Cheng Qian held the steamed bun in his hand, but he really couldn't eat it. He thought to himself that this might be eating rice bran. No matter how carefully he chewed it, it was still hard to swallow. He ate a little more, and finally quietly put it on the table.
He picked up the cracked black pottery bowl and drank the sweet potato and millet porridge. Although the porridge was very small, it had a sweet taste.
Old Man Zheng's youngest son, with his quick hands and quick eyes, took away most of the steamed bun, opened it, and gave a piece to his sister.
The old man scolded his son with some embarrassment,
"A half-grown boy is living in poverty. A ten-year-old child can't do much work and eats but has nothing left."
The old man's son walked out while chewing the steamed buns, and muttered, "Everyone has a steamed bun, and that steamed bun belongs to me."
"If you're hungry, take the cow to drink. Tie it under the shade of a big tree so it won't be exposed to the sun."
"knew."
After the meal, there was no tea.
Tea is something that ordinary people cannot afford. Just a bowl of well water per person, which is quite cool and sweet.
"In the past two years, our farmers have benefited greatly from the auspicious crops from Haidong presented by Prime Minister Wu. The yields of these sweet potatoes and potatoes are high even if we don't pick the soil. We can grow them on hillside fields and eat them with grain. At least we don't have to suffer from famine.
"
The old man made a request with some embarrassment,
The rice harvest in the land rented by his family was about to be harvested, so he asked Wu Huaiyu if their grain store could harvest it in advance.
"My family rents 30 acres of rice fields, and there are still six acres of land, three acres of hemp and three acres of mulberry. The 30 acres of rice fields are growing well this year, and they will be harvested in a few days."
The old man said that his rice field was cultivated intensively and soaked with the hard work of the whole family. One acre of land can yield a harvest of two dan, and this year it will be about 60 dan.
As usual in previous years, the land rent was 50-50 cents of the summer grain. One of the two dan had to be paid to the landlord, leaving less than 30 dan for himself, because in addition to the rent, there were some additional expenses.
For example, the harvest season is coming soon, and you have to ask the head steward of Zhuangzi to come and see the fields. This is actually to estimate this year's production and set the rent. The custom is to treat him to a drink or even give some gifts. When paying the rent, Zhuangzi often
We still need to make a lot of progress, but actually we need to pay more.
"Do you pay half of the harvest for rent?" Cheng Qian was a little surprised that the rent amount was high.
"That's not entirely true. Half of the summer grain is paid for rent, but the autumn grain is not divided into rent. However, it is customary to send some of what is produced in the land to Zhuangzi."
This is because Old Han Zheng’s family now has cattle and its own plows and farm tools, and does not use the landlord’s fertilizer, otherwise the share will be higher. When he first rented the landlord’s land, it was still 28%, and he received 20%.
, the landowner Nabal.
"Then your family's thirty acres of food will be enough for you to feed yourself after paying the rent?" the prince asked.
The old man smiled and said, "That's enough."
Cheng Qian felt that it was not enough, "I remember that the rations for the court servants and criminals were two liters per day for Dingkou, one liter for medium ration, five liters for small ration, and six liters for small mouth. And if a peasant household who had been pardoned once became a sergeant, he would be given three liters per day for Dingkou.
Five, the middle male is three liters."
The prince's math skills were not bad. He felt that the old man's family only planted thirty acres of rice fields, and the yield of two dan per mu was only sixty dan of rice. After handing over more than 30 dan, there would be less than thirty dan left.
This family of nine people only had a ration of two and a half kilograms a month. If you break it down, the ration for a family of nine people is only eight liters a day, which is less than one liter for each person. It is lower than the rations of officials, slaves, and criminals.
Huaiyu corrected the prince at the side, "Not all of the twenty-odd stones of grain will be reserved for rations, some will also be sold."
The old man said that his family now cooks half a bucket of rice every day, and adds sweet potatoes, potatoes, and vegetables, which basically provides enough food and clothing.
