Qin Official

The vast farmland in front of Heifu is composed of thin strips, and those strips are acres.

He stood at the edge of the field, along the small ditch for drainage at the edge of the field, and gently stepped out with his left foot, then his right foot, one left and one right. This is the basic unit of distance in this era: step, one step is equal to six feet. , equivalent to 1.38 meters in later generations.

In this way, the width of one acre of land is just covered.

So each acre is 1 step wide and 240 steps long. Because the Qin State began to implement the large-acre system after Shang Yang's reform. It is different from the 100-step small acres of Yan, Chu, and Qi, and the 200-step medium acres of Wei.

The reason is that during the time of Shang Yang's reform, the Qin State was vast and sparsely populated, and the people were required to divide more land and grow more food. Probably because the Qin State began to use oxen extensively for farming. Even families without oxen could borrow oxen from the government for farming. An ox has to pull a plow for about 240 steps before it needs to take a breather. As for a person, after pulling a plow for 100 steps, you have to get tired and fall down.

As a result, the one hundred acres of land belonging to Heifu seemed extraordinarily large.

After Heifu was shocked, he squatted down and calculated with tree branches: one acre in later generations was 666.67 square meters, while one acre in Qin was about 400 square meters, which was a little smaller than that in later generations. But in calculation, one hundred acres is more than 40,000 square meters...

"With such a large land, I would have been a small landowner in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China."

Heifu was immediately amused. You must know that for farmers in the Qing Dynasty, it was normal for homesteaders to have more than ten acres of land. For poorer people, it was even only a few acres.

But don't be too happy too early. Although these lands are allocated to the black husband species, they still belong to the country. Dong Zhongshu of the Han Dynasty made baseless speculation that the Qin State "reformed the imperial system, except for well fields, and the people had to sell and buy." However, when Heifu returned to the Qin State, he had never seen any transaction of buying or selling land. Not to mention the contract, there is nothing similar in the Qin bamboo slips excavated by later generations.

In Qin, land can never be bought or sold! After all, only under the premise of state-owned land, land conferment system and military merit conferment, these two foundations of the Qin State can be maintained, at least until Qin Shihuang unified the world and announced that "the head of Guizhou will own the land", farmers There are land use rights but no ownership rights.

Thinking about it this way, the national conditions of Da Qin and my country are quite similar.

And don’t think that big fields mean big harvests. On the contrary, in this era, precisely because the harvest from cultivated land is so small, it is absolutely impossible to feed a family without allocating so much land.

"Brother uncle."

While sitting on the ridge to rest, Heifu asked him by the way: "Last year during our autumn harvest, how much was the harvest per acre?"

Zhong Ye sat on the street. After walking for a while, his leg was a little sore. But unlike Hei Fu, he looked at the land in front of him, his eyes full of longing and expectation. As a farmer, how could he not love the land? of?

"For millet, it's 2 shi, and for rice, it's more, 3 shi per mu. The land in Nanjun is humid and humid, not as good as Guanzhong. When I was serving in the garrison, I heard soldiers from Guanzhong say that there, the millet yield per mu can be as high as It’s doubled or tripled!” As the backbone of the family, Zhong has to keep an eye on whether he will receive more or less every year.

The "stone" here refers to the volume, not the weight. After all, there is no time to do precise weighing these days. When farmers threshed millet and pounded rice, they put it into buckets and liters with a fixed volume. The "Shang Yang Fang Sheng" distributed to various counties in Xianyang was the standard measuring instrument of this era. As the saying goes, "Shang Yang Fang Sheng" , fighting against rice is the same, and the same is true when paying grain rent.

Heifu has been here for so long and has carried rice on his shoulders countless times, so he has a rough idea. So I know, according to my eldest brother, in my own land, the yield of millet is about 50 jin per mu, and the yield of rice is about 70 jin per mu.

What is this concept?

In his previous life, Heifu's hometown was in the countryside, and he was also knowledgeable about grains. He knew that modern hybrid rice fields could produce up to 2,000 catties per acre of land! As for millet, if planted in a large area, one acre can produce eight or nine hundred catties!

In other words, the grain output per mu in this era is only about a few tenths of that in the 21st century.

Productivity, which was just a dry word in textbooks in its previous life, now seems so deadly. If people want to fill their stomachs, and if the yield per mu cannot be increased, they can only expand the planting area. It is no wonder that the average land occupied by each person at this time is so large.

Therefore, Heifu can especially understand the difficulties of farming in this era. Without the help of mechanization, the work that each farmer has to do is ten times or even dozens of times that of later generations! A family of five to eight people must work in the fields day and night during the busy farming season in order to cultivate so much land.

The farmers of the Qin State, under the guidance of field officials appointed by the government, had moved away from the stage of slash-and-burn cultivation and began to cultivate intensively. "Cang Lv" even teaches farmers step by step, saying that when sowing seeds, use two and two-thirds of a bushel of rice and hemp per acre, one bushel of millet and wheat, and two-thirds of a bushel of millet and beans... …

But even so, the output of millet is only a little higher than the "1.5 shi per mu" produced by the Wei state 200 years ago. With the heavy rents and taxes, the output is at best half-starved.

After all, there are no chemical fertilizers and pesticides these days, which brings not ecology but low yield. Farm tools are a mixture of wood, stone, bone, copper, and iron, and farming techniques also need to be improved. If you want to have a good harvest, you can only use water conservancy to forcibly improve it. Guanzhong with Zhengguo Canal and CD Plain with Dujiangyan have become the largest granary of the Qin State, supporting the King of Qin in launching war after war.

Now Heifu has been allocated a hundred acres of land alone. Although it looks beautiful at first glance, when he thinks about it carefully, he has no desire to cultivate it at all.

