Wang Mu brought the inventory list of the large and small grain merchants in Pingshan County, totaling fifty-seven thousand shi of grain.
Although there was no such thing, the meaning was already obvious. They were to fully cooperate with the court in disaster relief. A group of grain merchants even donated 10,000 taels of silver to assist the court in disaster relief.
I originally wanted to take advantage of the snowstorm to make a profit, but I didn't expect that I ended up losing a lot of money.
The average donation of one thousand taels of silver per capita is not a small amount for these grain merchants.
But in the eyes of grain merchants, it's money that buys life. Yang Qingyuan's action of capturing Chen Bing really scared all the grain merchants, coupled with Wang Mu's divine assistance from intelligence.
A ruthless and decisive bureaucrat, Jian's image as a bureaucrat in the emperor's heart was born.
Even An Shigeng, a well-established person in the capital, fell into the hands of Governor Yang. Why don't they, little shrimps, quickly find a way to save themselves?
This donation of 10,000 taels reflects the grain merchants’ full desire to survive.
If there was a donation, Yang Qingyuan would naturally not refuse and accepted the ten thousand taels of silver. Although he could not buy food now, the silver taels had other uses.
The next day, Pingshan County posted a notice stating that from that day onwards, all people in Pingshan County had a quota to purchase grain.
Now that the grain shipment from the imperial court has not arrived, although Yang Qingyuan has nearly 100,000 shi of grain on hand, this amount of grain is not enough compared to the population of Pingshan County.
Pingshan County has eight counties under its jurisdiction, with a registered population of more than 3.47 million. Counting unregistered illegal households, there are at least 37.8 million.
Even if each person only eats half a kilogram of rice per day, nearly 30,000 shi of food will be consumed in a day.
Therefore, after Yang Qingyuan confiscated the private grains from all grain merchants, he immediately chose to restrict purchases.
What to do if there is an overall food shortage?
Planned economy, macro-control.
All registered people can buy grain based on their household registration. Each person is limited to eight kilograms of grain in ten days. The same household can send people to buy together.
Yang Qingyuan set up four grain sales points in Pingshan County and eight grain sales points outside the city.
In this way, the rate of food consumption can be quantified in Yang Qingyuan's eyes.
At the same time, Yang Qingyuan sent people to transport 2,000 shi of grain to Lingshou and Shiyi counties, which were currently most short of food.
At present, because most people still have some food in hand, there is no food crisis.
But according to Zhao Jianfeng, the number of people coming to the porridge shed to receive rice soup every day has been increasing.
Yesterday there were only more than 90,000 people, today it is close to 110,000, and the registered victims are only 70,000. This shows that as time goes by, more and more people are lacking food.
In order to prevent ordinary people from being mixed into the victims, the government specially cooked the rice soup to be thin and tasteless. Anyone who had a stutter at home would not want to drink this rice soup.
Not only food, but housing is also a big problem now.
The 70,000 disaster victims could only huddle together in simple shacks for warmth, and some people froze to death every day.
Yang Qingyuan transferred 300 tents from the city defense army, but it was only a drop in the bucket in the face of 70,000 disaster victims.
After thinking for a moment, Yang Qingyuan called for Zhao Jianfeng, the county magistrate.
"Zhao Juncheng, go find some craftsmen who know how to build wooden houses!"
Zhao Jianfeng was a little confused, "Wooden house?! Carpenter? What do you mean, sir?"
"If this continues, even if there is enough food, the victims will freeze to death. They must have houses to keep out the cold. Building new houses is not only expensive, but also extremely slow. Building a wooden house is the fastest and most economical! Hurry up and put up a notice.
Two pieces of silver are offered as a reward to a craftsman who is good at building wooden houses."
"Sir, but the government office can no longer spare the manpower to build wooden houses."
"Those victims are manpower, providing relief through work. Anyone in the prime of life, after being registered by the government, can participate in the construction of wooden houses, eat rice and porridge, and earn ten coins a day."
Yang Qingyuan is already thinking about resettling the victims after the disaster. Building houses and paying wages are all preparations for post-disaster reconstruction.
After the disaster relief food from the court arrives and the food shortage crisis is overcome, Yang Qingyuan will also find ways to arrange work for the elderly, women and children.
If the old have someone to rely on, the strong have something to use, and the young have something to support, then the world will be at peace.
"Sir, I'll do it right away!" Zhao Jianfeng also understood what Yang Qingyuan meant.
Not only do we need to give the victims food and housing, we also need to give them something to do.
After Zhao Jianfeng understood, he immediately posted notices and sounded gongs along the street.
Under the heavy reward, you will definitely gain something.
Soon, three people came to apply.
Yang Qingyuan did not choose, and directly asked the three of them to lead a team of victims to build houses the next day, and admitted the best.
Practice brings true knowledge.
Yang Qingyuan's plan is of a work-for-relief nature, but it is not friendly to the elderly, young, women and children.
But what's important now is to keep more people alive, and Yang Qingyuan's approach is currently the most cost-effective.
In three days, 300 wooden houses have been built outside Pingshan County.
These wooden houses are simple to construct, fast to build, and can keep out heat and cold. This is a craft that one of the craftsmen learned from Mobei when he was traveling with the caravan.
It will take about five days to build all the wooden houses.
Then Yang Qingyuan turned his attention to grain again. It was the middle of winter, so it was definitely unrealistic to plant it. The wild animals had reduced their activities, so the only place where grain was easiest to obtain was the river.
There is a river outside Pingshan County, which can be regarded as a tributary of the Yellow River.
Although the river is frozen, there are still fish moving below, and after a year of growth, the winter fish now are so plump. If they are used to make fish soup, it will be perfect, which can not only alleviate the problem of food shortage.
Dilemma, but also can supplement nutrition.
So Yang Qingyuan found a few old fishermen who had fished in the Yellow River and asked them to be the leaders and fish.
At the same time, the women among the victims also had jobs, killing fish, deboning, and making soup, which were all women could do. The food for the victims was also visibly improved.
In addition, Yang Qingyuan spent three thousand taels to purchase a large amount of cotton wool from the county and asked a group of experienced female workers to lead the women among the victims to start making cotton-padded clothes and quilts.
If the snowstorm is over, maybe a group of skilled female workers can be trained to open a cotton coat and quilt workshop here.
Everything seemed to be going in a good direction, until an official letter from the county town arrived.
"What?! The food shipped from the capital was robbed!! Who is so bold as to rob disaster relief food?!"
Zhao Jianfeng handed the official document in his hand to Yang Qingyuan. As soon as he received Yecheng's reply, Zhao Jianfeng notified Yang Qingyuan, who was organizing disaster relief outside the city.
According to the official document, the grain transported from the capital took the water route and detoured through Jing County in Jizhou. After landing in Jingxian, it was transferred to various counties in Jizhou.
The grain shipped to Pingshan County was robbed by a group of local bandits headed by Tian Hu in Zhending County.
The Jizhou Preparatory Army, which was responsible for escorting grain and grass, was completely wiped out in a sneak attack, and the first batch of 150,000 shi of grain was robbed.
After learning about the incident, Hebei Governor Shi Li Xunhuan immediately sent a message to Yang Qingyuan.
At this time, the Jizhou Preparatory Army was either transporting grain or stationed in Shanggu with the main force of Tiance Army. They could not spare any troops to suppress the bandits and could only leave it to Yang Qingyuan to resolve the matter.