On July 25th, in the Zhang Mansion in the west of Suzhou City, the servants of the Zhang family were waiting with their heads down, not daring to show their anger for fear of offending the angry master. Zhang Keli, who was in his sixties, was sitting in the main room.
, looking at the "Dali Temple Announcement" five days ago, his face was ashen, and his old face seemed to have turned into a piece of iron.
All the gentry in the world were fooled by Yang Peng. Where did Yang Peng go to Nanzhili to buy rice? Where did he buy rice in Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong? It was all a lie. Yang Peng had already planted enough in Xiaoliuqiu
The sweet potatoes that Shandong people used to survive the famine. The reason why Yang Peng released the news that he wanted to buy rice was to trick the gentry and earn their money.
The picture in the "Dali Temple Announcement" puts it directly. Yang Peng took advantage of the sharp rise in grain prices in Shandong and the south and sold more than two million shi of grain in various places, especially in Shandong. Those who bought it for 20,000 yuan
Yang Peng sold the grain at a price of more than five taels, earning millions of taels of silver.
The "Dali Temple Announcement" seemed to want to piss off the gentry all over the world. It said in a grand manner: "With this seven million taels of silver, the hungry people of Shandong will have no worries. With this silver, King Yan can go to Taiwan to buy sweet potatoes, and the hungry people of Shandong will be safe."
You won’t have to worry about food rations for the whole year.”
When Zhang Keli saw this, he couldn't breathe. He didn't expect that I, Zhang Keli, had been working in the business all his life. He thought he was smart all his life, but when he got old, he was severely deceived by Yang Peng, who was in his twenties. And he was deceived in such a way.
There is nothing to say, who would let the gentry like me want to enrich the country while it is in jeopardy?
Stealing a chicken will end up losing a lot of rice. I can't even tell anyone about this matter - the gentry wanted to hinder Yang Peng's disaster relief and almost starved the people of Shandong to death. If the gentry's behavior were known to the people, not only would no one sympathize with it
Gentlemen will be scolded to death by the common people.
Zhang Keli continued to read the "Dali Temple Announcement" and saw the news below the front page: ""The Liu family's fleet arrived in Laizhou loaded with millions of stones of sweet potatoes, and the people of Shandong welcomed it with gongs and drums!"
Zhang Keli stayed for a long time before shaking his head. He sighed, put on the reading glasses he bought specially from the capital, and turned over the ledger on the tea table. Zhang Keli wanted to calculate how much the Zhang family had lost this time.
However, after looking at it for a while, he became irritated and slapped the account book on the tea table angrily.
"Accountant Liu, how much did the Zhang family lose this time by hoarding 190,000 shi of grain?" Accountant Liu, who was standing next to him, looked at Zhang Keli's face and said carefully: "Master, I've done the math, and the grains are average.
We bought it for three taels and three cents of silver. Now Yang Peng suddenly stopped buying rice, causing the price of grain in the market to plummet, to two cents and four cents. Calculated this way, we only have a floating loss on our books.
, there are 170,000 taels.”
Hearing this astonishing number, Zhang Keli coughed violently. He quickly picked up the tea cup on his right and took a sip of tea, but he still couldn't stop coughing and actually coughed out the tea. He bent down and tried hard to
Coughing, it took me a long time to catch my breath.
After finally sitting up straight, Zhang Keli's face was full of slump, and his face turned a little pale. This time, the Zhang family in Suzhou was really cheated by Yang Peng. The Zhang family's total income in the past twenty years has only been more than 700,000 taels.
A quarter of my savings was lost in one go.
The free money showered down helped the poor farmers who pushed grain into the city to sell it. On weekdays, they could only exchange one or two or three jins of rice for a hundred pounds. At that time, they could exchange for one or two jin at the Zhang family's grain store.
Eight coins. Thinking of those farmers who were so happy when they got the money, Zhang Keli felt his heart aching again.
This Yang Peng is really treating the gentry of the world like a monkey, and is really killing the gentry. Zhang Keli thought with his eyes closed, and cursed Yang Peng a hundred times in his heart. After a long time, he slowly stood up. He leaned on
He walked a few steps in the room with a cane and said slowly: "Silver is something external to the body. If you don't take it with you in life, you won't take it with you in death..."
However, before he finished speaking, his eldest son's wife suddenly rushed into the main room. When she rushed in, she walked too fast, twisted her feet and fell to the ground. However, she didn't mind whether she was hurt by the fall on the ground.
, but shouted loudly to Zhang Keli: "Master, go to the side yard to save people! Mingxuan is going to hang himself!"
