That's right. This isn't a city from later times. There are no electric lights, and Lin Yang hasn't even installed streetlights. Does he really think glass is free?
Moreover, if Lin Yang calmed down and listened carefully, he would find that it was very quiet. It was really very quiet. Because of the guards, there wasn't even the chirping of insects in the entire mansion.
As for the guards and maids, who would dare to make a loud noise in the Duke of Wu's mansion? Even if they had something to say, they would try to speak in a low voice.
"Sigh, living in the city, I miss the countryside and want to find a quiet place. But now that it's quiet, I miss the noisy and glamorous city life. How pathetic!" Lin Yang muttered to himself.
Suddenly, he raised his head, twitched his ears, and then continued to sit in the pavilion, gazing at the stars without moving.
"Go and get a pot of good wine, and bring over a few plates of fruit."
A moment later, a guard brought out a jar of fine wine that had been aged for hundreds of years, along with some fresh fruit, all local specialties. At the same time, Guo Jia also arrived.
"Oh, my lord, you've prepared this in advance. Not bad, not bad. I'm in for a treat today." With that, he poured himself a glass of wine. Then, he closed his eyes and began to savor it.
"Fine wine, this wine must be over four hundred years old. Only here with our lord can we drink such fine wine," Guo Jia said with a smile.
Wine that's over four hundred years old—only in a mythical world like this could such a thing exist. In my previous life, no matter how rich you were, you couldn't buy wine that was over four hundred years old!
"Furthermore, after the Wu Kingdom officially opens its doors, you will be granted the title of Baron. At that time, you will have an entire village as your fief. According to the Han system, a 'ting' (亭) is ten li (里), and a 'cun' (村) is ten 'ting' (亭). One li is 375 mu (亩). In other words, it won't be long before you become a super landlord with 37,500 mu (亩) of land!"
“When the time comes, you can take out 7,500 acres to develop real estate, open factories, and build pavilions and towers. Wouldn’t you live like an immortal? Then, would you still need such a little bit of fine wine?” Lin Yang said with a smile.
"Haha, then thank you very much for the reward, my lord," Guo Jia said with a smile. As he spoke, he drank several more cups of fine wine and ate some fruit. After a while, he stopped.
"By the way, it's so late, Fengxiao, did you finish the statistics?" Lin Yang asked curiously.
Logically speaking, counting each of the 120 townships and 1200 villages one by one, then categorizing them and calculating exactly how much silver, iron ore, and people the Wu Kingdom had gained this time, would be a very time-consuming task.
In addition, it is necessary to calculate how many workers Wu needs to fulfill these orders, how many more factories it needs to open, and where the best place to build the factories would be.
Honestly, Lin Yang thought that all this work must have taken at least several days. But now it seems that Guo Jia has already solved it. He can only say, that's really impressive.
"Good, the statistics are complete. Since all the guests had made arrangements in advance, that is, signed contracts, the statistics were quite convenient. Just add up the numbers."
Actually, Guo Jia didn't really approve of signing the contract. It was practically questioning the guests' character. In classical times, in an era where everyone valued integrity, questioning someone's trustworthiness was a very serious matter.
However, since Lin Yang insisted, he didn't say much more, after all, it was just a small matter. As long as one is clear-headed about important matters, it doesn't matter if one is a little confused about minor ones. As the saying goes, a lord who is clear-headed about important matters is already an excellent lord.
"This time, the powerful families in Jingzhou, including those in Xiangyang, Jiangling, Jiangxia, and even the four southern prefectures of Jingzhou, have all placed substantial orders. About one-third have decided to bring 100,000 people over. About one-third have decided to bring 10,000 people over first. As for the remaining third, they are only investing in 1,000 people."
"However, despite this, the aristocratic families in Jingzhou alone number 2.2 million. Although the aristocratic families in Huainan are not as wealthy as those in Jingzhou, their population is very dense. Therefore, Huainan provides a total of 2.6 million people."
"As for the powerful families of Jiangdong, they also cooperated with us, but Jiangdong has the smallest population, providing a total of 1.2 million people. Adding them together, that makes 6 million people. In addition, there are many independent people who provided 1,100 people each. Although it doesn't seem like much, the number of independent people is the largest, and together they make up 1 million people."
"Therefore, if they transport all the people here, there will still be seven million people. However, it will take a long time, probably at least half a year, to transport all of them here," Guo Jia said excitedly.
