On July 28, Wang Rui of Changshe County sent a message to Xuchang, saying that there seemed to be groups of displaced people from Henan County in the county.

On 30 July, Wang Rui again sent a message to Xuchang and determined that there were more than 1,000 displaced people in Henan County.

On the third day of August, Wang Rui sent someone to Xuchang for the third time, saying that the number of displaced people in Henan County in Changshe County was increasing one after another, and the number had increased to nearly 3,000.

On the same day, Zhang Jian, the warden of Henan County, sent someone to plead with Yingchuan County for assistance.

The envoy came to the county guard mansion and asked to see the county governor Chen Lang.

When it came to neighboring counties, Chen Lang naturally didn't dare to make decisions without permission, so he went to the back mansion to ask Li Junshou for instructions.

"Henan County wants to borrow grain?"

After learning the beginning and end from Chen Lang's mouth, Li Junshou also felt a headache, after all, he was also short of food in Yingchuan County.

He asked Chen Lang, "How much grain is left in the city?" ”

Chen Lang said hesitantly: "What is eaten in the city now is the old grain piled up in the cellar, and there are about fifty or sixty thousand stone ......."

"That's all there is left?"

Li Junshou asked with a frown.

You must know that for a city with as many as 10,000 households, a mere 50,000 or 60,000 stones can only last for a month at most.

Seeing Li Junshou frowning, Chen Lang hurriedly said: "Don't worry, my lord, there is a businessman named 'Chen Hu' in the city, who is persuading the wealthy families in the city to sell the surplus grain to the market and assist the government in stabilizing grain prices......"

"This is a visionary."

Li Junshou nodded, and then asked, "What is the price of rice in the city now?" ”

Chen Lang hesitated for a moment and said in a low voice, "It has risen to three hundred and sixty yuan and one stone." ”

Hearing this, Li Junshou frowned deeply, and he said in a deep voice: "You go to contact this Chen Hu, in the name of the government, negotiate with the rich households in the city, and ask each family to lend the surplus grain to the government, and return it after the autumn harvest." …… In addition, the officials in the city should also set an example, lend the surplus grain from their families to the government, or flow into the market, and be sure to keep the price of rice below 350 yuan. ”

"Yes."

Chen Lang hugged his fists, and then asked, "What about Lord Zhang Jian ......from Henan County?"

Li Junshou sighed melancholy and said: "If you write a letter to him in my name, just say that my Yingchuan County is powerless, at least until the autumn harvest, can squeeze out some grain to reinforce Henan......"

Speaking of this, he seemed to think of something, and instructed Chen Lang: "Have you ever sent someone to Kunyang, Runan, Xiangcheng, and Yangzhai counties to estimate the harvest?" ”

Chen Lang arched his hand and said, "Don't worry, my lord, a few days earlier, I had already sent Chief Shi Cui Zhi to the four counties with a number of field officials. ”

"That's good."

Li Junshou nodded, and then seemed to think of something again, and spoke again: "When you go back, remember to tell Zhou Hu that he must watch the farmland in the three counties of Kunyang, and must not be destroyed by the rebels......

Chen Lang immediately said with relief: "Don't worry, my lord, there are 8,000 soldiers guarding Kunyang." ”

However, Li Junshou was still full of worries, after all, as far as he knew, there were tens of thousands of rebels in the Yexian area.

After bidding farewell to Li Junshou, Chen Lang personally went to the Governor's Office and talked with Zhao Yu about the issue of food.

At this time, Zhao Yu knew that Li Junshou had donated 1,000 stone rice to the government.

Some people may say that Li Min, as a county guard and a county guard, is from the Li family, and must have the privilege of 'eating eup', and now Xuchang is in a difficult situation of food shortage, and only donates 1,000 stone of rice, which is stingy.

But in reality, who will hoard tens of thousands of stone rice if they have nothing to do, at most hoard enough food for everyone in the house to eat for a year and a half, just like Zhao Yu's Duwei Cao Mansion, there are only 600 stone rice in the house at the moment, and there is not as much as the Li County Shou donated.

The rest of the wealth and jewels cannot be eaten.

In view of this, Zhao Yu also nodded secretly: That Li Junshou is still a good person.

Just as Zhao Yu and Chen Lang were talking, Gong Cao joined the army Xun Yi hurriedly came to Zhao Yu's room, saw Chen Lang, a trace of surprise flashed on his face, and said happily: "Chen Juncheng is also there?" It's good that I don't have to go to the county guard's house. ”

Hearing this, Zhao Yu and Chen Lang both felt a little strange.

Seeing this, Xun Yi sighed: "There are more and more hungry people in the city......"

It is not surprising that Xuchang was attacked by the rebels last year, and in the spring of this year, the city was again surrounded by the rebels, which caused many people in the city to lose their livelihoods, except for a few people who could barely make ends meet, and most of the others either sold their goods for money, or went to eat military rations - this is also the reason why Xuchang was able to recruit more than 40,000 county soldiers.

And the problem is that relying on selling goods in exchange for money to buy rice will not last long, and enlisting in the army, although you can support your family with military pay when you are alive, but after you die in battle, you can't last long by relying on the pension issued by the government.

No, as time went on, more and more people in the city could not afford the price of rice, which was as high as 350 yuan a stone, which led to more and more hungry people.

However, Zhao Yu had already expected this, he asked Xun Yi and Chen Zu to form a 'brotherhood' in Xuchang City, not entirely to expand his power to Xuchang, on the other hand, he also wanted to let these hungry people eat a big pot of rice through the brotherhood and not starve to death.

