Chapter 73 – Haxxing the Agriculture
January 11th. Julu City
Tong summoned the farmer representatives to the government hall. He wanted to inquire about the crops around this city areas.
Zhang Jiao, Hua Shi and the rest of the officials were gathered at the Treasury to prepare for the auction, so Tong had all the hall for himself.
Meanwhile, Lu Zhi sat to the side. He wanted to observe how Tong would handle the internal affairs.
Today, Tong did not wear his usual armor uniform. Instead, he was wearing a dark-yellow scholar robe.
A group of withered elders nervously walked into the main hall. Their grey clothes were ragged as if they were wearing them for a decade. They kowtowed on the ground the moment they were asked to stop walking forward.
"Stand up, you don't need to kowtow."
"T-Thank you, my lord." The elders stood up.
"What's your name?" Tong pointed at the leader of the group.
"I-I'm called Old Tai. I don't have a surname, my lord."
"Can you tell me what type of crops we're growing in this areas?"
Although Tong already studied the geographic of this city, he still valued the information from the local workers. The viewpoints and experiences of the laborers were essential if Tong wanted to change something or introduce something new to them.
"We can only grow wheat, my lord."
"Have you tried other kinds of vegetables? Like peas, cabbages or carrots? Do you know that they can be planted in winter or in the next month?"
"We also wanted to. But … the seeds were expensive and rare. If we plant those, then we will make a loss. And … and …"
The old man hesitated. He was afraid that if he spoke out, Tong might kill him.
Seeing how panic the old man was, Tong activated his [Calming Aura] to calm everyone down. Then Tong spoke out.
"Was the tax too much for you?"
Tong was aware of the excessive tax law when Guo Dian held his post. If any farmers wished to use the farming land of the city lord, they had to pay 90% taxes with the yielded crops when the harvest season arrived.
Although the farmers could keep 10% of the crops, they had to foot the bills for their seeds and their other costs themselves. As a result, they could barely make ends meet.
As for the 90% of the crops that Guo Dian took, he always sold almost all of it to merchants to convert them into gold and coins. Afterward, he distributed the gold to his crook subordinates and himself.
It was a sickening government system that he and his father hated the most.
"N-No! Not at all!"
Seeing the old man lied to protect himself in fear, Tong sighed.
"It's fine. I know you are lying and you are not alright with the previous stupid law. I'm going to change it for you. From now on, the city government will acquire the necessary seeds, and you can use them to plant the crops within our territory. As for the taxes, I will reduce it down to 20%. How is that sound to you?"
Lu Zhi, who was listening to the side, jumped up from his seat. He was about to argue with Tong, but Tong raised his hand to stop Lu Zhi's action.
"I know why you want to stop me. Please let me do this, master."
Lu Zhi gazed at Tong and nodded. He returned to his seat to continue observing.
Meanwhile, the representatives could not believe their ears. They were shivering in excitement. This was the best news that they had ever heard in their life.
All of them bowed and thanked Tong in frantic.
"Don't assume that I will help you with everything. Although I reduce your taxes and give you seeds, there will be conditions. Be sure to listen to me carefully!"
Tong started laying out conditions to them.
One, 80% of the crops that they had could only be consumed by themselves or sell it to the city government. If they got caught selling it to other merchants other than the city hall, they would be charged with smuggling and thievery. The punishment would be imprisonment for ten years or free-labor for the city hall for five years.
Two, the city government would have the right to control the buying and selling prices of the crops.
Three, they could not take the seeds to plant it somewhere else other than the farms which were under the city government control. If the seeds were found on other noble's farms or other private territories, the smugglers would be charged with smuggling and thievery.
Lu Zhi raised his eyebrows up in surprise.
'Zhang Tong wanted to control the flow of provision? If it is so, then the next move should be … seizing the lands from the nobles? Or he will control the merchants? But all of these conditions are still unreasonable! How can he come up with these!?'
The representatives did not think much about the conditions. As long as they had more food for their families, then they were more than happy to accept. Thus, they kowtowed and acknowledged it.
After all of the representatives left, Lu Zhi spoke up.
"The standard grain tax of every city is 50-70%, yet a few of them has a hard time trying to upkeep the troops. Are you sure that it was the right move? Although Julu is one of the major agriculture cities, the annual harvest average was only 20,000 tons to 30,000 tons of grain. With a 20 percent tax, you get only 4,000 tons a year! You won't be able to sell anything for gold to pay for the officials! I don't even know if you will have enough food for the garrison army or not! Then, there is a problem with the seeds, if we are responsible for the costs, we will run out of gold before the planting season arrives."
Lu Zhi was right on most parts. When they arrived here, they had only 13,000 soldiers. But after they absorbed the local troops that were sent to retrain, their numbers increased to 20,000.
With these amount of troops, they required an upkeep of 20 tons of grain each day to support all soldiers. As a result, Julu City had to procure at least 7,300 tons of food each year at the minimum.
Most importantly, the wages of the officials were also expensive. Most minor officials had a salary of one tael of gold a year, while the seniors with higher rank could go up to 10 taels of gold a year. Tong also set the wage of Zhou Cang, Bo Cai and everyone in his family as 100 gold a month.
By combining the total gold they had to pay everyone, the upkeep for this single city was 9,000 to 10,000 gold a year.
But Lu Zhi underestimated Tong one thing, he had cheat skills.
"Master, relax. I have a counter-measure." Tong still had a calm expression on his face.
He closed his eyes and tried to image a bowl of rice within his mind. Then he extended his hand and pointed his palm toward the empty flat ground in the government hall.
'If the skill can create any food or raw ingredient of the food I have eaten, then I should be able to create the seeds too'
…
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[Create Food] LV.1 (0/10,000)
- Create a food product or raw food ingredient.
- 1kg of food can be created from one usage.
Skill Cost: 1 Lifespan
Skill Restriction:
- Host cannot create a food that host has never eaten before.
*********************************
…
'Create food!'
*WINK*
Light flashed from the extended palm of Tong. Afterward, a pile of raw rice seeds appeared out of nowhere on in the hall.
"WHAT!?"
Lu Zhi rubbed his eyes twice in shock. Then he gazed at Tong in awe.
"You … You are really an immortal?"
Tong shrugged to Lu Zhi as his answer. He pointed his palm to another empty ground.
'Again. Create food! Give me cabbage seeds this time.'
*WINK*
Another pile of brown seeds appeared in the hall.
Seeing that his theory was proven successful, Tong spammed his food creation for more types of vegetable seeds.
*WINK*
*WINK*
*WINK*
…
…
…
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[Create Food] LV.2 (0/20,000)
- Create a food product or raw food ingredient.
- 10kg of food can be created from one usage.
Skill Cost: 1 Lifespan
Skill Restriction:
- Host cannot create a food that host has never eaten before.
*********************************
…
Tong continued spamming [Create Food] until it was leveled up. Then he nodded in satisfaction.
The hall was filled with several piles of brown, black, green and white seeds. Tong had lost count of how much weight each type of seeds he had created, but he still remembered which one was which.
"Anyone there!? Get in here!" Tong summoned his servant.
Two servants immediately rushed in, but they came to a pause when they saw several piles of seeds on each side of the hall.
"You two, go get some help. I want you to transport all of these seeds to the city granary. I'll give you another instruction once you've completed the task. Now, go!"