Facing the tragic situation of hungry refugees everywhere, Ma Yongkang was horrified.
He quickly asked the accompanying officials, who were also confused and didn't know what was going on.
He sensed that something bad was going on and immediately rushed to Chengdu to see Zhao Buxi.
"Is Dali willing to do Shu brocade business?"
Zhao Buji was very surprised by this and asked hurriedly: "What other issues are they not worried about? What about the price? Have they aggressively lowered the price?"
"Duan Zhengxing, the leader of Dali, said that it can be done in private and secretly. People on their side will keep their mouths shut. We only need to pay a little attention here. Neither the Ming Dynasty nor the Puppet Dynasty can do anything to us. After all, they are far away. , they are beyond their reach.”
Ma Yongkang said: "As for the price, they didn't lower the price too much. They just hope that we can reduce the selling price by about 20%, because they also have to bear the risk. For this point, I think this is not too much. It’s completely acceptable.”
Zhao Buxi nodded slowly.
"Indeed, if the price is only reduced by 20%, it is not unacceptable. As long as the quantity they need is large enough, it will still be quite profitable for the court."
As he said that, Zhao Buyi's dull face finally showed a smile after a long absence.
"Great, the urgent need has finally been solved. Ma Qing, you don't know how sad the court is these days. With this, the court finally doesn't have to worry about running out of money, military expenses, officials' expenses, local expenses... Finally It can be solved!”
Ma Yongkang was silent for a while after hearing this, and then thought about what he saw and heard around Chengdu Prefecture, and couldn't help but ask: "Do the officials know that there is a sudden rise of refugees around Chengdu Prefecture and they are not living in peace?"
"The sudden rise of refugees can't lead to a peaceful life?"
Zhao Buxi frowned: "Is this really true? Why? Why didn't anyone inform me about this? If it is true, then I..."
Having said this, Zhao Buyi was stunned and suddenly understood something.
Ma Yongkang said nothing more.
He knew very well that Zhao Buxi was an official not long ago. Although he was separated from the masses, he should know a lot about the dirty things among officials. Like himself, he knew that officials deceived the superiors and concealed things, so he might not be incompetent. He has experienced such incidents, not to mention that he was also a financial official and was responsible for salt affairs.
Only those who have been involved in salt work know how many twists and turns there are.
"All the way back to Chengdu, I saw a large number of refugees on the official road."
Ma Yongkang sighed: "Although the court is short of money, it can't reach this point, right? Seeing that the weather is getting colder and colder, if a large number of refugees die of cold and hunger, what will they do in despair? It's really not The court can decide."
"No, this is not what I originally wanted to do. I have done the arithmetic. If the people below really follow the court's instructions seriously, such a thing will never happen."
Zhao Buxi shook his head repeatedly, and then said with an angry look on his face: "Unless someone tries to make a profit from this, deceive the superiors and the inferiors, and impose additional taxes on top of the tax rate stipulated by the court!"
"There are never many things like this. Don't the officials know about it?"
Ma Yongkang shook his head and said: "There are few officials below who are loyal to the public, and most of them are villains seeking their own benefits. The Ming Dynasty is watching the current situation. If the story of Wang Xiaobo and Li Shun appears again internally, what will the court look like? Officials are serious Are you ready?"
Zhao Buxi was silent for a long time and sighed deeply.
"Without the good news you brought back, even if I knew about this matter, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to reverse the situation. Because you brought back the good news, I would have room to turn around. Ma Qing, this is all thanks to you. .”
"It's all thanks to His Majesty that the world is blessed with great blessings."
Ma Yongkang whispered: "Then do you want to take back your life?"
Zhao Buxi was silent again for a long time. It was so long that Ma Yongkang's legs were sore from standing before Zhao Buxi spoke.
"They have all been released, so it is unnecessary to take them back. Moreover, we don't know how long the trade with Dali will last. Once something changes, if we want to enact such a policy again, we will really anger the Shu people, so... ...Temporarily withdraw one or two additional subjects to alleviate the situation among the people."
Ma Yongkang let out a long sigh.
"But those farmers who have been exiled have lost their land, and the land has basically been in the hands of local large households. How can those farmers survive?"
Zhao Buxi looked at Ma Yongkang.
"What do you think?"
"There is no reason to spit out the meat you eat. It is almost impossible to get those big households to spit out the land and return it to the farmers. The only way is to order them not to continue to plunder the land, and they need to build porridge sheds and give porridge in winter to ensure that the landless farmers I won’t die of cold or hunger. I’ll think of a solution when the imperial court’s finances are abundant in the spring.”
Ma Yongkang thought of a non-trivial solution for Zhao Buxi, to survive the cold winter first.
Zhao Buxi felt that there was really no other way at the moment, so he could only follow Ma Yongkang's suggestion.
Subsequently, the imperial court issued an order to cancel several tax subjects, and then strictly prohibited officials, large and small, from imposing additional taxes on top of the taxes stipulated by the imperial court.
He also reprimanded some local officials for their rough behavior, which caused refugees to spread all over the place, seriously affecting the stability of the people, and ordered local officials to gather the refugees and bring them back to their hometowns.
Then a decree was issued to restrict landlords from taking land from landlords and prevent similar incidents from happening again. It also required large landlords who harvested farmers' land to build porridge sheds and provide porridge before the next spring to ensure that landless farmers would not starve to death.
Immediately after the policy is promulgated, the imperial court will send out inspection censors to strictly supervise local officials so that they are not allowed to allocate money without authorization. They will also supervise large households to see if they have built porridge sheds to protect the lives of landless farmers.
If not, it must be severely punished.
After this order was promulgated, Zhao Buxi felt that the situation should be under control, so he felt relieved. After that, the Chengdu imperial court resumed the work and production of the Chengdu Jinyuan controlled by the imperial court, restarted the weaving of Shu brocade, and prepared to make a large sum of money. Money to ease the court's dilemma.
Zhao Buji believed that if these orders were promulgated, they would be able to curb the deterioration of the refugee situation to a certain extent and stabilize the situation. However, it was very easy for the court to send officials to the countryside to grab money. However, it is very difficult to stop the bloodthirsty wolves.
After finally getting the chance to devour the flesh and blood of the people, how could these bloodthirsty maniacs stop so easily?
Anyway, the imperial court is in Chengdu and the emperor is in the palace, so he won't personally supervise them in handling these matters. Shouldn't it be up to them to decide whether to do it or not?
As for the matter of asking big households to build porridge sheds to provide porridge to landless farmers, it is basically quite funny. How to operate it is completely decided by the big households. The court does not have any specific requirements or measures, so there are too many loopholes. Drill.
Zhao Buxi completely underestimated the greed of the bureaucrats and the cunning of the big families. He was still immersed in the imagination that after the crisis was over, the government's finances would be sufficient and it could do many things.
He had no idea what he would face, nor did he know that the information that the Chengdu court had resumed the Shu brocade trade on a limited basis would soon reach Zhongdu and be placed in front of Su Yonglin's desk.
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