I am not Yuan Shu

Chapter 288 Burning Money
I don't know, I was taken aback.

Taking the most basic and core food needs as an example, the staple food of the Eastern Han soldiers was basically composed of millet. According to regulations, the monthly ration of soldiers guarding the border was about three stone of millet or wheat. Calculated based on 30 days a month, it was about 1 kilogram of raw grain per day.

This raw grain is unprocessed and unshelled grain, but generally speaking, if it is to be eaten, it still needs to be processed and shelled. If the processing loss is taken into account, the actual edible part is about 0.6-0.8 kg per day.

In addition to the staple food, soldiers may be given a small amount of salt, sauce, pickles and other condiments, but their protein and vegetable intake is limited and the nutritional structure is monotonous.

Rations may be increased during wartime or high-intensity missions, but ordinary garrison soldiers generally maintain this standard. Taking into account the soldiers' lack of supplementary food and fat intake, the insufficient calories in the food itself, and the soldiers' daily military training and military missions, this number is already a relatively basic number and can only maintain basic needs.

A soldier consumes about 1.5 kilograms of corn every day. Without considering auxiliary soldiers and civilian laborers, the amount of food needed by the entire army of 45000 people per day is 22.5 kilograms, or tons.

This is just a pure consumption of soldiers.

If officers are included, then according to regulations, the general officer's ration is about 1.5 times that of the soldiers. Based on the 2% number of officers, an additional tons of food consumption will be required.

Therefore, even if we do not take into account any losses, based on the most basic needs, an army of 24.5 people would need at least tons of food per day. If the amount is lower than this, the soldiers would go hungry and problems would arise.

In addition, the consumption of war horses must also be taken into account.

Even if we do not follow the standard of one man and two horses, and exclude the number of slow horses used for transportation, and only count one horse per man, there are at least 5,000 war horses in the army. 5,000 war horses require 15 tons of hay and 15 tons of concentrated feed including grains per day, totaling about 30 tons.

This does not take into account losses and combat situations.

When marching or fighting, horse consumption increases by 20 to 30 percent, and long-distance transportation of fodder may result in a loss of 10 to 20 percent, which requires additional reserves.

In this way, an army of 54.5 people, including war horses, would need to consume at least tons of food and fodder per day.

Just counting the food, about 40 tons would be needed.

The price of grain in the late Eastern Han Dynasty was much higher than that in the early period, and as the value of currency continued to decline, the price of grain also tended to rise further. It is not clear about other places, but in the vicinity of Luoyang, in peacetime, the price of one stone of grain was often between one thousand and three thousand coins, which shows the extent of currency depreciation and production shortage.

At the moment, because a war has just ended, the price of grain around Luoyang has risen, and one stone of grain costs about two thousand five hundred to three thousand coins.

If Yuan Shu were to go and find those grain suppliers to lower the price, and then have his own farm provide a portion of the grain, he could probably control the selling price of each stone of grain at around 1500 coins.

According to a comprehensive estimate, the army is now formed and stationed in Luoyang area. The normal food expenditure of 30,000 troops a day will require about two million coins.

This is the most basic cost to maintain existence.

In addition, we must also consider the issue of drinking water. Water can be obtained locally and is free of charge, but transportation and storage do require costs.

Thirty thousand soldiers need about 90 tons of drinking water every day, and five thousand war horses need about 75 tons of drinking water, which adds up to 165 tons of drinking water.

There are also weapon maintenance costs. The swords, bows and arrows used by soldiers all need maintenance.

Based on the calculation of 5,000 archers, each archer consumes about five arrows for training every day in non-wartime, and may need to consume ten arrows or even more in wartime. Taking the minimum value, 25,000 arrows are needed every day. Swords, spearheads and other iron tools need to be replaced regularly due to wear and tear, so the average daily consumption of hundreds of kilograms of iron is several hundred kilograms.

The firemen needed firewood for cooking, boiling water and heating, and the army consumed an average of about 50 to 100 tons of firewood every day.

All these losses are calculated in total. To maintain the existence of an army of 30,000 people, even if there is a stable garrison, food and other supplies can be provided locally. Even some of the farms run by Yuan Shu himself can provide food at cost price, and then use his reputation to exchange for some of the material needs with favors...

At least three million yuan is needed every day.

In Luoyang, this number can almost cover the daily needs of an army.

However, Bingzhou's production was severely damaged by the war, and it would take time to restore it to what Yuan Shu believed to be the ideal state. It was still a problem whether it could provide military rations for 30,000 people in a short period of time. Initially, it would be necessary to transport food from Luoyang area to Bingzhou, and the loss during this transportation must be considered.

That will only cost more.

Now we can only hope that in the later stage we can manage Bingzhou well, organize the people to cultivate land and store grain, and use it locally, which can greatly reduce the loss of maintaining troops.

