The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 253
"Mr. Yang Ge got up first to talk." Zhu Linmi hurried out of the study to help Yang Tinglin up, and then let him into the room, "What happened?"

"Ah..." Yang Tinglin sighed heavily first, and said anxiously, "I'm here to go to southern Fujian for disaster relief. At first, it went smoothly. The official warehouse has stockpiled nearly [-] stones of grain and rice, and I sent people to Guangdong and Fujian. North to buy rice.

"According to the original plan, the imperial government allocated 70 taels of disaster relief money, plus some local donations, and the purchased grain and rice should be enough for the victims to survive until the autumn harvest.

"Unexpectedly, profiteers in northern Fujian, Guangdong, and eastern Jiangxi heard that the court wanted to buy grain for disaster relief, so they colluded and colluded. imperial court.

"When Xiaguan first arrived in southern Fujian, the price of brown rice was only one tael or six per stone, but later it rose to three taels. As of the day before yesterday, a stone of rice was sold for eight taels! In Zhangpu, Changtai and other places in southern Fujian, it was even twice that...

"At present, not only is it difficult to buy food for disaster relief in southern Fujian, but the people in northern Guangdong and northern Fujian are also affected. In many cities, food and rice have a price but no market."

"These bastards!" Zhu Linmi slapped the desk vigorously after hearing the words, and couldn't help but utter a foul word, "How dare you make the country lose money!"

He frowned and thought for a moment, then said to Yang Tinglin, "Can we collect grain directly from farmers?"

"The lower officials have sent people to purchase in the countryside, but...those profiteers acted extremely fast and bid high, and they have already cleared up the floating grain in every village. In the past few days, more than 20 counties in northern Fujian have collected less than a thousand shi ..."

Zhu Linmi frowned even deeper. At first it was just a famine in southern Fujian, but now it was spread to the whole Fujing by these profiteers!

No matter what era, the most basic demand of ordinary people is to have a full stomach. Faced with the threat of starvation, they usually have only one way out, and that is to rise up.

If the situation continues to deteriorate, it may not be long before there will be a second Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong in Fujing.At that time, don't talk about grand plans such as the Western Expedition and the Northern Expedition. The current Ming Dynasty is likely to collapse from within like the Chongzhen Dynasty.

During the famine in the Chongzhen Dynasty, the imperial court was unable to provide disaster relief. Although the main reason was that the treasury was empty, profiteers were also a very important factor.

You must not follow in the footsteps of the Chongzhen Dynasty!Zhu Linmi's eyes were full of coldness, since you profiteers are heartless and disregard the lives of the people in order to make money for the country, then don't blame me for being unrighteous!
He said coldly to Yang Tinglin: "Order the magistrates of all prefectures and counties, all those who dare to hoard food prices to drive up food prices will all be imprisoned for the crime of disturbing the country, and those who resist will be killed on the spot."

Yang Tinglin said dejectedly: "Your Highness, it may not be easy to do..."

"Oh? But why? If the local troops are insufficient, we can call in Lu Chang and Song Jincheng's troops to assist."

"It's not a matter of soldiers and horses, even the county government officials can take down those merchants." Yang Tinglin continued, "It's just that there should be only a few big households that store grain and speculate, but they are all hidden behind the scenes. Split the zero points to the next family, the next family will dismantle and sell the next family, and finally flow into the rice store.

"We only know that the rice shop sells grain at a high price, but the purchase price is extremely high, and the selling price has to be high. Even if they are all arrested, the real villains in the background will not be hurt.

"What's more, if a large number of rice shops are closed down, the people who have difficulty buying grain will become increasingly unable to buy grain, or the price of grain will be pushed higher."

"Then can we find out who is hoarding grain?"

Yang Tinglin shook his head with a bitter face, "If you follow the clues, you may be able to find out some clues in a few months, but the hungry people in southern Fujian may not be able to wait for a long time..."

Zhu Linmi was taken aback when he heard the words, feeling that he had nowhere to use his strength, and he looked at Yang Tinglin again, "Then according to Yang Ge's intention, how should we deal with it now?"

A few strands of cold sweat dripped down Yang Tinglin's forehead, and he gritted his teeth and said, "I think that the only way for the imperial court to allocate more money for the disaster is to make the hungry people save food and food, and maybe we can tide over the difficulties..."

"How much will be added?"

"At least 150 million taels are needed."

150 million taels? !Zhu Linmi clenched her fists. There is so much money in the national treasury right now, but that is the "fund" for Ming's future development. Could it be that these traitors are going to be cheaper?

The hatred in his heart!

On the side Yang Tinglin saw the assistant king's complexion was not good, although he was timid in his heart, but he thought of the tragic situation when he first arrived in southern Fujian, he was starved and starving, and he still took half a step forward, cupped his hands and said: "Your Highness, the disaster is urgent Your Highness, please make a decision as soon as possible. The lower officials... the lower officials are not doing enough to relieve the disaster, and I will resign and return to my hometown after the autumn harvest."

"A profiteer is harming the country, Yang Gebu should not be too self-blaming." Zhu Linmi suppressed her anger, forced herself to calm down, and asked, "How long is the grain stored in the official warehouse enough to consume?"

"Returning to Your Highness, if you save food, you can last for twelve or three days."

Zhu Linmin nodded, which meant that tens of thousands of people would starve to death in more than ten days, but he was really unwilling to feed money from the treasury to profiteers.

After a while, he said to Yang Tinglin: "Guangge Yang, go back first, I will reply you tomorrow morning."

"Your officer...obey your orders."

Zhu Linmi stayed up all night, took a pen and paper, and listed all kinds of cases in her mind that the future generations would fight against hoarding.

When he wrote the words "The Battle of Shanghai Mimian", his subordinates suddenly paused.

The so-called battle of rice and cotton was that in 1950, a large number of speculators took advantage of the lack of supplies in Shanghai just after liberation, and jointly bought out the "two whites and one black", namely rice, cotton yarn and coal. The three necessities of life.Then hoarding and reluctance to sell, aggressively driving up prices, causing prices in Shanghai to soar more than 20 times in a short period of time, which in turn triggered a nationwide wave of commodity price increases, and the lives of ordinary people were greatly impacted.

How similar is this to the current situation in Fujing?Zhu Linmi immediately recalled our party's countermeasures at that time. It was simple but extremely practical. It was to centrally transport "two whites and one black" materials from all over the country and sell them in large quantities in Shanghai to stabilize prices.

After the sell-off lasted for a period of time, the price became lower and lower, and speculators could no longer hold back, so they had to sell their hoarded goods at a loss, and finally the price stabilized.

Zhu Linmi narrowed her eyes slightly, secretly thinking that she might be able to take care of cats and tigers in Fujing.But he immediately shook his head slightly. At that time, our party was able to keep prices down. There were two key points.

One is that it has a huge source of materials - it can allocate materials from all over the country and concentrate on stabilizing prices in Shanghai.The second is that the financial strength in hand is strong enough to ensure that speculators are unable to eat up all the sold items and eventually liquidate their positions.

But he has neither of these two points.

At present, there are actually only Jiangxi and Fujian under the rule of the imperial court, and almost all the grain that can be purchased in these two places has been bought out by profiteers. Where else can grain and rice be transferred from?

Moreover, even if the source of rice is found, all the silver in the treasury cannot be used to stabilize food prices.But if you don't invest millions of taels of silver, it will be difficult to influence the market direction...

He tapped his fingers on the table and thought about it, but his gaze inadvertently swept across the stack of official documents on the desk, and there was a roll of thick yellow paper that moved his heart.

(End of this chapter)