Prince Gong made everything right. This snow disaster was different from other disasters. He had a delaying effect on the news!
Dynasties in the Middle Ages were very sensitive to disasters such as floods, plagues, locusts, droughts, etc., because such disasters spread very quickly!
Floods are coming, and a flood peak can pass through a province in a day. Basically, the upper reaches of the country call the police, and the counties below will soon be unable to protect themselves!
In a matter of life and death, ancient officials also had to save their lives. They didn't dare to neglect it. If they did, they would die, and the imperial court would be beheaded if they didn't die!
The plague is even more terrifying, because people are mobile and will expand quickly. You must also hurry up and find a way to fight the plague!
The locust plague is also terrible. The overwhelming locusts can spread to several surrounding counties in one day. If you don't deal with it quickly, the court will chop you down.
In the final analysis, it is difficult for local officials to cover up such a disaster. A lot of dangerous news and data can be summarized through various channels and reach Tianting directly!
The trick of deceiving one's superiors and concealing inferiors is very dangerous, so they must pay attention to it!
The snow disaster is different. This is only a short two to three months in winter, and it is a disaster that occasionally occurs in some parts of the north!
After heavy snow closed roads and mountains, information flow was blocked. In some places, entire villages were frozen to death. You won't find out until the snow melts in spring.
The heavy snow blocked the news, which gave local officials time to make a fuss. Even if they deceived the superiors and deceived the inferiors, they could fabricate a disaster relief memorial to the court!
It is precisely because we don’t pay attention to it that the heavy snowfall in this Year of the Rat becomes more and more serious!
News of the snow disaster began to slowly spread in various places. The local county government summoned wealthy households to forcefully distribute donations, but God still refused to warm up intermittently.
The most prominent manifestation of all these disasters is the price of rice!
Before the Spring Festival, when the British military attache Delaney bought rice, a liter of ordinary brown rice cost eighty cents, and husk rice cost sixty cents.
However, after the Spring Festival, before the disaster situation became clear, the price of rice in the capital had already reached 95 Wen, and in some local counties it had exceeded 100 Wen.
These are extremely dangerous signals, but no one pays attention to these signals at all!
Of course, this is also affected by the inconvenient transportation caused by snowstorms. How to disperse and transport food is really a big problem for local governments.
The rice price of a hundred dollars did not remain stable for a few days at all. After the fifteenth day, disasters occurred one after another in various places, and the rice price jumped up as if a spring had been installed.
One hundred one, one hundred two, one hundred three...and then jumped directly to one hundred six!
three times! When county governments in various places began to force wealthy households to donate, the price of rice in various places increased by nearly three times!
This is bad news. People were poor in the past. Tenants in the small-scale peasant economy had no food or savings. In the late Qing Dynasty, many tenants even had to rent farming tools from landlords!
At that time, many extremely poor farmers were no different from slaves, completely dependent on the landlords for their lives!
They couldn't afford it if the price of rice didn't rise, let alone triple the price. Panic among the people in the market suddenly exploded!
Daming Prefecture, Guangping Prefecture, Jizhou, Hejian... Lu'an Prefecture, Liaozhou, and Pingding Prefecture in Shanxi were the first to see people rushing to buy food!
Starting from the county seat, groups of people came to buy as much rice as they could, regardless of the price, or how much money they had at home, to buy food!
Everyone is scared. They are afraid that if the price of rice continues to rise, then the price of rice will be five to six times higher, and they will not be able to afford it even if they lose all their money!
"Quick, quick... grab food! This morning the price of rice was listed at 165 cents! Grab as much as you can. Why is there no end to the snow this year?"
"Come on, it's still going to go up... Just because of the heavy snow, the price of food in the spring will be more than 200 yuan. This guy is going to starve to death!"
There were crowds of people in front of all the food stores. The food stores did not dare to open their doors wide at all, so they removed a piece of the door panel and used a table to block the gap.
All transactions were conducted through this opening. The moment the clerk removed the door panel, countless hands held up the pockets and stuffed them in, pushing them up to their noses.
"I want five liters...I want six liters...I'll buy three hundred coins...take mine first..."
The waiter had not seen this scene for many years, and he was immediately at a loss. The boss behind him sneered and lit the oil lamp and lit the hookah.
"What are you doing standing there... Selling rice to these people! Remember, they don't get as much as they want, it depends on how much we want to sell!"
"Take the pocket and put some in it for him...as much as you can, and then the next one..."
"We have to create an atmosphere of panic, and it will be sold out in a long time! My food does not come for free, how can I sell it to you so cheaply!"
"Change the price...one hundred and seventy-five cents! Buy it if you like!"
The price on the blackboard suddenly changed, and hundreds of people at the door suddenly exclaimed, "Why has it increased again? You are too dark-hearted... We will sue you to the government!"
"Bah... Whatever, you can sue wherever you like. Today's price will go up tomorrow. Do you want to buy it? If not, leave as soon as possible. Don't delay others!"
How dare people not bow their heads under the eaves!
The people just complained a few words, and in the end handed over their bags, but at this time he was not able to buy as much as he wanted.
The waiter casually loaded a dustpan, put it on the scale and took a look at it, "One hundred and fifty renminbi... quickly pay for it!"
"I...I want to buy three hundred coins, and you're only giving half of it?"
"Do you want it? Food is in short supply now. It would be nice to have something to eat. The supply is limited... You don't want it? Haha... Go back!"
As he spoke, the man poured a lot of the packed bags back into the granary, which scared the people outside and quickly begged for mercy, "I want it! I want it...I want it!"
"Yes! Look, there's only one hundred coins left... pay for it. If you want to buy rice, go queue up tomorrow..."
The more the grain merchants sold like this, the greater the panic, and chaos suddenly broke out in the counties. Although the place was closed in the late Qing Dynasty, the county was the basic unit of imperial rule.
The famine situation in each county could be concealed for a while, but not forever. Soon Baoding Prefecture and Taiyuan Prefecture of Shanxi received telegrams, and officials in both places could not sit still.
Especially Baoding Prefecture, where Marshal Zuo was in charge of the railways. When he heard that there was a wave of grain grabbing in the southern counties, he was so frightened that he did not consult with the local officials, but actually sent an emergency telegram to the emperor alone.
It was only then that Emperor Tongzhi of the Forbidden City learned about the disaster below, and he realized that people there were already freezing to death!
"Asshole! It's already the first lunar month, why are you reporting to the court now?"
"These local officials are bastards and incompetent! Check it out for me! When was the earliest disaster reported? How long did they delay it?"
