Li Guochao was excited: "Donkey day! Let's go grab Ai Tuhao first! His donkeys won't even eat sorghum, and the wheat he hid in the caves is all moldy."

These words made Li Zijing tremble again.

He hurriedly turned to look at Li Qingqiu, "Second brother, I don't dare to listen to the child's misbehavior, or he will be beheaded."

Li Guo snorted, "Uncle, I'm two years older than you, who's asking for my baby?"

Li Zijing slapped him in the face, "I want to beg for food! So big and so small."

Li Guo pulled up the tattered quilt and covered his head, muttering: "Please look like me! No eggs! You deserve to starve to death!"

This young man's father died and his mother remarried when he was young. He grew up completely barbarically, and nothing he said was surprising.

Liu Zongmin on the side laughed secretly.

Li Zijing was about to have another attack, so Li Zicheng kicked him and said, "Sleep peacefully. We'll talk to you tomorrow."

Li Guo and Li Zijing both shut up.

Li Zicheng became the head of the family at the age of sixteen. He was both a father and a mother. It was not easy for him to pull two little monkeys together. They couldn't accept it.

It's quiet at night.

Li Zicheng secretly sighed, these days, honest people like Li Zijing can only end up starving to death.

Because Li Zicheng, who would later learn 500 years later, knew that there would still be a severe drought this year, and the first rain in three years would not fall in northern Shaanxi until May next year.

Don't be happy, it won't rain again the year after tomorrow.

How many ordinary people can hold on to their food reserves?

Take a look at "Bei Chen Da Hung Shu" published by Ma Maocai in the first year of Chongzhen——

"In August and September, people competed to collect and eat the grass from the mountains. The grains are like bran bark, and its taste is bitter and astringent. Eating it can only prolong one's life. After October, when the grass is gone, the bark is peeled off.

As for food, the elm tree is the only bad tree. Mixing the bark of other trees for food can also slow down its death. At the end of the year, when the bark of the trees is gone, they will dig up rocks in the mountains and eat them.

The name of the stone is Qingye. It tastes fishy and greasy. If you eat little, you will feel full. Within a few days, you will suffer from abdominal distension and death.

The most pitiable thing is that there is a dung dump in the west of Ansai City. Every morning, two or three babies are abandoned in it. Some of them cry, some of them howl, some of them call their parents, and some of them eat their dung.

The son who was abandoned in the morning has no life left, and there are still those who have been abandoned.

What's even more surprising is that as soon as the children and the lone travelers left the city, there was no trace. Later, I saw people outside the door cooking a certain bone for fuel and cooking a certain meat for food. I realized that everyone in front of me was eaten by them...

Several pits were dug outside the county town, each pit could accommodate hundreds of people, to cover their remains. When the minister came, more than three pits were full, and there were countless people who could not cover them several miles away. This is true in small counties, but in large counties

It can be known; if it is like this in one place, it can be known in other places.

Nowadays, there are only a few people in the city, and the household registration is depressed. It is no longer what it was in the beginning. What's more, when we are close to death, even if we don't cut taxes (taxes), there are also people who don't respond when they call for them. Lawsuits are bound by the strictness of the law, and they can't do it.

Being lax is a reminder. If there are only one or two people in a household, the one or two people will be forced to pay the compensation of one household's money and food; if there are one or two households in a family, the one or two households will be forced to pay the money and food of one Jia.

Waiting and looking up, it is the same for every mile and county. Then you see that the people here have no regrets and have fled, wandering in different places, and they have no place to live. When the permanent property is lost, the wealth is easy to be exhausted, the dream cuts off the road to the hometown, and the soul disappears into the ravine.

How could he be a thief without being polite?

Fleeing here, fleeing there, fleeing here again...

The people were not willing to eat stones and the dead began to gather together and commit robberies. One or two people who had saved a little money were robbed and everything was plundered. Even the officials could not ban the people.

Those who have caught something are still calm and unafraid, and they say, "Death from hunger is the same as death from robbers. Instead of sitting down and dying of hunger, how can you die for robbers and become a satiated ghost?"

