The happy life of the embroidered girl in space

Chapter 228 Eternal Backing (1)
In fact, it is impossible to say that Jing Xuyuan has no selfish intentions. Although his brother-in-law often makes things difficult for him, he still loves his sisters, so Jing Xuyuan also wants to promote his brother-in-law. With a high position, it was difficult to hold real power in the beginning, and now because of the vacancy of the household department, there is only one household secretary who can hold power, and the other Ning Yuji may be completely ignored, so in the next disaster, Jing Xuyuan intends to let Ning Yuji earn a good credit, anyway, it is better to let Yao'er's family do it.

As Jing Xuyuan predicted, at the end of October, droughts broke out in the northern region one after another like in the previous life. In most areas, the rainfall was relatively low, the temperature continued to be high, and some areas were in urgent need of food and livestock. A plague of locusts appeared in Jinzhou and other nearby places as Jing Xuyuan expected.

The locust plague struck quickly and was unstoppable. Fortunately, Father Ning led his colleagues from the Ministry of Industry to prepare for disaster prevention and famine preparations half a month in advance, and Ning Yuji, the left servant of the household department, also immediately applied for a large amount of funding. Ducks, grazing chickens, etc. were used to eliminate locusts, and the grain was transported and stored in the rice warehouse.

In the previous life, because Jing Xuyuan led troops to the Dayao Kingdom, they traveled long distances and took away a large amount of food, which caused a serious shortage of treasury funds and rice warehouses. The eruption continued within half a month, and the scope continued to expand one after another.

During the continuous drought, migratory locusts broke out in Jinzhou and other places, accompanied by large-scale famine and plague. In an instant, the famine in Jinzhou area increased, and the affected area was more than 2 million mu, and the disaster area was more than 1 million mu. There was a huge famine and severe shortage of food, which made the originally prosperous Kyoto crowded with victims who suffered from displacement. People were displaced and fled to the capital. The price was raised more than ten times by unscrupulous profiteers. Many people suffered from hunger and cold, and complained to the emperor and the court.

A drought broke out at the end of September. Although the emperor immediately ordered the resettlement of the affected people and brought the disaster under control as soon as possible, the severe drought raged until the end of January and the beginning of February of the following year. The violent consequences seriously affected the emperor's prestige in the eyes of the people, and gave Dayao Kingdom a great opportunity to kill.

But in this life, before the disaster broke out, Jing Xuyuan asked the emperor to allocate 50 taels of silver to the Ministry of Industry for disaster relief. The funds were allocated, so when the disaster broke out, the disaster relief mission was already in full swing.

In the previous life, the price of grain was increased dozens of times by unscrupulous profiteers, who made huge profits. So in this life, Ning Yuji was reminded by Jing Xuyuan, both openly and secretly, to lead the household department to transfer the white rice from the rice warehouse in the treasury to Jinzhou and other places.

Not long after the drought broke out, Ning Yuji and Jing Xuyuan discovered that the four major grain merchants in the capital had started hoarding a large amount of grain half a month ago, almost at the moment when they were preparing for disaster relief. Rare, only the four major grain merchants hold a large amount of white rice.

Taking advantage of the golden opportunity when there was no rice in the capital, they raised the price of grain in a high-profile way, making the poor families in the capital unable to afford it, so they went to the porridge shed to get rice.

In order to buy white rice for relief, or even to stabilize grain prices, the imperial court will definitely send officials to negotiate with these grain merchants. At this time, it is a good time for profiteers to offer sky-high prices.

"Ning Shilang, there is famine everywhere now, and the rise in food prices is also forced by the situation..." The name of the leading grain merchant is Cheng Lin, a fat man with a white face, a hypocritical smirk on his greasy face, and the fat all over his body. Watching his laughter tremble slightly: "You let us maintain the original price, how is this possible!"

Ning Yuji frowned, and said with a sullen face: "It's understandable to increase the amount of money, but is it too much to increase by ten times? A bucket of rice and ten taels of silver are almost the savings of most people for several months, let alone those who have no money. Homeless refugees."

"If you can't afford it, then don't buy it." Cheng Lin spread his hands and said nonchalantly, "Business is like this. Could it be that you still want us to be good fortune dragon girls?"

"Yes, yes." The other grain merchants quickly echoed.

Seeing that they insisted on going their own way, Ning Yuji slapped the table again, gritted his teeth and said: "Now, the people are suffering from famine, and instead of helping the victims tide over the difficulties, you are still making huge profits here. Don't you feel ashamed of being hungry and cold?"

The reason why the grain merchants raised the price of white rice to ten taels of silver was naturally for those high-ranking officials and nobles. Now there are rumors everywhere that the famine will last for several months, so the high-ranking officials and nobles are buying rice to store grain, even if the price of this rice has doubled.As for the life and death of those refugees, they were not in the scope of their consideration.

So even if Ning Yuji sternly reprimanded them now, they didn't feel ashamed, they only felt that doing business to make money was only right and proper.

"Ning Shilang, don't get angry, we are not unwilling to sell rice to the imperial court." Naturally, the grain merchants did not want to antagonize the imperial court, but they would seize the opportunity to benefit themselves.But now, in order to solve the urgent need of famine, the imperial court will inevitably agree to all their rude demands.

"Now we have two warehouses of white rice in our hands, and there are more than 300 bags." Cheng Lin smiled darkly, and said the main purpose in their hearts, "The price is 3000 taels, and at the same time the imperial court must issue an edict to cancel The prohibition system in the grain industry has sealed the four of us as official merchants, specializing in selling rice in the capital."

Three hundred bags of white rice cost only 500 taels of silver, yet they offered a price as high as 3000 taels!Moreover, they want to monopolize the grain industry without shame!

The two officials who came with Ning Yuji all exclaimed.

The salt, iron, and tea of ​​the Daqi State have long been monopolized by the government, but the grain industry is actually privately run, and the system of prohibition is implemented.If they agreed to the request of the grain merchants today, they would have to sell all the rice grains in the capital from that day forward, and the huge profits they could make would be long-lasting, far more than what they earned during the catastrophe!
But if they don't agree to their request, the price of food in the capital will soar, and the common people will have no rice to cook, and there will be complaints.And they dared to play tricks under the eyes of the emperor, which shows that there is a lot of power behind them, and they have made sufficient preparations to carefully hide the more than 300 bags of white rice.

Ning Yuji and the other three officials realized that they had to either agree to the harsh demands of the grain merchants, or arrest them and torture them to find out the whereabouts of the rice warehouse.But the latter is very likely to die and the net will be broken, making things develop in a worse direction.After all, when they are locked up, the capital will be in a state of scarce rice.If they hesitate to find out the whereabouts of the rice warehouse, famine will be imminent.

(End of this chapter)