Yang Ji had his main residence in Luoyang, Zhangye and Daxing respectively. Prince Wei's Mansion in Pingkangfang, Daxing City was where he was born and raised. After being forced to become an official by Yang Jian in the second year of Renshou, he lived in Daxing and Zhangye; when the imperial court moved eastward, The palace of Luoyang and Daxing was basically reduced to a station where people stayed, and the time they lived there was pitiful.
When the masters were away, there were still dozens of families living here, and the princess would come back to live there from time to time. However, after all, this family had already been passed down to Yang Ji. When the masters were away, the people in the palace felt that there was little. Like a backbone. Especially before and after Yang Ji launched his army against Tuyuhun, Guanzhong, the center of the Guanlong aristocracy, lacked imperial restraint and was full of restlessness and rumors that were unfavorable to Prince Wei's palace. The servants, princes, and shop assistants of the palace who stayed in Daxing all There is a feeling of depression and tension.
As the master, mistress, and young master returned with great glory, the atmosphere of depression and tension was suddenly swept away, replaced by peaceful laughter; on the surface, the masters did not make any changes to this home. But they are like dew after a long drought, quietly nourishing this big family and making it full of vitality.
The next day, Yang Ji got up early to study as usual. As soon as he finished dressing up, Yang Ji got a report from a servant, saying that Yang Guang asked him to go to the Zhonghua Temple to attend the morning court.
Yang Ji said with a puzzled look on his face: "Today is the first day of May?"
In the early dynasties, the main focus was on handling government affairs. In the Sui Dynasty, although there was no such thing as saying that military generals were not allowed to participate in politics, there was also the concept of not being involved in government affairs if they were not in their positions. Military generals also had the privilege of not having to go to court every day; while the Sui Dynasty court meeting was more solemn. , civil and military officials with certain status must be present. As for the imperial meeting, all the civil and military officials in Beijing and the chief officials of the prefectures and counties must go. If the chief official has something to do and cannot leave, he will be replaced by a deputy official who serves as an envoy to the court.
Yang Ji's status in the Sui Dynasty was quite high, so he was naturally qualified to participate in the court meetings. However, except for the Dachaohui and Shuowangchao, which were necessary, there were Chang Shen who did practical things every day and could not go. And his position as Minister of Public Affairs has become empty again, and he thanked me yesterday, so he thought it was the first day of May!
Xiao Ying shook her head: "The first day of May is still early, maybe the saint has something to call him!"
Yang Ji nodded and could only explain it this way.
After changing into court clothes and going to the Zhonghua Palace for a meeting, I found out that there was another drought and food shortage in Yongzhou and the northern part of Bingzhou.
The reason why I say "again" is because the climate has become very abnormal since the confrontation between Zhou, Qi and Chen. Yang Ji doesn't know what it was like before, but in the years when he grew up, droughts, floods and other natural disasters occurred every year in the Sui Dynasty. Disasters include either drought and cold in the north and food shortages, or flooding of the Yellow, Huai, and Han rivers. All in all, I haven’t had a normal year.
Although the economy of the Sui Dynasty has developed rapidly in recent years due to the opening of the Silk Road, the food reserves in the north appear to be somewhat insufficient; and the Sui Dynasty has recently launched military campaigns, and the imperial court has shipped a large amount of food to support Liangzhou, making Yongzhou, The grain reserves of major northern states such as Bingzhou and Youzhou were severely affected, and well-known official warehouses scattered throughout Guanzhong were empty.
Yongzhou and the northern part of Bingzhou have been experiencing drought and no rain since the end of last year, causing wheat and other crops to remain in the fields. By the beginning of this year, people had almost no harvest. Faced with such a severe situation, the imperial court no longer considered the issue of tax collection, but how to solve the problem of feeding the disaster-stricken people.
One of the main purposes of Yang Jian's construction of the Guangtong Canal, the Tongji Canal, the Yongji Canal, and the Hangou that connects the Tongji Canal and the Jiangnan Canal is to hope that southern grain can quickly pass through the convenient and safe canal and be transported continuously. To counteract the disasters in the north, and then use southern grains and official grains to stabilize grain prices and solve the food problem of northerners.
When a huge amount of official grain came "strongly" northward, keeping the price of grain within two or three yuan of a bucket of rice, the people were naturally happy about this, but this move seriously touched the big grain merchants. Interests. Although the big grain merchants did not dare to openly oppose the imperial court, they were able to hoard and hide the grain without selling it when there was a shortage. When the official grain was sold out, they sold the grain at a high price. What's even more disgusting is that they don't want to sell it; they also buy a large amount of cheap official rations in various ways and through various connections, and then hoard them. For this kind of merchant who makes a fortune, the only method used by all dynasties is to sell in limited quantities.
Face these
It’s not that the emperors of the past dynasties didn’t want to severely punish the abominable grain merchants. The reason why they didn’t punish them severely was because they didn’t dare. It’s just because the big merchants who deal in grains all come from aristocratic families. At this critical moment, if you punish them severely, they will It can turn the market and the world upside down; secondly, it cannot. In this era of inconvenient transportation and insufficient transportation capacity, relying solely on the transportation capacity of the imperial court and the food in hand cannot solve the problem of feeding so many people in time. At this time, the only way is to use There are caravans and channels all over the world for aristocratic families.