"Brother... As you said, we'd better find someone to farm this land." Hei Fu's scalp went numb when he thought of so much farm work.

Zhong nodded and said: "This matter is not urgent. In the past two months, I have been asking in the countryside if there are any mediocre farmers who are willing to farm."

Although the land grant system was implemented, not everyone in Qin had land. There were always some wanderers and people who had committed crimes who had their fields confiscated. Because the Qin Law's concept of land is that it does not allow people to occupy the manhole without shitting. Are you not active in farming? Okay, stop planting, take it back to the state and give it to others to plant!

The most typical example is the Dongmen Bao family. Because his father drowned while drunk, which was considered a violation of the law, the land was confiscated and there was no space for him to steal seeds near the county seat. Dongmen Bao could only rely on other ways to make a living. The same goes for the Xiao Tao family. The father and son are working as sharecroppers and may be reduced to servants at any time.

The eldest brother pointed to the edge of the field and said, "I called you to see the field today because I want to discuss it and recruit some manpower to build the field first."

Although Heifu's land is large, it also has boundaries. A square mound of earth was piled at the four corners of the field, called a "feng". Others' fields were built with four earth walls along the feng, which is called "Qi". , used to mark land boundaries.

When the two brothers were pointing to the fields, several people happened to pass by behind them. One of them had a bun on his head and a wooden crown. He looked like a tall, thin old farmer with his hands behind his back. He looked at them from a distance and said, "These are not Zhong brothers." Two people?"

This man was in the sunset, and he went down to work with a few subordinates. Zhonghe Heifu had no choice but to stand up and give him his hand.

"I've seen Rizheng."

But Li Zheng said with a bad expression: "Zhong, Heifu, what are you doing hanging around this seal? The law states that if you destroy the seal, whether intentionally or unintentionally, it will be regarded as a 'stealing seal', and you must You are sentenced to long term imprisonment. If you dare to shovel them secretly and expand your own field a few steps further, that would be 'land theft' and the punishment would be even heavier! Humph, don't blame me for not warning you!"

How could anyone mistake someone for a thief at the first word? Hei Fu felt unhappy in his heart.

The feud between Zheng Zheng and his family originated from eight years ago when Zheng Zheng's son also fell in love with his sister-in-law Aoi and wanted to be his concubine. But Kui wanted to marry her eldest brother. Finally, thanks to their eldest aunt's sweet words... no, kind words, Kui's family agreed to the marriage.

From then on, the Li Zheng family began to frequently make things difficult for the Zhong brothers: when they borrowed cattle for spring plowing, they were only given to the weakest old cattle, and when they borrowed iron farm tools, they were all tattered.

This is why the first thing Heifu did after he got the money was to ask his eldest brother to buy a complete set of iron farm tools, because he didn't want to look at other people's faces anymore.

Heifu also thought that he was assigned to serve as a regular soldier during the Chinese New Year, and he might have been hindered by Li Zheng.

He looked at Li Zheng with a somewhat unkind look, but the eldest brother just bowed and smiled and said: "Thank you Li Zheng for reminding me, we will never break the law knowingly, but there is something I want to ask Li Zheng."

Zhong said: "I inherited the title of Duke from my late father. Every year, there is a bastard (servant) to help with the farming, but there was none last year. Not to mention, my younger brother has newly obtained the title of Duke, and he can take care of it by himself. It’s just a hundred acres of land for Li Zheng, so it’s time to give it to him as a bastard this year, right?”

Li Zheng still had a straight face: "So what if you are a minister? You are a great minister? I am still a superior! There are only a few concubines, but there are seven or eight households with nobles. How can we get a share? According to the law, concubines should be given priority. It will be distributed to those with official positions, and then distributed to each family according to their household registration number. Sooner or later it will be your family's turn, so just wait and see!"

After saying that, he sneered and left.

At this time, Heifu finally couldn't bear it anymore and asked loudly: "I would like to ask Li Zheng, if I also become an official, will the concubine be assigned to my family first?"

"Is it up to you to be an official?"

Li Zheng turned around, glanced at Hei Fu with disdain, and said contemptuously: "When your family was in Chu, they were common people like ministers and concubines, serving my family for generations. After entering Qin, you were lucky enough to get a public official. Now you still want to be an official? Let’s wait for a few more generations!”

After saying that, he raised his head and left with his ministers.

When the Zheng family here ruled in the Chu Kingdom, it was a small clan in this area with a prosperous population. After entering the Qin Dynasty, he was also promoted as Li Zheng. In his heart, he looked down on Zhong and Heifu, who had been poor for generations.

"Zhima is a big and upright person, but he is arrogant and dares to secretly use small means to retaliate against my family, bah."

Li Zheng walked away, Heifu felt as if he had eaten a fly, and his good mood these days was ruined. But think about it, aren't there many village chiefs and village party secretaries in later generations who are like this? They are corrupt, bend the law, collude with each other, and act like a local tyrant.

"After all, he is an official, Heifu. The family is counting on you to be an official, or you can make him restrain himself." Zhong smiled wryly and shook his head. Life at home has become increasingly difficult in the past few years, and it has something to do with Li Zheng's revenge. , but they can only dare to be angry but dare not speak.

The people must not fight with the officials. This is the same in every era.

But Heifu looked at Li Zheng's peacock-like pace and smiled instead of getting angry.

"Brother, just wait. One day, I will make it impossible for his family to be upright!"

…

PS: The data in this chapter comes from the "Research on Grain Yield per Mu in Qin and Han Dynasties". Because the records used are mainly from the Han Dynasty, they have been slightly reduced.