After bidding farewell to the officials who went to the southeast, Liu Che and the entire Han family focused their attention on the transfer of military rations.

In today's China, there are mainly three surplus grain producing areas.

The first and largest granary is the land of abundance in Shu County and Hanzhong County.

Through the past four years of water conservancy excavation, agricultural tools have been promoted and technology has been upgraded.

The grain output of Shu County and Hanzhong County has increased substantially, and the yield of corn per mu is everywhere.

However, the local population has also entered a period of explosive growth.

The increase in grain yield per mu has enabled the people to raise more children, and the state has also encouraged childbearing.

Having three children, both male and female, exempts the family from military service for one year!

Four can be exempted for two years!

Five three years!

Ten will give you a few rods!

Today, it may be very difficult for the average family to have more than five children.

However, three or four words are common!

In recent years, the people of Shu County and Hanzhong have been holding back their strength and working hard to reproduce their offspring.

The birth rate and the survival rate of young children have increased exponentially.

In the past, the number of cases of missing young children or drowning girls for economic or religious reasons has fallen vertically.

In just three years, in Shu County and Hanzhong area, in the village pavilions, there are groups of children playing with bare buttocks.

In order to feed these children, the local food consumption naturally increases.

Moreover, it will continue to increase for the foreseeable future.

And to be honest, the land of Shu County and Hanzhong, with the existing technical conditions and land conditions, it is almost impossible to yield more than five stones per mu.

Therefore, the local food supply potential is actually not large.

It is also impossible for Liu Che to continue to draw a large amount of grain from Shu County and Hanzhong County as before.

Of course, the more important reason is that the grain of Shu County and Hanzhong, which is transported down the river to the south, is relatively cheap.

However, he wants to transport the grain of Shu County to the north.

That's a scary death to death.

The second granary of the Han dynasty is the Sanhe area.

At the same time, the Sanhe region is also the largest grain producing area and the largest grain supplier in China since the Spring and Autumn Period.

During the Warring States Period, it was precisely because of the Hexi region of Wei that the Qin State began to rise and became the bug that could beat the six eastern countries.

Today, the Sanhe region has become the most important power engine of the Han Dynasty's war machine.

More than 40% of the military rations of the garrison of the Great Wall came from the grain produced by the people in the Sanhe area.

Moreover, Aocang, the largest grain strategic reserve base in the Han Dynasty, is also established in a key position in the Sanhe area.

Since the Qin Dynasty, whether or not you can eat Aocang grain has become the key to whether heroes and heroes can dominate the world!

It's just that the current situation in the Sanhe area is similar to that of Shu County.

It has also entered a period of population explosion.

Although in terms of household statistics, there is no obvious phenomenon of population growth.

However, it can be clearly seen from the local conscription service rate.

Sanhe (Henan, Hexi, Hedong) has been going on for three years, and the rate of conscription service has plummeted.

If you make a table, you can easily see that the conscription service rate in the region is declining by a plunge.

Every year, a large number of people are exempted from forced labor because they meet the standards set by Liu Che.

It's only a year or two.

However, the three consecutive years of diving illustrate the rapid growth of the local population.

Almost every couple, for the past three years, has had and raised a child.

Over the past 60 years, the world's population has grown at about 9 per cent per year.

Over the past six decades, Chinese population growth has more than doubled.

However, since Liu Che came to power, and materially and economically, and spiritually, encouraged childbearing.

In areas with more developed social and cultural developments, the population is growing explosively.

The fertility rate and the dependency rate are doubling and increasing every year.

Originally, on average, a Han woman would give birth to an average of five children in her lifetime during her childbearing years.

However, because of backward medical technology and even more backward feudal superstitions and traditions, only half of the children live to adulthood.

And now, with the increase of people's willingness to have children and raise them.

Not only is the average fertility rate for women rising, but also the survival rate for young children.

According to the estimates of the Imperial Historian Yamen, in the Sanhe area, the net increase in the population per year in the past three years is about 5 in 10.

As a result, the Han dynasty was actually able to mobilize and use less grain from the Three Rivers region.

Even because of the progress of technology and tools, the local grain yield per mu has increased by more than one stone, reaching an average level of about four and a half stones.

However, the richness of food is not as good as before.

Especially Hedong County.

Four years ago, Hedong County was rich in grain every year, and there were more than 3 million stone of corn alone.

But now, it is less than three million stones.

