This kind of situation often involves extreme weather, but what she relies on is the knowledge she gained from her previous life, and she has never seen a real severe drought.
A movie I watched before flashed through my mind, about natural disasters.
First there was a severe drought, then there was a locust plague.
More than a million people starved to death!
The more she thought about Song Chen, the scarier she felt. She had to go back quickly and discuss it with Cang Xiuxuan.
At this moment, Cang Xiuxuan, who had already learned something about the situation, was heartbroken. The information collected by his subordinates all showed that the weather was abnormal, and it was almost the same in both the north and the south.
I haven't seen rain in a long time.
It's just that people in the north haven't noticed anything yet. After all, their winters have always been dry, but it's different in the south. Winters in the south are rainy and cold. This year's winter, although there is no cold wind with moisture, can chill people's bones.
, life seems to be better than before.
But after living in the south for so many years, everyone knows how abnormal this situation is.
Every time they looked up at the sky, there was sadness on their faces.
"Master, everything currently indicates that there may be a severe drought in the coming year. Do we want to give you a warning?"
"Reminder? How to remind?"
Cang Xiuxuan wanted the throne, but that was just because he didn't want to be manipulated by them. He was not obsessed with the supreme power. If he really wanted to inform the various counties of the situation, according to the current situation
It looks like it's almost a total drought.
Not only could he not remind him now, he also had to hoard as much food as possible.
Others may not understand, but if Song Chen knew about his plan, he would definitely know what it was for.
In such a comprehensive drought, every county government will inevitably stock up on food after knowing this situation. It is very likely to trigger a fight between counties. Moreover, how many people who jump out to stock up on food at this time are genuine.
Are you going to save this food to help the people in times of famine?
I'm afraid that nine times out of ten, they are waiting to make a fortune.
In this way, he might as well be the first to collect the food. If the disaster is really serious next year, he can save more people.
"Don't let any rumors leak about this matter. From now until the New Year, we will send more people to collect grain across the country. It doesn't matter if the price is one or two cents higher."
Although Soichi didn't quite understand what his master meant, they never asked too much.
Just execute.
After all, time is running out, and Cang Xiuxuan's people are no longer as timid as before when doing things. Now they want to receive as much food as possible, and they will never let go of a grain.
Of course, this is all done voluntarily.
There are also some people under Cang Xiuxuan who found some ways to get one or two percent of the food in the granary.
In previous years, these grains were sold privately by them. When they collected grains, they always had more than enough, and the higher-ups couldn't even detect the lack of grains.
This year, when Cang Xiuxuan's people went to collect the grain, it was almost the end of the year. Because they had already made an agreement with someone before, the grain had to be kept, so they had been waiting and did not go through other means.
sell away.
But when Cang Xiuxuan's people went over to collect the grain, the price was no longer the price they had negotiated.
Originally, the cost for them to collect this batch of grain was higher than before, but now when they came to transport the grain, they actually increased the price by two cents based on the previous price.
Previously, Cang Xiuxuan also expected that the price of food might increase at the end of the year. If he only collected it from the hands of ordinary people, he would not be able to collect much at all. After all, most of the people left food in their hands to fill their own stomachs.
If they are not full, their main targets are people in these gray areas and those Zhuangzi.
Their quantities are relatively large.
After the negotiated price changed again this time, the harvest of this batch of grain would cost dozens of taels more.
You must know that if you put dozens of taels of silver in an ordinary farmhouse, you will not be able to save it in your lifetime.
But at this juncture, Cang Xiuxuan doesn't care about these dozens of taels of silver at all. Regardless of whether there will be a drought in the coming year, the blockade of food by Da Rong is inevitable. They have more food on hand, so they have more confidence.
foot.
Of course, this is just one place. If all the places were counted, they would have to spend at least tens of thousands more taels of silver.
This is not a small amount, and it is only within ten miles of a prefecture or county.
Cang Xiuxuan really doesn't care about the money. He has already spent so much money to build the city. For him, people are the most important thing, and food is the foundation of human survival.
The few people who paid the money with one hand and delivered the goods with the other hand were very proud of themselves and got dozens of extra taels of silver.
They didn't spend a penny on these grains at all. They got more than 200 taels of silver for free. Who would be unhappy if it was given to them?
Especially the more than 40 taels of silver they received later were purely for their brothers. After all, the silver they had used to sell grain had to be handed over, so what they got was the least.
But this was different for the more than forty taels of silver. They didn't have to report the more than forty taels of silver at all, they just divided it among the brothers.
But what they don't know is that how proud they are now, they will regret it later.
If they had kept the food instead of handing it over, at least they would have kept it themselves, then they would not have been so hungry.
Their actions continued, but in the end, they aroused the idea of Shangjing. When the emperor heard that Cang Xiuxuan was collecting grain, he immediately became furious.
"A bunch of idiots! I was planning to blockade them, but you just let people take away so much food. Are you doing this without any brains?"
The precious jade paperweight was so angry that the emperor smashed it to the ground, and the ministers below did not dare to say a word.
How did they know that those people were actually people from the Cang Xiu Xuan sect? After all, harvesting grain is not forbidden. Those small and large villages all have grain to sell every year. The purpose of growing grain in their villages is to be able to sell it.
Exchange it for silver.
There were many people harvesting grain in previous years, but who knew there would be a problem this year?
It was precisely because the emperor was so angry about Cang Xiuxuan's hoarding of food that Si Tianjian on the other side swallowed back all the words that came to his lips.
He is not stupid. If he rushes to tell the emperor about the bad things that may happen at this time, he is afraid that he will live too long.
The emperor's anger this time ended with the execution of officials. Any county official who was found to have had grain transactions with Cang Xiuxuan would be exiled or beheaded directly.
He had cleaned it up before, and now he was taking action at the grassroots level. Emperor Dairong didn't even realize that he had personally created a fault in his management.