This is why thieves spread all over Qin."

Could the parents and officials in each county know about the tragic situation under their rule? Could the imperial court know about the tragic situation in northern Shaanxi? What measures would they take to deal with it?

There is a fart!

…

What most people understand as a food shortage is that there is no food in a county, a prefecture or even a province, so even if you rebel, you will still starve to death.

wrong!

The actual food shortage is when less than one percent of the total population of wealthy households have enough food to feed everyone for two or three years, while the poor can only starve to death.

No matter how dry the weather is, Ai Tuhao can still plant more than a thousand acres of rice, not to mention irrigating the land.

On the other hand, although Li Zicheng's family has ten acres of land, it is all cultivated on the hillside and depends entirely on the weather. In addition, there is no fertilizer, and the output in normal years cannot match the four acres of paddy fields. In disaster years, it is even worse.

No need to compare.

People are more infuriating than others.

The Ai family is rich enough, but compared with the Ming Dynasty clan, he is just a hair on his legs.

King Ji occupied 7.8 million acres of farmland in Changsha and Shanhua alone; King Shu occupied 70% of the land in Chengdu; King Fu granted 2 million acres of land; King Lu granted 4 million acres of land.

There are also King Zhou, King Tang, King Chong, King Qin, King Jin, King Dai, King Su, King Qing, King Rui, King Zhao, King Hui...

The descendants of Lao Zhu's family are prosperous, and there are now at least 150,000 to 60,000 pigs. How much fertile land do they occupy? "It is unprecedented in the ages." 1,560,000 is more conservative, because many piglets born from common people are defaulted to

Expelled. For example: "...all are concubines, and those who have not asked for fame and fortune...are given special gifts and are allowed to enter the Jade Order."

In addition to land, sects and vassals also withheld local salt taxes, mineral taxes, commercial taxes, and land taxes for their own use.

They couldn't do anything else, so they had to rely on the people's wealth and anointing to support them, and they lived in drunkenness and dreams all day long.

Some piglets with middle and lower titles "have borrowed money before receiving their salary and grain, and as soon as they receive it, it all returns to the creditor. The reason is that it is not for food, wine, and travel, but for gambling."

They were simply raised to waste, just left to eat and wait to die.

Not only the later clan bastards, but many of Zhu Yuanzhang's sons were also bastards. According to his policy towards other civil and military officials, most of his sons were worthy of being skinned. But those treasures were all biological sons, so a few words of reprimand would be enough.

Du Fu of the Tang Dynasty had already predicted the Zhu family's character seven hundred years later: "The wine and meat in the Zhu family stinks, and there are frozen bones on the road."

To compare, Uncle Liu Huang in the late Han Dynasty managed to earn his living by weaving mats and selling shoes.

…

Is famine really an unsolvable problem?

King Hui of Liang during the Warring States Period said: A humble man treats his country with all his heart and ears. If there is trouble in the river, move the people to the east of the river and move the millet to the river. The same goes for the trouble in the east of the river...

Even Mencius was not satisfied with this, saying that he "takes fifty steps to laugh at a hundred steps."

"Dogs eat people's food but don't know how to check it. If someone dies of hunger on the way, they don't know what to do. When a person dies, they say: 'It's not me, it's Sui'. How is it different from stabbing someone to kill and saying, 'It's not me, it's a soldier.'"

'..."

So, don't blame it.

Chao Cuo of the Western Han Dynasty said: If the sage king is above and the people are not cold and hungry, they must not be able to plow and eat, or weave and clothe, which is the way to develop their wealth. Therefore, Yao and Yu had nine years of water and soup.

If there is a seven-year drought and the country is destroyed and barren, it is better to have more livestock and prepare the equipment first.

Therefore, famine is a false proposition.

If there is no "sage king on top" and the court does not provide disaster relief, then it will be up to Li Zicheng to solve the problem.

His method is——

Put the knife on the necks of the local tyrants and evil gentry, and then convince them with "reason".


Chapter completed!