A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 175 Nickname: Timely Rain

Li Yi bought 20 pigs at once.
Ten were bought from Feng Liulang's family in Fengjiabao. Each one weighed nearly 200 kilograms and was very strong.

"This is a black gold pig. Look at the three hoops on its mouth, the Bagua pattern printed on its forehead, the overshoes on its feet, the hindquarters are taller than the front, and the limbs are sturdy. This pig has a lot of lean meat, but the meat is delicious and fragrant."

Luo Er spoke of this pig in great detail, saying it was pitch black. Li Yi was attracted to the Feng family's pigs because they were free-range.

After fifteen days, the piglets begin to roam outside the pen with their sows, and after weaning, they are released into the herd. Their daily diet consists mainly of wild vegetables and grass, with some greens added. They are only kept in pen in winter, when the mountains are closed due to snow.

Such pigs would definitely be extremely popular in later generations, but nowadays, pigs raised on manors are basically raised in this way. Even pigs raised in ordinary people's homes are mainly half-grazing and half-penned, and they are rarely raised in a complete pen.

Another advantage of grazing pigs is that they are relatively clean, unlike the pig pens of ordinary small farmers, which are just thatched houses.

"It's a pity to use this pig to make bacon." Luo Erdao said. Feng Liulang used to buy his bean dregs to feed the pigs.

"Pigs are for meat, aren't they?"

"We'll kill the pig later. Don't peel the skin off. The meat tastes better with the skin on."

In addition to the ten black pigs bought from Feng Liulang's family, there were also ten pigs bought from the Guo family on the plateau. They were spotted pigs with black backs, white bellies and silver collars.

This pig is characterized by being short, fat, round and compact. Its advantages are early maturity and early fattening, tolerance to roughage and strong adaptability, but it grows a little slowly.

It is said that it originated in the Han Dynasty and flourished in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Historically, in the Tang Dynasty, it was given as a state gift to many vassal states and foreign countries, and was named Tang Pig. However, in later generations, it was called Luchuan Pig.

These are two completely different types of pigs from the Wujin pig. The Luchuan pig has thin skin, tender meat, and is relatively fat, while the Wujin pig has more lean meat, rough skin, and long hair.

However, Li Yi bought ten pigs of each type, both of which were pastured and had relatively good meat quality.

There were many pig breeds in the Tang Dynasty.
But most of them are black pigs and spotted pigs, and there are very few white pigs. It is said that there are white pig breeds in Hebei, but Li Yi has never seen them in Chang'an.

These pigs weigh over 100 to 200 kilograms each, and even without eating clenbuterol, they still have a lot of lean meat.

But having too much lean meat is a disadvantage in the eyes of Luo San and others.

In their eyes, the most important criterion for judging the quality of a pig is whether it is fat or not. After slaughtering the pig, they will look at how many fingers of fat it has and use the thickness of the fat to judge the quality of the pig.
They would think that pigs with less than three fingers of fat are not good enough, and if they have only one finger of fat, they would even suspect that they are sick.

If you come across a fat pig with as much fat as a palm, the villagers will talk about it for a long time. Even people who can raise a fat pig with as much fat as a palm will be called a pig-raising expert.

If a pig has one palm of fat, it must weigh at least 300 kilograms.

When Luo San and his friends buy pork, they also give priority to choosing pork with fat. In the eyes of ordinary people in this era, fat is definitely a good thing.

Pure lean meat without oil will be disliked. As for bones, pig's trotters, pig's heads and other things, they are as worthless as pig's offal and have to be packaged or sold together.

So these days when people raise pigs, they don’t think about how to make the pigs have more lean meat, but only worry about how to fatten the pigs, the fatter the better, because everyone is short of oil and desires fat.

The two breeds of pigs that Li Yi bought were not very fat, especially the black gold pigs. In their eyes, it was not worthwhile if they had no fat.

Li Yi felt that the pigs were just the right size and fat, and that they were free-range and healthy.

There is no need to hire a butcher.

Luo San, Luo Wu, as well as Da Fu and Da Gui, all knew how to kill pigs. It wasn't that difficult. They just held the pig down, stabbed it with a knife to drain the blood, and then scalded the skin with boiling water and scraped off the hair.
Because Li Yi asked not to peel the skin, this reduced a lot of difficulty.

