After the Lantern Festival, it basically means that this new year has completely ended.
At this time, whether it is officials, merchants, or ordinary people, they have to break away from the festive atmosphere of the New Year and start to seriously think about their livelihood this year.
It was also at this time that people after the joy suddenly discovered that this year's climate seemed to be extremely abnormal. Heavy snow fell in the sky one after another, the cold wind blew from the north one after another, but there was still no sun in the sky.
temperature.
When I came to the field, I saw a vast expanse of white fields. Although it has always been said that auspicious snow heralds a good harvest in farming, the more than a foot of snow, how can it be considered auspicious snow? This is clearly the one on the grassland.
White disaster!
It doesn't matter if the snow is thick now, but if the snow still doesn't melt in spring, it will undoubtedly be a disaster for the wheat that has turned green in the ground!
This cold winter has had a huge impact on Datang!
If we say that Guannei, Hedong, and Hebei Province still have some hope, they hope that the weather will get warmer soon and the snow will melt, allowing crops to grow quickly.
So areas that grow warm-loving grains, such as Jiangnan Road and Huainan Road, are doomed to have a bad harvest!
According to the information sent by the local government, the crops in the fields have withered and died in large numbers due to the cold and freezing weather! Seeing that the outcome of the disaster year has become a foregone conclusion, food prices have begun to rise uncontrollably. By the time of the New Year, even if
In the most fertile Jiangnan Province, the price of food has increased four or five times, almost doubling the price of previous years!
Before this, Xiao Han originally thought of following the old path and continuing to purchase food there to cope with the upcoming disaster this year.
But this idea is still a bit optimistic after all, because he originally expected that disasters would only occur in the north of the Yangtze River. He never expected that this disaster would spread so widely, even to Jiangnan, which is known as the granary of the world.
The earth will also suffer disaster!
As expected, the people he sent there wrote back and reported: Not only has the price of food in Jiangnan and other places increased sharply, but the supply is also extremely small! For example, large-scale grain transactions of tens of thousands of dan in the past are not seen at all now!
Even grain transactions involving hundreds or thousands of dan are rare.
Those big granary owners are now tightening their pockets and are not willing to sell food at all. The food in the charity warehouse is even more closely watched by all the people. Let alone selling it, even if an outsider takes a second look, it will cause trouble.
The old man holding a dung fork glared at him!
Xiao Han was helpless about this.
After all, who knows that in a disaster year, only food is the last resort!
Those gorgeous jewelry, gold and silver are good, but when there is really no food to eat, they are just a pile of waste that cannot be eaten when hungry and cannot be drunk when thirsty!
In addition to food, the continuous heavy snow also seriously blocked transportation and trade routes in Datang.
Several commercial roads in the Qinling Mountains are all covered with heavy snow. Now no one dares to walk on them. They have to take a detour from the east. Not only does the distance double, other expenses on the road have also increased seriously. They also have to beware of bandits who have fallen into the trap.
,robber!
The same is true for commercial roads, and the same is true for canals!
At this time in the past, the canals would begin to melt and recover, but this year, there is no sign of melting on the canal ice?
In the past two years, the Caobang boatmen and others who have relied entirely on the water for a bowl of rice are now staring at the ice every day, hoping that the ice and snow will melt so that they can start working quickly to make money so that they can buy the increasingly expensive rice and noodles.
Come and support your family.
"Your Majesty! The food supply in Guanzhong has tripled that of the autumn harvest, and it is still on the rise."
In the Tai Chi Palace, Li Shimin was overwhelmed by bad news one after another in just a few days. When he went to court today and heard the news about the soaring grain prices reported by officials from the Ministry of Revenue, he suddenly felt an unknown fire in his heart!
"Are there profiteers here driving up food prices?" Li Shimin, whose eyes were bloodshot, suddenly raised his head, stared at the Ministry of Household official who reported the report and shouted word by word: "If there are, then kill them! If there is a profiteer, kill every profiteer."
, if there are a hundred profiteers, kill a hundred! Kill all these profiteers, and see who dares to raise the price!"
"Your Majesty, no!"
As soon as Li Shimin said this, not only the officials of the Ministry of Revenue suddenly changed their expressions, but even the other ministers were worried and hurriedly said: "Your Majesty! Now, whether it is the east and west cities in Chang'an or the markets in other places, the food supply
Prices have risen dramatically! And not only are all grain merchants raising prices, but farmers and landlords who sell grain are also raising prices! If you kill rashly at this time, it will not calm the trend, and it will make the matter worse.
It got out of hand in the end!”
"Then tell me what to do!"
Li Shimin listened to the words of the ministers and suppressed the fire in his heart. In fact, he also knew that the killing he just said was just an angry word when he was angry! Now, not only the grain merchants are raising prices, but everyone who has grain in their hands, everyone
The prices are increasing, who can he kill? And how many can he kill?!
"Well……"
After Li Shimin finished speaking, there was silence in the court hall again. Everyone, including several ministers who had just left their duties, looked at each other, and no one dared to be a leader.
"Say!" Seeing that no one spoke, Li Shimin's suppressed anger rose again! At this time, how could he still be half as gentle and elegant as usual? Not only was his voice full of anger, but he even looked at the group.
There is an indescribable coercion in the eyes of the minister, which makes people shudder just by looking at him!
"I thought..."
Seeing that the ministers on the left and right remained silent, Dai Zhou, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, had no choice but to stand up. After all, whether it was food or the people, they were under the jurisdiction of him, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and he should come forward to provide a solution due to both emotion and reason.
.
"I believe that the most important thing now is to stabilize the people's hearts! If the people have confidence, they will naturally not rush to buy food! And if no one rushes to buy, the price of food will naturally drop!" Dai Zhou walked slowly to the center of the court, with a grimace on his face.
, said with cupped hands.
"Then how to calm the people's hearts!" Li Shimin stared closely.
Dai Zhou, who was standing in the hall, thought for a moment and continued: "If you want to stabilize the people's hearts, you need the court to give the people confidence! Your Majesty can impose low taxes on the disaster-stricken areas, or you can suspend large-scale projects and stop mobilizing troops..."
"Stop mobilizing troops?"
As soon as Dai Zhou said these words, the already quiet court became so quiet that you could hear a pin drop!
Nowadays, it is no secret in the Tang Dynasty that the Tang Dynasty wants to use troops against Goguryeo. Generals such as Cheng Yaojin and Li Ji have already set off to the north. Now Dai Zhou says he wants to stop using troops? What about the previous situation?
Doesn’t everything you do become useless?
This chapter has been completed!