The open ground inside the pier is full of stones, bricks, plaster, wood, sand and other building materials. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

While directing a group of plasterers to dig the foundation and build a new house in the pier of no return, Wu Liang talked to Li Xiao about the essentials of building a house.

"Li Baihu, now in the land of Liaodong, ordinary residents generally build houses at about 20 taels. Now we are waiting to build a new house in the pier of no return, because they are all single rooms, and the specifications are uniform, so it can be much simpler. A house, from digging the foundation, putting stones, building walls, columns, adding doors and windows, erecting beams, building roofs, painting and other matters, is not more than 12 taels of silver, so that the construction of these 25 houses, only 300 taels of silver is enough. ”

Wu Liang's fine planning made Li Xiao very satisfied.

"Sir's calculations are very good! From now on, I will not return all expenses to the pier, and my husband will also be responsible for it. After the recruits and their families arrive, a detailed plan will be made. ”

"The students must obey the orders of the Lord of the Hundred Households."

Only four days later, Li Xiao, who was leading a group of sentry horsemen to practice riding and archery, saw Wang Yishou and Tian Wei from a distance, and a group of ragged dove-shaped hoof-faced homeless people came to the pier of no return.

"Hundreds of households, now that the displaced militia has been recruited, a total of 25 qualified soldiers have been recruited, which is 3 more than your plan. These people, me and Yishou, but carefully selected from all over Jinzhou, are all strong and able to ride horses, tried on the spot, and 5 of them know how to shoot arrows. In addition, there are 68 people from the family, and now they have all been brought together. Tian Wei wiped the dust and sweat on his face, and said happily.

"The deputy team, these families, include a total of 16 old men, 13 old women, 22 strong women, 9 young men, and 8 young women. Don't you know, my lord, they ate the bread we gave, and they heard us say that they don't return to the pier here, they eat and live, and the soldiers still have a monthly salary. I can't push it away, hehe. Wang Yishou hurriedly added on the side.

Wang Yishou had a reminiscent smile on his face, then he turned his head and shouted to the group of homeless people who looked numb: "You don't want to meet the Lord of the Hundred Households quickly." If it weren't for the benevolence of the Lord of the Hundred Households, I am afraid that you would still be wandering around. ”

“。。。。。 Meet the Lord of Hyaknohe,。。。。。 Thank you for the grace of the hundred households. ”

The homeless people knelt down one after another, and the voices of gratitude rang out in a mixed manner.

Li Xiao let everyone get up, looked around at everyone with a concerned look, and then said loudly: "I, Li Xiao, welcome everyone to My Pier." Here, you will all have a new beginning, you will no longer be wandering around without food and clothing, but will become a soldier of the Ming Dynasty official army and the families of the soldiers! I hope you can all follow me to work hard, and fight together for a good way out and a good future! ”

After Li Xiao finished speaking, there were chaotic voices of thanks below.

Li Xiao eagerly looked at these homeless people below, and from the expressions of these homeless people, he could clearly see that in the numb eyes that were almost the same as everyone, a flame of hope began to flicker.

Next, Li Xiao asked Wang Yishou to take the displaced people to a nearby mountain stream to bathe.

According to Li Xiao's request, Wang Yishou divided the displaced people into men and women, and bathed at the end of the stream, separated from each other and invisible to each other.

Maintaining personal cleanliness and hygiene can be one of the least expensive ways to prevent disease and plague.

In the late Ming Dynasty, when there was a shortage of medical treatment and medicine, once the plague broke out due to health problems, all the grand undertakings planned by Li Xiao would be a thing of the past.

He even thought that soon, he would set up a public bathhouse so that everyone under his command could develop good habits of cleanliness and tidiness.

When the displaced people went to take a bath, Li Xiao asked Tian Wei to continue to lead the team to train, and he and Wu Liang discussed the plan after the arrival of the displaced people.

The people regard food as the sky, and the army takes food as the foundation, and the focus of the discussion is the issue of food.

"My lord, I don't know if we will provide food and salary for the expansion of these soldiers?"

Wu Liang's soft question made Li Xiao fall silent.

He was almost certain that now that Wang Daoqi was so determined to punish the captain of the sentry cavalry, Gao Pu and himself, and that he and the other seven sentry riders were making up the sentry cavalry, it was difficult to say whether they could come back and get food and grass from him again. Those soldiers who have expanded their own recruits without authorization do not want to receive even a grain of rice from this person.

"Sir, if you are self-sufficient in food and grass, how much do you need?" Li Xiao asked in a casual tone.

"Lord Baihu, if that's the case, I'll talk to you in detail." Wu Liang paused, and then said with a thoughtful expression: "When the student was in Dongjiang Town that day, he calculated that if a soldier wants to ensure daily drills, he must eat at least one and a half catties of rice grain, and at the same time, he must eat a few taels of meat. If a soldier trains every day, if there is no meat supplement, he is very prone to blood urine, weakness, and even fainting, this person is useless. ”

"But I don't know what the price of food is now? Is meat expensive? ”

"Hundreds of households, now the Tartars are invading the border, and the prices are expensive. In the city of Jinzhou, the price of a stone of rice is about 3 taels, and the price of meat is, pork: 3 yuan and 5 cents of silver per catty. Mutton: 4 cents per catty and 2 cents of silver. Beef: 5 cents and 4 cents of silver per catty. These are still the price of lean meat, if it is fatty meat, add 2 cents of silver per catty。。。。。。 ”

Wu Liang still said to himself, but Li Xiao fell into deep thought.