Zhang Mingxuan is Zhang Keli's eldest son and the actual head of the Zhang family. Zhang Keli is older, and Zhang Mingxuan usually takes care of the Zhang family's business and farm. This time, Zhang Mingxuan did the actual operation of stocking up on grain.
Zhang Keli was stunned when he heard the news. He thought to himself that his son could not bear the loss of 170,000 silver. He put away his anxiety and hurriedly walked to the side yard with a cane. When he arrived at the main room in the side yard, he saw that his eldest son
Zhang Keli's study was locked from the inside. Zhang Keli's three grandchildren and two granddaughters stood anxiously outside the study door, knocking hard on the door, asking Zhang Mingxuan not to commit suicide.
Seeing the master Zhang Keli coming, everyone got out of the way and looked at the master anxiously. Zhang Keli walked to the door, knocked hard, and said in a deep voice: "Mingxuan, open the door, I am your father!
"However, there was no sound in the study. Zhang Keli lowered the door anxiously and shouted: "Open the door, a real man, can't you bear this storm?" Zhang Mingxuan's voice came from the study: "Dad, I can't help it.
You, I have no shame in living in this world!"
Zhang Keli frowned and shouted: "As for the money, should you take it with you or die? What's wrong with you? Your three sons are here, so you should show some dignity."
When Zhang Mingxuan inside heard this, he didn't say anything for a long time. Zhang Keli became a little impatient and shouted: "Open the door!"
After Zhang Keli yelled this, there was a soft sound from the door knocker in the room. Zhang Keli knew that it was Zhang Mingxuan who opened the door, so he pushed the door open, only to see Zhang Mingxuan kneeling on the ground wearing a white middle coat.
Zhang Keli said loudly: "I asked you to hoard the food. I lost hundreds of thousands of taels of silver. I don't blame you!" Zhang Mingxuan knelt on the ground and cried, and said in a trembling voice: "Dad, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry for Zhang Mingxuan."
We are a family!" "I will hang myself in the room this time. Dad, please don't stop me." Zhang Keli felt that things were a little strange when he heard his son's tone, as if he suddenly realized something. He shook his body and held on
The door frame asked: "Niezhang, how much food have you hoarded?"
Zhang Mingxuan raised his head, slapped him on the left cheek, and slapped him on the right cheek again, crying and shouting: "Dad! I didn't just hoard the 190,000 shi of grain. I thought it was Yang Peng who gave me the gift this time."
We gave away money, thinking it was a sure-fire deal, so we borrowed two million taels of silver from outside and secretly stocked up 600,000 shi of grain in Hanjiazhuang. Now, the 600,000 shi of grain has lost 540,000 yuan.
All the family’s savings were lost to me!”
Hearing this, the dozen or so members of the Zhang family standing at the door of the study felt as if they were struck by lightning. Zhang Keli's face turned from white to red, and then from red to white. He was ruined, ruined, he had saved up for more than 20 years.
More than 700,000 yuan was saved, but all was lost overnight. The money was given to farmers who could not read a single word.
His eyes were as big as copper coins, he suddenly raised his crutch and hit his son on the head!
"I'll beat you to death, you traitor!" However, as soon as the crutch was swung into the air, Zhang Keli's eyes rolled up and his whole body began to tremble. Finally, he collapsed to the ground and fainted as soon as he tilted his head. The children of the Zhang family They were stunned and rushed forward one by one. The status and privileges of the Zhang family depended entirely on Zhang Keli. If Zhang Keli died, the Zhang family would really collapse.
"Dad!! You have to hold on!" "Master!! Don't scare us!"
On August 11, in Qingzhou Mansion, Shen Congdao was sitting on the Grand Master's chair in the second hall of Shen's residence, with a gloomy face. His wife and two concubines were sitting on the chairs next to them, crying profusely.
The rice seller "from the south" has notified the Shen family to move out, and the Shen family compound will be taken away soon. Last month, Shen Congdao thought that Yang Peng wanted to purchase a large amount of grain, so he followed the Qingzhou prefect Together, they raised the price of rice in Qingzhou to sixty-two and one stone. In fact, there is not much idle grain on the market, and most of the grain in stock is in the homes of the gentry. Everyone thought that the gentry in Qingzhou worked together and could raise the price of grain without spending much money. It was stable at a high level, but who knew it would encounter a large-scale grain sell-off.
The gentry did not know what was going on at that time, thinking that stabilizing grain prices would trap Yang Peng, and desperately bought the high-priced grain sold by others. In Qingzhou Prefecture alone, the gentry bought thirty grains at a high price of more than five taels. Thousands of stones of food.