Shaving pig hair is also a technical job. The temperature of the boiling water is very important. If it is too hot or not hot enough, the hair will be difficult to shave. It must be just right.

This was not difficult for Luo San and his friends, as they had helped shave pig hair many times before.

Killing twenty pigs weighing about 200 pounds at a time is definitely a big scene.

Although it is cold in winter,
But everyone also came to the front of Wuji Castle to have fun,
The pigs were killed outside the castle gates,

Several people held down one end of the pig and lifted it onto the stand of a large wooden basin. Liu Heizi took a sharp knife and stabbed the pig's neck. The blood flowed into the wooden basin below.
This is a good thing, it can be used to make pig blood tofu.

After bleeding the pig, they quickly brought hot water to scald the pig and shave it. Li Yi's tenants also rolled up their sleeves, each holding a razor with both hands and shaving hard.

Shaving pig hair requires a lot of skill. The scraper cannot be too sharp, otherwise the hair roots will break off in the skin. You have to use a blunt scraper and use the hot water to open the pores to scrape out the pig hair roots.

"Keep the bristles safe, don't waste them. They're valuable."

Stiff pig bristles are great for making brushes, and a strategic resource the imperial court was looking to acquire. Even though a pig's bristles are only a handful, they're still quite valuable.

Pig skin is usually peeled and sold separately, just like sheep skin.

Li Yi wanted to keep it for himself to eat, as pork without skin was never perfect.

After the black pig was stabbed,

Then they ordered someone to stab the other end, and then a few more people held the pig down, lifted it onto a large basin stand, and still bleed it with a knife.

The pigs screamed one after another.
The children were extremely excited to watch, and even the women came to watch the fun wearing headscarves.

Scrape the pig hair clean,

They would hang a wooden ladder, cut open the belly, and remove the internal organs.

Then it was the turn of the women from the tenants' houses to help with the intestines and urine cleaning.
Guo Er came over to watch the fun again.

I was amazed at the grand scene of slaughtering twenty pigs.

"A pig costs more than 10,000 yuan, right? What's the point of killing so many pigs?" Guo Er asked.

"It's not snowing much now, and the weather is nice, so I thought I'd kill a few pigs, some chickens and ducks, and make some pickled goods and bacon. I'll give them out as gifts at the end of the year, and I'll also eat some myself."

Guo Erlang thought to himself that twenty pigs would cost him two or three hundred thousand yuan, which was enough to buy three houses in Chang'an. In this countryside, how much land, slaves, cattle and horses would he need to buy?
Wheat fields on the Shenhe Plateau cost only a few hundred coins per mu at the worst prices, and a few thousand at the best. Even rice fields on the banks of the Hehe River cost only a thousand or two thousand coins per mu. The more turbulent the times, the less valuable the land.

Land south of Chang'an was only worth one tael of gold per acre, and in the less developed areas, it was only worth half a tael of gold per acre. Land in Qujiang was only worth two or three thousand coins per acre.

Guo Erlang has a habit.
After eating, he had to lick the bowl until it was clean. He was also very strict with his family, not allowing any food to be wasted. He would pick up and eat any rice that fell.

Even though they were landlords with hundreds of acres of land, and usually lent money and grain, and lent out cattle and horses, they were always frugal. As landlords, they rarely ate meat.

The amount of oil in the dishes has to be controlled. The oil, salt and grain in his family are all managed by his wife. Every day when he cooks, he has to get the oil from his wife first. His wife has to add the oil herself and will never let anyone else do it, for fear that others will put too much.

Even when his family is busy with farming, whether it is sowing or harvesting, he will try to buy some pig offal, frogs, field mice, miscellaneous fish, snails and clams,
He simply couldn't understand why Li Yi slaughtered twenty pigs at a time and also killed a lot of chickens and ducks, all of which were made into bacon to be used as gifts and for his own consumption.

No matter how big the family business is, it cannot withstand such squandering.

"I'm going to make a pig-killing dinner today. You can invite Sixth Aunt and the whole family to come and have a drink. We can also have a couple of drinks. You must try my braised persimmon."

Li Yi invited not only Guo Erlang to the pig-killing dinner, but also his teacher Dong Xiucai, the village assistant Feng Liulang, the village chief Wang, and the village head Wang.

The people from Luojiabao were also invited.
Of course, there will be no shortage of workers in his workshop, and he and Xuetian’s tenants here will also be called upon to join in.

