"Reported to the adults, the students have checked the land volumes of three places in Huangxian, Zhaoyuan and Laizhou. According to the records of the acres, there are a total of 180,000 mu of arable land in Chifengwei, of which there are 30,000 mu of upper fields with more than one stone of wheat per mu, and 70,000 mu of middle fields with seven or eight dou of wheat per mu. The rest are all lower fields with four or five dou of wheat per mu." Xu Xiuqing saw Li Xiao suddenly asked this question and quickly answered.

"Oh, why are there only so much arable land?" Li Xiao was surprised when he heard Xu Xiuqing's report.

Li Xiao read the Ming Dynasty. He remembered that in a county in the south of the Yangtze River, millions of arable land were ordinary. However, he did not expect that the Chifengwei area was half as large as Huang County, and only 180,000 arable land was pity.

"I don't know that I am located in Linhai and have a lot of saline-alkali land, but it cannot be compared with Jiangnan, Huguang and other places. The arable land area in places such as Zhaoyuan County, Huangxian County is basically about 500,000 mu. The scope of my Chifengwei is only a little more than half of the original land area of ​​Huangxian County, so there are 180,000 mu of arable land, but it is still considerable." Xu Xiuqing explained to Li Xiao.

Li Xiao fell into deep thoughts.

"Sir, the amount of land and grain yield that the students mentioned were all obtained from the land and land volume book. It is by no means false. If the adults do not believe it, they can send someone to check it again." Xu Xiuqing thought that Li Xiao didn't believe it, so he quickly said.

"Xiuqing, you have thought too much, of course I believe in you. But I am thinking that if the land area is so limited, it will be difficult to support the military and the people." Li Xiao patted Xu Xiuqing on the shoulder and comforted him.

Li Xiao knew that Xu Xiuqing was telling the truth. According to the history of the Ming Dynasty, during the Wanli period, in the northern border towns, arable land with seven or eight dou of wheat was used as a farmland. Because Shandong was better in the soil than the border areas such as Xuanfu Datong, it was agreed that in Shandong that the yield per mu was more than one stone was used as a farmland.

"Who is the farmland now owned by these farmlands? But have they all been farmed?" Li Xiao thought for a while and asked again.

"Reported to the Lord, over the past two years, the people have experienced wars in Denglai, and the people have died or fled, and a lot of land has been abandoned. My Chifengwei land is included in the three places of Laizhou, Huangxian and Zhaoyuan. These three places, Laizhou and Huangxian are all places that are suffering from military disasters. The local land is basically abandoned, with only scattered land, and there are still remaining people who are farming. However, the former territory of Zhaoyuan County in the Beiluan River area is relatively mild in military disasters. In addition to a few self-cultivated farmers, there are many landlords who occupy a lot of good land."

"Can you understand the land occupation of those landlords?" Li Xiao asked again.

"According to students' understanding, the Beiluan River area is fertile, and 30,000 mu of land are basically here, and it has been basically divided by landlords and rich gentry. In the local area, there are two large landlords, and the average landlords are over 5,000 mu, and six medium landlords are between 2,000 and 3,000 mu. There are 15 small landlords, with a landlord and acres below 1,000 mu. The rest are self-cultivated farmers, with a landlord and acres ranging from dozens to hundreds of mu."

Li Xiao sighed in his heart that it turned out that in Chifeng Guard, the landlords alone occupied nearly 50,000 mu of land, and they were all upper fields and middle fields. This means that the most fertile land in Chifeng Guard was already in the hands of the landlords.

In the Ming Dynasty, landlords and gentry had many privileges. The biggest privilege was that they could pay less tax or even no tax based on a series of preferential policies of the court.

Even when the same silver title was called Dui, there was also the so-called red and white seal system. The red seal used by landlords and rich gentry can have much less fire and expense than the white seal used by ordinary households.

In other words, these landlords and gentry occupied fertile land but made little contribution to the country. Those who supported the country's financial and taxation were not these wealthy and wealthy landlord classes, but the struggling ordinary people on the line of survival.

This state could barely be maintained if it was a peaceful era. But in the end of the dynasty like the present, with natural disasters and people living in vain, the country has become more and more urged the people to increase their salary, which finally led to a large-scale peasant uprising, providing almost endless military sources for those vicious bandits and bandits, and finally burying the Ming Dynasty completely.

This situation continued until the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty. After Yongzheng forced officials and gentry to pay food together, the landlords and rich gentry class began to truly bear national taxes.

Li Xiao frowned deeply and fell into deep thought.

what to do?

To change this situation, should we learn from future generations to fight landlords and divide the land?

Li Xiao didn't want to do this.

In the past, such a class of landlords and gentry were large in the township level of the Ming Empire and had a stable status. In addition to having many intersections with the upper class, these people also had the right to speak at the grassroots level, and were like the mainstay of the Ming Empire.

If he blindly borrowed the rough practices of later generations and forcibly deprived them of their land and rights, he would undoubtedly push this class to his opposite. Li Xiao believed that if he did this, the first thing he would do was to be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would be the one who would

After all, with one's own strength, one cannot confront the landlords and gentry class of the entire empire. Unless one's own power is so powerful that it cannot be defended, doing so will be like hitting a stone with an egg.

Li Xiao had no good idea for this deep-seated issue involving the foundation of the empire.

"Xiuqing, let's put it aside for the time being, how to deal with the landlords. Your key task now is to build Chifeng City first. Also, the weather is getting colder now. First, organize manpower to re-plough the abandoned fields as soon as possible, and strive to plant winter wheat as soon as possible."

"If the sir gives me this, the students will follow the orders." Xu Xiuqing nodded and said.

