Begging in late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 528 It's time to hang yourself, it's time to jump into the river
How much food does Song Qingshu have?Twenty-one million six million stone!This is the latest data given by Cao Lie in Cam Ranh Bay.

The soil in Indochina Peninsula is not as fertile as Huguangjiangnan, where the red soil is the most widely distributed, and the yield per mu is not as high as in Ming Dynasty, and the people are not as hardworking as the Ming people who are intensively farming. However, the climate is pleasant, three crops a year, and the Indochina Peninsula is not large At least, 960 million square kilometers, and the later China is only [-] square kilometers. Including the vast Xinjiang, snowy regions, Inner Mongolia and the vast three eastern provinces, the Indochina Peninsula is larger than Jiangnan.

The only problem is the problem of transport capacity. Two big sea fish can only come back 60 to 80 shi at a time, plus other miscellaneous transport ships, Song Qingshu can only get back [-] to [-] shi in a month. Fortunately, the current population Not much, enough to supply the market.

The entire port of Yingtian was in full battle. A navy division and an army division held bayonets as if they were going to fight. Behind the sandbags, they were carefully guarded. Even the cannons were pushed out. There was no way. Everyone was short of food. Time has reached its peak, and there are almost 170 million people in the city and suburbs. Excluding your own workshops, you have land to do things, and there are people supported by big families. At least 50 people need to buy food to survive. It has been several days without food, if it is not pushed to the extreme, the big guy will not go to the grain store.

The news was like growing wings. In less than an hour, more than [-] people crowded over with their baskets in their arms. If one of them couldn't be handled properly, the gate of Song Qingshu's port would have to be crushed and collapsed.

Fortunately, the begging army is now well-known, and everyone knows the bayonet. After a while of confusion, under the yelling of the soldiers, the citizens near the factory gate formed a horizontal line and began to walk inside in an orderly manner.

It’s a bit like going to a farmers’ market. This worker carries the food off the boat and pours it directly into a large wooden box. The two rows are full. The citizens who line up just need to hold the measuring device to move what they can. Grain, and then go around in circles like greedy snakes, and check out on the large scale at the other end. The whole process is like flowing water.

Zhao Mutou was the lucky one, he was the first to squeeze in, and followed into the pier with a big bucket full of joy, but he was dumbfounded when he saw a row of white rice cabinets.

According to the peasant army in the northwest, the life of the emperor is white noodles, steamed buns, cheese and mutton every day, while in the southeast, the rice is eaten by wealthy families, at least a scholar. The price of grain in the south of the Yangtze River has been copied too expensive in recent years. The first time he came in line, he just wanted to buy some miscellaneous grains such as beans, millet, sorghum, which could be cheaper, but when he saw rice, he was desperate.

I can't afford it!As a carpenter, he can earn half a tael a month, which is not bad, but the cheapest rice was five taels a few months ago.

Don’t dare to rob this place. Dozens of soldiers sitting there with muskets and bayonets next to the rice cabinet stared at them, but they were not as easy to bully as Rulin Liang, who stared tremblingly for a long time until the officer next to him When Jun urged, he gritted his teeth, carefully grabbed two handfuls of rice, and stuffed them into his pot.

The two children in the family have not eaten for three days, and they barely survive on some vegetables and fruits, and the baby and her mother are so hungry that they are pale and thin. , Let’s talk about it later!

Trembling, Zhao Mutou walked around the rice cabinet with the light rice pot in his arms, and then carefully handed the pot to the cashier at Jiaduobao.

"Just like that?"

Looking at the rice that only covers the bottom of a pot, I guess I have seen too much today. This girl in her twenties is obviously a little impatient, and she muttered complainingly, but the training of the company is not bad. Even so, she Still poured the rice into the weighing utensil, exactly the same as Song Qingshu's eyes when he bought pistachios in later generations. Under Zhao Mutou's trembling gaze, the little girl stared hard for a long time, and then poured the rice back into Zhao Mutou's rice pot Inside.

"One twenty-fifth of a bucket counts as three pennies!"

"How many?"

Feeling the copper coins in her bosom, she trembled, this number almost made Zhao Mutou's eyes pop out, and she didn't know how many times she explained it, the little girl pointed to the side helplessly.

"See, this is our boss Song Qingshu and Song Daguan, who is also the commander of Jianghuai. My boss is kind-hearted. Look at those hypocrites in Donglin Fushe and profiteers in Yangzhou who are hoarding so that the common people can't afford food, so they travel thousands of miles for everyone. We don’t make money from grain transportation, we sell it out for half a tael, just to keep everyone fed and not starve to death!”

Naturally, Song Qingshu couldn't sit there and be admired by others, so he imitated the old godmother and pasted a sketch of his own "big head sticker" on a rice bucket. After hearing the explanation from the cashier girl, Zhao Mutou almost Did not cry.