"Are you really going to invite so many people?"

Guo Erlang was shocked. No family could withstand such a defeat.

"It's almost the end of the year, and I want to thank everyone for their hard work this year."

Today, not all of the twenty pigs will be used for bacon. Some will be used as gifts, and some will be given to relatives and friends.
Also, you need to take out some meat as a reward.

Rewarded to the workers in the workshop.

"I plan to kill a few more in a few days,"

In a few days, we will use the society's money to buy a pig and slaughter it in the name of the society. We will also prepare a pig slaughtering dinner and invite the society's directors, supervisors, and members to gather together to eat the pig slaughtering dinner. We will also give some pork to teachers and outstanding students.
Give some pork to the board of directors and supervisors.

Li Yi watched as Liu Heizi had already killed ten black gold pigs in a row.
Several buckets of pig blood were saved, so he quickly asked Guo Erlang to help carry a bucket and go to the kitchen to cook the pig blood.

Pig blood is easy to prepare.

Add one pound of pig blood to three pounds of water, add an appropriate amount of salt, stir to dissolve, pour the blood in, and keep stirring.

After stirring evenly, let it stand for about half an hour and it will solidify into blood tofu.

Of course, you can also add some salt to the pig blood, pour it into the cleaned small intestine, put it in cold water and simmer over low heat. It will soon become blood sausage. When it is half cold, you can slice it and serve it on a plate.

A pig can absorb five or six pounds of blood.

Li Yi worked on it himself for half a day. After adding water to the blood of ten black gold pigs, he made more than 100 kilograms of blood tofu, and kept about dozens of kilograms to make blood sausage.

When the solidified pig blood is cut open, it looks like pieces of red agate.

"This is good stuff. It's very nutritious, nourishing, and very tender and refreshing."

Li Yi instructed Cao Yanxiu in the kitchen to cook more pig blood tofu for the pig-killing meal.

"Clean your small intestines, because we'll be stuffing them with blood sausage and sausage later."

The small intestine of a pig can make at least 20 to 30 kilograms of sausages. Li Yi plans to make 600 kilograms of sausages.

Li Yi, with his hands clasped in his arms and wearing a mink fur coat, walked through the bustling crowd in front of the fort.

The pork belly is made into bacon, the front shoulder meat is made into sausage, the four hooves are made into bacon pig feet, and the two hind legs are made into ham.
Pig heads, pig hearts, and pig livers can also be dried for curing.
Bones, pig lungs, pig stomachs, etc. are used with the remaining meat to make pig-killing dishes, and the remaining meat is given to workers and tenants as rewards.

Loin meat is used to give to relatives and friends.

Pork lard and pork fat are used to make lard.

The twenty pigs gave him clear arrangements.

Guo Erlang kept sighing today.

"You are so willing to give up,"

"If you give up, you will gain."

"You said you gave pork to your relatives and friends, which is understandable, but why did you also give meat to your tenants and workers? You treat them well enough."

"They work very hard to earn money for me. How can I expect the horse to run without letting it eat grass? Those who perform well and are diligent should be rewarded to motivate them."

This time, Li Yi distributed meat to tenants and workers, but not everyone got it. Instead, it was based on their usual performance. Those who worked hard and diligently would naturally be rewarded.

In this way, everyone will work hard and diligently in the future.

His management philosophy is different from Guo Erlang's. Guo Erlang always requires slaves and farmhands to work hard and diligently. If they don't do well, they will be punished, but if they do well, they rarely receive rewards. Therefore, his slaves and farmhands are not very motivated.

Li Yi will be rewarded for good work. The better he does, the more rewards he will get. He does not care about the rewards he pays. Rewards are just a part of the improvement in production efficiency.

Just whipping won't improve real efficiency much.

Only when workers and farmhands were rewarded with pork and millet did they truly work hard.

Guo Erlang may not understand this, but he is just unwilling to give up some of the benefits. He is a stingy person. Once it is in his pocket, there is no reason for him to take it out again. He only wants to exploit the people.

So privately, everyone called Guo Erlang Guo Ba Pi,

But it only took Li Yi half a year to win the reputation of Li Dashan in the village. He was kind and generous, and was known as the Benevolent Li Dalang.
Some people even gave him the nickname "Timely Rain".

(End of this chapter)