"Really, you don't know?"
Zhu Youjian asked.
Supervisor Gai said: "The students really don't know."
"In that case, are you willing to collect all the debt notes of the Gai family, and then burn them in front of the king, saying that you don't admit it because you don't know? If you are willing, the king will order only Gai Hu to be detained! "
Zhu Youjian asked.
"This, this."
Supervisor Gai hesitated. He took advantage of the worsening drought to exploit the villagers and loaned out a lot of loan sharks at high interest rates. He really couldn't bear to admit it and destroyed all the IOUs himself.
Li Hongji had long been dissatisfied with these gentry and powerful people who took advantage of others, so he helped Zhu Youjian more actively, and said: "Your Highness, he must be reluctant to part with it. His family has loaned out a lot of usury. If he doesn't want any of it, he will The Gai family can’t force others to sell their sons and daughters!”
It was okay if Li Hongji didn't remind him like this. When he reminded him, Zhu Youjian became even more angry. He asked Gai Jiansheng again and only ordered: "Copy it directly!"
Gai Jiansheng was shocked, then looked at Li Hongji and pointed at Li Hongji: "You! You! You untouchable!"
Li Hongji sneered proudly.
Only now did he realize that there was someone who could deal with these people.
About half a day later, Lu Xiangsheng rushed to Zhu Youjian and reported: "Your Majesty, our people have confiscated more than 20,000 stones of food in Ai Mansion. This food is enough for disaster relief."
Zhu Youjian nodded after listening: "Then use this food for disaster relief immediately."
Ai Juren fainted immediately after hearing this.
Here, Zhu Youjian continued to say to other gentry: "Since you are unwilling to release food to save the villagers, the government can only save you! But the government does not have food now, so now all of your food will be taken away. Compulsory collection, the government will return the food to you based on the amount of food collected from you."
"ah!"
These gentry naturally couldn't accept what Zhu Youjian said.
After all, they are hoarding food in order to take advantage of the food shortage caused by drought and sell it at a high price and make a lot of money.
As a result, now, the court has to forcefully take away their grain, and the key is to repay it with grain in the future. This suddenly makes these gentry's idea of making money from grain come to nothing.
"Send people to go door to door to collect grain! If you don't comply, your home will be confiscated as a crime of disobedience."
After Zhu Youjian said this, he gave these instructions to Lu Xiangsheng.
"yes!"
…
At the same time, Zhu Youjian arranged for people to build resettlement points and food distribution points overnight, as well as arrange for soldiers to collect the victims.
Relying on his youth, Zhu Youjian worked all night long and was very dedicated to his responsibilities.
Just like when he was an emperor in history, he was very diligent in doing things.
However, Zhu Youjian's behavior of forcibly confiscating food from the gentry naturally caused dissatisfaction among the gentry.
Not only was he dissatisfied with Zhu Youjian, but he was also very dissatisfied with Ma Maocai, the governor official who had recruited the imperial court.
However, these gentry were dissatisfied and did not dare to fight against the imperial officials and soldiers.
They could only secretly instigate some bandits who had colluded with them to attack Mizhi County in order to prevent Zhu Youjian from doing such a thing.
But these bandits were naturally no match for the official army and were quickly defeated, and the gentry had no choice but to obediently hand over all their food. ,
And because of this, Zhu Youjian was able to feed many victims with the food forcibly collected from the gentry before the food mobilized by the court arrived, so that no one in the entire Yan'an Prefecture died of starvation or became a thief.
"Your Majesty, King Xin has offended the gentry of Shaanxi this time. There have been several memorials impeaching King Xin for his misdeeds in Shaanxi, amassing money in the name of disaster relief, and cruelty to the gentry. The censor even went to court to impeach Ma Maocai for speaking nonsense. , those who exaggerated the disaster, obviously, some gentry in Shaanxi blamed Ma Maocai for Your Majesty’s sudden decision to send King Xin to Shaanxi to provide disaster relief.”
Two months later, Xiong Tingbi came to Zhu Youxiao with several memorials and reported on King Xin's disaster relief in Shaanxi.
After hearing this, Zhu Youxiao just smiled and said: "Fighting brothers, father and son fighting in battle, how can it be done by me alone to offend the gentry of the world? If King Xin does this, I will not punish him, but will reward him." He, you drafted an edict, and in the name of believing in the king's meritorious service in disaster relief, ordered him to eat the prince's double salary! In addition, Yan Zibin was corrupt, deceived the prince, delayed disaster relief, was dismissed from his post, and was brought to the capital to be severely punished!"
"According to the order!"
Xiong Tingbi also knew that what King Xin was doing now undoubtedly meant that the powerful gentry in the world who were not satisfied with the status quo would never want him to replace the emperor, and in the future these people would completely focus on the princes. .
"We don't know when the drought in Shaanxi will end. With so many victims, it's not enough to provide food relief alone. The court doesn't have that much food. What's more, the court still has hundreds of thousands of troops to support, and they must be self-sufficient as soon as possible. .”
Zhu Youxiao said suddenly at this time.
Xiong Tingbi couldn't help but frown and said: "Of course what your Majesty said is true, but the drought in Shaanxi is serious now, and the fields everywhere cannot be cultivated at all. Even if water conservancy is built, it will be too late. It is difficult to make it self-sufficient as soon as possible."
"Why do you have to stay in Shaanxi to farm? This world is so big, there is no idle land that cannot be planted. As far as I know, there are many fertile fields in Siam, Mughal and other places. It is completely possible to move the victims there to farm, but , This will cause conflicts with the local natives, so our court needs to provide armed support to these disaster victims and help them take root in these places."
"But in this matter, the imperial court cannot directly provide military support, which will easily cause the conflict to suddenly become larger. It is better to set up a company first, called Ocean Development Company, and I and the imperial court will become shareholders. You can also privately invest in the company, and then this company can go to Develop corresponding industries overseas and hire some young victims, especially those who have committed crimes, to develop in these places. The company will provide each of them with a horse, a musket, a bow and arrow, a piece of armor, and A Yanling knife and some lead bullets are sent to these places for free to enclose their own fields. They can occupy as much as they can, but they need to share the development benefits with the company. Han Aiqing is responsible for this matter. "
Zhu Youxiao said at this time.
Han Xu replied: "Yes!"
"Try to recruit all the victims. Today, Shaanxi cannot feed so many people due to the drought. There will probably be locust plagues or even plagues after the drought. Let them stay here and either starve to death or cause trouble for thieves. Either it will drag down the imperial court and we can only immigrate them to other places and transfer this disaster to the barbarians! Now is not the time to show kindness."
Zhu Youxiao continued.
Xiong Tingbi nodded: "What your Majesty said is a good idea. Now that I think about it, it can only be like this. In the final analysis, it is still God's unkindness. It is not my Ming Dynasty that is unkind, so it has to be like this."
"Yes, we can't suffer the common people, we can only suffer the barbarians. Who makes them not want to support me, China!"
"In addition, I specially mentioned a few people who must be hired when the time comes. Han Aiqing will go and check carefully. One is Li Hongji, who is from Mizhi County, Yan'an Prefecture, Shaanxi Province and works as a postman in Yinchuan Post, and the other is Qingyang Guardsman of Yan'an Prefecture. In Dingyuan County, there is Zhang Xianzhong, who served as a policeman in Yan'an Prefecture and as a frontier soldier in Yulin Town, and there is also a horse dealer named Gao Yingxiang in Ansai County, Yan'an Prefecture..."
As Zhu Youxiao spoke, he read several famous peasant uprisings in northern Shaanxi that he remembered in history during the late Ming Dynasty.
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