Today is the 29th of the twelfth lunar month, and the exchange has been closed. According to the announcement of the exchange, the exchange will be closed until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month and will officially open on the sixteenth day of the first lunar month.
Years ago, stocks rose slightly. Because Xungui Group got Yang Fan's inside information, they bought a large amount even when no one dared to buy, causing a slight increase in the stock price.
Many people who had the courage to buy stocks in the early days found that they had made a profit of 15% in less than half a month. Suddenly, everyone was happy.
Today, Chongzhen has finished handling political affairs and can take a holiday. Return to the harem with peace of mind to celebrate the New Year.
The ministers all took a holiday early on the New Year's Day. Now the six ministries and the cabinet have stopped all official activities except for the ministers on duty.
Chongzhen closed the last few memorials with a heavy heart. This year is the first year of Chongzhen, and it is said to be the beginning of a lot of waste. But this year's situation is so severe that it makes people's scalp numb just looking at it.
This year, we defeated the Wei Zhongxian clique, eliminated the Wei clique from the central government, and took the political power into our own hands. This is the biggest achievement this year. However, it was only when he truly took power that he discovered that the world was already a crater.
The annual fiscal revenue is 4 million taels of silver, but only 7.5 million taels are spent on military expenses. The cost of supporting the clan and vassal kings is as high as 8 million taels, and the court's salary requires more than 2 million taels. The palace expenses also cost one million taels. The fiscal deficit is a full 14.5 million taels.
Such a big hole made Chongzhen so worried that his hair fell out. The reason why it can still be maintained now is because officials' salaries are misappropriated to pay military salaries. Of course, only part of the arrears of military salaries can be paid. The feudal clan's salary was in arrears, and the palace was trying to be frugal and refrain from performing various sacrificial activities.
This year, the disaster has intensified in the north, and there is less rain in north and northwest China than last year. However, due to the great development of the iron smelting industry in Zunhua and other places, the development of mines was accelerated, and the development of the metal products processing industry also led to a large number of refugees from the north entering the factory. On the contrary, it made Beizhili look relatively stable.
This year, the capital's road widening and rail transit construction, as well as Yang Fan's development of new residential and commercial districts, have used a large amount of labor, with priority given to hiring poor people in the capital. At present, there are basically no unemployed people in the city where the household sticker is provided. Tens of thousands of people were even hired from outside the city.
In addition, Xinghe Supermarket focuses on ensuring low-price food supply in the capital and Yang Fan's own territory. As long as you have a grain book, you can buy a certain amount of ground corn and corn flour at the price of one penny and three pounds. This greatly solved the food shortage problem in the capital.
Three kilograms of grain is enough to feed a family of five in this era. If the poor people add some pickles as a side dish, their stomachs will be confused. It’s only thirty cents a month. The money saved can be used for other expenses in life.
On the contrary, this led to signs of prosperity in the capital's business.
Chongzhen visited incognito several times, and what he saw were peaceful scenes of residents living and working in peace and contentment. This gave him a lot of comfort. Although he knew that Yang Fan was fulfilling his original promise to him. Always insist on selling grain at low prices and not for profit.
However, he also began to experience increasing pressure. The ministers were quite critical of this.
Because people in the capital have the opportunity to buy low-priced food. It will influence them to drive up food prices. The food they stole from major warehouses in the capital and the food that floated out of the military rations had to be disposed of.
Their domestic slaves and relatives opened grain stores all over Beizhili to sell stolen goods.
Currently, two-thirds of the households in Beijing, the largest consumer market in Northern Zhili, are mainly poor and military households. They can buy food at such low prices, and they can't afford to speculate on it.
Every day, Chongzhen would receive a large number of memorials impeaching Uncle Dingyuan for competing with the people. They even demanded that Xinghe Supermarket be closed down.
Especially the civil servants of the Sixth Department were the most intense. Their interests have been greatly harmed. The grain system has done too much harm to them.
