The frequency of rice and rice appearing in ancient books was very high. After all, rice was the staple food of the common people. Its yield was relatively high among all the grains. At the same time, it tasted good. It was also a grain that many common people loved to eat. Especially the common people in the south, their staple food was rice. Even the nobles in the north liked rice very much.
After removing the husk of rice, it would be rice. However, for storing grains, it would be better to store the rice directly. This was because rice was relatively easy to store, and it was not easy to mold or attract insects. It could be stored for many years without spoiling. However, if it was made into rice after removing the husk, then it would be much more difficult to store it. Especially in the summer, rice was always easy to attract insects, and rice with insects had a great reduction in nutritional value and taste. Moreover, after a part of it was eaten by the insects, the remaining rice would be even less. It was also a big loss.
Regarding the preservation of rice, since ancient times, there was no good way to find a good way. Therefore, almost no one would store rice on a large scale. Generally, the amount stored would be a few months, at most, it would not exceed a year. Especially in the summer, the amount of rice stored would be even less. They would buy it on the spot and store it for a month.
An ordinary family would not store much rice for a month. One bag would be enough. However, those grain stores that wholesale rice needed to store a large amount of rice. The same amount of rice stored for a month, an ordinary family only needed one bag. However, the wholesale rice merchants needed to store a large amount of rice. With the population of millions in the capital, the consumption of rice every month was extremely large. Therefore, even if rice was not as easy to store as rice, a large amount of rice still needed to be produced to meet the demand of the market. The people in the city were very busy, and the places where they lived were very small. They rarely had the conditions to remove the husk of rice themselves. They could only go directly to the rice shops to buy rice. Therefore, the demand for rice in large cities was very high.
A large number of common people needed to buy rice every month. The grain stores needed to store a sufficient amount of rice, and the wholesale rice merchants needed even more rice. The rice merchants were doing business. They sold rice that could be eaten directly. They did not have time to remove the husk of rice. Therefore, when they purchased rice, they would also ask the major grain farmers to process the rice into rice. Otherwise, they would not buy it.
Of course, there would also be some merchants who specialized in selling rice. That way, they did not need to remove the husk of rice. However, in Chang 'an City, the common people had a great demand for rice. There were not many common people who were willing to buy rice and process it themselves. Therefore, most of the major grain farmers still had to process the rice that they planted into rice.
For a rice farmer with only a hundred or eighty mu of land, the problem might not be too big. At worst, their family could work overtime to pound rice. They didn't need to spend money to hire people to complete the processing of rice. However, for those large families with thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of mu of land, processing by themselves seemed like a drop in the bucket. Even if they used the most advanced and labor-saving hydraulic workshop, the processing speed was far from enough. Furthermore, the merchants of the rice trade didn't accept rice, and the imperial court's rice grain storage was already full. If they wanted to sell the rice as soon as possible, they had to hire a large amount of labor to process the rice. To process a large amount of rice into rice, this processing fee was not low, and it made the large grain farmers feel quite pained.
In ancient times, when the army marched to war, there were both rice and paddy among the rations carried by the army. It was a combination of the two. When cooking, they naturally used rice directly. When they had nothing to do, they could pound rice. This was especially true for the defense of an important strategic location. If the city had stored rations for a few years, then most of the rations would definitely be paddy, with only a small amount of rice. After all, only paddy could be stored for a few years. If they were all processed into rice, then all of them would be infested with insects after a year. Once they lost their rations, the strategic location would collapse by itself.
At this time, the major grain farmers needed a lot of manpower to process rice. However, when they harvested rice, they could use machines. Harvesters had begun to be popularized in the Tang dynasty and were used everywhere. These major grain farmers knew very well how much money they could save after using the harvesters. It was precisely because they tasted the benefits of using machines that they became dependent on them. They hoped that the step of pounding rice could also be completed by machines. In this way, they could save a lot of labor costs.
People would not wake up early if there was no profit. These major grain farmers were no exception. At the moment when the price of grain was not ideal, the profit of grain farming was not high. Therefore, they would save as much as they could. In order to save money, they boldly made a request to Ang Lee, hoping that the R&D Center could develop the machines they needed as soon as possible.
Ang Lee naturally had to study the suggestions made by these guys. Even without their suggestions, Ang Lee would not give up on the research of these machines. After all, shelling rice and corn were very promising. They played an important role in reducing the physical strength of laborers. As long as these machines were produced on a large scale, the farmers of the Tang Empire would have a much easier time. Especially the major grain farmers who owned a large amount of land, they would benefit the most.
However, there were too many machines to study and improve in the R&D Center. It was not Ang Lee's fault that he did not take care of them for a while. There would never be an end to the research in the field of machines. There were too many tasks to complete.
The climate in Guanzhong was not suitable for growing rice, so rice was very rare in the Guanzhong area. Most of the rice was concentrated in the Jiangnan water network area, where the climate was most suitable for growing rice. Even in the Yazhou and Guangzhou area, rice could be grown twice a year. The lower reaches of the Yangtze River were the areas where rice was most densely planted. Because it was developed earlier, the population was large, and the geographical conditions were very good. There were large areas of plain land, which was very suitable for large-scale mechanized planting with machines. Therefore, the rice yield in that area was the highest. It seemed that since ancient times, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were the areas with the highest rice yield.
The landlords who owned large amounts of land in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were not necessarily locals. The nobles and wealthy merchants in the capital were also likely to own large amounts of paddy fields in the Jiangnan area. Usually, they would not go there. It was enough to send a few confidants to take care of it. When it was time to harvest, they would transport the food to the capital.