Li Xiao had seen some Ming history in his previous life, and it was recorded in the "Songjiang Mansion Chronicles" that during the Wanli period, one or two pieces of silver could buy two stones of rice noodles. And now in this land of western Liaoning, it costs three taels of silver to buy a stone of rice grain, and in just a few decades, the price has risen six times! The speed at which this skyrockets is really staggering.

Compared with the current era of war and chaos and soaring prices, the Wanli era, which has always been criticized by historians, is what these ordinary people who are struggling in the troubled times yearn for.

Of course, the price of staple foods such as rice and grain has increased sixfold compared with the Wanli period, and the increase in meat that belongs to non-staple foods is slightly smaller, and compared with the middle of Wanli, the relative increase has only increased by more than three times.

Some readers may not understand why the price of meat has risen less than that of staple food, because in ancient society, ordinary people eat very little meat, and generally only rich families often have this kind of consumption, so in the troubled times of the late Ming Dynasty, the rise of staple food will far exceed that of meat, but even so, the price of meat is really high compared with the Wanli period.

Li Xiao pondered for a while, and said to Wu Liang: "The training of soldiers is hard, and it is really unbearable not to eat meat, so let's do it, each soldier has a quota of three taels of pork and two catties of rice grain per day." ”

Wu Liang was stunned for a moment, this hundred-household adult was refreshing, but he was willing to invest in the food of the soldiers.

It's just that he knows that Li Xiao's investment is absolutely considerable.

Calculate the fine account, a soldier has two catties of rice grain a day, three taels of pork, then, a bucket of rice can be eaten for about 4 days, according to one stone of rice grain for ten buckets, then a soldier a month to eat 7 and a half buckets of rice grain, 30 days a month, then a total of 35 soldiers in the pier have to eat nearly 27 stone of rice grain per month, that is, the staple food price of more than 80 taels of silver per month.

In addition, in addition to the cost of meat, if you don't return to the internal soldiers, you will have to spend more than 120 taels of silver per month to eat meat.

In this way, the food expenses of the soldiers alone reached 200 taels per month.

In fact, this cost is still a purely numerical ideal, and if you have to fight the enemy soldiers at that time, you have to make the soldiers eat better, so that it will only cost more money at that time.

"Lord Baihu, in order to save money, the families of those soldiers can temporarily only give gruel or wild vegetables to live, but this is much better than them living on the streets. The students calculated that if this were the case, they would not have to provide meat, and each person would only consume one-third of the food of the soldiers, which would be less than 80 taels of silver per month. Wu Liang continued.

"Very well, just do what you say."

"My lord, if you buy a horse in the future, the cost of refined bean feed every month is also a lot, according to the student's experience in Dongjiang Town that day, according to a horse's four catties of material per day, eight catties of grass, each horse needs to consume about eight cents of silver bean fodder money per day, so if we calculate according to 40 horses, the cost of silver for a month will be nearly 100 taels."

Li Xiao fell silent again.

Many things sound simple, but when you really have to do it, you know all the difficulties involved.

In the history of the Ming Dynasty, Sun Chuanting once said: "1,328 horses, each horse has eight cents of silver per day, and 54 mules have five cents of silver per day." "The cost of raising horses is so great that the cost of one cavalry is about equal to the cost of five elite infantry, and in the future the cavalry must also have professionals such as blacksmiths, carpenters, and veterinarians, which are also not small.

Now calculate the total number, without fighting, Li Xiao wants to maintain the normal operation of this group of people, and the cost of food per month will be more than 380 taels.

Li Xiao still didn't know the specific price of horse armor, and he guessed in his heart that if according to Tian Wei, the formation of each sentry cost about 150 taels, it was likely that the price of the formation of heavy cavalry with iron armor would be doubled, and even if he was frugal in all aspects, he would have to pay 270 taels per heavy cavalry to purchase all the required items.

Now Li Xiao plans to plan according to the current number of people, the number of 20 heavy cavalry will remain the same, and the light cavalry will be changed to 15, so the total price of building from scratch will be about 7,650 taels!

To be more specific, Li Xiao and other nine sentinels, each of whom already has horses and weapons, and five of them already have armor, so the formation cost of these people can be removed, and if the cost of each person is 130 taels, 1170 taels can be saved.

In this way, it can be roughly calculated that the total cost to complete the formation of the entire cavalry team is about 6480 taels.

In addition, Li Xiao also intends to maintain the treatment of Zhongtun for each soldier's monthly salary, that is, 2.25 yuan per person per month, so that he will spend nearly 90 taels of silver every month.

And Li Xiao had on hand, the 4 horses of silk that were rewarded had been discounted by Li Xiao to the silk shop at a price of 15 taels each, and he received 60 taels of silver, and there were only more than 200 taels of silver left in the imperial court, plus 4,000 taels of silver and more than 300 taels of gold. Li Xiao's total amount of silver is about 8,000 taels.

Now it can be seen that the silver Li Xiao has on hand is only enough to complete the formation of the team, and then spend more than three months of food and monthly salary, and it will all be spent.

Wu Liang's worried eyes were cast at Li Xiao, and Li Xiao could understand the true meaning in his eyes.

"Sir, don't worry, once this cavalry team is formed, I, Li Xiao, will definitely try my best to make it run smoothly." Li Xiao said firmly.