Daming: I help my wife be the empress

After the imperial guard finished his long speech, the shopkeeper and the shop assistant were stunned for a moment.

The people outside the store cheered——

"Great!"

"Long live Your Majesty!"

"Thanks to Your Majesty, otherwise this day would be impossible to live on."

"Your Majesty is really a living Bodhisattva who came to the world..."

The shopkeeper came back to his senses, and couldn't help but ask: "Is what Jun Ye said true?"

The imperial guard stared at him and said, "Why, do you suspect that I have falsely preached the imperial decree? The imperial court has already posted a notice, and we just came here to convey it. Here is the notice, you won't read it?"

The shopkeeper took a look at the notice and found that it was so.

But he rolled his eyes and said: "Master Jun, the rules of the rice store, you need to report the price to the owner?"

The imperial guard said in a long way: "You just go and report it, and it won't delay the replacement of the rice price."

The shopkeeper said in embarrassment: "Master Jun doesn't know, it takes at least half an hour for me to go back and forth, and the rice shop has to be closed for a while."

"Are you fooling around?" The Chief of the Imperial Guard seemed to have a bad temper, and said with his eyes wide open, "You just ask a guy to report it, so what's the delay in selling your food? In addition, the notice is clearly written, unless there is no rice to buy." Sell ​​it, otherwise you will have to close down without reason!"

The shopkeeper saw sweat on his forehead, but he still didn't move.

Seeing this, the Imperial Guard pressed his hand on the handle of the knife and said, "Why, your shop is going against His Majesty's will?"

"Don't dare, dare not." Seeing that there was no way to drag it on, the shopkeeper could only change the rice price brand and continue selling rice.

Then let a guy go to inform the owner.

The people outside were very happy, and some even knelt down facing the direction of the Forbidden City and cried.

Speaking of it, three cents and eight cents per liter of rice is also very high, but the price of one liter of rice in Nanjing City has been around three cents for a long time in the past one or two years, so now it has only risen to three cents and eight cents, which has already made countless people grateful.

As for those who couldn't afford three cents of silver per liter of rice, they left Nanjing long ago and became refugees, or died of starvation before Auntie Zhu entered Nanjing.

The troubled times at the end of Ming Dynasty were so cruel.

Aimee Zhu can't change the past.

···
In order to deal with the food crisis, Auntie Zhu formed a temporary command group to focus on observing and directing Nanjing City to deal with the food crisis.

The temporary command group mainly consisted of first assistant Yuan Jixian, second assistant Ma Shiying, household minister Zhang Youyu, communications minister Lu Zhenfei, and the right servant Wanji of the patrol department.

In addition to the various departments of the central government, the units under command include Yingtianfu Yamen and Jiangning and Shangyuan County Yamen, as well as Jinyiwei South Town Fusi, Secretariat, Telecommunications Office, Wucheng Patrol Bureau, and the First Town of the Imperial Guards .

In addition, Zhu Yuxi also secretly ordered some personnel from Dongchang and Yulin Army to participate in this matter.

When the sun goes down.

Nanjing Forbidden City, Hall of Martial Arts.

Wan Wanji hurried in, bowed to Aunt Zhu, and said with a serious expression, "Your Majesty, according to the report from the Wucheng Patrol Bureau, since Yingtianfu issued the announcement of limiting the maximum price of grain in the afternoon, all rice shops and grain stores have changed their prices one after another. The people were overjoyed for a while, and there were countless people who kowtowed to the Forbidden City to thank the Holy Grace.

But the number of people eager to buy grain has not decreased, and even more than before.

Therefore, half an hour ago, there were rice shops and grain shops that put up signs that the grain was sold out, and closed their doors one after another. "

Having said that, Wanji paused for a moment, showing a dignified expression, and continued: "Your Majesty, as far as I know, there are at least 80 million people in Nanjing and outside the country, and tens of thousands of people need to buy food every day.

Today, the government ordered a price cut, causing the food to be sold out ahead of schedule. If the food is not delivered in time tomorrow, civil unrest may break out. "

Hearing this, Zhang Youyu immediately said: "Your Majesty, I have already said that Lu Jianbai's proposal to limit grain prices is really a way to bring disaster. How is it now, something went wrong in just one day, right?!"

When he said this, Zhang Youyu glanced sideways at Lu Zhenfei, with a sneer at the corner of his mouth.

Lu Zhenfei frowned, and said: "Your Majesty, every rice store and grain store in the capital supplies the needs of millions of people. There must be granaries to store grain. It shouldn't happen that all grains are sold out in one day. This must happen." There is an inside story... please strictly investigate the grain merchants in the capital!"

Yuan Jixian said at this time: "It's okay to check the grain merchants, but what should they do if they really run out of grain?"

No one answered Yuan Jixian's words, and the Hall of Martial Arts fell silent for a while.

Aunt Zhu seemed to have just recovered, and asked, "How many people are there in Nanjing today?"

