Since the Tianji Festival, it has basically not rained in the entire east coast of Taihu Lake, and the water level of Taihu Lake has gradually dropped to normal levels.
After seven or eight days, the flood completely receded, taking away the crops in the fields, leaving only a layer of silt.
Under Wu Qian's leadership, these governments in the disaster-stricken areas organized and carried out post-disaster reconstruction with unprecedented intensity.
Officials in various states and counties suddenly became diligent in their work, not because they had received any spiritual baptism, but because they did not dare to be industrious. There were too many supervisors sent from above, one after another.
First of all, Wu Qian spent three days building the framework of the Taihu Comprehensive Management Department. The officials there were transferred from Lin'an, some were from the Western Zhejiang Appeasement Department, and some were Wu Qian's old subordinates.
The Comprehensive Management Department was quickly put into operation and dispatched a large number of inspection personnel to various states and counties. One task was to inspect the terrain and prepare for water conservancy construction, and the other was to supervise and guide local reconstruction and restoration work.
Then, the day after the tax records were sealed, the Western Zhejiang Economic Border Agency was quickly established. Working groups were stationed in various states and counties. While clarifying the map books, they also traveled around the local area and went deep into the villages. Level 1 familiarity with local conditions.
These working groups seemed to have no official positions, but the state and county officials did not dare to look down upon them. After all, the Economic Border Department was personally commanded by King Yan, and what was outrageous was that each working group was also equipped with hundreds of guards. The team is all fully armed elites.
Then, at the suggestion of King Yan, the imperial court sent many idle officials with positions but no power to the Yushitai to serve as temporary censors, and then sent them to Zhejiang West Road. They did not have the power to interfere in local government affairs, so they just collected local officials. The situation is then summarized and reported.
These temporary censors will eventually have to undergo performance appraisals. If they do well, they will be transferred to positions of real power in the future. If they do not do well, they will most likely be kicked out and deprived of their official status. new
The team of civil servants in the Song Dynasty has always been large, but the actual duties are basically fixed and limited. The so-called carrots and pits. If idle officials want to rise to the top, they have to move the original people away, so they have both motivation and pressure to provide local officials with Find faults and find problems.
This kind of behavior will definitely cause confusion and trouble to the officials who are actually doing the work, but the temporary censor only has the power of investigation and no disposal power, so Zhao Mengqi is not worried about too much trouble.
In addition, in addition to the above, there are also many people holding imperial city official certificates wandering around the place.
For a time, the entire Zhejiang West Road was very lively and even seemed a bit messy. The local officials were all frightened and trembling. No matter what they did, they felt like there were many eyes watching them around them.
Memorials complaining and complaining were sent to Lin'an like snowflakes, making the court noisy. However, Zhao Yun hid in the palace and did not go to court at all, making Dong Huai, the mother-in-law of the family, miserable and annoyed. But apart from comforting him, he couldn't change the situation.
Compared with the chaos in the officialdom, the civil society seems much more orderly and even somewhat prosperous.
Although the floods caused the people to lose a lot of property, the government provided relief through work. Just to clean up the canal silt, more than 100,000 people were employed. The wages were one dou of food per day, allowing them and their families to survive without becoming refugees. .
Moreover, in order to implement the border boundary, land transactions in Pingjiang Prefecture and Jiaxing Prefecture were frozen, so people did not need to worry about their property being usurped.
Everything seems to be moving in the direction Zhao Mengqi expected, but a huge crisis lingers.
In the lobby of Wujiang County, a large group of people present looked sad.
Wu Qian held an account book, "...the entire Pingjiang Mansion employs a total of 320,000 laborers, consuming more than 30,000 dan of food every day, and more than 60,000 officials and soldiers, with a daily ration of nearly 2,000 dan, and some of them are unable to participate. The people who work for relief consume 3,000 dan of food every day... In other words, the average daily consumption is 40,000 dan of grain."
