On the outskirts of Shuofang City, in a manor by the Wuding River, a group of cattle slaves were cutting potatoes.
Sow potatoes in the sun for two or three days in advance, remove diseased and rotten potatoes, cut them into pieces, dry the cutting edges, and place them indoors for germination.
The group of cattle slaves traveled thousands of miles from western Sichuan to Guanzhong via the Shu Road, and then to Shuofang. They were assigned to manors one by one and worked in shackles.
These slaves are generally short in stature and have dark skin.
They were under the supervision of the manor overseer and were not very active in their work.
"Each potato piece must have two or three buds. Look carefully and don't cut it randomly!" A supervisor waved his whip and gave it to a lazy and slippery slave. "If you cut it again randomly, you will lose today."
Dinner is gone."
Wu Huaiyu came over after hearing the sound and looked at the slave who was very unconvinced after being whipped. He was about thirty years old, fairly strong, and might have been a tribal warrior in the past.
"You guys work hard, and those who complete the task will be rewarded. The one who does the best today will be rewarded with a pound of mutton, and the others who complete the task will be rewarded with a steamed cake."
He picked up the ox slave and asked, "What's your name?"
"Xiluo Dragon Tail."
"Where is your hometown?"
"Rongzhou Yerong Mountain,"
This slave slave spoke Chinese well. Wu Huaiyu asked a few more questions and discovered that he was indeed a tribal warrior in the past, and even a small leader.
Cheng Yaojin was appointed as the governor of Luzhou. The area around Luzhou was full of Tibetan people, many of whom were living Tibetan people. Even some familiar Tibetans did not often rebel. Once Cheng Yaojin took office, he did not pamper them. He would beat them until they obeyed.
.
Moreover, every time he sent out troops, he would directly demolish and kidnap anyone he saw. In just over half a year, he forced himself to conquer 14 Jizhou Prefectures around Luzhou.
Those who refused were all captured and sold into slavery by him.
Those who know the current affairs and are willing to cooperate will be given an opportunity to establish Jisu Prefecture and appoint powerful barbarian leaders as governors of Jimi Prefecture.
Cheng Yaojin sent troops to quell the rebellion, and specially recruited these surrendered barbarians from Jizhou Prefecture as vanguards. They were familiar with the local conditions, good at the local terrain, and could fight fiercely.
Later, Cheng Yaojin no longer even sent troops himself, but directly authorized the governors of Jisi Prefecture and generals to attack the disobedient barbarians. The territory, money, food, population, etc. that were conquered were divided into five equal parts.
Many barbarians are very active. Although those barbarians were originally called barbarians in the Tang Dynasty, they themselves have many tribes, each of which belongs to different tribes. They usually fight constantly. Lao Cheng leads the elite Tang army and sits on the main transportation road.
Occupy the salt well and open the market for trade.
After a few axes, the fourteenth state of Jizhou was opened, and the work was booming. The cattle slaves were sent to Guanzhong batch after batch. The road to Shu leading to Guanzhong was now uninterrupted by the cattle slaves.
Xiluo Longwei was very unconvinced. He used to be the leader of a small tribe in Yerong Mountain and was very brave. Unfortunately, he was attacked by barbarians who were bribed by the Tang people.
The dignified tribal leader is cutting potatoes here.
"Give me a knife, I'd rather die in battle than cut potatoes here!"
"You are so eager to fight, you are quite suitable to go to the gladiatorial arena,"
Wu Huaiyu also felt that people like Xiluo Longwei were not suitable to do farm work in the manor. Such people were born as wolves, and wolves want to eat meat.
What the manor needs are more docile slaves.
"Of course, if you don't want to enter the arena, there is still a place to go."
Wu Huaiyu suggested that he join the slave-catching team.
Although the situation of slave hunting in places such as Shuofang Lingwu is not as severe as before, it still exists, but now these slave hunting teams have changed their identities and become official mercenaries.
The official issued a wanted order for some mountain bandits, horse bandits, or rebellious Shanhu Qiang people, and these slave-catching teams could take over the task and go to encircle and suppress them.