Half a bucket of rice equals six kilograms. Nine people have six kilograms of rice a day, which is still brown rice. The average per person is about ten taels. Huaiyu calculated in his mind that ten taels in the Tang Dynasty was only a little more than two taels in later generations.
In an era when oil, water and non-staple food were scarce, and the people relied mainly on physical strength, this small amount of food was not enough to eat, but the old man said that it was because he had to eat a lot of sweet potatoes, potatoes and vegetables every day, half and half, even like this
The steamed buns are also mixed with corn leaves, corn cobs and bran.
Even so, it can be considered as barely enough food at best. In fact, it is always half-starved and half-full.
Thirty kilograms of rice, after shelling and milling, will actually leave about twenty kilograms in the end. Half a bushel a day for the Zheng family, which works out to eighteen kilograms a year. In this way, the rice fields rented by the Zheng family actually cost
After the summer rent was over, all that was left was food rations.
You have to rely on autumn miscellaneous grains to barely fill your stomach.
As for clothing, salt, and daily necessities such as needlework and thread, we have to rely on the six acres of mulberry and hemp at home to grow mulberry, raise silkworms, spin silk and weave cloth.
"If you grow an acre of hemp, you can get fifteen kilograms of hemp in one year of hard work, and you can weave half a piece of linen cloth. If you plant two mulberry trees in an acre of mulberry field, you can produce half a piece of silk by raising silkworms per acre. After calculation, the six acres of mulberry and hemp can still produce half a piece of silk."
It can collect four and a half bolts of linen and one and a half bolts of silk.
Silk is sold for money and cloth is used for clothing.
In the Tang Dynasty, official slaves were provided with spring clothes once a year, winter clothes every two years, and spring clothes for Dinnus including headscarves, cloth shirts and trousers.
Nobles wear wide robes with long sleeves. One robe requires more than one foot of fabric. However, common people wear shorter clothes to save fabric. For a family of five, two feet of cloth is enough to make a spring coat, while winter clothes cost even more fabric.
A house for five people would cost at least five feet in winter.
Cheng Qian listened and calculated in his mind that the Zheng family grew three acres of hemp, and one acre produced only fifteen kilograms. One kilogram of hemp could weave five feet of cloth, and five feet of cloth was only one end, which was one more than four feet of silk.
Husband.
Three acres is only four bushels and a half of cloth. For the nine members of the Zheng family, it takes four feet of cloth to make a spring coat. Even if winter clothes are made once every two years, it still costs ten feet at a time. If spread over a year, it will cost five feet. That spring
Winter clothes must be at least nine feet long, almost two pieces.
The Zheng family's six acres of mulberry and hemp a year produce two pieces of cloth for clothing, so they can only sell two pieces of cloth, one and a half pieces of silk.
"Not counting the seeds, four liters of rice are planted per acre,"
For thirty acres of rice, the seeds cost one stone and two. If some people are short of food and have no crops to plant, they have to borrow money from the landlord. The interest rate is very high. If you borrow one to repay one, the actual principal and interest for one acre of rice will be eight liters.
If you don't have cattle, you'll have to pay a lot of money to borrow the landlord's cattle.
Others, such as canal construction, water supply, etc., all cost quite a lot.
Although the Zheng family works hard, they wear old and patched clothes, eat porridge and rice with coarse grains, and live in a few straw huts, but they are very satisfied. At least they have a home and a living space.
A place to stay.
Lao Zheng wants to sell ten shi of rice. Thirty yuan per shi is fine, but he hopes to pay the money in advance.
Ten stones of grain is only three hundred coins.
"Isn't your family's food ration barely enough? How can there be any surplus food to sell?"
"The landowner has changed. When the time comes, the tenant will be re-signed and the landlord's money will have to be paid as usual."
Sending money to the village means depositing the rent. In order to prevent the tenants from not being able to pay the rent, the landlord had to pay a deposit first, which is the same as renting a house in later generations with a deposit of one and three.
