"Isn't it painful to test disaster with one's own body? If you know how to return after being confused, you can still avoid it." [Three Kingdoms·Wei Shu]
In the process of providing relief, the imperial court was able to please a group of people at the lowest level, win the support of the people at the bottom, and promote the emperor's benevolence and righteousness. In sharp contrast, those wealthy businessmen and ordinary people who were unkind and hoarded money during natural disasters.
Although he can't do anything to these wealthy businessmen, he will inevitably secretly hate the wealthy businessmen and the powerful families behind them.
It may be easy to establish a good reputation, but it is very difficult to maintain a good reputation for hundreds of years. In the eyes of those long-established aristocratic families, the name of the family is often more important than the name of the family.
Gold and silver are more important. Luo Boyan and others don't have to worry about it, because they are still in the stage of accumulating wealth rather than accumulating reputation. As for the Fufeng Ma family, it is different.
"The imperial court wants to use this opportunity to gain fame and benevolent, and it will do its best to provide relief. My family cannot be reduced to a foil!" Mabi said with a worried lesson: "At that time, everyone will feel the righteousness of the country's efforts to provide relief, and will blame us for taking advantage of it.
It is unkind to cut off the common people and cut off the livelihood of ordinary people. How can the good reputation that my family has built up over the past hundreds of years be left? A thousand pieces of gold is worth less than one person. It’s okay to pay it back if those small powerful men in the countryside don’t understand. You should understand this truth."
In fact, it is not only the reputation of the Ma family that has plummeted, but if there is any sense of public dissatisfaction, Emperor Anzhi will push a few leaders out for liquidation to relieve public anger.
Ma Fang did not notice this problem at first. Now that he thinks about it, it is easy to explain that the imperial court had kept silent about what they did. It was not that they were not aware of it, and it was not that Ma Rixi was seeking to protect his own interests, but that in addition to using this to establish
In addition to the kindness of the imperial court, especially the emperor, they also had to build momentum in public opinion and transfer the grievances of the affected people to these powerful people who were driving up prices.
"In years of natural disasters, life is difficult for everyone, except for the wealthy businessmen in the countryside who are merciless, exploit them at high prices, lend money and charge interest. But even if those common people have great complaints, they cannot reach your ears or turn a deaf ear.
Is that so?" Ma Bi looked at Ma Fan's trembling expression as if he had fallen into an ice cave, and sighed in his heart. He was not good at managing his family and had been burying his head in scriptures. Although Ma Fan did not hold a high official position, he was very important to him.
Ma Bi has always seen how much he has contributed to the family business. Unfortunately, he is too obsessed with money and silk, thinking that earning more land, house, money and silk for Ma is not inferior to others' achievements as officials, but he is completely
The importance of 'name' is ignored.
At this time, Ma Bi felt a little tired. He didn't like to get involved in these troubled affairs. Taixue was originally his best destination, but who made him a member of the Fufeng Ma family?
There are complete eggs.
"But," Ma Fang looked very ugly. Although he had listened, he was still making a final struggle: "Isn't there Situ in the court? Situ is a minister of the court, assisting in government affairs, and is valued by the world. If the country wants to
With one police officer and a hundred policemen, how could you target my family for Situ’s sake?”
"This Situ is not that Situ." After Ma Bi said this, he felt a little inappropriate and added: "Even if the prince is still here, he will never allow his own children to take advantage of the opportunity to merge and make money!"
In fact, he still had something to say. Nowadays, a group of people in the court, led by Taiwei Dong Cheng and Sikong Zhao Wen, are the emperor's cronies, and then there are the Kansai scholars headed by the Fufeng Ma family, and the Hongnong Yang family.
The leaders of the Guandong scholars were originally dominated by the Yang family in the imperial court. However, since the minister ordered Yang Zan to fall ill due to heat stroke, Yang Qi, Yang Biao and others immediately kept a low profile, and instead left Ma Rixi alone.
It was highlighted. Considering the court's determination to stabilize prices and provide relief to the victims in the past few days, as well as the emperor's previous warnings to Ma Rixi and others, if they have not done so before, change them, I am afraid that this time the spearhead will be turned to them.
Ma Fang was blinded by gold and silver for a while. He wasted several years at home, and saw that juniors like Ma Yu were sitting in high positions among the servants. He felt unwilling to do so. And he really had no chance to recover, so he vented all his anger.
He focused his energy and calculations on his family's family business. He was always competing in his heart, thinking that even if he did not become an official in the court, he could still do something at home. So at the beginning, he received a letter from Ma Yu
Later, Ma Fang didn't take this seriously at all. Instead, he thought it was because Ma Yu couldn't stand him looking for trouble and only expected him to be mediocre.
Now, under the guidance of Ma Bi, who is senior in the family and has high reputation, Ma Fang finally came to his senses. Even though Ma Rixi was a Situ, recording ministerial affairs, in front of the emperor, all of this was
Empty talk! He suddenly remembered what he saw when the emperor cleared his father's land in Shanglin and implicated him in punishing the three tyrants. He couldn't help but shiver in his heart, and quickly expressed his position: "My uncle is right! I will let people know that I will lower the price of food and lower the price of food."
We opened a warehouse to cooperate with the relief effort, hoping that we can still save it. But now that things have come to an end, it seems that the court will take another action. Please let me know what we should do!"
Seeing that the other party had come to his senses and had a sincere attitude and was actively trying to remedy the situation, Ma Bi nodded with deep relief. Then he was afraid that Ma Fang would not give up the circle he had built over the years, so he asked deliberately: "Once you lower the price of food here, what will happen?"
If we open a warehouse to provide relief, what will happen to other people in the county?"
As soon as these words came out, Ma Fang immediately understood the general situation. He said decisively: "Who can care about others now? Look after yourself first, and let them know. If they don't know, don't blame the court's laws."
Ma had made up his mind to abandon his soldiers to save his commander, and introduced a group of young powerful people who were not aware of it as scapegoats, so as to give an explanation to the court and the people affected by the disaster. After the two of them discussed it, Ma Bi immediately went to Sili Xiaowei Mansion.
Before the assistant officials came, they dredged all the privately owned ditches, ponds and other places, and drastically lowered the price of food in the city, cooperating with all the court's disaster relief measures. If it weren't for the actions of the previous period, Fu Rui would still be vividly aware of it.
One would think that Mr. Ma really has a compassionate heart.
As various drought prevention and disaster relief measures are implemented in an orderly manner, especially the water conservancy facilities that the court started to build a year or two ago, they play a vital role. Although there are still many powerful and powerful people at the bottom who are interested in hindering them, they are still in the process.
To a great extent, the damage caused by drought locusts has been alleviated. Especially this time, the ditch of Kunming Lake will be dug deeply again, making a gesture of not hesitate to drain the lake water, which made the local governments even more reluctant under the supervision of Captain Sili.
Dare to neglect, follow up one after another.
Although there are no signs of rain in June, the ditches on the ground have tried their best to provide water sources to protect the harvest of a large number of fields. In addition, the imperial court moved the displaced victims to Bingzhou and other counties to cultivate the fields, reducing the pressure on Guanzhong.
, opening warehouses for relief, selling grain at low prices and other measures were implemented one by one, especially the Fufeng Ma family and other wealthy families responded to the court's call for relief and actively cooperated, and finally the development of the situation gradually tilted in the favor of the court.
However, there are only a few powerful people like Ma who have well-informed information channels and can detect and deal with adverse situations in time. Most of them are like Luo Boyan who are obsessed with gains and losses of money and silk, and completely ignore the people around them.