They usually try to capture them alive, so that they can not only complete the task and collect the bounty, but also sell them as slaves. Of course, the slave-catching team will occasionally serve as caravan guards and escorts to protect merchants.
Nowadays, the management is strict, and we cannot rob and rob people casually like before. After all, the Liang Kingdom has been destroyed, and this place has become the capital of the Xiazhou Province of the Tang Dynasty, and the people in the territory are all the people of the Tang Dynasty.
The job of a bounty hunter is to lick blood with the tip of a knife, which is very dangerous but also highly profitable.
"Do you still have family?"
"Yes, I'm cutting potatoes here too."
The slaves Huaiyu bought were all bought in one house. Such slaves were relatively easy to control.
"If you want to be a bounty hunter, I can arrange for your family to stay here cutting potatoes. When you save enough money, you can redeem yourself and ransom them away."
Xiluo Longwei was very moved. From Rongzhou to Luzhou, then to Chang'an, and then to Xiazhou, the shackles had worn out thick calluses on his hands and feet. He didn't want to live like this for the rest of his life.
"Aren't you afraid that I will run away?"
"You look like a good man, you don't want your wife, children, and children?"
Wu Huaiyu advocates maximizing profits, so if Xiluo Longwei doesn't want to be in such a place, it would be better to let him join the bounty hunter team to give full play to his value of being good at fighting and brave.
Xiluo Longwei shook the shackles on his hands and was willing to go to the slave catching team.
Huaiyu called someone to make arrangements.
Next to Huaiyu Manor is Helian Jinzhu's farm. Her farm is much smaller than Huaiyu's. Huaiyu's farm has a thousand acres of land.
"You don't need to cut these small potatoes into pieces. You can plant them whole. The larger ones need to be cut. When the buds grow to about half an inch long, take them out to dry outdoors. Once the buds turn green and become thicker, you can plant them."
"It takes about 200 kilograms to plant one acre of land. In terms of harvest, even poor land can harvest a thousand kilograms. If there is sufficient water and fertilizer, it can even reach three to five thousand kilograms. Last year, the yield of potatoes grown on our Yanzhou Zhuangzi basically reached one mu.
About 1,500 kilograms."
Wu Huaiyu took the potatoes and introduced them to Helian Jinzhu.
Last time Helian Jinzhu invited Wu Huaiyu to stay and volunteered to sleep with her but was rejected. She was a little embarrassed, but Wu Huaiyu didn't worry about it. He came here to plant potatoes in Zhuangzi and specially called Jinzhu's family.
Not only did he give them many potato seeds, he also taught them how to plant them.
There are not many crops that can be planted after autumn, usually wheat is the main crop. This year, Wuhuai Yuzhuangzi also planted rapeseed, potatoes, and a lot of white radish and carrots.
Before the Tang Dynasty, rapeseed was also grown, but it was generally called cold cabbage and sorghum mustard. It was planted in spring. This kind of rapeseed was a cabbage-type rapeseed introduced when the Han Dynasty passed through the Western Regions. It was somewhat different from the seeds brought by Wu Huaiyu.
Rapeseed is one of the most efficient oil-producing plants among oil crops.
Rapeseed is not only used to make edible oil, but also used as lamp oil for lighting. The demand is huge. If you calculate it carefully, growing rapeseed to extract oil is actually very cost-effective.
For a large estate like Wu Huaiyu's family, it is actually very suitable for growing these cash crops.
"Gong Yi Guo knows so much. He is not only good at commanding troops to fight, but he is also good at managing civil affairs. He even knows about farming." Helian Jinzhu held a small potato and was amazed. One acre yielded 1,500 kilograms.
Ah, not only can it be eaten fresh, it can also be made into potato powder, etc.
"Encouraging farmers to teach sauna is the basis for local officials." Huaiyu smiled, "Your farm has 300 acres of land, and you can plant 10 acres of potatoes, some rapeseed, radishes, and the rest of winter wheat, etc.
