Zhang Mengcheng and Ma Xiangbo were still struggling in the cave, and Yu Bao walked in with a bitter face. He had some women's nail scratches on his face, and he looked very embarrassed. Zhang Mengcheng and Ma Xiangbo knew that his errand was not easy to do, so they did not make fun of him at this time.

Yu Baocheng looked at Zhang Mengcheng and Ma Xiangbo, and then threw the whip in his hand. Picking up the gourd with water on the table, he said quite sullenly while drinking water: "The news of the soldiers killed in the war has been spread, and all the money and food for the bereavement have been distributed, and this errand is over." I said that in the future, you should not look for me again for this kind of mourning work, and I was really depressed when I looked at the families of those dead brothers, all of whom were crying loudly. ”

"Everyone will feel unhappy, but there must always be a leader to go over, otherwise he is worthy of the brothers who follow us to work hard. The leaders of the stockades had to take turns to report the funeral, and no one could escape. Ma Xiangbo also knew that this errand was not very good, so he comforted Yu Baocheng.

The leader of the cottage who went to report the funeral before Yu Baocheng was Ma Xiangbo, and he knew very well how Yu Baocheng felt at this time. But for the excesses of the families of these dead and injured brothers, they, the leaders of the cottage, can only obediently endure it.

Zhang Mengcheng took out some of the documents on the side and said to Yu Baocheng: "I have already written the title deeds of the land allocated to them, and I will send them over after that." In the future, the harvest of the public land in the village will be replenished to them every year, and it will be provided until their children reach adulthood, and I think that these pensions in the village should be able to reassure those dead brothers to some extent. ”

"This is to send food to the families of the brothers who died in battle, and to deal with the expenses of the Duhe Fort, in case the imperial court does not send food to the military fort one day, what should we do at that time, is the food collected in the village enough this year? I don't know how to count, so which of you two will tell me about it. Yu Baocheng was relieved to see that Zhang Mengcheng had already written the title deed and voucher, but he was worried about the ever-expanding expenses in the village.

The land in northern Shaanxi is quite barren, and the output of the land is far from the average standard of the inland provinces of the Ming Dynasty. For example, every three acres of land in Anding County in northern Shaanxi are recorded as one fathom, and each land can produce five buckets of grain, which can be regarded as a good year.

Three acres of land can only produce five buckets of grain, which is converted into two buckets per mu, which is a world of difference from those examples of one stone per mu in the mainland. There are other counties in northern Shaanxi that need four acres of land to be put together in order to meet the standards of Anding County.

And the further west of northern Shaanxi, the worse the environment. Like Baoan County, where Jinding Mountain is located, most of the land produces about one bucket and four liters of grain per mu, and such a barren output makes many people feel that sometimes the more they plant, the more they lose.

The grain yield per mu is too small, and the peasants in northern Shaanxi rely on "planting widely and harvesting little" to solve the problem. Fortunately, the peasants in northern Shaanxi have quite a lot of land per capita, and it is common for one person to cultivate one or two hectares of land (one hectare per hundred mu in the Ming Dynasty).

However, this further reduces the yield per acre, and at the same time has a significant impact on the environment. Zhang Mengcheng has been farming with his father and brother since he was a child, and he often thinks about how to increase the yield per mu. Although he also came up with some ideas, he could not implement them because of the lack of labor and various means of production.

After the Zhang clan eliminated Sha Liluan, Jin Dingshan began to vigorously reclaim the surrounding area, relying on the means of production that he had plundered everywhere and the support of his eldest brother Zhang Mengjin, many of the ideas that Zhang Mengcheng had conceived before could finally be implemented.

In addition to the cultivation of new crops, emphasis was placed on the construction of water conservancy facilities and the improvement of irrigation technology. At the same time, they also adopted a more scientific grassland rotation method to try to change the extensive agricultural production in the past.

Thanks to Zhang Mengcheng's efforts, the grain output of the land under the rule of Jin Dingshan has increased a lot. Some of the land that has been planned and renovated can generally reach three buckets per mu, and some experimental fields can even achieve a yield of one stone per mu. Coupled with the planting and harvesting of sweet potatoes, Jindingshan was barely able to maintain the development of various policies of the cottage, including the comfort of the families of the brothers who died in the war.

After Ma Xiangbo heard Yu Baocheng's inquiry, he told his estimate some time ago.