When the imperial court wanted to support small and medium-sized traders, they came up with the concept that women are not allowed to work without business, and then relied on the concept that agriculture is the foundation of a country to force the imperial court to launch a policy of focusing on agriculture and suppressing business so that they can have an exclusive meal; When all business-related business taxes are imposed, they say that they cannot compete with the people for profits.
Over time, they became monopolies in all walks of life, and the court's dependence on them would further expand. The purpose of the Yang father and son building the canal was not only to strengthen the court's control over the world, to facilitate communication between people from the north and the south, and to bring grain from the south. Solving the problem of food for northerners also has the profound meaning of getting rid of over-reliance on aristocratic families and big businessmen.
But now that these big grain merchants with profound backgrounds know the news about the shortage of grain in the official warehouses of Yongzhou and Bingzhou, they have begun to hoard it again. Not only are they not selling grain, they are also quietly buying official grain from the disaster-stricken counties in the north, waiting for the government to sell out all the grain before going out to make money.
Although it has not affected the people in Guanzhong, once the news spreads from the north, it will also be affected here, and then the entire north. The common people follow blindly. Once they see others buying, they will follow suit, thus affecting more people. At this time, no matter what the court says or how it explains, the crazy people will not listen. The only way is to openly sell grain at the usual price. When the people see that the supply of food has never been cut off and the price of food has not changed, they will naturally calm down. Go down.
In fact, the imperial court has not been short of food since the middle of the emperor's reign. What the imperial court lacks is the transportation capacity to transport and distribute food. When Yang Jian saw that the weather was abnormal and the harvest in the north was failing, even Guanzhong, which was known as the Eight Hundred Qinchuan River, could not supply the capital, so in addition to opening the Guangtong Canal, he also built many official warehouses around Daxing City. Further away from the capital, four more large-scale official warehouses were built. These large official warehouses are Guangtongcang in Huayin County, Jingzhao, Changpingcang in Shaanxian County, Luoyang, Liyangcang in Liyang County, Jijun County, Hanoi Heyangcang in Heyang County.
Yang Guang also attached great importance to grain reserves. When he was building Luoyang City, he built a Hanjiacang in Luoyang City that could store six million stones of grain. Later, he built a Luo River at the mouth of Luoshui in Gong County, Henan Province where it enters the Yellow River. Koucang.
Although the Guangtong Cang located in Guanzhong and the Guancang near Xijing are empty now, the other five granaries contain a lot of grain shipped from the east and south; especially the Luokou Cang built last year has a total of 3,000 grain cellars. Each cellar can store 8,000 shi of grain. According to this record, the Luokou warehouse alone can store 24 million shi of grain. Although the grain storage capacity of this warehouse is only 40% of the storage capacity, it is at least about 9.6 million shi. However, Hanjiacang, Liyangcang, Heyangcang and Changpingcang are all full.
The current problem is that although there is a lot of food around Luoyang and north and south of the Yellow River, it cannot be transported in time to the urgently needed Yongzhou and northern Bingzhou. Yang Guang brought this issue up for discussion, and solving the problem was the second priority. He mainly planned to take the opportunity to settle the general ledger with the central gangsters.
In fact, Yang Guang knew that although the disaster in the north was serious, officials in the northern counties had already made preparations for the response. There was now a lot of food in the official warehouses of each county. As long as the warehouses were opened for sale, the problem of food shortage would not be a problem at all. The key is that the Northern Patrol Army is about to go north, so local officials in the north cannot and do not dare to sell these grains to the people, so the problem of food shortages arises.
But the plan for the Northern Patrol was the top priority decided at the beginning of the year, and the north had already been dry for a long time. In the next few months, some places did not even rain a few times, so the bad harvest was Destined thing. However, these idiots in the Central Committee didn't say anything in advance, and they didn't consider the food issue of the Northern Patrol Army in advance.
The Turks have now built a royal road that is more than 3,000 miles long and 100 paces wide, and Yang Ji has even destroyed a big country and returned. But the dogs were dumbfounded, and they came to tell him one after another that there was a drought in the north, people had bad harvests, and the official warehouses of the northern counties were even worse.
Because they had to supply the Northern Patrol Army, there was no food to sell to the people.
This made Yang Guang extremely angry. Why didn't you tell me before? What were you doing so much before?
oh! Now the problem arises, one or two are more worried about the country and the people than Qu Yuan, one or two are more honest and caring than Yu Wenshu, then one or two strongly demand disaster relief, and one or two are verbally criticizing the officials in the north.
What a fucking bastard.
Now he wants to see what these guys say and how to solve the problem.
On this issue, there were a lot of civil and military discussions in the Manchu Dynasty, but most of them were "beating the son in front of the son", which was simply to get Yang Guang to give up the plan of the Northern Patrol.
The aloof Yang Guang just sneered and said: The imperial court has even booked the route and itinerary of the northern inspection tour, and all the northern countries and ethnic groups are also ready to receive them. Now they are in a difficult position. Even Yang Guang himself is inclined to cancel, but The Northern Expedition has already attracted world attention. If he cancels it, how will the common people and foreigners view him and the Sui Dynasty? If the cancellation of the trip is said to be "too poor to even feed the army," wouldn't the alien race be ready to take action? Aren’t these internal hostile forces going to make trouble again?
What's more, Yang Guang has no plans to cancel.
Yang Ji had just arrived, and he didn't know the secret. He showed an attitude that it was none of his business. Even if someone accused Liangzhou of consuming too much food and tried to lure him into the scene and drag him into the water, he would pretend to be deaf and dumb. turn a deaf ear,
As a man, if you don't say it, you don't say it.