They simply cannot blend in with civilians to buy low-priced food and then sell it in disaster-stricken areas at high prices. Because there are photos in the grain book, the grain stamps are similar to stamps, with holes punched. Tear off one piece. This month's food stamps are only valid for this month.
Even if they buy food stamps, it's useless. Because food stamps can only be used by yourself.
These strict measures make them hate it with itch, but there is no way, they can't imitate food stamps at all, because they don't have such good printing technology, they can only stare at it.
Chongzhen stood on the Yongding Gate several times and looked out, and found that the outside and the inside of the capital were completely two worlds. Outside the city, victims from all over the mountains and plains came to the capital to seek survival.
Because they heard that everyone in the capital has a job and everyone has food to eat.
The imperial court now has no money at all to provide disaster relief. No matter how miserable it is outside, Chongzhen can only watch.
This is why he quickly agreed to Yang Fan's construction of the railway.
He was also eager to find some places to eat for these refugees who surrounded the capital in dense numbers. The crowd of more than 100,000 people was so violent that it made his scalp numb.
At this time, the Ming Dynasty was in the Ming Dynasty's Little Ice Age. From the late Wanli period to the Tianqi period, China's climate became significantly colder. Wind and sand accumulated in the north, droughts increased year by year, and agricultural harvests dropped sharply.
At the same time, the temperature in the Central Plains and the rainfall in the northern agricultural and pastoral belt also reached the lowest point since the Qin and Han Dynasties.
The entire late Ming Dynasty was always accompanied by droughts, cold snaps, locust plagues, floods, plague, plague, etc. After that, the climate in the Central Plains continued to decline, and the world was in chaos and war.
Chongzhen put down the memorial and massaged his temples a little tiredly. He felt something jump.
Beginning last year (1627), hungry people in Cheng County, northern Shaanxi, went into massacre, and then, riots continued in northern Shaanxi. He kept getting bad news.
Chongzhen had been paying attention to the civil uprising in Shaanxi. He ordered Luo to cultivate his character and find out the situation of the civil uprising in Shaanxi as soon as possible.
Today, Luo Yangxing's report finally came up, and the secret report from Jin Yiwei was very clear.
In March of the seventh year of the Apocalypse (1627), there was a severe drought in Shaanxi. Zhang Douyao, the magistrate of Chengcheng, did not care about the lives of the hungry people, but still pressed for taxes and exploited the farmers.
Wang Er, a hungry citizen of Baishui, gathered hundreds of peasants who could not survive. He asked everyone: "Who dares to kill the county magistrate?"
Everyone said in unison: "I dare to kill."
So Wang Er led the hungry people to rush to the county seat, killed Zhang Douyao, and then raised the flag to rebel.
With Wang Er taking the lead, rebellions have begun in various places, and this year has formed a situation of starting a prairie fire.
In July, Wang Jiayin, Yang Liu, Bu Zhanni and others raised the flag of righteousness for the first time in Fugu, Shaanxi and other places.
Wang Daliang of Hannan and Gao Yingxiang of Ansai successively gathered people to rebel, and the whole Shaanxi responded.
Zhang Xianzhong also rioted in Mizhi, Yan'an. Jinyiwei reported secretly that this person has now joined Gao Yingxiang's army.
At present, the largest group of rebels is Wang Jiayin's army. They once occupied Fugu, proclaimed themselves king and established officials, and established a temporary court.
At this time, Chongzhen could only hope that Yang Fan would wipe out the Tumuts and Ordos as soon as possible, so that the nine general soldiers under the trilateral governors of the northwest region would be free to suppress the rebellion in northern Shaanxi.
Only by pacifying the rebels in northern Shaanxi can they be mobilized to leave the fortress.
He knew very well that the drought was now sweeping across the entire north.
Henan, Shanxi, Beizhili, and Shandong also suffered severe production cuts. If the rebels in northern Shaanxi are not wiped out, once the corruption spreads to the entire north, the imperial court will be in danger.