Take Kunyang as an example, Kunyang's situation was not more optimistic than Xuchang's, but he did not starve to death, because the county government paid the rations of all the people in the county, and the condition was that these people had to work in those workshops.

"Food prices remain high, and if this continues, there will be more and more hungry people in the city, and the brotherhood will not be able to afford ......"

Saying that, Xun Yi turned his head to look at Chen Lang and suggested, "Chen Juncheng, why don't we try to learn from Kunyang's practice." ”

Of course, Chen Lang knows what Kunyang does.

Kunyang's practice is that the people of the whole county do things for the county government, and the county government is responsible for the rations of all the county citizens.

Although the price of rice in Kunyang City is as high as 350 yuan, it has almost no impact on the people of the county, because the people have food and will not buy it at all.

This led to the closure of rice shops in Kunyang, and eventually because the county government did not allow grain to flow out of the county, they were forcibly seized, so that those rice merchants could only sell to the county government and go elsewhere to make a living—if they did not sell and wanted to be smuggled away, those strong men with black scarves tied to their heads would immediately visit the door with gifts such as knives and guns.

"I've also thought about it......

After hearing Xun Yi's words, Chen Lang glanced at Zhao Yu and said in embarrassment: "But at that time, there were only fifty or sixty thousand people in Kunyang, and thirty percent of them were soldiers, and I, Xuchang, used to have more than 100,000 people, and even now, the population is more than 80,000 people......

"The big families in the city have food." Xun Yi said with a calm face.

Seeing that his tone was a little abnormal, Zhao Yu asked strangely: "Xun joined the army, isn't it that things are not going well?" ”

"Hmm."

Xun Yi said with a calm face: "Several families and businessmen who are good friends with Chen Hu and Chen Laojia are willing to lend a sum of grain to the government, but the rest, obviously there are thousands or even thousands of grains piled up in the cellar of their mansion, they just refuse to borrow it, what to say, in order to deal with the unexpected, I really want to send someone to rob him......"

“……”

Chen Lang glanced at Xun Yi in astonishment.

Xun Yi in his impression would not say such a thing.

Just when he was surprised, Zhao Yu said with a smile: "That's easy to do, I'll ask Liu Tu to help you, there are five hundred people under him." ”

Without waiting for Xun Yi to speak, Chen Lang panicked and hurriedly dissuaded him.

He knew that this Captain Zhou could really do it.

He hurriedly said: "Lieutenant to calm his anger, join the army to calm his anger, this is good, I will think of a way to do this." In addition, I asked the county guard to allocate a batch of grain to the brotherhood. …… Now it is August, as long as we stay up for another month, when the four counties of Kunyang and Yangzhai have received grain, I believe that this situation will change. ”

“…… All right. ”

Xun Yi let out a long breath, obviously what he just said was also angry.

On the ninth day of August, the county magistrate Shi Cuizhi, with the assistance of the county officials of Kunyang, Runan, and Xiangcheng, roughly estimated the harvest situation of the three counties this year.

In all fairness, the counties of Xiangcheng and Runan are not large, the counties are not large, and the cultivated land is naturally not too much, the former has 180,000 mu, while the latter is slightly more, about 200,000 mu.

Compared with the two counties, the original cultivated land area of Kunyang County was smaller, and it was not until last year to this year that Zhao Yu ordered the reclamation army to reclaim nearly seventy percent of the new fields, and only then did he catch up with the two counties, which was about 230,000 mu.

The three counties have a total of 600,000 acres.

And how much grain can these 600,000 acres of land produce?

One acre of thin fields is less than one stone, and Futian may have two stones, according to conservative estimates, the grain production is between 600,000 and 900,000 stones, and the compromise is 700,000 stones.

A few days later, the county governor Streichi went to Yangzhai to inspect the cultivation of the local fields.

Yangzhai is different from small counties such as Kunyang and Runan, it is one of the few large counties in Yingchuan County, with a cultivated area of more than 300,000 mu, and this year it was fortunate not to be harassed and destroyed by the rebels, even if it is conservatively estimated, it can harvest almost 400,000 stones.

The sum of the grain production of these four counties is almost less than 1.2 million stones.

Although the government of Yingchuan County can only harvest half of the land rent, that is, 600,000 stones, as long as this batch of grain is not lost to other counties, this 1.2 million stone of grain can probably feed 6.7 million people for a year, and this will feed about two-thirds of the population of Yingchuan County.

And what about the remaining one-third of the population?

Aren't there still rebels?

You must know that one-third of the land in Yingchuan County has fallen into the hands of the rebels, such as Yanling, Zhaoling, Dingling, Linying, etc., don't look at the rebels as a rebel army, but it will not let the people of these counties starve to death, after all, this is also related to the reputation of the rebels.

In other words, as long as the current counties of Yingchuan County can survive the autumn harvest in peace and stability, and the county military and the rebels are not fighting, the grain production in Yingchuan County can basically meet its own needs, and there may be a slight surplus - after all, these figures are only conservative estimates.

This is already a very gratifying achievement for a county where nearly one-third of the county has delayed the agricultural work of the year, and Rao is Li Junshou was also relieved after learning about this incident. [PS: These numbers make my head hurt, and I don't want to count them again if I don't have to. 】

Finally, just when the surplus grain in Xuchang City was almost exhausted, Yingchuan County was about to usher in the autumn harvest.

And this also made the relationship between the various county armies and county armies in Yingchuan County and the rebels tense.

Both sides invariably stationed troops on the borders of their respective occupied areas to prevent the other side from taking advantage of the opportunity to grab food.