Time flies by, and before you know it, the Mid-Autumn Festival of the 22nd year of Kaibao is approaching. It is another festive season. Lanterns and ribbons are hung everywhere in Tokyo, and the whole city is exuding joy.
After the storm, there was calm. With the pacification of the northwest rebellion, the big man seemed to have overcome a disaster and gradually settled down, and his life went on as usual. However, only those who have been there can understand that compared to the past, the livelihood of the people has undergone profound changes.
The most obvious thing is of course the gradually rising prices. Although the original food price crisis was controlled by the imperial court, it kept recurring and fluctuated around thirty cents.
In order to have room for adjustment, the imperial court did not fix grain prices or set a guide price like in the past. This has led to the fact that in the past few months, the government has released grains on the market several times, which has also suppressed grain prices.
Raising grain prices to benefit farmers is a policy that the court must implement in order to alleviate agricultural conflicts, resolve farmers' grievances, and encourage production. However, if urban food prices rise too much and get out of control, the court will not be happy to see it.
Therefore, the imperial court also put a lot of thought into how to control the degree. For more than half a year, it has been paying close attention to it. If it goes too far, it will immediately intervene.
That is to say, the imperial court had accumulated a lot in the past and had enough resources for deployment, thus ensuring a stable transition period. However, for Tokyo's citizens, the increase in the cost of living is significant.
This price increase is not just for food, but also for a series of daily necessities such as salt, tea, sugar, wine, soy and vinegar, meat, vegetables, etc. The result is that the livelihood of urban people has begun to become difficult. For example, in Tokyo This kind of imperial capital makes people understand what it means to "live in a big city".
Of course, as the imperial capital, Tokyo still needs to maintain its basic dignity, the society needs to be stable, and the market needs to be prosperous. At the same time, the abundant supply of various resources has formed a scale effect, and the price has increased a bit, but compared with the previous fifty or sixty cents per dollar, At that time, it was not so difficult to accept.
What's more, the standard of living in the imperial capital is already higher, with more opportunities and more money, so a basic balance is maintained. But in cities outside the capital, it's a different situation.
The price of rice in Tokyo and Luoyang is 30 cents, while in other cities it rises to 35, 40, or 50 cents. The smaller the city, the more difficult the transportation, and the poorer the products, the higher the price. The imperial court is not unaware of these situations, but it is almost impossible to achieve complete control.
Speaking of which, in the past, in order to support the city, farmers were squeezed too hard and sucked too much blood. Now, in order to bring order to the chaos and alleviate conflicts, new problems have arisen.
The resident population in and around Tokyo alone reaches one million. In the past, Emperor Liu once immersed himself in this spectacle, but behind the prosperity, there was also a crisis brewing. If he wanted to support such a large population, he would have to consume a lot of food every day. The supplies are massive, and the price is obviously not light.
There is not only one Tokyo city in the world, but also large and small cities such as Luoyang, Taiyuan, Youzhou, Daming, Jiangning, Hangzhou, Chengdu, etc., and these places have the same essence as Tokyo.
In the final analysis, the cities of the Han Dynasty are still consumption cities. In order to supply these cities, they naturally absorb the blood and sweat of farmers all over the world. Without strong productivity guarantees and sufficient material supplies, all prosperity will be just an illusion.
In the past few decades, during the process of the world's transformation from division to reunification, drastic changes have also taken place on the social level. Business has become increasingly prosperous, and urban handicrafts have developed unprecedentedly, but this must also be based on abundant material production.
Developing productivity and improving material supply are also the most basic things. However, it was precisely on this fundamental issue that we encountered a crisis. No matter how prosperous the business was, the Han Dynasty was still essentially an agricultural country. More than 90% of the people in the world were farmers. If the farming industry was not stable, how could the empire survive? install.
From the emperor to the bureaucrats, they often only see the prosperity of the city, but always ignore the poverty of the peasants, and are accustomed to asking for things from them. Of course, squeezing is more appropriate.
In the past few years, the reason why the people in cities and towns have been able to live such a prosperous life is also based on the fact that the imperial court tried every means to provide sufficient and low-priced supplies.
Previously, the imperial court was determined to push up prices because it finally discovered the problems and felt the pressure of supporting so many urban residents. Through this method, it benefited farmers and alleviated the currency value problems caused by the large-scale copper coin production in the past. The idea of driving people away is there.