"Furthermore, the hundreds of thousands of Xiang troops mobilized by His Highness from various places are also arriving one after another. However, the total amount of grain stored in all the official treasury of Pingjiang Mansion and the Changping warehouse is less than two million dan. This is because His Highness previously asked the Wujiang gentry " More than one million stones of grain were borrowed, plus the result of intercepting the grain supply. "
"After all, even if we tighten food rations, we
The grain storage can last for two months at most, but the late rice won’t be harvested until November. Unless something unexpected happens, that means there will be a food shortage for more than a month..."
Zhao Mengqi pinched his forehead and said nothing, only thinking hard in his heart about where to get food.
We can no longer cut off the grain supply, otherwise what will Lin'an's nearly two million mouths eat?
There is not much food available in Fujian. According to Uncle Fang's letter, he has only bought a total of more than 500,000 shi, which will be shipped to Lin'an one after another. He probably won't be able to buy much this year.
Lianghuai and Jinghu are both war zones, and they have to rely on other places to replenish food, not to mention Sichuan, which is still a long way away.
At this time, Gao Jia, the magistrate of Wujiang County, said, "It will take half a month at most to plant late rice. By then, most of the laborers will have to return to the fields. Wouldn't it be possible to save a lot of food through work-for-relief?"
Late rice must be planted before the beginning of autumn, which can save half of this year's grain production. Naturally, the labor force must be returned to farming, so what Gao Jia said seems to be right.
But Wu Qian shook his head, "Even if they don't work, don't these people need to eat? Although they don't need to be paid, whether it's relief, sales or loans, we must ensure that these more than one million farmers have food. To eat, the actual amount of food consumed has not changed. Moreover, even if the Xiang soldiers who took over their work were only given rations, each person would need two liters per day."
To put it bluntly, it was actually due to the failure of the early rice harvest and the grain stocks that were washed away by floods, resulting in a food shortage of five to six million shi.
Realizing that he had made such a big mistake, Gao Jia was immediately embarrassed. He glanced at King Yan secretly and saw that he did not express any intention of blaming him, so he was slightly relieved.
In addition to Gao Jia, all the officials present, both civil and military, also worked together to discuss.
Chen Xiaokun scratched his head and said, "If not, suspend the recruitment of Xiang troops first? With hundreds of thousands fewer mouths, we can always save some food."
Wu Qian still objected, "No, the water conservancy project cannot be delayed. There have been two consecutive years of floods, and there is a high possibility of a drought next year. However, the main projects are on the west bank of Taihu Lake, which can alleviate some of the food pressure."
"Then buy grain. Except for the local grain in Wujiang, which is controlled by the government, the gentry in other prefectures and counties should still have a lot of grain in their hands. It will be absolutely no problem to survive this year." Zhou Chengji, the general magistrate of Pingjiang Prefecture, suggested.
"Nowadays, except for Wujiang County, where grain prices remain stable due to official sales, grain prices in other prefectures and counties, including Fucheng, have increased to varying degrees. If you spend two to three million shi of grain to buy it at market price, it will even increase. The price of food means that even if you can buy it, it will cost you at least six to seven million dollars. Where will this money come from?"
When Wu Qian said this, everyone's eyes turned to King Yan.
"You can't let me "borrow" food from the wealthy people in other states and counties, right? It is estimated that someone will rebel as soon as he opens his mouth. " Zhao Mengqi smiled bitterly in his heart.
It is said that there is no royal land in the world, but if the emperor really dares to seize the wealth of his subjects indiscriminately on a large scale, he will definitely be met with fierce resistance.
Regarding the issue of grain prices, the approach of successive imperial courts has been to use official grain warehouses such as "Chang Ping Cang" to stabilize the price, rather than issuing decrees to limit it, because that is basically useless.
If Zhao Meng used a compulsory law to set food prices, and punished people if they exceeded the stipulated price, then the local tyrants would hoard food and not sell it, which would make the food on the market even more scarce.