After the harvest next summer, you can plant millet or buckwheat.
"When the rapeseed is harvested, I will give you some corn seeds and you can plant more corn."
Helian Jinzhu was very grateful.
"Any further difficulties?"
The Helian family now has a population of more than a dozen, but the problem is mostly women, children, old and weak, and no young and strong men. Fortunately, when Huaiyu gave her family fields and pastures, he also gave her some livestock, including cows and horses.
"There is a shortage of strong labor force, so I plan to buy a few Din slaves. I can't work without men in the fields."
"That's true. If you don't find something suitable for a while, you can just pick some from my village."
Seeing how kind he was to her, Helian Jinzhu couldn't help but start thinking wildly.
When the family returned to their village, Jinzhu's grandmother also called her to her side and raised the same doubt.
"Did Mr. Yi Guo fall in love with you?" the old woman said to herself, "Actually, it doesn't matter. We women all have to depend on men. Men are like big trees and women are like vines..."
She talked nonchalantly, and the general idea was that even if Wu Huaiyu didn't want to take her into the Wu family, it didn't matter. Those of them who had survived the disaster didn't need to worry too much about those who could find a reliable person to rely on in troubled times.
It's also good.
If Wu Huaiyu can like her, that's her luck.
Jin Zhu smiled helplessly, "Grandma, how could she like me? How could I make him like me? I am a bearded girl. I have been a slave and a courtesan over the years. How could I have caught his eye?"
.”
"Then why is he so nice to you? It's impossible for a man to be nice to a woman for no reason. Besides, you're not bad looking and you're still young. There's no need to take responsibility for this person who comes to your door. How can they refuse?"
Jinzhu told her grandma that she took the initiative to deliver it to her door, but she refused.
This surprised the old woman, and she couldn't understand it for a while.
Jin Zhu sat with her knees crossed, dazed.
Wu Huaiyu built more than a dozen new villages in Shuofang, all with one thousand acres. Nowadays, Shuofang has suffered a serious population loss. After a round of reshuffling, there is still a lot of land.
Wu Huaiyu, like Yanzhou, allocated a lot of land to the landless people in Shuofang, and sold some of it to powerful landowners, and some of it was used as military, official, merchant, etc. Anyway, this land cannot be left empty and uncultivated.
It's a place of death.
After you sell the shares, you have to find a way to plant them and pay for the food.
Land prices are as cheap as ever, and Wu Huaiyu will not be polite if he gets the first-come-first-served position near the water.
The cost of acquiring land is very low, but the higher cost is planting the land, which requires slaves, cattle and horses, etc. These initial investments are relatively large, but for Wu Huaiyu now, it is not a big problem.
In this village on the outskirts of Xiazhou, potatoes, rapeseed, winter wheat, carrots and white radish are grown. Some cattle, sheep and chickens are also raised here.
Zhuangzi was very simple. Except for the stewards, bosses, and supervisors, who were Han Chinese, the rest were basically slaves, mostly cattle slaves, but also many mountain barbarians and Qiang slaves.
We will stay in Zhuangzi that night.
Lamb wrapped in tortillas, served with mashed potatoes, delicious.
The Wu family will probably make a lot of money this year by selling corn, potato, and sweet potato seeds. If they keep half of it as seeds, they can harvest more next year. There should be no problem selling the seeds for several years, but the profits will definitely increase year by year.
Year low.
The slaves in Zhuangzi could not enjoy auspicious foods such as corn and potatoes. They could only eat millet porridge, steamed millet cakes, and some pickles.
The slave who performed best today was rewarded by the steward and was given a pound of mutton by Huai Yu. Although it was bone-in, he was able to eat it with satisfaction. The rest who completed the task also received a piece of steamed cake.
of rewards.
As for those who cheated and cheated, they received a few whips.
Xiluo Longwei had already said goodbye to his family and went to Xiazhou City to report to the Wu family's bounty hunting team.
I've had recurring fevers these past few days, and my throat feels like I've swallowed a razor blade. It's so uncomfortable.