Later, the gentry were a little afraid to take action. The Qingzhou prefect stepped forward to coordinate and allocate shares to each gentry family to purchase the grain that was sold off in the market. Shen Congdao was favored by the prefect and was given more quotas. In the end, even his own family All the houses were mortgaged to rice merchants.
At that time, when the rice seller said that the house could be used as a mortgage, Shen Congdao felt inexplicably bad. Unexpectedly, it turned out to be true. Last month, Xiaoliuqiu disaster relief sweet potatoes began to arrive in Shandong in large quantities. "Dali Temple Announcement" stated that the food needed for this disaster relief has been provided, and there is no need to buy food on the market.
At first, the gentry did not believe it, thinking that the King of Yan could not bear the price of food, so he began to lie to lower the price of food. But when the food in the families of Shandong people ran out this month, and King Yan's disaster relief porridge sheds were all opened, Shandong's people Only then did the gentry realize that King Yan had not lied at all. The sweet potatoes from Xiaoliuqiu could indeed save 10 million people in Shandong who were suffering from drought.
King Yan no longer needed to buy food for disaster relief. The victims had King Yan's relief, and they no longer needed to sell iron to buy life-saving food. The food hoarded by the gentry suddenly became useless. Not to mention that the gentry originally had a lot of money. There was little food storage, and the more than 200 shi of food from other provinces that Yang Peng sold in Shandong alone was a huge blow to the Shandong gentry. The Shandong gentry's granaries were filled with rice, flour and rice.
As a result, almost within a few days, the price of grain in Shandong plummeted. From the sky-high price of six liang and one stone, it fell to the floor price of two hundred and one stone. At this price, the grain is still affordable and has no market. If it is sold in large quantities, it will not be sold at all. stay home.
When Yang Peng was selling grain, he played a trick and allowed the gentry who were hoarding grain to use their real estate as mortgage to buy it on credit. At that time, the gentry only thought that if they persisted for a month, Yang Peng would definitely come to collect grain at a high price, and it would not be a big problem to mortgage their houses to grain merchants. As a result, now When the mortgage time limit came up, the price of grain was so low that at least seven or eight grain-hoarding gentry families in Qingzhou Prefecture had to have their houses expropriated. In order to raise money to redeem their mortgaged houses, these gentry desperately sold rice on the market, reducing their already low prices. Food prices have been pushed even lower.
However, if grain is sold at this time, who will take over? There are only selling orders but no buying orders in the market. The price of grain in Shandong is getting lower day by day. The mortgage period for Shen Congdao's house expired the day before yesterday. Those who sold rice to Shen Congdao The southern grain merchants said that if the two thousand taels of silver they bought on credit were not paid back today, the Shen family would be kicked out of their house. However, no one bought the rice Shen Congdao sold at low prices in his own grain store. The people in Shandong had no harvest last year and were very strapped for money. With King Yan's porridge shed as a guarantee, the citizens were unwilling to spend their last bit of emergency money to buy rice.
Shen Congdao sat on the chair, sighed helplessly and said, "Forget it, just move to the countryside. This house can't be saved." Shen Congdao's first wife took his ten-year-old daughter and wiped her tears. He sniffed and said, "Master, when I married you, I brought a bride price of two thousand taels with me. Did you also lose all of it?"
Shen Congdao's face turned red, he slapped the table and shouted: "How did I know that the situation would be like this? Now your betrothal gifts have become rice and noodles that no one buys, and they are all in the granary in the countryside. If you want, go to the granary to move them That’s it!”
When the first wife heard this, she fell forward and burst into tears. Shen Congdao's second wife sat on a chair and gritted his teeth and said: "Master, we moved from the countryside to the city by beating gongs and drums. Then At that time, many farmers were optimistic about the master and brought their fields to donate. Now that we have moved back to the countryside in despair, those small farmers may look down on us and make trouble if they can't help it."
Shen Congdao sighed, curled up in his chair and was speechless. He was no longer as paternal as before. He hoarded food to obstruct King Yan's disaster relief. If he said this, he would be criticized by thousands of people. Now he has lost his mansion. When you return to the countryside, you will be desolate. Will there be angry people looking for trouble?
Shen Congdao sighed. The second roommate said: "Master, why do we give up the house to those grain merchants so easily? If those grain merchants want to litigate, it will take him several months, and maybe the price of grain will increase at that time. Woke up."
Shen Congdao gave a wry smile and said: "The sweet potatoes from Xiaoliuqiu are being shipped continuously, and the price of grain may not rise. Stop talking and move. The "Dali Temple Announcement" said that the merchants who sell grain to us are all We are from the King of Yan. If our arms cannot twist our thighs, how can we fight against the King of Yan? When the time comes, we will be arrested and beaten to death."