Seven million people! That's seven million people! Add that to the original 1.2 million, and that's over eight million people. If they're settled properly, the Wu Kingdom will truly take off!
"Well, how much grain do we have now? After seven million people come, can we guarantee they won't starve to death? Also, how are their houses and fields being prepared? Should we proceed with large-scale land reclamation?" Lin Yang asked hurriedly.
To be honest, Lin Yang didn't care how much money he made this time. Because money wasn't as important as people. Money could be stolen from other worlds, but losing people was a real problem.
"Rest assured, my lord. Last year, the entire Wu Kingdom had more than five million mu of land. After this bumper harvest, in order to prevent a sharp drop in grain prices and the harm to farmers caused by low grain prices, in accordance with your orders, we purchased grain at 80% of last year's market price without any limit. So far, we have purchased 20 million shi of grain."
"Adding the harvest from the original one million mu of public land, that brings the total to thirty-one million shi of grain. If we wish, we can raise the price and continue purchasing, and we should be able to purchase another ten million shi of grain. With these forty million shi of grain, feeding eight million people for a year should not be a problem!" Guo Jia affirmed.
To be honest, Guo Jia was also surprised when he first came to this conclusion. How could there suddenly be so much grain? But it was true, and in a way, we have to thank Yuan Shao. He elevated the agricultural level of the Han Dynasty from the classical feudal era to the modern era.
"By the way, how many of the Yuanzhi looms were sold in total?" Lin Yang suddenly asked.
"The Yuanzhi loom was one of the most popular products. To the customers, it was practically robbery. After all, cloth itself was wealth, it was money. So it was the most popular, and a total of 500,000 units were sold! But each unit only cost 100 taels of silver. Even with the population-for-preferential-policy policy, we only made 20 million taels of silver in the end," Guo Jia said, somewhat puzzled.
In his view, these looms were simply robbery. Even if they were priced at a thousand taels, they would still sell. Why were they so cheap?
Seeing Guo Jia's puzzled expression, Lin Yang couldn't help but laugh. The small loom, seemingly only useful for robbing money, actually...?
It was that unassuming loom that destroyed the small-scale farming economy!
At this time, the economy of the Han Dynasty can be seen as a distorted small-scale peasant economy. In short, it was self-sufficient, with men farming and women weaving!
The problem is that the efficiency of each loom is equivalent to that of dozens of skilled women working together.
So here's the question: how many women and how many families could be bankrupted by 500,000 looms?
Moreover, if we already have 500,000 units, how far away can we be with 5 million? When the Yuanzhi loom is ubiquitous across the country, will the traditional model of men farming and women weaving still exist? Suddenly, the income of ordinary families will drop by a third. What will happen? Bankruptcy? Bankruptcy!
Therefore, Lin Yang's heart is quite ruthless. However, with the changing times, someone will always get hurt and bleed. Even if Lin Yang himself doesn't push this process forward, it's only a matter of time.
However, at that moment, Lin Yang suddenly had an ominous premonition. Looking up at the sky, his divine eye revealed boundless black tribulation clouds!
"not good!"
As far as the eye could see, the entire sky was filled with dark, ominous clouds. It was as if the whole world was about to face a catastrophe.
After reviewing the original owner's memories, Lin Yang discovered that this was a sign of an impending world-class calamity.
But how could such a calamity suddenly occur without any reason? And a world-wide calamity at that, as if the entire world is doomed. No one within the main world can escape it!
"A world-class calamity, this is truly a catastrophe! Could it be an extraterrestrial demon god? Or perhaps the Black Lotus Prince has invaded prematurely? But that doesn't make sense. Shouldn't the Black Lotus Prince be at most as strong as I am now? Could the butterfly effect have already had such a significant impact?"
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Chapter 50: The Invasion of the Immortal Qin, Liu Bang's Battle Against Xu Fu
Just as Lin Yang realized something was wrong, all the top experts in the Heavenly Secrets Sect of the entire Han Dynasty also sensed something ominous.
However, unlike Lin Yang, who could see everything clearly using his Divine Eye of Luck, most of them acted on a whim. Even worse, some, while in seclusion, in a state of perfect harmony with heaven and earth, suddenly coughed up blood and suffered internal injuries.
"Heaven and earth are turning upside down, the universe is reversed, calamity, calamity!" said an old man with white hair who had just spat out a mouthful of blood and looked extremely weak.