Chapter 1105: Is the Distribution Reasonable?

"What are you planning to send? Have you decided? I'm about to write it down."

The official urged him in a low voice. Chengqie patted his head in a panic: "Oh my, I don't know what to send either. What are the other Nobles in Huaxia sending? Especially those Marquises—let me see what they are sending first."

Seeing no one outside, the official whispered the news he had heard: "Oh, I heard that this time, those Marquises are all sending a huge amount of things. Just in grain alone, one family is sending over ten thousand jin. No, I reckon it's more than ten thousand; it might even be twenty or thirty thousand jin. There's also Silk, animal hides, and all sorts of other things, but grain is still the main focus. Word is that our King is currently worried about grain, so don't all these Nobles have to use grain to show their loyalty?"

Chengqie was shocked: "No, how much grain did you say? Ten thousand jin? How is that possible? How could one family possibly have that much grain? Impossible, impossible, did you hear that wrong?"

Chengqie's hand gestured to show how big one jin of grain was. He now had a bit of a concept of the weight of grain, because there wasn't much else to teach in school, so the conversion of jin and liang was a very necessary part of the curriculum.

He had seen one liang, one jin, and one hundred jin, all placed in the classroom for them to pick up so they could get a more intuitive feel for it. In Chengqie's view, one hundred jin of grain was already quite a lot—enough for one person to get through the Winter. One thousand jin or ten thousand jin, he still felt was manageable, but twenty or thirty thousand jin! He feared a single room wouldn't be able to hold it. How many people would that have to feed? No matter how much grain a Noble family had, it couldn't possibly be that much. It's unreasonable!

But the official explained: "Oh, this is very normal. Your family hasn't fully moved over yet, so your grain is just enough for your own consumption, and you don't fear going hungry."

"But your family's fief has already been marked out. When the time comes, send some of your tribespeople over to clear and cultivate the land. Add in a few preferential policies and tax policies, and once the few years of tax exemption are over, the yield in just one or two years will be more than any other Noble in Huaxia."

"Ten thousand jin of grain—the tax revenue from your fief will be far more than that. The output from the private land of those Marquises is probably about that much, too."

"Their cultivated land—not their fiefs, mind you—after paying a little tax on the output, the rest is all theirs. Now their fiefs are even larger and have only just begun to be cleared. Oh, it's simply unimaginable! Once their fiefs are cleared, how much grain will they have in a year!"

"Right now, if they take out tens of thousands of jin of grain, they probably won't even feel the pinch. You have to realize how many years they've been saving this up. The grain is probably getting moldy; they can't finish eating it, so they might as well give it to the King to show their devotion."

Chengqie kept shaking his head in fear. He truly couldn't believe it. He had been in Huaxia for a long time and had seen many fields; he knew that Huaxia's main source of grain was cultivated land. But he never expected a Noble could possess so much grain. The grain in the hands of one family was enough to feed ten thousand people—at the very least, it could keep ten thousand people from starving to death.

Chengqie was wondering if such a distribution was truly reasonable. Huang saw that Chengqie was a bit confused, so he hurriedly reminded him from the side: "Master, the grain of those Nobles is saved up year after year. Every year, they can't finish eating it and can't use it up, so it just keeps piling up. That's why they have so much grain. In reality, if you calculate it year by year, it's not actually that much."

"Oh, right, right, that's how it is! They saved it up!"

The official whispered another reminder: "Actually, your family has a better and greater advantage than others, allowing you to become wealthy faster than them. Do you want to know?"

Chengqie naturally wanted to know, so he leaned in a little closer: "Come on, tell me."

"People! You Suiren people have the largest population. But right now, when Huaxia made unified arrangements, they couldn't bring too many over at once. Plus, they have to manage food and all sorts of other aspects—education, medical care, and so on."

"But a while ago, didn't the King issue an order? It said that all Nobles who want to develop their fiefs but lack people can go to the Suiren people to ask for them themselves. However, they have to provide the food and such, and they must explain the policies clearly. For the Suiren people, there are both benefits and drawbacks."

"Originally, many Marquises and Counts were prepared to go, but in the end, they couldn't reach an agreement and got scared. But in reality, the King's document has already been issued. They could go completely; the King has signed and stamped it, guaranteeing they won't be punished."

"Now, Young Master Chengqie, you have a huge advantage."

"First, your family has already been allocated land, but the output isn't that high. You were also given property—the courtyard, land, Pasture, cattle, and sheep. What you eat every day now is the output from your land. You have it, but it's not particularly much, not enough to make you like those other Nobles."

"Because those Nobles spent many years clearing land themselves, they obtained more—not the land the King allocated to them. In terms of time, you are already behind."

"But as for the fief, yours is particularly large. Right now, no one is there to clear it. But with this document, you could even send people back to the Suiren people right now and have your father send several thousand or ten thousand people to clear your family's fief. Your father is the Tribal Chief; would your tribespeople not listen to your father's orders? This matter can be accomplished easily."

"But those other Nobles don't have your advantage. If they went, even if they used grain to trade, your tribespeople definitely wouldn't trust them. They would certainly make a wasted trip. This is the advantage I'm talking about: people!"

Chengqie listened, feeling completely bewildered and confused. The official reached out and took a thread-bound document from the table nearby. The last page had Baifeng's personal signature and seal.

"Take this and read it. Read the previous documents slowly, and you'll understand."

Chengqie took the document: "But I don't recognize most of the characters here."

Huang said a bit anxiously: "Master, I heard about this before. I know the specific content."

The official glanced at Huang, didn't pay him any mind, and just said: "Not recognizing characters is a very simple matter. There are many people in Huaxia who know how to read. As the heir to the highest Nobility in Huaxia, you can often go chat with other Nobles. Carry this document and let them look at it and read it for you."

"Besides, they have been paying the most attention to this matter, so they can certainly explain it in more detail than I can. This matter is quite important for your family. You must work hard yourself to become wealthy. Relying solely on the King's rewards is too little. All the Nobles rely on that initial bit of reward to support their families, and then they keep clearing land and working hard to become as wealthy as they are now."

"If you don't work hard, you won't be considered wealthy in Huaxia in the end, and the gap between you and the other Nobles will only grow wider!"