OBS Chapter 323 Not Enough Pigs
Chapter 323 Not Enough Pigs
The purpose of the imperial examination was to become an official.
The three of us are now officials.
Although participating in the imperial examinations would give them the opportunity to become higher-ranking officials, the three of them were currently too heavily associated with the Yang faction.
Given Yang Fuma's popularity in official circles, Wu Yanhu, Chen Mo, and Lü Peng felt that even if they passed the imperial examination, which superior would be willing to accept them?
Will they take out the anger they suffered at Yang Fuma's hands on themselves?
Therefore, rather than gambling on an uncertain path to officialdom through the imperial examinations, it would be better to obediently stay by Yang Fuma's side. As long as Yang Fuma doesn't fall from power, the three of them wouldn't need to worry about anything else.
Yang Shaofeng had more or less guessed what Wu Yanhu and the other two were thinking, so he did not try to persuade them to participate in the imperial examination. Instead, he smiled and read their work reports.
There are no problems with spring plowing in Ningyang County, and there are no problems with summer harvesting and sowing. The bean sprouts have begun to attack every resident of Ningyang County equally, and the population of Ningyang County has increased by more than a hundred.
Thanks to the large number of Semu laborers, the road from Ningyang County to Yanzhou Prefecture has been mostly repaired and is expected to be completed before winter. The second road can then be built next spring.
In addition, all the workshops in the county are operating well. The papermaking workshop has begun to stabilize, and the printing workshop is printing various books day and night.
It is precisely because of the existence of various workshops that there are now more shops in the county town. It is estimated that the commercial tax collected from the shops in the third year of Hongwu will reach an unprecedented 500 strings of cash, ten times the commercial tax collected in the second year of Hongwu.
If we also include the commercial taxes paid by the various workshops in Ningyang County, the commercial taxes that Ningyang County could have collected in the third year of Hongwu's reign might have even reached three thousand strings of cash.
What Yang Shaofeng valued even more was the reserve granary. Before the autumn harvest, the grain stored there was enough to feed the more than 3,000 people in Ningyang County for half a year. After the autumn harvest, the total amount of grain stored there was estimated to be enough to feed the people of Ningyang County for a year.
The only regrettable thing, and the only thing that gives Yang Shaofeng a headache, is that after the locust powder project completely failed, the luncheon meat workshop may also soon fail.
The reason why Luncheon Meat Factory is going out of business is somewhat funny.
There aren't enough pigs.
It's not just that there aren't enough pigs in Ningyang County's pig farms; pigs in nearby prefectures and counties have been wiped out, and luncheon meat factories are now facing the predicament of having no rice to cook.
As for sending people to search for live pigs in the Jiangnan area... Yang Shaofeng had considered such a thing, but he could only think about it in his mind. If he really sent people to Jiangnan to buy live pigs, not to mention how to ensure that the purchased live pigs would arrive in Ningyang County alive, and how to prevent them from losing weight during transportation, the manpower and resources required to transport fat pigs would be enough to give people a headache.
After all, people need to eat, and so do pigs. Without trucks, a large number of fat pigs would require a lot of manpower and horse-drawn carts for transportation. The round trip could be thousands of miles long, and just thinking about it would drive anyone crazy.
As for increasing the starch content and reducing the amount of pork used... that's not impossible. After all, this stuff is mainly sold to Xu Da as military rations. As long as it can keep you full, nothing else matters.
The real problem is that starch is not so easy to obtain. At the very least, the mung bean production in Ningyang County is not enough to support large-scale starch production, even if all the mung beans from the nearby prefectures and counties were combined.
Unless we send people to Jiangnan to buy large quantities of mung beans.
After thinking about it for a moment, Yang Shaofeng suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
wrong.
When transporting live pigs, you need to consider their survival and weight, but what do you need to consider when transporting mung beans?
As long as you take precautions against sun exposure and ensure proper ventilation, transporting mung beans from Jiangnan to Ningyang County is entirely feasible.
As for the texture of luncheon meat, that's even easier to solve.
Although the pork content is reduced, and there's not even an ounce of meat in a pound of luncheon meat, who am I?
I am the Prefect of Dengzhou.
The coastal area of Dengzhou has no shortage of various kinds of fish, shrimp, and seaweed.
I will buy fish, shrimp, and seaweed from the people, grind the shrimp powder and seaweed into powder to use as MSG, and then make a broth with chicken and pork bones. The deliciousness of the broth will definitely not be a problem.
The key point is that the people of Dengzhou Prefecture can earn money in the process, and more importantly, it can solve the problems of food and farming tools shortages in Dengzhou Prefecture—Dengzhou Prefecture's grain production is low, while Ningyang County's grain production is quite high. Ningyang County lacks seafood to make MSG, but Dengzhou Prefecture has plenty of that stuff. The people of Dengzhou Prefecture lack farming tools, but Ningyang County has ironworks, so producing farming tools is no problem at all!
Isn't this just a case of coordinated development between the two regions?
No, it's not just two places.
Because the distance between Ningyang County and Dengzhou Prefecture is not short, the transportation process involves passing through several counties. The people in charge of transportation must rest and eat in these counties, although some rest for a short time and some for overnight rest.
Consumption may occur during this process.
No matter how low the amount of consumption it generates, even if it's only ten coins, it can drive the development of a county with ten coins. And these ten coins may in turn drive other aspects, ultimately resulting in ten coins leveraging the scale of ten strings of cash.
More importantly, as long as the luncheon meat factory in Ningyang County spends money to buy seafood from the people of Dengzhou, some people in Dengzhou Prefecture will definitely go fishing on their own.
This also indirectly increased the people of Dengzhou Prefecture's trust in the imperial court and government.
Once the people have a higher level of trust in the imperial court and government, the salt fields and salt stoves can be put into operation earlier than originally planned.
There is now hope for resolving the mess left behind by those bastards Xu Zheng and Qu Mingjie.
The more Yang Shaofeng thought about it, the more reliable it seemed. So he simply said to Wu Yanhu, Chen Mo, and Lü Peng, "I have two more things to arrange for you to do."
"The first thing is to send people to Jiangnan to buy a large quantity of mung beans, as many as we can. After that, we will transport them all back to Ningyang County to make starch, which will then be given to the luncheon meat factory."
"The second thing is to have the ironworks in the county produce more shovels, hoes, rakes, plows and the like. Start with 10,000 sets, and for every 1,000 sets produced, have them transported to Dengzhou Prefecture."
After Wu Yanhu and the other two bowed in agreement, Yang Shaofeng continued, "After the autumn harvest is over these few days, I will have to return to Dengzhou first. You three still need to take good care of the affairs of Ningyang County."
"Besides ensuring the autumn harvest and the various workshops, the most important thing is to keep an eye on people's literacy. We must also keep a close eye on families with children of school age. Those who should be in school must be in school. We must not delay them."