For the vast majority of civilians who are seeking a life in cities and towns, the cost of living has increased and livelihoods have become difficult. If they cannot stay any longer, returning to the countryside has become a way out.
With the imperial court's efforts to maintain it, the vigorous price breakthrough was basically a success, but the time was still short, and the specific effect has yet to be tested.
However, some problems have already emerged. For now, it seems that the purpose of driving people away has not been achieved. Taking Tokyo as an example, the increase in living costs has brought livelihood problems to the vast majority of the people. However, there are very few people who have fled the capital because of this. .
For people who have stayed in the city for a long time, it is obviously not easy to get them to go back to the countryside and eat from the fields. No matter what, it is an indisputable fact that in cities, there are more opportunities and more money.
As for the increase in prices, it is just a decrease in living standards, and the prosperity of cities cannot be compared with rural farmers. This gap also allows many people to endure the poverty in cities.
The endurance of the common people of the Han Dynasty has always been amazing, not only the farmers, but also the scholars, merchants and craftsmen in the cities.
However, the pressure of life will inevitably cause problems. In the past few months, the security situation in cities around the world has declined significantly, and criminal activities have increased significantly. Even in Tokyo City, vicious cases have repeatedly occurred. The police officers of Kaifeng Prefecture , were all caught up in the busyness.
At the same time, instead of being alleviated, the slum problems that Prince Liu Yang noticed during his previous inspections have intensified. Liu Jichang, the prefect of Kaifeng, spent some efforts to improve the situation, but the effect was very weak. Moreover, as public security problems occurred frequently, his energy was also diverted.
In the past few months, the number of impeachments and censures faced by the Kaifeng Mansion has increased, and Liu Jichang was once under great pressure. Fortunately, the Kaifeng Prefecture's "New Deal to Benefit Farmers" initiated and implemented by him was finally implemented.
This is very consistent with the "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" issues that the imperial court is currently focusing on. With the funds allocated by the Kaifeng Prefecture, coupled with the enthusiastic donations from "celebrities and sages" in Tokyo, nearly three million yuan has been raised to support the Kaifeng Prefecture's jurisdiction. Farmers in various counties were subsidized for their agriculture, and at the same time, they were building roads, canals, bridges, and reservoirs, temporarily diverting a group of urban laborers.
With this achievement as the foundation, more people in the court supported Liu Jichang. From the prince to the big bosses in the political affairs hall, they were all very satisfied with the performance of Kaifeng Mansion. In addition, Liu Jichang's identity was there, and he The position of the governor of Kaifeng is quite secure.
Historically, it has been difficult to be the chief official of the most virtuous district, but Liu Jichang felt that he, the governor of Kaifeng, was the most difficult to be the governor of Kaifeng and encountered the most problems. The contradictions accumulated over decades of development seem to have slowly erupted on his watch.
Overcorrection is taboo in everything, but when it comes to dealing with facts, it is often overcorrection, because only when it is overcorrected can the effect be significant. After the imperial court began to pay attention to agricultural production and care about farmers' issues, and shifted its policy focus to developing agricultural production and alleviating the contradiction between supply and demand between cities and farmers, another voice inevitably emerged in the imperial court.
Many officials filed reports one after another, hoping that the imperial court could suppress commercial trade and return to the right path of "emphasis on agriculture and suppression of commerce". Naturally, the central government will suppress this behavior of giving up food due to choking and trying to reverse the course of history.
The principle that there is no life without business has been fully verified in the past few decades, and the large amount of commercial tax revenue is enough to strengthen the will of the powerful officials in the DPRK and China.
The emphasis on agriculture is fundamental, but the development of business is also necessary, and this is also a basic national policy. However, noises from inside and outside, from not-so-good situations in all aspects, also caused constant trouble in the court.
For this reason, in July, Zhao Wang Liu Fang returned to the court with his generals who had contributed to the suppression of the rebellion, and conducted a summary of Yulin's suppression of the rebellion. After the conclusion was made, Prince Liu Yang convened the ministers to have a big discussion on the issue of agriculture and business. In this way, we can unify our thinking and strengthen the basic national policy of paying equal attention to agriculture and business.
Governing the country is like this, with constant contradictions and numerous problems, which often arise only when the gourd is pressed and the ladle rises. With a huge empire, there are more problems, but no matter what, the overall situation is still under control, and the basic rule of the empire is still stable.
(End of chapter)
