The supply of military rations is undoubtedly the most critical factor in the maintenance of the army.

Hearing Zhou Changming say this, Li Tai couldn't help frowning: "Didn't you say that the county allocated grain?" ”

Originally, the county should have given the township regiment two months of grain for the training and reading after the autumn. However, not long ago, there was a relocation of Qingshui Hunei from Longbian to Huazhou, and if he needed to be properly resettled this year, he had to cut down the township regiment to lose it. Therefore, this autumn reading, the county can only allocate January grain. ”

Li Qujian opened his mouth to explain that he had negotiated a lot with the county government recently to get such a result.

Li Tai had previously gloated and lamented that the villagers were unlucky, but he didn't expect that the internal relocation of Dihu would bring such an aftermath, and he was suddenly not happy.

There are thousands of families and tens of thousands of people who have moved to Huazhou this time, which is naturally an extremely large number for individuals, but it is actually nothing for a political regime.

With such a migration and resettlement amount, Daxingtai was able to force Daxingtai to change the previous expenditure plan and transfer the grain that should have been allocated to the township regiment to Dihu, which shows how shallow the plate of the Western Wei Dynasty is. There are few variables in the fiscal aspects of expenditure, so it is necessary to carry out stress adjustments in a big way.

There must be expenditures elsewhere in the key, why do you want to move the food of the township group? In the final analysis, although the township regiment was initially integrated, its combat effectiveness and strength were still not very valued by Daxingtai, and these previous jumps caused a lot of trouble.

Although the township regiment of Wuxiang County is not directly under Li Tai, it is the only Kansai armed force that he can intervene in to have a profound influence so far.

Now that there is a food shortage for more than a month, Li Tai is naturally irritable, and he feels more and more that Yuwentai is really picking and searching, you can't afford to raise an army of more than 1,000 people, and you are still fighting for hegemony! Go back to your hometown and farm, you can't compare to Lao Tzu in farming!

But I have complained in my heart, and the problems that should be solved still have to be solved.

A team of more than 1,600 people needs to consume how much military rations a month.

There is a story in the "Book of Song" of the Southern Dynasty that records a story in the Eastern Jin Dynasty: on the other side of the river today, the outer emperor is in a hurry, the soldiers eat seven liters, forget themselves to go to the difficulty, pass the drama of Thailand, and fight five times in the day.

It is said that the soldiers who fought on the front line donated themselves to the disaster with seven liters of rations a day, and the overly extravagant vaudeville servants in the court gave five buckets of food every day, which really should not be.

It can be seen that seven liters of rations per day is already a very low supply for a soldier. If the soldiers' consumption is guaranteed to be sufficient throughout the day, it is more reasonable to give a bucket of food every day.

A soldier's monthly ration needs three stones, and the consumption of more than 1,600 people in a month is a food gap of more than 5,000 stones!

"Do you think of a solution?"

Although Li Tai was worried about this, he didn't want to recruit this trouble, not to mention that he didn't have so much food at all, and even if he had, it would be impossible to take it all out to fill the gap, unless Yuwen Tai was willing to assign these township regiments to him as a private army.

Lao Tzu is a Lu who is a Zhi, and he is not a Chitu! He Liuhun is still my big brother, what are you black otters.

"I have discussed with several commanders before, hoping that they can help with high righteousness. But except for the two old governors, the three new ones were all lost officials and rewarded, and their own household savings were not rich, and they could barely scrape together 1,200 stone of miscellaneous grains. ”

Li Qujian opened his mouth and said that during this period of time, the reorganization of the township regiment was also a rather difficult test for him, from the creation of the registration register to the collection of materials, all kinds of big and small problems emerged one after another, some were properly solved, and some were really unable to catch them.

When Li Tai heard this, he couldn't help but be a little embarrassed, because of his tossing, the three new governors all paid a far more than ordinary price. Especially Shi Gong, a poor ghost, who paid before and after and was blackmailed by himself, the rats in the warehouse may starve to death.

In such a situation, more than 1,000 stone of grain can be scrapped, which shows that these local tyrants also attach great importance to this position of governor.

Zhou Changming also spoke: "I have also visited some people in the county who are not involved in the incident recently, and I can transfer 800 stone of grain and goods every week. ”

This scene and this dialogue are really shabby and pitiful, but this is the current situation of the supply of the Western Wei army.

In the early years of the Great Unification, when Dugu Xindong was seeking Luoyang, he took Zhao Su, a township, as a logistics officer, and raised military rations from Heluo Haoqiang, so that the army had to be supplied, so that Yuwentai excitedly called Zhao Su "the master of Luoyang".

At the end of the Great Unification, when Yang Zhong led the army to attack Shannanzhou County, he also needed local Haoqiang to fund military rations. I really have a gun, I have everything in it, if you don't borrow it, I'll grab it.

With the replenishment of these two thousand stones, there is still a gap of more than half. The remaining 3,000 stone gap, Li Tai is not unable to take it, after all, the Shang Yuan historian alone extorted 3,000 stones. The county government withheld my military rations, and I relied on the county government for debts, which is also very reasonable.

But after all, he is not the leader of the township regiment, so let him take out 3,000 stone of grain to feed the army for no reason, even if he is willing, he is not happy.

After a short period of silence, he asked again: "When will the county government pay the grain?" The main thing is millet demiling? ”

"At the end of the month, it can be allocated, eighty percent of the millet and two percent of the miscellaneous mushrooms."

Li Quji replied again.