After hearing this, Shen Congdao's first wife stared and said, "You're going to move as soon as you say? You were so grand when you moved to the city, and now you're moving back in such a dejected mood? I don't have the shame to live in the country! I want to go back to the country. go by yourself!"
Shen Congdao was stunned and asked, "If you don't go to live in the country, where will you go?" The principal wife rolled her eyes, but couldn't think of a place to go. She fell to the ground and started crying again, shouting loudly: "I'm not going to live anymore!" The second roommate started to cry after thinking about it. He wiped his tears and said, "Master, can't you borrow a few thousand taels of silver?"
Shen Congdao said with a sad face: "I don't know how much money the Qingzhou Prefecture gentry has deposited in the grain storage this time. No one has any extra money. At this time, where do you want me to borrow it?"
"That's all, don't say any more, go to the countryside! If someone takes the opportunity to cause trouble, we will just be patient and retreat and it will be over! Now that Yang Peng has taken over Shandong, no one can stop us. We will have a hard life. It’s still to come! What does this little pain mean?”
When the second room heard this, he shed a few lines of tears and sat on the chair unable to say a word. The Shen family was crying there when they heard footsteps coming from outside. The "guy from the south" was selling grain to Shen. Congdao's "grain merchant" led ten soldiers from the Huben Division into the Shen family yard and shouted loudly: "Shen Congdao, you still haven't handed over the house? Do you want to take advantage of the Dali Temple court?"
On August 20, Yang Peng's relief stations for disaster victims in Shandong were all rolled out. In every town and every city in Shandong, Yang Peng set up relief stations. With the wooden waist badges issued by Yang Peng, the people went to the hospital every day. Receive sweet potatoes once every three days to ward off the disaster.
In July and August, Yang Peng had hired tax collectors in advance to collect commercial taxes. However, the first thing the tax collectors did after taking office was not to collect taxes, but to go deep into the grassroots villages and city streets to collect taxes on all the people. After registering the identity, Yang Peng also hired local carpenters to make waist badges for the heads of each household, which corresponded to the registered account books.
With these registration measures in place, Yang Peng can accurately distribute disaster relief food to the people. Each common person has a daily quota of one pound and eight taels of sweet potatoes. In the Song Dynasty, one pound and sixteen taels, and one pound and eight taels was one and a half pounds. The common people I go to the relief station to collect sweet potatoes every three days, and each time I receive four kilograms and eight taels for each person in my family.
With waist cards and account books, there is no such thing as false claim or over-receipt. Every citizen can get his or her own share of disaster relief food. Although one and a half pounds of sweet potatoes is only equivalent to the calories of half a pound of rice, it is far from being full. It’s still far from enough, but it can ensure that people will not starve to death. Moreover, it is basically impossible to plant crops after September in Shandong, and farmers do not need to work. On the premise of reducing the amount of exercise, one and a half kilograms of sweet potatoes can help the victims. We survived this period of time.
When Yang Peng distributed potatoes to the people, he repeatedly emphasized that sweet potatoes cannot be eaten raw, otherwise they will be extremely difficult to digest. Generally speaking, in order to obtain the highest calories, sweet potatoes are best eaten cooked or roasted.
Sweet potatoes are not considered a good food. Eating too much sweet potatoes will not only cause abdominal distension and burping, but also stimulate the secretion of gastric juice and cause acid water to pour back into the esophagus. However, for the people of Shandong, after a year of severe drought, The sweet potatoes distributed for free at this time are life-saving treasures. Regardless of whether he feels comfortable eating them, at least he will not starve to death, right?
Some farmers had thought that they would not be able to survive this year and had made plans to escape. At this time, they suddenly heard that King Yang Peng of Yan had begun to distribute sweet potatoes for free. It was like a dying person who saw the hope of life. They were all very excited. After receiving their badges, the people queued up near the relief station to receive sweet potatoes, and praised the person who distributed the sweet potatoes as a living Bodhisattva.
Yang Peng took advantage of the situation and hung a high Yanwang flag on each relief station to let the people know that the life-saving kindness was given by him. Knowing that Yang Peng was carrying out disaster relief in Shandong, Yang Tong listened to Lin Qing'er He also volunteered and followed Yang Peng to Jinan Prefecture to distribute sweet potatoes to the victims of Jinan Prefecture.
Yang Tong took off her princess crown, put on a pair of coarse clothes, and took a carriage to the relief station in Hedong Township, south of Jinan Prefecture. She first looked around to see how the staff at the relief station distributed sweet potatoes.