The two of them spoke for a while, and finally agreed to take the thousands of labor-reform prisoners in Tielong City to Chifeng City and start building the city wall. The more than 12,000 refugees brought back by Li Xiao immediately began to reclaim wasteland and plow the fields. In addition to restoring the original farmland, we can see if we can open as many new fields as possible to raise winter wheat.

Having written this, many readers must ask why not grow sweet potatoes and corn. This is the most commonly used method of quickly obtaining food in time travel novels.

Li Xiao remembered that one of the time travel books even said that even if it was just ordinary land, the yield per mu of corn was five and a half stones, and the yield per mu of sweet potato was even more crazily reaching eighteen stones!

Li Xiao really wanted to say to these time travelers in his heart, you are so cute and naive, but I, who are both time travelers, want to tell you that ideals are full, but reality is too skinny.

Li Xiao remembered that in the early years of the Republic of China, the highest yield of corn per mu in the northeast was only 70 kilograms, and sweet potato per mu was more than 300 kilograms. Moreover, in the northern regions, the frost-free period was short and the low temperature was long. Generally, spring corn and spring potatoes were planted in many ways. If they were frost-free when they emerged, they would not have harvested. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were only a small amount of southern border provinces such as Guangdong, Fujian, Hainan, and Guangxi in the country. According to the history of the Ming Dynasty, Hong Chengchou, Zhang Yixian and others forcibly promoted sweet potatoes in Shaanxi in order to quickly resolve the famine problem in Shaanxi, but the harvest was extremely small and almost caused civil rebellion. In history, it was not until the Qianlong period that sweet potatoes were cultivated for the seeds that were truly suitable for planting in the north, and thus were promoted on a large scale.

Unless Li Xiao has the opportunity to acquire land in South China in the future, it is purely too natural to want to promote sweet potatoes on a large scale in the north.

Li Xiao thought to himself, conservatively, if 150,000 mu of barren land can be produced now, each mu will be collected on average, and the harvest of winter wheat this time will be only 15,000 stones.

15,000 stones of wheat, that is, 2.82 million jin, remove impurities of wheat shell and bran, as well as grinding losses, and the amount of food that can be eaten into the mouth is only 2.25 million jin.

Now, the general soldiers of A and B in Chifeng City and Tielong City, plus prisoners, craftsmen, civilians in the office, and newly arrived 12,000 Xuanfu Town refugees, have a total of nearly 20,000 people who need Li Xiao to provide food. Calculated based on the amount of two meat and three taels of pork per person per day, 15,000 stones of grain can be eaten roughly for two months.

Considering that Li Xiao will expand his refugees and his army in the future, this little food is not worth mentioning.

It seems that it is still quite difficult for Li Xiao to achieve self-sufficiency in food. At least for now, spending money to buy food is a choice that Li Xiao has no choice.

Starting from the next day, a large number of refugees, led by the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Department staff, went to Chifengwei to open up wastelands.

Li Xiao arranged for these people to open up the land, but he did not intend to divide the land for them.

Now the fields in Chifengwei are precious, and Li Xiao plans to give priority to the reclaimed fields to soldiers with military meritorious resources. After the military resettlement of the soldiers with meritorious resources is completed, if there is excess land, it will be distributed to these refugees from Xuanfu Town.

The soldiers who stayed in Jintang City, Xuanfu North Road, were summoned by Li Xiao, and the family paid 20 taels to An's family, escorted the thirty newly prepared four-wheeled carriages, and sent cavalry escorts to settle in Jintang City, Xuanfu North Road.

Under the leadership of Xu Xiuqing, the rest of the family members in the fort began to clean up the surrounding environment and prepare for the construction of the walls of Chifeng City.

A week later, Chang Dali and a group of craftsmen arrived at Chifeng Castle, and the construction of Chifeng City officially began.

"Reported to Commander Li, there are now prisoners of laborers and laborers, and the laborers are in sufficient labor. There are also bluestone, lime and bricks from Quanshan. The construction of Chifeng City will surely be completed quickly and well." Chang Dali said to Li Xiao happily.

"How long does it take to complete the construction? How much does it cost?" Li Xiao asked.

"Sir, I can guarantee that the manpower and material resources can be fully supplied now, so it will be enough to build this city within two months." Chang Dali said with a smile: "Because the materials have been produced by themselves, the overall cost is much less than that of Tielong City, and the reservation is 50,000 taels."

"It's great, Master Chang, the specific construction work will be resolved by you and Xu Xiuqing. Anyway, I have to ask that the fort be built as soon as possible before the land is frozen and hard." Seeing that Chang Dali said so affirmatively, Li Xiao's face was full of joy.

However, thinking about the amount of money left now, Li Xiao's joy in his heart unconsciously diluted a lot.

At that time, considering that the situation in Jintang City on Xuanfu North Road was even more difficult, Li Xiaojun received gold and silver rewards and spoils seized by the Jinjiazhuang Fort, except for only 20,000 taels of silver to purchase food on the road, the remaining silver and materials were basically left in the local area. In this way, Li Xiao had only 200,000 taels of silver left in Chifeng Fort.

In addition to the cost of building Chifeng City, the total amount of silver that Li Xiaojun could control was only 150,000 taels of silver.

Now, all the local staff in Shandong, Li Xiaojun’s monthly salary and living expenses for purchasing grain are about 32,000 taels in total.

In other words, Li Xiaojun can only support more than four months without enrolling any personnel.

So, what about four months later?

How to maintain it?

The food problem and the silver problem are like two heavy rocks that pressed tightly on Li Xiao’s heart.

Li Xiao was calm on the surface in front of everyone, but he was thinking about these questions all the time.

Three days after the construction of Chifeng City began, a soldier came to report that it was Chen Zilong, an aide to Shandong Governor Li Maofang, who asked for a visit.
Chapter completed!