Taming the Tiger

The court meeting at Yan Qing Palace.

The civil and military officials of the Han court were divided into two groups, standing with their hands hanging down, waiting for a long time.

The civil officials were headed by Han Fei, the Right Prime Minister, followed by Li Si, Gongsun Bai, Fan Zeng, and more than 20 chief officials of the Wang Ting Department.

The military generals were stationed in all directions due to the Meng Tian generals of the red army, led by General Li Xin, followed by Li Zhong, Chen Feng, and more than a dozen generals such as Zhao Shan, Zhang Er, and Zhong Lihuan.

"The king has arrived!"

Amidst the ups and downs of the visitors' shouts, Chen Sheng, wearing a nine-beaded crown of colorful pearls and jade, and a robe of mountains and rivers with a mysterious bottom, stepped into the hall with an expressionless face.

In an instant, a cold and majestic pressure surged in, as if there were thousands of troops rushing invisibly. The boldest civil and military ministers, such as Li Xin, all shrank their necks subconsciously.

The ministers turned to face Chen Sheng and clasped their palms to the end: "Long live my king!"

Chen Sheng strode towards the hall without looking back, and said in a sonorous and powerful voice: "Get up!"

The ministers maintained their bowing postures and moved their bodies in accordance with Chen Sheng's footsteps. They did not stand up until Chen Sheng ascended the throne.

After sitting down, Chen Sheng saw a volume of documents placed in the middle of the desk, with the words "Warning against cold and disaster relief" written on the top of the volume.

Chen Sheng just glanced at it, closed his eyes, and said calmly: "Mr. Li."

Li Si came out of the queue, clasped his hands respectfully and said, "I'm here, my old minister."

Chen Sheng: "Tell me about the cold weather and disaster relief regulations that your Prime Minister Zuo's office has put forward."

Li Si secretly raised his eyes and glanced at Chen Sheng above him, and thought to himself, "Aren't you too happy today, your Majesty?", and replied with more respect on the surface: "Your Majesty, I discussed with you all last night, and it was unanimous.

It is determined that when it comes to fighting against cold and disaster relief, there is no other strategy that is more effective than your Majesty’s strategy of building a fire pit and concentrating on overwintering... Please forgive me for my stupidity!”

Chen Sheng frowned and resisted the urge to grab the scroll on the case and throw it at Li Si below: 'You guys discussed it all night and figured out how to flatter me?'

Li Si noticed the subtle change in Chen Sheng's expression and quickly added: "Last night, I checked the grain and fodder stocks in various counties with all your lords. We only need to reduce the grain ration by 10%, which is enough to mobilize 500,000 people to build the building before the heavy snowfall.

Build 25,000 large fire-kang houses to provide for 5 million to 7.5 million people to spend the winter together!"

Such a problem would not have existed at all during the period when Ji Zhou was ruling the Kyushu.

Not to mention whether the ruling class of Ji Zhou could see the numerous bones buried under the beautiful snow scenery covered in thousands of miles of snow.

Even if they can see it, even if they are kind-hearted, even if they can come up with an idea like building a big house with a heated kang to spend the winter together, they can still directly conscript hundreds of thousands of civilians to do corvee labor with a wave of their hands!

The so-called corvee means that the government forces people to do unpaid labor, including labor, handymen, military service, etc... The unpaid here is not only the lack of wages, but also food, clothing, and working tools, all of which are drawn by the corvee.

The common people provide it themselves.

Not only did they bring their own dry food and working tools, but the people who were drafted by the corvee also had to tighten their belts, grit their teeth and squeeze out the only livestock and grain stored at home, exchange them for money, honor the overseers, and pray to the overseers.

We can hold them high and make them work normally and rest normally.

For the people who were drafted into corvée every time, it was a catastrophe of losing their families and property, leaving their wives and children, and almost dying.

Since it is a disaster, naturally there are always very few people who can come back alive.

When Xiang Liang was disarmed and returned to his fields, he passed by Chen County and met Chen Sheng. He said, "Today we will send 300,000 civilians to build the Great Wall, tomorrow we will send 300,000 civilians to build the Emperor's Mausoleum, and the day after tomorrow we will send 300,000 civilians to conquer Baiyue, and all the people in the world will

"Geometry" is really not as simple as deploying 300,000 men to build the city today and 300,000 men to dig graves tomorrow.

Rather, if hundreds of thousands of men are killed in one round, and hundreds of thousands of young men are killed in one round, how many men in the world can withstand such death?

In an era of ignorance that believed in having more children, more blessings, and more branches and leaves, the Great Zhou Dynasty had been "peaceful" for five hundred years, but its population had not exceeded 50 million... It is conceivable how dark and cruel Ji Zhou's rule was

, that means cutting the leeks back and forth against the root!

Naturally, the Han court did not have such cruel and inhumane policies.

At least since Chen Sheng became the governor of Chen County, there has never been a corvee. All the royal court's projects were built by the Red Army or the refugee engineering teams under the royal court... Even when the Han royal court was in the most distressed situation,

They are all in charge of food!

At this point, we have to mention that although Chen Sheng was no different from a man-eating evil ghost in the eyes of the powerful class in Kyushu, his support among the people under the rule of the Han Dynasty was growing day by day.

