There was a great drought in the summer of the sixth year of light and the sixth

In August, the locusts started in Puyang, and in the middle of the day, the 37 counties of the Central Plains Division, Yan, Henan, Xu, Hebei, and Qingdao were affected.

Caused by the drought locusts, there was no harvest of grains, and hundreds of thousands of families left their homes to find food elsewhere.

——Zhongshan, Jizhou

Zhongshan County is located in the southwest of Zhuo County, and it is the closest county to Youzhou in Jizhou, so Lin Huan and others set this place as a meeting place.

Lin Hai looked at a crawling yellow-brown locust at his feet, and trampled him to death with a kick of anger, which made his heart feel better.

As far as the eye can see, the whole land is full of crawling and feasting locusts, which makes people upset to watch.

"Although we are here to recruit displaced people, we didn't expect that Jizhou has reached this point, Zhongshan is already a light place, and there are still so many locusts." Lin Hai looked at Lin Huan and said, "Daddy, now you can't buy food anywhere, are you still recruiting?" ”

As early as the beginning of the drought, the great tribes in various places began to hoard grain, and when the locusts rose, the price of grain had tripled and could not stop.

To be precise, it should not be possible to buy it at all.

In fact, the locusts eat not the current grain, but the grain of next year, so the people still have grain in their homes, but these grain stocks will be planted until next spring, but they will not wait for the harvest next autumn.

But because they can still suffer, so the grain merchants everywhere are waiting, waiting for the people's grain stocks to be eaten up, at that time, the price in their hands is not as simple as tripling now, it is really if you want your land, you want your land, and those who want you want your people.

Every catastrophe is a catastrophe for ordinary people, but for these clans, it is a gluttonous feast.

Even in later generations, such things are still common.

"Recruit, not only to recruit, but also to recruit a little more, they follow us, there is still a way to live, wait here, you can only starve to death!" Lin Huan turned around twice with his hands behind his back, and then said, "Zhongshan has grain, but in the hands of those big clans, the Zhen family is the head of the Zhongshan family, I will visit tomorrow, and if it is necessary to sell grain to me!" ”

Zhongshan Zhen's family, is also from the Western Han Dynasty handed down a hundred years of family, its ancestor for the Western Han Dynasty Taibao Zhen Han, hereditary two thousand stones, although not as good as the generation of three princes of Hongnong Yang and Runan Yuan, but in Jizhou, but also the top wealthy.

At this time, the head of the Zhen family is Zhen Yi, now Cai Ling of Runan County, Zhen Yi has three sons and five daughters, the eldest son died early, he is not there, and the second son Zhen Yan is the master of the family, Zhen Yan was raised to filial piety at a young age, but he has not yet held an official position.

Due to the generation of 2,000 stones, accumulated over time, the Zhen family has tens of thousands of acres of fertile land in the entire Jizhou, and there are thousands of servant tenants.

"Then the Zhen family's generational minister, will you meet us?" Lin Hu is no longer the mountain boy of the past, he already knows that these families and the people of the mountains and fields like himself are two worlds.

"These thousands of people are waiting for us to buy food, and we will see them if we don't see them, no... No, the old man knelt in front of their door! ”

Lin Huan himself is also from a family, he knows too well what those people from the family think of the common people, in Youzhou, he Lin Huan can use Ma Qiang's name to make people give three points, but here, it can't.

And after recruiting displaced people, the local people will be reduced, and as soon as the people are reduced, there will be fewer people in the land, and the tenants will have a choice, so they will take the opportunity to ask for rent reduction, so the local family does not approve of Lin Huan and others recruiting displaced people to Youzhou at all, and they did not stop it because it is now a disaster year.

For these families, what they want to see most is that because of the disaster, the people give them all the fields, and then they do not flee, and honestly wait until the disaster is over to serve them as slaves and tenants.

Well, it's really fun to think about.

"Old Lin, there are two gentlemen over there who ask to see you."

I don't know when it started, the five elders of Dasong Village are all called so-and-so elders, and it seems that Ma Qiang said that he was respectful.

Lin Huan looked, only to see two people standing outside, both of them were thirty or forty years old, one was wearing a Taoist robe, extremely thin, although wearing clothes, he could see that the ribs were prominent, but he did not wear a yellow scarf, it can be seen that he was not a Taiping Taoist, and the other was wearing short clothes, like an old farmer, but Lin Huan judged at a glance that this person was just a person dressed as a person in the mountains and wilderness.

"Please, no, I'll go meet you."

Although he didn't know who these two people were, Lin Huan still took the initiative to greet them, and when he went out, he was not surprised by many people.

After the three of them met the ceremony, Lin Huan asked, "In Xia Guangyang Lin Huan, I don't know what the two of you are looking for me?" ”

The two also looked at each other, and the old farmer arched his hand and said, "Old man Zhang Zhen, I heard that Mr. is sleepy, so I came to solve it." ”

"Coincidentally, the beginning of poverty is also here for this." Another Taoist priest looked at Zhang Zhen with a smile and said, "Isn't it Zhang Zang, a famous man from the giant deer?" I heard that you are proficient in the art of weft, could it be that you are here like the poor road? ”

"Master Ganxian, the old man has also heard of it." Zhang Zhen said with a smile and stroked his beard, but there was no kindness in his eyes.

Lin Huan looked at the two of them laughing at each other, but he felt a little bit like a narrow road.

Lin Huan coughed, and then said, "I am indeed sleepy in the next place, this time the old man came to Jizhou to recruit displaced people, in order to relieve the suffering of the displaced people, I wanted to buy food on the spot in Jizhou, but I didn't expect that there was no food to buy everywhere, even if I recruited people, there was no food, and I went to Youzhou to starve, if the two gentlemen have a way to solve this matter, please help me!" ”

"Zhongshan businessmen, famous all over the world, Youzhou is short of grain, so most of the Jizhou grain is also transported to Zhongshan for resale, it can be said that Jizhou grain, half of the family in Zhongshan, and Zhongshan's grain, half of the Zhen family, the Zhen family is said to have sold the jewelry left by the ancestors this year, and it is not easy to want the Zhen family to take out the grain." Zhang Zhen stroked his beard and said with a smile, "I studied in Taixue when I was a teenager, and I was an old friend of the Zhen family. ”

"There's no need to go through the hassle." Gan Shi snorted and said, "The Zhen family's grain is the way to take trouble, as long as you only say a few words, you can say that it will give you food, why do you need money and face?" If you want to be poor, we will accept his food, and that is to give him face. ”

Gan Shi's words made Lin Huan and Yu Wei both frown, feeling that Gan Shi was talking big, and others understood that they wanted to take the opportunity to make a lot of money, how could they send food for free.

"If you don't believe me, you can wait for me to go to Zhen's for a trip, but if I really say that Zhen's will send food, I want you to promise me one thing on behalf of your Mr. Ma, can you?"

"What?" Lin Huan said with some suspicion: "What do you say first, if it hurts heaven and reason, how can I agree for Ma Lang?" ”

"I heard that Ma Qiang is a hidden sect, there is a secret book, I don't ask for anything else, I just want to read the secret book for three days, how about it?" Gan Shi finished speaking, then looked at Zhang Cun and said, "Old Master Zhang, don't you tell me, didn't you come here to take a look at that secret book?" ”

Zhang Zhen blushed, stroked his beard and didn't speak, he originally wanted to wait until it was resolved, but now he was stabbed by Gan Shi, but he was a little shy.