After seeing Fei Qian's arithmetic skills, the postmaster of the post became much more honest and did not dare to do anything else, so he respectfully asked Fei Qian to lead him back to his room to rest.
Fei Qian washed himself casually and lay down on the couch, tossing and turning, but couldn't fall asleep.
What the old farmer said during the day still bothered him. The yield per mu in the Han Dynasty was too small. How could such productivity support the needs of the army?
In the Han Dynasty, there was little vegetable oil and animal oil was scarce. Everyone's daily energy consumption basically relied on carbohydrates. This resulted in a huge demand for ordinary food. Even two meals a day would be enough to feed a standing army.
Very amazing.
For example, the price of food today is relatively expensive, but if it comes to spring next year, the price will be about the same. If there is another disaster year, the price of the food will double again. In this way
, the huge expenditure is an astonishing value...
This is just food, but also weapons, armor, bows and arrows and other consumables, as well as monthly salary for each soldier...
At this point, it is impossible to describe the amount of money needed to support the army with money like running water...
During the Three Kingdoms period, how many armies were constantly fighting? Starting from next year, until they finally belonged to Sima, they fought for at least thirty years...
During this period, not only soldiers died, but also how many ordinary people died innocently?
Not to mention other things, at least how many innocent people did Cao Cao kill in Xuzhou? Two hundred thousand? Three hundred thousand? How many fields did it directly lead to no harvest?
Coupled with the abnormal weather changes and frequent natural disasters in the late Eastern Han Dynasty...
Fei Qian felt cold all over and couldn't sleep, so he simply got up, put on his clothes, opened the door and went out for a walk.
Unexpectedly, he ran into Zhang Zhao not far away and asked, "Zhang Shichang, why haven't you fallen asleep yet?"
Zhang Zhao said: "The habit developed in the army is to patrol at night, but why didn't Fei Langjun sleep? But did it disturb you?"
Fei Qian shook his head and said, "I just felt a little bored and couldn't sleep, so I went out for a walk." After Fei Qian finished speaking, he asked Zhang Zhao to rest first, but Zhang Zhao said he was worried about Fei Qian's safety and must accompany him.
Fei Qian couldn't resist, so he asked Zhang Zhao to follow him to the lobby of the inn. He gave the night watchman a few five baht and asked him to boil some water for drinking.
Zhang Zhao watched the man who had received the windfall happily go to boil water, and muttered in a low voice: "I really want money..."
Fei Qian smiled and asked Zhang Zhao to sit down together.
At first Zhang Zhao didn't dare to sit down, saying he could just stand. After being asked repeatedly by Fei Qian, he sat down.
Fei Qian asked: "By the way, Zhang Shichang, how much is your monthly salary?"
"My monthly salary?" Zhang Zhao wondered why Fei Qian asked this question, but he answered honestly, "Now I can get 450 Wen per month! Thanks to Captain Zhang's promotion, otherwise it would have been less than 100 Wen...
"
When it comes to salary increases, there is no difference between ancient people and modern people, both are happy...
After hearing this, Fei Qian nodded, "That's it." He thought about it briefly and realized that the army is really a money-eating tiger...
"Can military pay be paid in time?" Fei Qian asked again.
Zhang Zhao smiled and said, "Well! Thanks to Colonel Zhang, two corrupt scribes were found out some time ago. Otherwise, we wouldn't know where to cry if these guys stole our money."
"Haha, Zhang Shichang, what do you think of being a soldier?"
Zhang Zhao looked up, obviously thinking about something, and then said: "I don't think it's anything good, at least I can eat..."
At this time, the waiter at the inn who boiled water brought the water, poured water for Fei Qian and Zhang Zhao, and then went back to the corner to curl up and take a nap.
Zhang Zhao gave a slight gesture to the waiter and continued: "...For example, like him, he just lives for food and clothing, and usually doesn't have much money left at the end of the year..."
The conversation started, but it was not easy to contain it. Zhang Zhao continued, "That year when Xianbei went south, many people's families including Zhang Xiaowei's family were ruined... So at that time Zhang Xiaowei was going to join the army to kill.
Xianbei wanted to take revenge, so a few of us followed..."
"What about Xianbei? I mean, how about fighting with the Xianbei people? How about winning or losing?"
Zhang Zhao spoke of Xianbei with a look of contempt on his face, "Those bastards, just because of their horse speed, are really going to fall to the ground. I can kill at least three of them..."
"Then the Xianbei people are not fierce?"
"They are quite fierce, but their weapons are not good," Zhang Zhao patted the Huanshou sword at his side. "Our swords are good and sharp. If we cut them with one blow, we will almost fall. Their swords are not good, even bows and arrows.
It’s not bad. If we really want to fight in close combat, Xianbei is no match, but it’s just not easy to catch and keeps running away..."
Although what Zhang Zhao said was a bit confusing, Fei Qian understood the meaning. It turns out that the combat power of Xianbei in this era has not yet reached the level of the Mongols or the Manchus in later generations. They are still in the low-level stage of nomadic people, and the metallurgical technology of the Han people
Currently, the Hu people are in a state of being crushed...
The current tactic of the nomadic barbarians against the soldiers of the Han Dynasty is to walk, relying on the high mobility of the war horses, to constantly harass them until they seize the flaw and swarm them forward.
No wonder Baima Yicong beat the barbarians in the north to the point of crying for their mothers. Their mobility is the same, and their equipment is obviously better than most. Are these barbarians strong in the front, but not strong enough, and they can't run away easily...
…
So war horses are very important, but they are a scarce resource.
"Zhang Shichang, do you know how much food your horse consumes in a month?"
"That's a lot." When talking about the war horses, Zhang Zhao was quite proud and knew all about them. "My horse is a northern horse. It's not fast, but it has good endurance. It's okay to eat a little less, but it can't be too bad."
, it loses weight easily... If I use my monthly money to raise it, it will probably be enough, there shouldn't be a few cents left..."
Fei Qian calculated that one war horse would consume the money and food of three to four ordinary soldiers...
Fei Qian couldn't help but sigh in his heart, "How do you think future generations will see that there are so many cavalrymen who can be summoned immediately? Let alone where those war horses come from, can they be raised just by raising them? This man eats
Horses chew it, and rely on the saliva from touching the upper lip to the lower lip to feed it?
Thinking of this, Fei Qian felt very sorry for the civilians who died innocently in the war. Why do they always massacre civilians? If these people resisted the rule and became a mob, like the Yellow Turban Rebellion, there would be some reason to kill them, but those
Why kill people who obviously won't resist?
Kill to establish authority?
Kill people and steal money?
Is it to completely defeat the hostile forces?
The so-called human nature has been destroyed and only knows how to kill?
Even the Hu people knew how to rob some people and take them away. Instead of killing them completely, they were even worse than the Hu people?
Fei Qian really didn't understand. He was just a pity. It was only now that he was in the Han Dynasty that he realized that the chaos in the late Three Kingdoms period was not due to the power of the Hu people, but because the Han nation's own civil war had stabbed the body thousands of times for so many years.
It was full of holes that gave those nomadic people an opportunity to take advantage of...