Even though the aristocratic families with roots in various counties and villages, who had the final power of interpretation, secretly misinterpreted the Han court's decrees and slandered Chen Sheng's moral character, they still could not stop the people under the Han court's growing disapproval of Chen Sheng.

A trend of fanatical support and worship, and this trend eventually penetrated into the military through routine ideological transformation before recruits were trained!

Even if the vast majority of the people were illiterate, they would not have the opportunity to listen to the officials sent by the Han court to various places to explain in vernacular every decree issued by the king... But for their increasingly affluent days, the people of the Han court

We all know it well in our hearts.

…

Chen Sheng suddenly opened his eyes, and the cold light burst out from his eyes, making all the civil and military ministers of His Highness tremble.

However, before they were mentally prepared, Chen Sheng had already grabbed the scroll on the case and threw it at His Highness, shouting angrily: "This is the charter that you guys have discussed all night? A 10% ration ration? Do you know to cut the 10% ration ration?

, how many of my people are going to starve to death? Is it because the knife cannot fall on you, and you don’t know what the pain of skin-cutting is?"

The roaring roar of a tiger echoed layer by layer in the empty hall, like thousands of people pointing at it!

Li Si was startled, and his mind was in a state of confusion. He didn't know what he had done wrong, nor why Chen Sheng was so angry, but he still instinctively clenched his palm and said, "I know you are guilty.

Your Majesty, calm down!"

Butt a cow?

nonexistent!

All the civil and military ministers of His Highness clasped their palms together and bowed: "Your Majesty, please calm down!"

Chen Sheng closed his eyes, took a few sharp breaths to suppress the evil fire in his heart, and said as calmly as possible: "I have improved in martial arts, but my state of mind is slightly biased, and my words have been excessive. Please forgive me!"

After a pause, he opened his eyes again and said decisively: "However, we must not decide on reducing rations. We must find another way!"

Grain production has been severely reduced this year, and he personally allocated the grain reserves in various counties. No one knows better than him how much grain storage there is in Chu County!

A 10% reduction may not seem like much.

But in fact, this achievement is enough to completely collapse the ration rationing system that was already on the verge of collapse!

For a life-and-death matter like food, once the system collapses, it can never be restored.

Coupled with the cold weather...

The consequences could be disastrous!

Li Si was in a panic. The total reserves of the Han Dynasty were there. He was not a god, how could he conjure grain?

He looked for help at Fan Zeng who was standing aside... If Han Fei could see it, he would of course want to look at Han Fei even more.

Fan Zeng noticed Li Si's gaze and tried his best to shrink his burly body: 'You can't see me, you can't see me, you can't see me...'

Li Si moved his eyes speechlessly, sweeping across the many civil and military ministers in the hall.

However, wherever his eyes glanced, he silently lowered his already low head again, as if he suddenly discovered that the floor tiles of Yan Qing Palace were so smooth!

Chen Sheng was condescending and watched every little move they made. The evil fire that had just been suppressed began to surge up again.

He shouted impatiently: "Can't you think of a solution?"

Li Si gritted his teeth secretly, clasped his hands and said: "I am incompetent, please punish me!"

Chen Sheng stared at him intently and said in a deep voice: "Is it because you can't think of it, or because you don't want to think about it, or because you don't dare to think about it?"

Li Si was horrified and lowered his head, not daring to say a word.

"If you dare not say it, then I will say it for you!"

Chen Sheng shouted loudly: "Where is Chen Feng!"

Chen Feng hurriedly stepped out of the queue and bowed his head to the end: "The end will be here!"

Chen Sheng took a deep breath, pointed at Li Si and said calmly: "Please tell us, Mr. Zuo Xiang, how many aristocratic families there are in Xuzhou and Yangzhou!"

As soon as this statement came out, Li Si was not the only one who was shocked!

"Your Majesty, think twice!"

Han Fei, who had not spoken until now, opened his mouth, his voice deep and loud, without the slightest hint of fear.

"I thought twice!"

Chen Sheng sneered and said: "The Wang Ting's grain supply is so tight this year. When I allocated grain to the counties, I didn't even take a grain of grain from them. But if I don't take action, I will pretend that no one has taken the initiative to offer a grain of grain to my Wang Ting."

…Aren’t they the ones who should think twice?”

When His Highness and his ministers heard this, they were first frightened by the murderous intent hidden in his words, and then they all thought urgently whether they still had enough food in their homes.

Your Majesty... you have your own account in mind!

When Han Fei heard Chen Sheng even say something like this that he shouldn't have said in front of the ministers, he knew that Chen Sheng had made up his mind and could not change it!

So, he just replied: "The royal court has its own laws!"

Chen Sheng looked at him deeply, shook his head and said, "Chen Feng."

Chen Feng clasped his hands again: "The end will be here!"

Chen Sheng took out a cast-iron token from his waist, shook his hand and volleyed it into Chen Feng's hands accurately: "With my king's order, I will act on your behalf. I will mobilize the best judicial officials from the royal court to form a circuit court to thoroughly investigate Xu and Yang."

The noble families of the state must not wrongly accuse a good person who is good to the people, and they must not let go of an evil person in the fish and meat village... Remember, you are acting on behalf of the emperor and fulfill your duties as ministers!"
To be continued...