Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 9 The small courtyard in the camp
"How much money did you spend on these?"

Seeing these things, Zhu Gaoxu couldn't help but know what the two people were doing.

His first reaction was to ask about the price. After all, he still had thirty strings of banknotes sent by his good brother.

"It cost me four hundred yuan, and it hurts me to death."

Yang Zhan did not hide it. After all, he had known Zhu Gaoxu for more than three months and knew his character very well.

If they didn't say anything, Zhu Gaoxu might be unhappy.

"That's indeed quite expensive..." Zhu Gaoxu took a breath of cold air. After all, during the Hongwu period, there was a lot of waste waiting to be done, and work was cheap and materials were expensive.

According to what he knew from his visits in the past three months, even in Nanjing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty, an ordinary laborer could only earn [-] cents a day. If an old woman was hired to help in the courtyard, it would only cost [-] cents a month. Hundreds of articles.

In other words, this small cart is enough to hire two adult men to work for them for ten days.

"Pack everything in."

Zhu Gaoxu walked to the door of the firewood shed, opened the door and motioned for them to move in the firewood.

A pile of firewood tied with rattan weighs a hundred kilograms, but for Wang Xuan and Yang Zhan, who are eighteen or nineteen years old, it is just a matter of taking a few breaths.

Zhu Gaoxu, on the other hand, was carrying a pile of firewood in his left and right hands. He walked as if taking a leisurely stroll in a courtyard. The two of them looked at each other with some pain in their arms.

"Your Highness, your strength has increased a bit too quickly..."

Wang Xuanwen spoke angrily, but Zhu Gaoxu laughed and said: "You two were growing up when you were my age, but you were too busy with sex and sex that you missed it."

While he was talking, Zhu Gaoxu had already put away two piles of firewood weighing [-] kilograms. He watched Wang Xuan and Yang Zhan put down the firewood and piled the firewood before nodding:

"These four hundred kilograms of firewood are enough to burn for a month."

While Zhu Gaoxu was talking, Yang Zhan and Wang Xuan went out and carried two vegetable baskets to the kitchen in the front yard. When Zhu Gaoxu saw this, he untied the pile of firewood, pulled out a dozen firewoods, and walked to the front yard.

When he walked into the kitchen, Yang Zhan and Wang Xuan had already placed fine salt, soy sauce, and mature vinegar, and were pouring rice into the cleaned rice vat.

However, since there was no chemical fertilizer in this era, the rice produced was not comparable to the rice of later generations.

But even so, Zhu Gaoxu still heard Yang Zhan ramble:
"Now that there is peace, every household has a field. No one eats the rice in Champa during the Song and Yuan Dynasties. They all eat white grain instead."

"White grain?" Zhu Gaoxu paused, and when Yang Zhan saw Zhu Gaoxu's confusion, he also explained:
"During the Song Dynasty, there were more people than land, so Champa rice could only be grown for food. However, Champa rice was unpalatable and could only be eaten by poor people."

“Until Your Majesty founded the Ming Dynasty and distributed wasteland, there were more land than people.”

"With more land here, people have demands for food. Naturally, they don't want to eat Champa rice, but eat this season's Dahe white rice."

"It's just that this big white rice is only grown in Jiangnan and Huguang, so it's widely distributed."

Listening to Yang Zhan's words, Zhu Gaoxu did not expect that the people of the Ming Dynasty could still eat refined grains such as white rice.

But it’s normal if you think about it carefully. In the early Ming Dynasty, there were more than [-] million acres of cultivated land, and the food grown had to be consumed by someone. Moreover, due to the war in the late Yuan Dynasty, land was severely abandoned, so a large amount of cultivated land had not yet been cultivated.

In Zhu Gaoxu's memory, he also learned it in history class.

During the more than 20 years of the Ming Dynasty, except for the border provinces, most other places had basically been at peace for a long time without major wars and chaos. Until the [-]th year of Wanli, most places had enough to eat.Not only in the Ming Dynasty, but also since the Tang Dynasty, white grains have entered the homes of ordinary people. It was just the Anshi Rebellion that disrupted this process.

After coming back to his senses, Zhu Gaoxu looked at the fruits and vegetables bought by the two of them.

In the bamboo basket, there were a lot of cabbage, eggplant, eggs, spinach, river fish, etc., as well as a piece of fresh meat and several kilograms of green dates.

"What kind of meat is this?"

Zhu Gaoxu picked up the meat and asked. Yang Zhan and Wang Xuan also poured the rice and turned around and replied: "Beef!"

"Beef? Didn't I remember that I can't eat beef?" Zhu Gaoxu looked confused, but Yang Zhan looked at him confused:
"We in the Ming Dynasty are not allowed to eat beef. We are prohibited from slaughtering cows privately..."

After Yang Zhan explained, he told Zhu Gaoxu some laws about livestock.

For example, the "Da Ming Code" stipulates that private livestock such as horses and cattle are generally not allowed to be slaughtered privately. They are only allowed to be killed if they are old and sick, and must be reported to the government in advance.

In addition, beef tendons and horns must be handed over to the government because they are materials used to make bows, arrows, armor and other military supplies.

If the common people do not complain to the officials in advance, they will be accused of killing privately.

According to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, although the penalty for privately slaughtering cattle and horses was severe, it was not beheading or exile, but a stick, which was looser than in previous dynasties.

"The butcher shop sells a lot of beef, and the price is very cheap. I will naturally buy beef and eat it. If it is pork and mutton, I will never be able to afford it."

After explaining, Yang Zhan said flatteringly: "But it's us two bastards. If His Highness wants to eat it, it's still easy."

"According to what you said, pork is more expensive than beef?" Zhu Gaoxu was very interested in Yang Zhan's words.

The current Nanjing city does not have a million people like it did in the late Ming Dynasty, so the large church in the outer city is surrounded by farmland and is more than ten miles away from the nearest market town.

Although he had been in Ming Dynasty for more than three months, he came to the teaching field immediately after leaving the palace and had not gone out for a long time.

"It's expensive!" Yang Zhan said excitedly: "Today, the pork at the Dashuying butcher shop is 22 yuan, the mutton is 180 yuan, and the goose is [-] yuan. Apart from sea fish, river fish, and water chickens, beef is the cheapest. Fifteen cents equals one pound."

"Our piece of beef weighs three kilograms, which is enough for us to eat for two meals." Wang Xuan sat in front of the stove and smiled cheerfully while lighting the fire in front of the stove.

"I will also go to visit Dashuying someday." Zhu Gaoxu heard what the two said was interesting and wanted to see the people's livelihood in the market town during the Hongwu period.

"Okay!" Seeing what Zhu Gaoxu said, Yang Zhan also beat rice and put it into the pot, preparing to wash the rice for cooking.

Seeing the two of them taking action, Zhu Gaoxu also looked at the ingredients, washed the vegetables and beef, and then put the beef on the stove next to it to blanch.

The three of them had already agreed yesterday that Zhu Gaoxu would cook and they would help.

Although the two of them felt that it was against etiquette, after all, Zhu Gaoxu said so, and they could not refuse.

So today, they went out early in the morning to buy fruits and vegetables, and they tried to help as much as possible.

Fortunately, the stove in the kitchen had three stoves, so Zhu Gaoxu was able to blanch the beef, boil water nearby, and cook the river fish himself.

But when he was rummaging through the vegetables, he saw something that shouldn't be there.

(End of this chapter)