Compared with Linbian County, Linshui County is much larger and more prosperous.
The city wall of Linshui County is more than six meters high. There is a moat nearly ten meters wide under the city wall, and there are mountains behind and to the left and right. If you want to break the city, you can only attack from the front. Therefore, it is a good development base.
After a high-level meeting, Song Yan assigned troops and horses to garrison three counties respectively, leaving only 8,000 troops in the county.
But soon, after checking Linshui County's finances, Song Yan became worried.
Qi State now has more than 26,000 soldiers and about 10,000 auxiliary soldiers. Plus thousands of civilians, the total number of soldiers and horses has exceeded 40,000.
These soldiers and horses have to open their mouths to eat and receive military pay.
However, the taxes in this era were very simple. In addition to agricultural taxes, there were only some miscellaneous small taxes. It can be said that the fiscal revenue of the county and city was very weak and could not afford to support 40,000 troops and horses. In the past few decades, wars have been raging, and civilians Life is very hard, and even agricultural taxes cannot be collected, let alone miscellaneous taxes.
If the 30,000 horses and horses brought by Gu Min were subdued, nearly 100,000 people would have to be supported by a mere Linshui County. Even if the tax revenue was doubled, it would not be possible.
Therefore, we must find ways to generate income as soon as possible, otherwise, if the soldiers are left hungry, the soldiers themselves will rebel before the troops from other countries come to attack.
After thinking for a while, Song Yan thought of two ways to increase income.
First, develop business.
Second, war.
Developing business is not something that can be done in a short while. Moreover, in this era, it is difficult for ordinary people to fill their stomachs. Where can they get the spare money to buy so-called goods? Therefore, in order to develop business, we must ensure that all ordinary people have enough to eat. , can make money.
As for the second way, a lot of supplies can be plundered through war. However, this is only a temporary solution, not the root cause. As the territory expands, the consumption will be greater.
Thinking of this, Song Yan thought, why not do this? Attack the city and grab supplies without occupying the territory.
With a plan in mind, Song Yan recruited Song Xiu.
"How are papermaking and movable type printing going?" Song Yan asked.
"Back to General, according to the papermaking process you provided, it should be done in three to five days, but the movable type printing has been completed." Song Xiu replied truthfully.
"Very good. Report to me as soon as the paper is made." Song Yan nodded. He wrote down the papermaking and movable type printing techniques in extremely detail, and anyone could make them step by step.
The raw materials for paper making are very simple. Since paper can be made in just a few days, it is better to prepare the raw materials as soon as possible.
After Song Xiu retreated, Song Yan summoned Shen Du again.
"How is the census and cultivated land survey going?" Song Yan asked directly.
Shen Du said: "Back to General, our Linshui County currently has 100,000 households and more than 325,600 people."
"So few?" Song Yan frowned. There were only more than 300,000 people in a county. It seems that in the real world, the population of an ordinary county is larger than this.
However, considering that in this era of backward technology, backward sanitary conditions, and continuous wars, it is not bad to have more than 300,000 people in one county.
"How many acres of cultivated land are there? How is the production?" Song Yan continued to ask.
"Back to the General, Linshui County has a total of 100,000 acres of arable land. The crops grown by civilians are mainly corn, wheat and soybeans. The yield of corn per acre is about 200 liters, and the yield of wheat is about 220 liters. Soybeans are eighty liters a year.”
One liter is equal to 1.25 kilograms. When converted, the yields per mu of these three crops are very low. Compared with the output of several thousand kilograms per mu in the real world, they are simply weak.
The agricultural tax revenue is 50%.
Moreover, this 50% still needs to be collected under good weather conditions. Once a natural disaster occurs, it cannot be collected at all.
Let’s calculate the cost of soldiers.
A soldier eats one kilogram of corn every day, which is 30 kilograms in a month, 360 kilograms in a year, 36,000 kilograms for a hundred soldiers, and 3.6 million kilograms for 10,000 soldiers.
The 100,000 acres of cultivated land in Linshui County only produces 2.5 million jins of corn. The official harvest is half, which is 1.25 million jins. Add in 1.385 million jins of wheat and 500,000 jins of soybeans. The total is less than 3 million jins. .
In other words, Linshui County's annual grain tax cannot even support ten thousand soldiers.
But now there are 40,000 mouths, and they have to eat with Song Yan. After such a detailed calculation, he realized the seriousness of the problem. It seems that after Gu Min's 30,000 army is conquered this time, he will have to start a plundering war. , otherwise the soldiers would go hungry.
"By the way, how much food is left in the county?" Song Yan asked again.
"The total volume is less than one million liters." Shen Du said solemnly.
"So little?" Song Yan frowned even more. One million liters of grain could last for up to a month for 40,000 soldiers and horses.
After letting Shen Du go down to do the work, Song Yan called Zhao Yan and asked him how much food he still had in the army.
The answer he got made Song Yan even more urgent. The remaining food in the army was only enough to last for seven days.
In other words, he only had thirty-seven days. Beyond this time, the army would have no food to eat.
With a thought in his mind, Song Yan took out the map of China Continent that he drew by himself.
Linshui County is also a frontier city, bordering the desert to the north, Heiyan County to the south, which is the territory of the Chu State, Yi'an County to the west, which is the territory of the Zhao State, and Fan County to the east, which is also the territory of the State of Chu. The county town of Zhao State.
"Do you know the deployment of troops and horses in Yi'an County and Fan County?"
After hearing Song Yan's inquiry, Zhao Yan thought for a while: "There are about 6,000 people in Yi'an County and more than 8,000 people in Fan County."
"If I give you 10,000 troops, how long will it take for you to attack Yi'an County or Fan County?" Song Yan looked at Zhao Yan and said.
Zhao Yan pondered and said: "The city of Yi'an County is three feet high and the moat is five feet deep. If we want to attack, it will be difficult to break through in less than a month. Fan County is built in a valley basin. It only requires a thousand men and horses to guard the passage. Ten thousand men cannot." Break through!”
"In this way, you first do some detailed work to sneak into Yi'an and Fanjun to find out how much food they have in their treasury! Let's take the next step!"
"yes!"
After Zhao Yan retreated, Song Yan went to the courtyard where he lived. At the same time, he rubbed his head. There were so many things to worry about just managing a county. If you want to manage a country, you don't know how tiring it would be. No wonder Those so-called wise kings don't live long, they really have too many things to worry about.
As soon as he entered the courtyard, Song Yan found that Prince Jiang Dan was squatting on horseback under the supervision of two girls, Chun He Qiuxiang, and both of them were holding a whip. If his movements were not standard, he would be whipped.
At first, Chunhe Qiuxiang didn't dare to take action because Jiang Dan was the prince, but after being scolded by Song Yan several times, she could only slap her hard.
And after whipping Jiang Dan, they found that they all felt an inexplicable pleasure in their hearts. I wonder how many people in the world dare to whip the prince.
As for Jiang Dan who was whipped, he didn't hate Chunhe Qiuxiang, but he hated Song Yan half to death.
"I've seen the general!"
As soon as she saw Song Yan, Chunhe Qiuxiang abandoned Jiang Dan and came forward.
Compared to a few days ago, Chunhe Qiuxiang's complexion was much better, mainly because they had meat for every meal, and Song Yan also washed their hair and marrow and taught them a set of exercises.
After a few days, both women have developed internal strength. Relatively speaking, Qiuxiang's qualifications are higher.
Author's digression: Thanks to td91352077 for the big reward. (To be continued)