Only after this rent deposit is paid can the land be rented. The money will be refunded when the rent is cancelled, and there is no interest.
Although Lao Zheng had already paid the rent deposit for the thirty-six acres of land he rented before, he was worried that if the landowner changed, if the manager of the village asked for more rent deposits, he would have to prepare it in advance, otherwise he would not be able to rent the land.
, then this family will be in trouble.
There are more than 300 households in the upper and lower villages with more than 1,000 people. Not many people can actually farm in this village. Only those who have a good reputation, are hard-working and strong can rent the land.
Most people cannot rent land. People without land can only work long-term at the landlord's house, do odd jobs here and there, or simply go to the Zhongnan Mountains to burn charcoal, cut wood, carry trees, etc. Life is even harder and more difficult.
Unstable.
In order to be able to continue to rent the thirty-six acres of land, and even want to rent more land, Lao Zheng has not slept well recently, looking at the rice fields all day long, while thinking about how to raise some cash to prepare for the lease renewal.
This is the top priority in the family.
But there are not many things in the house that can be exchanged for money. The silk cloth that the wife, daughter-in-law and other women have worked hard to weave has long been sold in exchange for money for the engagement of the second son.
Because I had no money, I found a girl from the Zhongnan Mountains. The conditions in the mountains were not as good as those in Fanchuan. The girl was willing to come to Fanchuan to grow rice and eat rice. She didn’t need much as a gift, but Old Zheng had to scrape together everything.
, now the only thing the family can exchange for money, apart from the old scalper, is the rice that has been confiscated from the field.
It's a pity that the price is so low.
But I have no choice but to exchange five acres of rice harvest for three hundred Kaiyuan Tongbao, just three hundred.
Li Shimin sat at the door of the thatched shed, listening to Old Man Zheng's words about how difficult life was. He was deeply moved. Sitting in the Tai Chi Palace, the emperor felt a little proud of the visits from all over the past two years and the congratulations of hundreds of officials.
But now I really hear the voices of the people at the lowest level, and I know that in fact the people are still living a very difficult life.
Steamed buns mixed with corn leaves and rice bran and wheat bran cannot be eaten open. The ration is only a few taels per person per day, one part rice flour, one part whole grains and one part vegetable.
There is no such thing as a prosperous age when people don't have enough to eat, and there is no prosperous age when people don't have enough clothes to cover their bodies. There is no such thing as a prosperous age when people don't want to be good citizens and would rather be tenants.
The young prince was even more shocked.
This is Gyeonggi Province, and this is Fanchuan in the south of Chang'an Xiaojiang River. This is the most fertile land in Gyeonggi Province.
The prince couldn't help but take out a brocade bag from his body and took out three gold Kaiyuan Tongbao coins worth one tael, "Uncle Zheng, consider this the money for this meal."
Old man Zheng looked at the three golden coins, his eyes widened. These coins looked like copper coins, but they were bigger, brighter and prettier.
He has never seen it. Could it be the legendary money?
"What are you doing, just three steamed buns?"
Cheng Qian glanced at his father and teacher, and Li Shimin nodded to the prince.
"Old man, to be honest, we are not the clerks of Chang'an Grain Store."
Old Man Zheng nodded, "I see, you are not like the clerks of the grain store, you are the shopkeeper and the young master of the grain store, right?"
"I am the Crown Prince of the Tang Dynasty. The person in front of you is the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, the saint of Tai Chi Palace. This is my teacher Wu Shaobao, who is also your new landlord."
The old man is dull.
I was in a daze for a long time, seemingly unable to turn around and accept such big news.
"Prince, Saint, Wu Shaobao..."
His eyes swept over the three people, already filled with fear and awe, and finally fell on the three gold coins.
Finally, the old man came to his senses and fell to his knees with a plop.
Ancestor, he brought the emperor, the prince, and Wu Shaobao into his straw shed, and he still behaved for so long, my God!