Li Tai nodded after hearing this: "It's okay, there is still time." After the millet is in place, it will be replaced with wheat grain! ”

Zhou Changming was shocked when he heard this: "Selling military rations privately, is this ...... Even if it is expedient or not guilty, the poor food of the soldiers will hinder their morale. ”

Millet is the husked millet, which is the main crop and ration in Kansai. Although rice is also cultivated, it is mainly produced in large estates and Guantun near rich water sources.

As for wheat, in addition to detaining and peeling, it also needs to be milled into flour, which is considered a delicate ingredient. The processing process is too cumbersome, and it requires a huge labor cost, which is far less convenient than the corn husk that can be steamed and eaten.

Therefore, wheat is often used as a food to prepare for famine, and the mainstream status of the diet in Kansai is far inferior to that of millet, and the price is nearly doubled.

The county government can allocate 4,000 koku of husked corn, and if all of it is exchanged for wheat, it can be exchanged for at least 7,000 koku, plus 1,000 koku of miscellaneous mushrooms and 2,000 koku donated by the county, then the amount is enough for two months.

However, the reason for the huge disparity between the prices of wheat and millet is that the difference between the taste of wheat rice and millet rice is too large, and eating too much wheat rice will also bring a series of problems such as bloating and constipation. Soldiers are also human beings, and it would be hellish if they saw that they were treated so harshly and their morale could be high.

"Do as I want!"

Li Tai said undoubtedly, and when he saw Zhou Changming nodding in response, he said again: "There is a new water pot on the hill, which can grind wheat into noodles, and make hundreds of stones a day, which can be eaten by a sergeant." ”

The price of corn is nearly twice as high as that of wheat, and the price of wheat processed into flour is nearly twice as high as that of corn. The difference between the price before and after is twice the labor cost of processing wheat into flour.

Before today, Li Tai had to scratch his head anxiously when he encountered this problem, but with the blessing of those hydraulic tools on Luoshui, this problem could be solved. The pulp of papermaking only needs to be processed with water mill, which can be used to grind the surface.

A mill is equivalent to a small processing plant nowadays, so the powerful and powerful are keen to live by the water, who is not happy to buy and sell with money while lying down?

The reason why Liang Chun's family gave up the manor so simply, in addition to Liang Chun's own open-mindedness, is probably because the slaves of Zhao Gui's family are too domineering, and it is also a kind of torture to watch each other lie down and come to the money while their own family does not dare to work.

Although Na Dai Yan did not belong to Li Tai's property, he also planned to use the first batch of dividends from the printing workshop to compensate some Hui.

Some Hui himself may not care about these little things, but after all, he has a lot of family, and if he can't achieve a fair and clear distribution of money and affairs, this business and friendship will not last long.

The Mid-Autumn Festival has passed, and there are still more than ten days before the end of the month. It happened that Liu Heng also began to lead the crowd to buy grain in the township, so Li Tai also asked him to exchange the millet harvested by his family for a batch of villagers' wheat for milling and processing, and then use the processed flour to exchange for wheat for recycling.

In Li Tai's manor, the autumn sowing of winter wheat and the autumn harvest of corn have just been completed, and the villagers have devoted themselves to grain processing.

In the open space of the manor, there are several huge wooden rollers, and some people are constantly rolling on the handle, the rollers are rotating rapidly, and there is a crackling sound of collision and friction inside.

On the other side, there is a long wooden table, on which thick round cakes are placed, and some people chop these round cakes into pieces with a knife and axe, and then send them into a drum with a dustpan to crush them.

These rounds are sesame cakes that have been pressed from the oil mill, which are re-crushed and sent to another shed.

There are several large stoves in the shed, and the burning stove is set up with a concave bottom copper bell, and a person next to him is in charge of the spoon, constantly stir-frying the flour, bean flour and sesame cake crumbs in the copper bell.

Li Tai also guarded a large stove, rolled up his sleeves and stir-fried it himself, while paying attention to the color change of the fried noodles, he shouted: "The stove is smaller!" Add half a liter of lanolin to suppress the dust...... Add salt and half close! Do what I did, and you take over. ”

After giving up the position of the spoon, he walked to the side and picked up a handful of fried noodles that had been stir-fried on the wooden shelf and put it in his mouth, chewed it carefully and tasted it, then nodded with satisfaction, and then ordered: "Add water and make cakes." Don't put too much water, compact it on the bar after molding, and send it to the oven to dry. ”

The cake is pressed in a row of large wooden barrels, which are still fluffy and fat when kneaded with water, and are first covered with several layers of silk cloth, then covered with wooden boards, then covered with huge stones, and finally squeezed by workers with pole wood.

The extruded grain cake has been very thick, but this is still not the final finished product, and it has to be transferred to two wooden boards, and the process will be continued by ramming the wall with the plank, and the grain cake more than ten inches thick will be tamped to a few inches thick, and this set of processes will be over.

On the grill, the grain cakes with continuous drying moisture are hooked out and placed under the shed for ventilation and cooling.

He Batsheng, who had just come to the manor, sat on a Hu bed, waiting for his soldiers to scrape half a bowl of compacted cake crumbs with a knife, and then impatiently ordered people to mix it with boiling water, and drank it while blowing while holding a pottery bowl.

"This is not food for my uncle!"

Li Tai saw it from a distance, so he walked towards the pergola.

"I've drunk it all!"

When he arrived, He Batsheng showed the bottom of the bowl, patted his stomach with a satisfied face and sighed: "When I was in the army, I never dreamed of such a delicate and delicious meal!" ”