When the price of rice was the cheapest in the Ming Dynasty, it reached one, two or four dans, but that was at the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The world’s silver had not yet gathered in the Ming Dynasty. When the price of silver was still very expensive, the price of rice remained at the same level for more than 100 years. Hovering between two and one or two halves, the price of rice in Chongzhen has turned upside down for more than ten years, and it has been many years since I have eaten rice. Thinking about the regret of his father before his death, Zhao Mutou is heavily facing Song Qingshu and Damu Bucket bowed.

"Good guy!!!"

After paying three Wen, Zhao Mutou walked out excitedly, but within two steps, he suddenly stretched out his hand and gave himself a big slap in the face, the slap startled the little girl at the cash register, and she backed away as if she was insane. She took a step forward, but in her frightened eyes, Zhao Mutou blushed half of his face, but made a bow with a smile.

"My little lady, my old man's rice grains are short, I wonder if you can accommodate me a bit and let me go back and decorate!"

It's a pity that this time, the little girl's head was shaking like a rattle.

"Uncle, look, how many people are queuing up? If you go back and forth, the order will be disrupted? Besides, my commander is also afraid that the life-saving food will fall into the hands of those profiteers. Anyway, the food ship will arrive tomorrow. , come back tomorrow!"

Normally, if the little girl persuaded with such kindness and kindness, Zhao Mutou might have to play tricks again, but beside the little girl, there are two soldiers with bulging chest muscles, holding bayonets and muskets. Under the persuasion of the muscles, Zhao Mutou cried out Another slap in the face to myself, why are you so timid, if tomorrow is gone, my mother-in-law will have to beat me out!

It’s really like a factory assembly line, this end goes in, the food is bought out, and the grain buying team proceeds in an orderly manner, among them, a few lame people want to jump in line, or snatch the rice buckets of the people who bought the grain, and they are immediately surrounded by soldiers of the begging army. The son was dragged in to do the coolie, isn't it idle?Carry the rice for us Dashuai Song!
It’s not good to be the first to grab it, because they don’t know the price, so they can’t hold it. The rule of the begging army is that they can only buy what they can move at a time. I went to find someone for the container. These days, there is no plastic bag pollution.

I don't know who started it. Before buying rice once, all the rice buyers bowed to Song Qingshu's rice bucket. Looking at the lively scene on the second floor of the port, Song Qingshu, who squinted his eyes, shook his head with emotion.

"Master! Why are you selling it so cheap? We are only four taels of silver a load, and someone must be snapping it up!"

The executive director Xue Shichang’s leisure trip to Taiwan Strait is over. Once again, he returned to the job he loves full of enthusiasm. Following Song Qingshu and watching the citizens’ shipments of large and small packages home, this capable executive director seemed to be watching Seeing that his wife had entered the hotel with other men, he kept hissing and sucking air-conditioning, and finally, with a bitter face, he opened his mouth to complain to Song Qingshu.

But after hearing these words, Song Qingshu still didn't turn his head back, and looked at the crowd outside the window with his hands behind his back, for a long time, before he sighed melancholy.

"Too many people don't care about this Daming country anymore, but I can't just watch him collapse!"

…………

If the Jiaduobao company supplied enough grain a while ago, so that the shareholders of the Rulin grain company and the Donglin princes still had some hope, this time Yingtian sold the grain at an extremely low price to let them Thoroughly see what despair is.

First Yingtian, then Songjiang, and then Changshu, the restless atmosphere in the city disappeared, but in the Yangzhou Guild Hall, once again there was a big gathering of salt merchants, and the Donglin princes became one. Dead silence.

This time it's not just a simple miscalculation, everyone put all their wealth on the grain market, but soon, this gold market turned into a bubble again, rice was half a tael of silver a stone, cheaper soybeans , millet, sorghum, potatoes, corn, wouldn't it be even more difficult to sell them?Half a month ago, they were still faced with the problem of whether to throw it away, but now, it is already a question of whether they can sell it. A large amount of cheap rice has hit the market of Daming. The cheapest ones this time are only those big households and landlords who sell rice, followed by Jiaduobao Bank, which lends money. Many people here have already gone bankrupt!
"Everyone, don't worry, he, he Song thief is definitely bluffing, the world, where is there so much rice in the world? As long as he lasts for a few more days, he Song thief will be defeated by himself!"

There was a deathly silence for a long time, and finally Zhang Pu bravely stood up and tried to persuade him, but this time, he is no longer a gambler who loses money, but here are everywhere!

Stretching out his fist suddenly, Baolu stared at him with blood red eyes like a wolf, and grabbed his chest with his fist, but after a few glances, he suddenly pushed forward heavily, flicked his sleeves, turned around and left , Jin followed him, Wang Zhenmeng also shook his head heavily, and went out without looking back.

"Son of a bitch!"

Before Zhang Pu could yell angrily, Yi Ji's fat fist had already slashed his eye sockets, and then another little salt merchant hit him hard on the bridge of the nose with a straight fist. Mr. Xue's sack was generally beaten to the corner.

"How do you beat people?" Chen Zilong, Fang Yizhi and the others panicked and wanted to persuade them when they came up, but they were caught off guard by the people in Fushe behind them, and several of them also waved their fists at them like crazy.

"It's all you bastards! It's all over!"

(End of this chapter)