This is the most direct evidence that when the population increases, food consumption increases with it.

This caused Liu Che to reduce the amount of food that could be requisitioned from the local area.

After deducting the necessary grain reserves, the entire Sanhe region, the Han family can only mobilize a maximum of about three million stone of corn.

With the current technical conditions, these three million stones, in the process of transportation, at least 750,000 stones!

In other words, only about 2.2 million stone of grain could reach the front line and supply the army.

And now, under peaceful conditions, the standard of food supply for a soldier (infantryman) is twenty stone per year, which is slightly higher than that of a peasant, and is only enough to fill his stomach.

As for the cavalry, men and horses, according to the standard of one person and two horses, the annual food consumption is at least forty stones, which does not include meat and forage for war horses.

In other words, the two million stone grain in the Three Rivers area was only enough for 50,000 cavalry for a year.

Moreover, the logistical consumption and youth consumption of this army are not counted.

As for the rest of the grain-producing areas.

It is the vast Guanzhong with Chang'an as the center.

It's just that......

Guanzhong is ripe, the world is full, and it is already yesterday's yellow flower.

Since the beginning of Taizong, Guanzhong has changed from a grain export place to a grain import place.

Before Liu Che ascended the throne, Guanzhong already needed to transfer about 500,000 stone of grain from Guandong every year to meet the needs of the nobles of Guanzhong and the citizens of Chang'an.

Fortunately, after Liu Che ascended the throne, he advocated and encouraged the people to switch to winter wheat.

And invented and popularized, including pasta, steamed buns, a variety of wheat refined foods.

As a result, Guanzhong's grain self-sufficiency rate has greatly increased.

The new wheat planting technology and the application of a large number of various fertilizers (human and animal manure, soil fertilizers, and some fertilizers made from whale bone meal and salmon bone meal), as well as a large number of water conservancy facilities and waterwheels have been popularized in all directions.

The yield per mu in Guanzhong has been greatly increased.

In particular, wheat production has directly doubled.

The yield of corn per mu is four stones, which is almost the limit.

But the yield of wheat per mu is four or five stones, which is only the starting point.

In Shanglin Yuan, the experimental field in charge of the agricultural officer of Shaofu, last year, there was even a miracle of ten stones per mu!

In this way, the food security of Guanzhong has finally bid farewell to the history of relying on the Kanto region.

In the past three years, Guanzhong's grain surplus has increased year by year.

Moreover, because of the existence of the grain protection price policy, the people are willing to sell their surplus grain.

As of last year, the amount of grain stored in Guanzhong by Shaofu reached a record high of 4 million stones.

Although, three million of them are wheat.

In addition, the reserves of soybeans and other legumes are also increasing.

Because the state buys beans, moreover, encourages people to interplant soybeans.

So, now in Shaofu, there are more than 500,000 stone of various beans in stock.

In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of stone of bean dregs and soybean cakes and other by-products of soybean oil extraction.

These bean dregs and bean cakes can be used as fodder, thereby reducing the food needs of the army, especially the cavalry units.

At present, Guanzhong can transfer at least more than 3 million stone of grain (including bean dregs and bean cakes) to Yunzhong, Yanmen and Daibei on the front line.

After having the food supplement in Guanzhong, Liu Che finally barely managed to scrape together enough basic food needed for the Battle of Hetao.

At least, there is no shortage of food for the Gaoque Campaign.

It's just that......

One battle in the Hetao emptied the entire country's grain reserves.

This made Liu Che a little speechless.

"It is necessary to speed up the promotion of wheat and the planting area!" Liu Che said to himself in his heart.

Wheat replaced corn as the main crop in the north, and in history, it was used for a thousand years.

This is the inertia of great tradition at work.

If he wants to speed up this process, Liu Che can only use a trick - raise the price!

At present, the purchase price of wheat in Shaofu is about 40 yuan per stone of wheat, and in some cases even 35 yuan.

Compared to the price of corn, it is more than 10 dollars lower!

For farmers, growing wheat and growing corn are actually the same economically.

Even, growing corn is more profitable than growing wheat.

Moreover, wheat requires more manpower and material resources to take care of it than corn.

Therefore, even in Guanzhong, except for Shanglinyuan, because Shaofu is strongly demanding the cultivation of wheat, in other places, the common people generally use the upper field to grow corn as family food, and use the lower field to grow wheat to pay taxes and sell it to the Shaofu.

