As the old saying goes, there is no pie in the sky.

That's because no one in heaven is responsible for distributing pies.

What Wu Xiaoqing has to do now is to become the person who makes the cake.

Although King Elise was a madman, none of the ministers he appointed were insane, and instead of being mad, they were all frightened by King Elis's madness and were very effective.

Wu Xiaoqing is now standing in front of the achievements accumulated in seven years after the finance minister took office. This is the vault of the royal city of Elis, the so-called treasury is not actually the gold that is put in it, the king of Elis is born in war, he knows very well that at a critical time, gold cannot save his life. His coffers were stocked with vast quantities of food, fodder, weapons, and armor.

When Wu Xiaoqing was on his first mission, he once went to grain and oil stores to wholesale grain, and he knew that the grain depots of many grain and oil stores were not small. According to Shen Changwen, in the warehouse of their university cafeteria, there are more piles of grain, and I heard that there are dozens of tons, enough for more than 100,000 people in the entire university town to eat for half a month. But compared to the huge warehouses he saw in front of him, the inventory in those warehouses seemed to be only at the level of "a little something".

Wu Xiaoqing didn't understand the unit of measurement in this era, and the search and rescue team didn't tell him - because he didn't understand it when he was told. All he knew was that he had climbed to the top of the granary, and when he looked over, he didn't see the edge of the grain.

"It's a shame...... A king has all the food in the world, and all of them have the disease of not being able to eat," Wu Xiaoqing shook his head and sighed, "It must be that he did too many bad things when he was young." ”

"Your Excellency? What are you talking about? The Minister of Finance, who had been following Wu Xiaoqing, was said to be a son-in-law of the king, and when he heard that Wu Xiaoqing seemed to be speaking, he immediately came over.

"I didn't tell you, I said to myself," the search and rescue team asked, "and what is the price of food now?" ”

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said a number, and the search and rescue team said: "This price is very good...... You don't have any money? ”

"Very good, for the summer harvest has just passed," said the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "and there is a great deal of money, but the king has ordered that a part be set aside for any military expenses that may be spent." ”

"Oh." The search and rescue team had talked to the king about this before, and knew that this part of the military budget was reserved for the defense of the two godstick sects, fearing that they would start war against him, the ungodly king, at any time - this was the biggest motivation for him to hoard food in the city.

"But the king has just told me that you don't have to keep this money, and go buy grain...... Buy as much as you can. Those who don't sell to you in the end, remember the address where they store their grain! ”

The Minister of Finance paid attention to Wu Xiaoqing's eyes, and there seemed to be no fluctuation. But he was keenly aware of the terrible meaning contained in this sentence.

If you can't afford it, you may have to grab it.

"Not yet," the search and rescue team seemed to be able to see the thoughts in his head, and explained directly, "If you don't let them sell it to others, you have to hold back all the grain of the people in the city, and not a grain of grain will be allowed to leave the city for half a month...... If necessary, these grain merchants can be promised high interest rates. ”

"Why do you need so much food?" The Chancellor of the Exchequer asked, "Now there is enough food that the king has asked me to save up enough to feed the whole city for three years of siege...... Although I have only been acquiring for less than two and a half years now. The Minister of Finance seems to understand that Wu Xiaoqing in front of him is now a big celebrity in front of His Majesty the Kingdom, for fear that he will go back and make some unpleasant little report to the king, just like the unlucky prince - now the whole city is speculating that the king will abolish the inheritance of the eldest prince just because there may be a feud between them, the "land god" and the great sun god.

"But these grains are used for the siege of the city...... if, the Minister of Finance paid attention to Wu Xiaoqing's face and made sure that there was no problem, before he hesitated to continue, "If it is only used to attract displaced people, I think it is completely more than enough." On the contrary, we can take advantage of the period of grain release to suppress the local grain price, so that they realize that we can't eat enough food, and when they lower the price, we will buy ......."

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is clearly a financial professional and has a clear understanding of the issue of food prices. The reality is also that they have so much grain at their disposal that they could have completely swayed the grain market - but.

But that's the conventional logic, that's based on the premise that there is enough time, to drive down food prices, to suppress confidence, to make covert purchases, to gamble against each other, and finally to collapse...... The whole series of operations is based on the premise of sufficient time, but they only have more than two months now, and within a month they have to prepare all the food and then set off, and it will take a month and a half to fight and migrate at the same time, and finally reach the mountain refuge zone in the south.