Distributing sweet potatoes is very simple. The person cutting the sweet potatoes has already cut the sweet potatoes into one-and-a-half kilogram portions and put them aside. When the person distributing the sweet potatoes came up, he loudly asked his name and checked his waistband. Then there was a registration person next to him. Find the household names of the people in the account book and put a check mark on the account book to indicate that this household has received the sweet potatoes today. The person distributing sweet potatoes will hand over a certain number of sweet potatoes to the people according to the number of people in the household who received the sweet potatoes.
The staff at the relief station are all citizens of Tianjing New City recruited by Yang Peng. In recent years, Tianjing New City has vigorously promoted literacy classes. These citizens are all literate and can do these things easily.
Today is the first day of sweet potato distribution, and the people who received the sweet potatoes were very excited. After receiving the sweet potatoes, these people could not forget to say: "Thank you, Lord, for saving your life!" The citizens of Tianjing New City who distributed the sweet potatoes would correct it.
They: "Wrong! Thank you, King Yan!" "Yes! Thank you, King Yan!"
Yang Tong watched for a while and felt that this matter was simple, so he dismissed a person who was distributing sweet potatoes and went up to distribute sweet potatoes himself. Yang Tong was dressed simply, but the heavily armed guards around Yang Tong still betrayed Yang.
Tong's identity. Twenty guards in chainmail stood aside with sharp swords in their hands, watching eagerly at the people who came up to collect the sweet potatoes. Behind these guards were thirty soldiers of the Tiger Division armed with rifles, who were on high alert.
The momentum was so frightening that the people who came to receive the sweet potatoes did not dare to show their dignity. When they came to receive the sweet potatoes, they were respectful. Yang Tong's maid Ju'er stood aside wearing a silk dress and said to each of the people who came to receive the sweet potatoes: "Take it."
Yes! These are the sweet potatoes given to you by Princess Yan."
It was okay for the two ignorant people at first. Anyway, they didn't understand what "Princess Yanwang" meant. They were illiterate and usually knew about King Yan who benefited the people. As for the four words "Princess Yanwang", they immediately reacted
But what's the point of coming? He lowered his head and took the sweet potato from Yang Tong, shouted "Thank you, Grandma Guan" and left.
However, the third man who received the sweet potatoes from Yang Tong had heard the newspaper and knew what the words Princess Yan meant. As soon as he walked to Yang Tong, he knelt down with a bang, kowtowed and shouted: "Thank you, Princess, for saving the sweet potatoes."
!We will never forget the kindness of the prince and princess in our lives!"
It was so embarrassing to kneel down that the hundreds of people behind them all realized what a great official lady Princess Yan was, and they all knelt down in front of the relief station.
"Young people have met the princess!" "The princess is so kind, God will bless the princess!" "The princess is like a fairy, and she is a perfect match for King Yan!" Yang Tong was blushing at the people who knelt down.
Yang Tong stood there stunned for a while. But Yang Tong's maid Ju'er reacted faster and shouted: "Get up! Get up! Don't talk about these gossips. It's business to come up to get the sweet potatoes to save your life!"
After hearing Ju'er's words, the people gradually got up. They became more and more respectful, and one by one they came to Yang Tong to receive sweet potatoes. When they reached the seventh person, the person receiving the sweet potatoes was a little girl dressed in rags. The little girl was tall and tall.
He held up the badge in his hand to show it to Yang Tong, and then said: "Grandma Guan, I am Huan Laosijia from Huanjia Village, Hedong Township. I receive nine pounds of sweet potatoes."
Yang Tong looked at the girl who had cute big eyes but was so skinny that she couldn't help feeling pity for her. Cui He handed nine pounds of sweet potatoes into her hand and said, "Is there only two people in your family? Why do you want to get the sweet potatoes?"
"
The little girl blinked her eyes and said: "Grandma Guan, my father and mother died of illness last year. My brother and I are the only ones left in my family. We survived because the adults in the village gave us some leftovers. Since a few days ago,
, there is no leftover food for everyone in the village. We haven’t eaten for three days. If grandma Guan hadn’t given me sweet potatoes, we would have starved to death today.”
Hearing the girl's words, Yang Tong's nose became sour and his eyes became wet. Yang Tong took out another three kilograms of sweet potatoes and stuffed them into the little girl and said: "This is the ration for King Yan and Princess Yan today. We won't eat anything today.
I’ll give it to you and your brother to eat. You’ll have enough to eat today.”
What happened after all? Let’s look at the breakdown next time.