But that was all later.

So Yuan Shu suddenly realized that he seemed to be quite rich, as if he was the richest man in the world, with wealth that he could not spend in several lifetimes. It seemed easy for him to build farms and schools, and he could easily spend money to win people's hearts.

But once the money was invested in the army, it suddenly became insufficient. Building an army and marching to fight a war was really a waste of money!

No wonder the ancients said that the use of military force is "the place of life and death, the way of survival and destruction". If you can avoid it, try not to use it.

In this way, he could also more deeply understand why the armies of heroes like Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu needed to catch fish, catch shrimps and pick mulberries to supplement their rations during the warlord period.

He originally found it very strange. After all, they were big warlords occupying wealthy areas like Hebei and Huainan, with dense population and good foundation. They were temporarily destroyed by the war, and production was restored after stabilization. With the local agricultural foundation, they should not be unable to afford food for their soldiers, right?
If you can't even afford to support your army, why fight a war? Why fight for supremacy?

Now after doing some economic calculations, Yuan Shu discovered that these warlords were being very conscientious by allowing the army to catch fish and shrimp and pick mulberries. At least they did not let the army solve the food problem on its own.

To do so would be tantamount to issuing a license of marque, and to agreeing that the army could use violence to take everything they needed, which could be a huge disaster.

To support an army, providing food is the minimum. In addition to food, there are many other categories of expenses. Each expense costs money, and each sum of money spent is an astronomical figure. Moreover, this must be done in a relatively stable social environment.

If a social environment is not stable enough and production is disrupted on a large scale, you will not be able to buy what you want even if you have money.

So Yuan Shu finally understood why any warlord with a bit of foresight had to arrange for his soldiers to engage in farming.

Firstly, this really saves money. Secondly, if your army does not cultivate land, then there will be no place to buy food. The farmers who survive the chaos will really not be able to feed these soldiers.

A living person cannot be suffocated to death by urine. If there is no place to buy and no one to grow it, then we can only do it ourselves and have enough food and clothing.

However, compared with these warlords, Yuan Shu was at least mentally prepared in advance. He was not like those warlords in history who only noticed the importance of agricultural production when there was no food to eat.

He knew the necessity of this from the very beginning, during the initial preparations for establishing an army.

Therefore, Yuan Shu first put the establishment of a farm and arrangement of agricultural production in Bingzhou as the top priority.

He could not rely solely on the supply of food from the rear. He had to ensure that at least half of the army's consumption was provided locally. Otherwise, not only would it cost a lot of money, but it would also cause problems with the ownership of the army.

Just as he said to Yuan Feng, he intended to make this army completely his own and had no intention of sharing the command of this army with anyone. This army would become the most trusted executor of his future world conquest.

Therefore, he must take control of the logistics of this army.

After the economic accounts were almost calculated, Yuan Shu took this part of the bill to find Yuan Feng and declared a series of materials needed to establish the army.

Yuan Feng took some time to finish reading the bill, then he covered his chest with his hands, suppressed the throbbing in his heart, and looked at Yuan Shu.

"Shu, you seemed to have said before that you were going to bear the cost of this army yourself, right?"

Yuan Shu immediately understood what Yuan Feng meant.

But now that things have come to this, the arrow is on the string, how can I let go of this last chance to cheat my father?
In the future, there will be fewer and fewer opportunities to cheat his father. He must seize every opportunity and do his best to cheat his father and accumulate enough wealth for himself.

So he immediately pretended to be innocent and unaware of the matter, and naturally shirked the responsibility of the matter. Then he turned around and ran away, without giving Yuan Feng any chance to continue arguing with him, which made Yuan Feng very helpless.

But Yuan Feng had no choice, because he had promised Yuan Shu about this matter before.

Since he has promised, he has to do it, otherwise how can he save face as an old father?
In other words, the entire court's financial institutions are currently under the control of the Yuan family. Therefore, even without the need for discussion in the court, Yuan Feng can issue orders to the financial institutions and let the financial personnel implement this order.

However, while doing his work, Yuan Feng suddenly thought of what Yuan Shu had told him before -

Because of the shift in the main contradiction, the party members might have some unrealistic demands and ideas about the power held by Yuan, and might make some changes to the current situation of Yuan's power, which made him quite vigilant.

Before Yuan Shu grows up, Yuan Feng wants to stand guard for Yuan Shu for the last time.

He didn't want Yuan Shu to leave him a mess when he was able to take over, because that would be a bit unreasonable for him as a father.

If possible, Yuan Feng would even be willing to sacrifice his own political reputation and life to help Yuan Shu clear the disaster.

If this group of party members really want to do something big, Yuan Feng will really make up his mind.

(End of this chapter)