"There are more than 670 hectares of land under our control, and a total of more than 160 hectares have been rectified according to Xiucai's method. If God continues to rain on time this year, and the canals that were repaired last year, we should have a good harvest this year. Some time ago, I briefly estimated that this year's share of land and public land in our village may be able to harvest more than 12,000 stones of wheat and corn beans, and more than 30,000 stones of sweet potatoes. Therefore, the harvest we can collect is about more than 5,000 stone of wheat millet and more than 10,000 stone of sweet potato. ”

"This is really rich, and it is really thanks to Xiucai, whose farming skills are better than those of Cai Dwarf at the top of Artemisia. Finally, the village can send out food to feed them, or else I will be sorry for the dead brothers. After listening to Ma Xiangbo's prediction, Yu Baocheng was quite surprised by the grain harvest in the village, which was an astronomical amount for him.

In fact, these grains are still quite small, if only the traditional wheat and corn beans are used. This more than 12,000 stone of grain can only barely make up enough food for more than 3,400 people in Jinding Mountain. Not to mention the soldiers of Duhe Fort, even the beans of hundreds of large animals in the two places are not enough, but fortunately, the cottage can now be mixed with sweet potatoes to live.

Ignoring Yu Baocheng's excited expression, Ma Xiangbo continued: "That was calculated before, but now the big boss says that he wants to replenish the troops of Duhe Fort." If the manpower of the tuntian fields in the village is transferred again, there will definitely be no original estimated output. Xiucai and I were busy figuring out how to allocate manpower, but we couldn't squeeze out people. ”

"Isn't this enough, we don't know what virtues the court has! When eighty percent of the big bosses can't get monthly food in the future, we can only find ways to grow food by ourselves. simply told the big boss to let them bear with it first, and wait until the cottage autumn harvest to talk about supplemental things. ”

After Yu Baocheng was poured cold water, he immediately reacted to the problem. There is a serious shortage of labor in Jinding Mountain, and the big bosses have pulled away most of the strongest people in the village, and the reclamation of Jinding Mountain is already very reluctant. Now, if we draw more manpower to supplement the shortage of Duhe Fort, how can the rear base of Jinding Mountain be busy.

"Our Jinding Mountain is too close to the military fort, if the big bosses in the northern military fort fail to stop the invading Dazi, we will definitely be robbed here. In the past month or so, Tatsuko has already committed two offenses, and it is difficult to guarantee that he will not come back in the future. If hundreds of Dazi are killed on our land, we will definitely not be able to protect it. At that time, there will be no food to harvest, so someone must be there to make up for it. ”

What are the consequences of the rangers harassing the farming and herding society, Ma Xiangbo, a native who has lived in the security guard for many years, knows very well, and naturally insists on supplementing the big boss's place.

"That's not going to happen, now the hearts of the people in the village are just stable, once there is not enough food, there will definitely be chaos, we are not the time to be thieves before." Yu Baocheng also continued to find reasons to object, after such a long time without starvation, no one in Jindingshan was willing to answer the previous state. However, he and Ma Xiangbo both had a point, and the situation was somewhat deadlocked.

Seeing that the two gradually fell into a dispute, Zhang Mengcheng felt that the atmosphere was a little dull, and then changed the topic and said: "There seems to be a new group of people in Jintangzhai, I heard that it is some bandits from other places, and there are dozens of people. It's just that they didn't harass our camp, and I don't think they want to offend us. Brother Baocheng, you are well-informed, why don't we go there to find out, if those people know each other, we will simply recruit them into the village, so that we may be able to solve some of the problems of insufficient manpower in the village. ”

Yu Baocheng didn't want to argue with Ma Xiang Boduo, and after hearing Zhang Mengcheng's round, he responded to Zhang Mengcheng's words: "There are people who dare not have long eyes to come to our Jinding Mountain to open a market, I am really impatient." When will we set off, if those people don't know how to lift, let's just chop up those people and feed them to the dogs, saving trouble for our village. ”

Ma Xiangbo had discussed this method with Xiucai before, and he also thought that this was a relatively easy method to implement at present. As long as these people can be recruited safely, the cottage and the Duhe Fort can reduce the expenses a little, and the rations of these people can be saved. Then they, the leaders of the cottages, just need to find a way to manage the actions of these people.