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 the current Han Dynasty, there are mainly three surplus producing areas of grain. The first and largest granary is the land of abundance in Shu County and Hanzhong County.

Through the first emperor Liu Fuling, four years before his death, water conservancy excavation, agricultural tool promotion and technology improvement. 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! 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 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 Xun 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, if you want to transport the grain of Shu County to the north, the cost will be high and frightening 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's 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 Great Wall garrison come from the grain produced by the people in the Sanhe area, and Aocang, the largest grain strategic reserve base of the Han Dynasty, is also established in the key position of the Sanhe region.

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, and it has also entered a period of population explosion. Although in terms of household statistics, there is no obvious phenomenon of population growth.

However, from the local conscription service rate, it can be clearly seen that the three rivers (Henan, Hexi, and Hedong) have lasted for three years, and the conscription service rate has plummeted.

If you make a table, you can easily see that the conscription service rate in the region is declining. 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 show that the local population is growing rapidly. 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 the first emperor Liu Fuling came to power and encouraged childbearing materially, economically and spiritually, the population has exploded in areas with more social and cultural development. The fertility rate and the dependency rate have doubled every year, and in the past, the average Han woman had to 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 can 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 of women rising, but the survival rate of children is also rising.

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.

But the richness of food is not as good as before. In particular, 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 3 million stone. This is the most direct evidence that when the population increases, food consumption increases with it.

As a result, Liu Xun was able to collect less grain 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 Sanhe area can only meet the needs of 50,000 cavalry for a year, and the logistics consumption and youth consumption of this army are not counted, as for the remaining grain producing area. It is the vast Guanzhong with Chang'an as the center.

It's just that...... Guanzhong ripe, the world is full, it has already been yesterday's yellow flower, since Emperor Taizong Xiaowen, Guanzhong has changed from the grain export place, into the grain input place, before Liu Xun ascended the throne, Guanzhong has been required to transfer about 500,000 stone of grain from Kanto every year to meet the needs of the nobles and Chang'an citizens in Guanzhong.

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

"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 you want to add this process, Liu Xun can only use a trick - raise the price! At present, the purchase price of Yicang wheat in Shaofu is about 40 yuan per stone of wheat, and sometimes 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.

Ordinary people are very smart, their own homes, of course, eat the best food! Even now, with the advent of pasta and various types of pasta, wheat is better than corn in terms of taste.

But wheat flour grinding takes time and manpower, and who can have that idle time except for the landlord? 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. Using money and benefits to guide the people is naturally useful.

But how useful it is, Liu Xun is still unknown.

After all, the power of tradition and inertia is incomparably stronger, especially when it comes to this eating habit. 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 Xun himself knows very well that the yield of corn per mu is too small, and the nutrition is not as rich and comprehensive as wheat, and the replacement of corn by wheat is a historical necessity and an inevitable exhibition. I want to feed more and more people in the world.

Liu Xun 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.