gnovel Chapter 31 Food is the most important thing for the people
Chapter 31 Food is the most important thing for the people
Li Sheng stood at the door, his eyes sweeping over the grain in the warehouse, quickly estimating its contents in his mind.
If one warehouse is like this, imagine the three warehouses combined...
He turned and walked to the second and third warehouses, opening them one by one.
Almost identical, packed full.
Behind him, the tenant who had led the way stared wide-eyed, his mouth agape, as if he had been frozen in place at the doorway.
The other local militia members who came along were also dumbfounded.
A burly man murmured.
"This...this must be a lot of food..."
"That should be enough to feed the entire Dongpingli area for several years, right?"
"We couldn't finish it in several lifetimes!"
Li Sheng did not respond.
He walked into the granary and casually grabbed a handful of golden wheat from an open burlap sack.
The wheat grains were plump and heavy in my hand, exuding the unique fragrance of grains.
The Wang family is indeed wealthy.
Suddenly, a "gurgling" sound rang out in the room.
Li Sheng's ears twitched slightly.
With his keen hearing, he instantly identified the source of the sound: the tenant who had led the way, whose stomach was growling.
Li Sheng turned around and his gaze fell on the young man.
The young man's face immediately turned red, and he instinctively covered his stomach with his hand.
"What's your name?"
Li Sheng asked.
"Replying to...replying to my benefactor, my name is Wang Fu."
The young man's voice trembled slightly.
Li Sheng nodded, looking at him calmly.
"Wang Fu, haven't you guys had a proper meal in a long time?"
These words are like a key, unlocking something.
Wang Fu's eyes immediately reddened. He bit his lip, trying hard to hold back his tears, but they still kept falling.
No one ever cared whether these commoners had enough to eat...
"My benefactor..."
His voice was hoarse and choked with sobs.
"To be honest, it's not just my family. In this whole area, who can get enough to eat? After paying taxes and rent to the Wang family all year round, we don't even have enough grain left to eat for thin porridge. We've eaten wild vegetables, tree bark, and clay... Winter is the hardest. Some families run out of food and huddle together, waiting... waiting to starve to death."
As he spoke, his voice grew softer and softer until it was almost inaudible.
Several other people nearby also spoke up.
"Yes, my benefactor, as you know, the harvests have been poor for years, and everyone is going hungry..."
"Even if the bandits don't come this time, we people will either have to sell ourselves to the Wang family as tenant farmers, or we'll have to go to other places as refugees and see if we can find a bite to eat..."
The people chattered amongst themselves, their voices filled with bitterness and helplessness.
Li Sheng listened quietly without interrupting.
He still held the handful of wheat in his hand, the grains falling softly through his fingers.
Li Sheng suddenly spoke.
"Let's count all this grain; I need to know exactly how much there is. Anyone who can do math, please lend a hand!"
At this moment, the eyes of the people following behind them lit up, and they all raised their hands.
"My benefactor, I will! I will!"
"My benefactor, I can do that too. I once helped that old scoundrel Wang transport grain..."
These people are very enthusiastic.
In the past, grain was always weighed and delivered to the master; there was never a time to weigh it for oneself.
"Everyone, stop arguing. There's no room for so many people in the warehouse. You, you... and you, come in..."
Li Sheng casually picked out a few men who looked quick and efficient to come in and help.
Li Shengxian walked around the granary, inspecting the sacks.
The bags were all the same size, made of coarse linen, and the openings were tied tightly.
He bent down, patted a few bags, and looked at the shape of the stack, and then he had a plan in mind.
"Are the contents of each of these bags roughly the same?"
Wang Fu nodded quickly.
"Reporting to my benefactor, that old scoundrel from the Wang family had his servants measure the grain by the bushel, and weigh each bag. The difference was negligible."
Li Sheng nodded and gave the instructions.
"Then let's weigh each type of grain first, and then count them separately."
"promise!"
Everyone got busy, and Li Sheng joined in.
Time passed slowly, and after more than an hour, everyone finally finished counting the numbers and reported it to Li Sheng.
Li Sheng went through the numbers in his mind and came up with one.
More than 7,200 shi (a unit of dry measure).
The three warehouses contained a total of over 7,200 shi of grain!
Rounded up or down, that's nearly ten thousand bushels of grain!
The people present gasped in shock when they heard the number.
More than seven thousand shi, that's a lot of money...
Li Sheng's brow twitched slightly, his mind already racing with calculations.
One shi is equal to ten dou, which is equal to one hundred sheng.
To be more specific, one shi is equal to two hu, because in the Han Dynasty, ten dou made one shi and two hu made one shi. However, people in general used "shi" more often than "hu".
Today, one shi (石) of wheat is equivalent to about 30 jin (斤) in the Han Dynasty system, and one jin is about 250 grams today. Calculated this way, one shi of wheat is 7,500 grams, or 15 jin.
An adult male, if doing hard labor, needs to eat two jin of grain a day just to barely be full. If he drinks thin porridge, he still needs more than one jin. Even if he eats sparingly, each person still needs one and a half jin a day.
One shi (石) of grain, or fifteen jin (市斤), is only enough to feed one male adult for ten days.
More than 7,200 shi, which is about 108,000 jin.
It's enough to feed 10,000 people for seven days, or enough to feed 1,000 people for two and a half months.
How many households are there in Dongpingli? About a hundred households, four or five hundred people.
If we transport this grain back, it will be enough to feed the entire village for at least half a year!
Moreover, many of them are not male, so their daily food intake is even reduced...
Li Sheng understood the situation, but remained outwardly calm.
He turned around, his gaze sweeping over the people who were anxiously waiting for the grain, and suddenly spoke.
"Everyone, are you all hungry?"
The people were taken aback at first, then nodded in unison.
Li Sheng didn't rush to have people move the sacks from the granary; instead, he looked at Wang Fu.
"Wang Fu, where is the Wang family's kitchen?"
Wang Fu was taken aback and quickly pointed in the direction of the fortified village's front courtyard.
"Reporting to my benefactor, it's located on the east side of the front yard. The kitchen is connected to the woodshed, and the cooking pots and stoves are already in place."
"lead the way."
Li Sheng lifted his foot and walked out. Several local militiamen and villagers looked at each other in bewilderment and hurriedly followed.
The Wang family's kitchen was quite large, complete with a stove, cutting board, and water tank.
The embers in the stove were still warm, clearly indicating that they had been used a few days earlier when the people in the fortified village evacuated.
Li Sheng pushed open the door, glanced around, and went straight to the large earthenware urns and wooden cabinets in the corner of the kitchen.
Open the first jar, and you'll find it full of white rice, already pounded.
Opening the second earthenware jar revealed golden wheat grains. Unlike the whole grains in the granary, the wheat grains here had clearly been coarsely ground, with most of them broken into particles with bran attached.
After searching for a while, they found a bag of beans, half a vat of aged brown rice, and even some dried meat and a few strings of dried vegetables.
Li Sheng had a plan in mind.
Although the Wang family's kitchen supplies weren't much, they were enough to cook several large pots of thick porridge.
These grains are already processed semi-finished products, ready to be cooked directly, without the need for hulling, pounding, or grinding.