Population involves household registration and is managed by the household department.

But Zhang Youyu hesitated before saying, "There are about 60 registered residents in the outer and inner cities, about 10,000+ registered residents in the city walls, and 10 floating population who are not registered. about."

"Bastard!" After hearing this, Zhu Yu was so angry that she scolded others, then pointed at Zhang Youyu and said, "The words are either general or left and right, with a hesitant tone, as the secretary of the household department, don't you even know the population situation in Nanjing?! "

Zhang Youyu was so frightened that he fell to his knees with a plop, but he argued in his mouth: "Your Majesty, I'm not sure if it's just a minister, but the population of Nanjing has not been checked for decades.

In addition, the yellow book of household registration in Nanjing is actually under the direct management of household houses in Yingtianfu and Shangyuan and Jiangning counties.

It has been less than a month since I served as Minister of the Household Department, and it is indeed too late to check the population of Nanjing City. "

"This is your excuse for negligence?!" Aunt Zhu was obviously dissatisfied with Zhang Youyu's explanation, she got up and paced around, then looked directly at Zhang Youyu, and said coldly: "I will give you ten days to find out the Nanjing city household registration and Population situation, if you can't do it, don't be the secretary of the household department!"

Zhang Youyu trembled, kowtowed and said: "Minister, take the decree..."

into the night.

In a seemingly ordinary house in the outer city of Nanjing, there were more than [-] people gathered in the living room, each with a grand master's chair.

Even though the living room was originally quite large, it seemed a bit crowded at this moment.

These people are almost all dressed in expensive silks and satins in European style, and most of them are rich and fair.There are also a few dressed as wealthy literati, with a cunning in their refined temperament.

"Let's talk about it, what should we do about this matter?" Xu Chongru, the head of Nanjing Rice and Grain Company, who was sitting in the main seat, looked around the crowd and asked.

He is dressed as a wealthy scholar, and he does have a reputation as a scholar.He's over fifty, but looks like he's in his early forties.

Ma Qiwen, a grain merchant from Hunan who was seated first on the left, snorted, "The imperial court not only set the price of grain, but also set it so low, how much money can we make?

In my opinion, if we continue to close tomorrow, it means that there is too much grain sold today, and there is no stock in Nanjing.

After hearing it for three to five days, the imperial court can only know our worth if we let those poor ghosts who have eaten their last meal make a fuss. "

The second person on the right, a younger fat man hesitated and said: "Now it's not the Chongzhen Dynasty. The empress is in power. Not only does she hold a large army in her hands, but it is said that she also has many supernatural powers. Let's do this to annoy her. , I’m afraid I’ll get my head and move.”

After hearing this, Ma Qiwen sneered, "I don't know if that person is miraculous, but he definitely can't produce food. Otherwise, why bother to limit the price of food and just create a mountain of rice that can't be eaten?"

Sitting in the first place on the right, Cheng Dagui, a grain merchant from Qimen, Huizhou, said: "We are all in business, we pay attention to making money with others, and it is not easy to make things too ugly - the emperor and the court also want to save face.

Therefore, I suggest that only half of the stores will be open to sell food tomorrow, and only for half a day or an hour or two.

In this way, the supply of rice and grain in Nanjing City will inevitably be insufficient, and those poor ghosts will still make trouble if they can't live on.

But from the court's point of view, we did not cooperate in this matter, we did our best - it was only because there was a real shortage of food, and we couldn't make money to buy food, that this situation was created.

Then talk to the court officials who are sensible, so that His Majesty and the court ministers understand that it is a mistake to limit the price of food. Only by repenting in time can the crisis of food shortage in Nanjing be resolved. "

"Brother Cheng's suggestion is good."

"That's right, we can't make the court look too bad, that's not good."

"It's true that we can't close the doors together. If we do this, all fools will know that our grain merchants are fighting against the imperial court's will."

"···"

The rest of the people also spoke one after another, basically agreeing with Cheng Dagui's proposal.

This made Ma Qiwen's face a little ugly - he didn't change his mind for a while, thinking that the court was as incompetent as before and could directly confront it.

If you think about it, it's really not good to do so.

Seeing that Ma Qiwen had nothing to say, Xu Chongru, the head of the line, said, "Since that's the case, we will follow what Cheng Dagui said tomorrow. However, we still need to discuss who will open the store tomorrow, and we can't mess around."

Then, more than [-] major grain merchants continued to discuss, and the scene was much more lively than before.

Because in the eyes of all grain merchants, as long as they open their doors to sell rice, they will suffer losses-although they can make money by selling rice at the price set by the imperial court, it is too little to satisfy their appetite at all.

But sell less now, and after the court compromises in the future, you can sell more and earn more.

As a businessman, no one wants to earn less, so it is natural to fight.

Just when some people were blushing, they suddenly heard a loud bang, as if the courtyard door was slammed open.