stop their salary. Local states and counties also levy additional contributions from time to time.

Calculated in this way, it would be good to have a hundred stones of grain left over a year, and this grain can't really be saved. Although the countryside is self-sufficient, none of the sewing pots, bowls, and farm tools cost money, and they are all sold for money.

Fortunately, there are [-] acres of mulberry fields and some jujube trees at home. Sericulture and silk weaving can not only basically cover the family's clothing, but also sell some surplus to subsidize the family.

In short, if the old Wu Family hadn’t had an official’s salary plus a land rent subsidy, it would not have been as good as it is now. The three hundred acres of land, let alone the weather every year, whether it’s wars, droughts, early frosts, Floods can affect harvests.

A few years ago, I married three daughters, and the dowry was a huge sum. In the past few years, I have to save a gift for my son and a dowry for my younger daughter.

The landlord's family has no surplus food.

"Aye, when the rent from the summer harvest is collected this time, don't sell any grain. I still have some money here, and I can go to the village to buy some and save it."

"The Turks are really going to invade?" Lao Wu asked sensitively.

"It's very likely that it's safer to stockpile food early. In fact, it's best to let the younger sister go to Chang'an with her. After Saburo, the eldest sister, and two nieces all go to Chang'an, the younger sister is alone at home without company. In case the Turkic people really call , Chang'an is also safer, and it will be easier for the whole family to move to Chang'an when the time comes."

Lao Wu's face was solemn, "Turkic wolf cubs are really going to come to Weibei, we may not be able to hold on to the food stockpiles."

"Yeah, I have a way to stockpile food, and make it into Shoushan food."

Keeping mountain grains is actually a method of storing grains to prevent hunger and banditry. The grains are steamed and smashed into a paste, which is painted on the wall or made into bricks. After it dries naturally, the longer it gets, the harder it will be. .If there is a famine and a war, you can chop off a piece and cook it into a big pot of paste, or eat it dry, soak it in water, and eat it. It is very hungry.

The most important thing is that this kind of Shoushan grain is easy to hide, not easy to be found and robbed by hungry people or robbers, and easy to store.

If the radish is boiled and made with steamed glutinous rice, the effect will be better.

Compared with storing grain directly in a granary, or digging a kiln to store grain, it is not easy to bury grain at home without being found.

"When the grain is harvested, some of it will be made into bricks and built into walls to hide in cave dwellings. Most of it can be transported directly to Chang'an City for storage. Chang'an City is so strong that the Turks will definitely not be able to attack it."

Lao Wu thought for a while, "I listen to you."

"Why don't grandpa and aunt simply go to Chang'an with us to live temporarily, and leave it to Hou Sanwucheng and his family to take care of it. The crops in the village can be looked after by the tenants in the village, and some grain will be distributed to them after the harvest."

Lao Wu was reluctant to leave home, "Turkic wolf cubs may not be able to break into Guanzhong. If they really want to come, it won't be too late for us to come to Chang'an for a while!"

(End of this chapter)