After all, although the rice yield in the Jiangnan area was very high, the market was not large. In Jiangnan, there was a lot of rice, but there were relatively few people. On the other hand, the capital had a large population, but there was little rice. Most of the rice needed on the market was transported from Jiangnan.
It was said that northerners liked to eat noodles, and southerners liked to eat rice. In fact, this was not a matter of liking or not. Since ancient times, wheat was grown in the north, and rice was grown in the south. Based on the transportation conditions in ancient times, the price of food transported thousands of miles away would increase a lot. Could it be that the common people did not eat the local cheap food and only ate the food transported from afar? That would be too expensive. In ancient times, there were still many poor people. No one was a fool. They would definitely choose to eat cheap food first. Perhaps only the particularly rich nobles would be keen on eating expensive food from other places.
The transportation conditions of later generations had been greatly improved. Even if the food transported from thousands of miles away was transported, the price would not increase too much. In the end, the northerners could easily eat tropical fruits from the south, and the southerners could easily eat the specialties of the north. It was the great improvement of the transportation conditions that had caused all of this. Of course, it was also because the people of later generations had become richer and better. With more money in hand, they could eat many different kinds of food to supplement the different nutrients their bodies needed.
The transportation conditions of the Tang dynasty at this time had also been greatly improved because of Ang Lee's efforts. Food from the south could be transported to the north more easily, and it was the same in the north. In this way, it was relatively easier for the common people to eat ingredients from other places, especially in Chang 'an City, where rice and wheat foods were almost equal. It did not feel that this was the north where wheat foods dominated.
In Chang 'an City, first of all, there were too many rich people. Second, the main reason for the common people's poor life was the lack of housing, which was the pressure caused by the high rent. The food pressure was not great. In recent years, the price of food had been decreasing. Only the worst workers would be extremely frugal when it came to food. For example, they would only eat the cheapest sweet potatoes and sweet potatoes, and stay away from the more expensive wheat and rice foods.
Now there was more and more food. All the official warehouses in the capital were full of food. In addition, there were many new granaries under construction. Since the official warehouses were full, more food could only be stored by the common people. Fortunately, many big merchants and nobles in the capital had their own granaries. Some of the granaries of the merchants were very large, even larger than the granaries of the officials. There were also many private granaries under construction.
Even though the price of grain had fallen again and again, and had already been reduced by half, and in the foreseeable future, there was still the possibility that the price would continue to fall. However, this did not affect the practice of some merchants wantonly hoarding grain, because grain was not an ordinary commodity. It was a strategic material that was related to the life and death of the people. Since ancient times, almost every large-scale peasant uprising was related to the lack of harvest, and the importance of grain could be seen at a glance.
Even if there was no shortage of food at this time and there was no hope for the price to rise, the merchants did not think so. It was said that the weather was unpredictable. In this world, anything could happen. Maybe one day there would be a crop failure? At the worst, they could transport food to the countries in the Western Region and sell it. At this moment, it was true that the price of food in the Tang dynasty had decreased by half, but the price of food in the countries in the Western Region had not decreased. Now that the transportation was so good, the cost of transporting food to the countries in the Western Region would not increase much. The price of food was still competitive to a certain extent. Therefore, the merchants who hoarded food were not nervous. As long as they had food in hand, they would not panic. Hoarding food would never make a loss. Moreover, there was so much food. If the merchants were not willing to hoard it, then it would be the grain growers who hoarded it. They could not throw away the excess food! In a society where science was not developed, throwing away food for no reason would be punished by God. Even if there was excess food, it should be hoarded instead of thrown away.
Hoarding food also required skills. After all, food was relatively delicate. It could not be exposed to moisture, and some food could not be frozen. It had to be tried to avoid insects. In addition, there were also annoying things like rats, which could pose a great threat to food. Since ancient times, there had been no granaries that did not attract rats, and they were all big rats. They were all bad guys who had eaten too much.
As for the structure of granaries, it had been the same since ancient times. It had not changed for thousands of years. From a long time ago, it was a huge cylinder at the bottom and a cone at the top to prevent rain. This was a granary. In a granary area, there would be hundreds or thousands of granaries that were exactly the same. Each granary was filled with food. The amount of food that could be stored in hundreds or thousands of granaries could be imagined. The amount of food that could be stored in hundreds or thousands of granaries was enormous.
Of course, the granaries that could easily contain thousands of granaries were the largest granaries of the imperial court. Some smaller granaries might only have a dozen or so, or even only a few granaries. The amount of food stored in these granaries would not be much. These granaries were hoarded according to the needs. Some places had limited space and could not build large granaries. However, these places were very important, so they had to build granaries. Therefore, there were such small granaries.
For example, the capital was the core of the Tang Empire. No matter how many large granaries the Tang Empire had built in other places, the capital must have an official granary. It even needed to build more. There must be granaries inside and outside the city, and even in the palace that could store food. Otherwise, once the capital was besieged, the country would be in danger of being destroyed.
Some of the granaries owned by the nobles and merchants were even larger than the granaries owned by the imperial court. This was especially true in the capital, where there were granaries built by private individuals everywhere. This was especially true for the grain wholesalers, who hoarded even more grain.
In the capital, there were many people who speculated in real estate, but there were no merchants who speculated in food. The reason was very simple. Real estate was a scarce commodity in the capital, so it was possible to speculate in it. However, food supply in the capital exceeded the demand, so it was impossible to speculate in it. It should be known that speculations could only be successful if they chose a scarce commodity. Only a commodity that was in short supply had the possibility of being speculated in it.
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