The common people are very smart.

In your own home, of course, eat the best food!

Even now, with the advent of pasta and various steamed buns and steamed buns, wheat is better than corn in terms of taste.

However, wheat flour grinding takes time and manpower.

Who but the landlord has that idle time?

Naturally, the people voted with their feet and still adhered to the tradition of corn as the staple food.

To change this predicament, the state needs to assume greater responsibility.

Even, suffer a certain loss.

It is necessary for the people to grow wheat more than corn for their benefit, so that they will choose a variety of wheat.

"This year's wheat purchase price has raised the same level as corn!" Liu Che commanded Ji Di.

The latter was slightly stunned.

I don't know what Liu Che means.

You must know that the increase in wheat prices will inevitably lead to an increase in the expenditure of the Shaofu.

One million stones, you have to add ten million dollars!

Last year's wheat output in Guanzhong was close to 4 million stones.

In other words, in the blink of an eye, the Son of Heaven will throw at least 40 million dollars into the water.

It's just that the money of this Shaofu is the money of the Son of Heaven.

The Son of Heaven likes to squander as much as he likes.

Even if he had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a palace room for himself as a playground, the ministers could only stare dryly.

What's more, this kind of thing that benefits the people?

Ji Di could only choose to nod his head and accept his life.

Liu Che looked at Ji Di and explained: "The hustle and bustle of the world is all for profit, and the hustle and bustle of the world is for profit, so Lao Tzu said: Good is like water, and water benefits all things without fighting!" If you want to guide the customs of the people, you must benefit them, and when the people get benefits, they will naturally follow the will of the state, and vice versa! ”

This is natural, in China, no matter what period, as long as there is money to be made and profitable, everyone will swarm to do it.

Later generations of Taishi Gong made historical records and wrote biographies of goods and colonies, and it can be clearly seen that almost all the big names will drive the orientation of merchants in a place.

If someone smelts iron in a certain place and gets rich, there will be a large number of iron-smelting workshops in the local area.

Getting rich by selling has led to an increase in the number of peddlers and pawns.

If animal husbandry becomes rich, everyone competes to breed.

This kind of national character has even lasted for more than 2,000 years, and the **** of later generations is also the same.

When it comes to Wenzhou, everyone's first reaction is leather shoes and bags.

Yiwu is a small commodity wholesale.

Guangzhou is a gathering of trading companies.

This is true even for illegal industries.

Walking under the telephone poles in the streets and alleys, the old military doctor, eight or nine times out of ten, is from Putian, and the certificate, no matter the south or the north, it is a Hunan accent, even fraud, a phone call, you can basically know that it is from those places.

For Chinese, as long as they can earn money and support their wives and children, they don't care what they do.

This truth is true throughout the ages.

Ji Di listened stunned, thinking about it carefully, it was really like that.

So, Ji Di said: "Your Majesty can see thousands of miles, and the ministers are absolutely out of reach!" ”

This is both a sycophant and a reverence.

Can you not admire and revere it?

Open the history books and look at the king, who increased the burden of the people for his own pleasure, grabbed a handful.

But in order to make the people obedient and follow their own wishes, they should grow food, or change their habits, but there are very few who would rather bleed themselves.

In Ji Di's cognition, there is probably only the policy of the Chen family when he was in Qi, using small buckets to enter and big buckets to come out.

But Liu Che smiled bitterly and shook his head.

Using money and benefits to guide the people is naturally useful.

However, how useful it is, Liu Che still doesn't know.

After all, the power of tradition and inertia is incomparably powerful.

Especially in this diet.

In later generations, there may be many northerners who love to eat rice, and many southerners may also like to use steamed buns for breakfast.

However, the staple food will still be pasta and rice.

This is the same as if you throw a Hunan person to Liangguang and Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and there is no chili pepper to eat, it is estimated that the Hunan person will not be able to stand it for half a month.

In the span of several generations, the habit of corn as a staple food in the north cannot be reversed or changed.

However, Liu Che is very clear.

The yield of corn per mu is too small, and the nutrition is not as rich and comprehensive as wheat.

The replacement of corn by wheat is an inevitable part of history and development.

I want to feed more and more people in the world.

Liu Che not only had to give them more arable land, but also had to provide them with more advanced technology, better farming tools, and higher grain yields per acre.

"The future is bright, the road is tortuous...... there is no way, Liu Che can only comfort himself like this. (To be continued.) )