This is a top secret, even the king, they only told the king about it, and did not tell the king the specific time of the eruption. The people of this era have a big problem with their understanding of time, and in their opinion, it seems perfectly acceptable to besiege a city for two or three years...... If they heard that Wu Xiaoqing was going to take them to break through a country with hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in more than a month, they would definitely treat Wu Xiaoqing as a madman.

"Everything is done according to God's will." The search and rescue team obviously didn't intend to explain so much to the chancellor, it was still planned, and everything was in God's name. Since they can fight for God, it doesn't seem ridiculous to buy food desperately for God's sake at any price.

"And the specific measures for soup kitchens," the search and rescue team asked the Chancellor of Finance, "how much food are you going to feed people every day?" ”

The Chancellor of the Exchequer took out a handful of wheat from the grain bag next to him: "That's probably it." ”

The search and rescue team did not accuse him of anything, the amount he said, for normal people to eat, that is, the amount of a meal. If you want to eat for a day, you can barely maintain your calories. Not to mention that it is full of food, it is attractive to the homeless, and I am afraid that the beggars who are a little promisingly will not even look at it.

"When we came this time, we brought a lot of sugar," the search and rescue team asked the Chancellor to lead him to the sugar storage warehouse, and continued, "The amount of rice should be three times the amount you just had, and in addition, three spoonfuls of sugar should be added, and the wheat cake should be sweet for everyone to taste in their mouths." After finishing speaking, he also asked Wu Xiaoqing to personally take out a spoon and scoop a spoonful of sugar to the Minister of Finance to confirm the standard.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer's eyes widened as he looked at the amount of sugar, which he had thought was a special luxury for the royal family ever since the truckloads had been brought into the city. So much sugar, let alone eating, even King Elise had never seen it before. And now Wu Xiaoqing's meaning is to distribute these luxury goods to the common people to eat.

He opened his mouth in surprise and said, "But in this way, the treatment of the displaced people is better than that of the soldiers?" In that case......"

The search and rescue team continued to respond to his statement: "I know, so the treatment of soldiers should be greatly improved on this basis. Let you take the money to buy grain, first of all, the priority is to buy all the livestock. Pigs, sheep, cows, donkeys...... All domestic animals, except horses, were purchased and slaughtered. From today onwards, every soldier should be able to eat eggs and meat every day. ”

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has completely lost the ability to think: "At this rate, there is simply not enough meat...... I don't have enough money to buy so many ......."

"That's enough for a month, and after half a month, the oracle will carry enough gold," said the search and rescue team, "and I want you to assure me that in a month's time, there will not be a single domestic animal in the whole city of Elis, and that all the meat that can be eaten will only be seen in the army we are about to depart." ”

"What then?" The Chancellor of the Exchequer asked almost subconsciously.

"It's not something you should think about," the search and rescue team said, "and God will let you know when the time comes." ”

At that time, whether you know it or not, it will not matter so much, and everyone will be forced to join the team and hit the road.

The chancellor of the exchequer was very efficient, and if he talked at noon, in the evening, Wu Xiaoqing was at the gate of the city, where the gallows had been placed, and saw the newly laid soup kitchen.

The gallows have all been removed, and the bodies that were originally used for deterrence have been buried in the ground. It's just surprising that the clerk who was in charge of the medical list at the city gate was not unemployed, he was still in charge of the work in the same place, but the content of the work had changed from gallows for the dead to feeding the living.

Wu Xiaoqing didn't look closer, because if he got closer, there was no need to look at it at all. With their identity, as long as they get close, they must be good children who keep their heads down and do things honestly. So Wu Xiaoqing just took a telescope on the city wall and observed it carefully.

The problem is definitely there, and no problem is hell. The biggest problem itself is that no one believes that this is a place to eat for free, and no one realizes that this is the first communist canteen experimental base of this era. In the telescope lens, the clerk reclined on a chair, staggering, leisurely eating a cookie by himself, and behind him, several soldiers are also gobbling up hot cakes that have just come out of the pot. Their embarrassed appearance of eating made the passers-by only because this might be a new gathering place for the soldiers—no one dared to come and ask for food, even the most hungry beggars, knew to stay away from the soldiers with weapons, which was almost an instinct in this era.

According to the rules formulated by Wu Xiaoqing, someone should have told these soldiers and the clerk that they were just staff members here, not enjoyment personnel. Maybe someone told them, maybe they didn't, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter if you tell it or not, this kind of thing always happens.

It always has to be solved too.