Li Zuocai and Li Yuanliang caught the envoy of the Shu Domain. On the morning of the second day, Zhu Zhihan, Lu San, and his entourage, accompanied by the two of them and the soldiers led by Tan Fengxuan, drove to the shore of Lishui in the south of Lizhou City.

Flags are scattered on the riverbank, and the ferry boat that has come to greet it has already stopped at the pier. GAO FU WAS DRESSED IN THE REGULAR CLOTHES OF A PYTHON ROUND-NECKED EUNUCH AND WORE A TRUE GREEN CREPE (ZHOU) YARN THREE-MOUNTAIN HAT, WELCOMING THE HEAD OF THE TEAM.

The elated Li Zuocai ignored his age, was busy with affairs, and squeezed into the boat that Zhu Zhihan was on, and put Gao Fuliang, the envoy sent by Zhu Zhihan, aside.

Li Zuocai entered school in his thirties and was promoted in his forties, and now he has reached the age of knowing the destiny of heaven, but he has not yet become a leader. It is not his wish to seek a state and county official. Li Zuocai's family has a store in Songzi and Jin City. Since the news of the defeat of the thieves by the officials and troops of Shu reached Huguang last year, he has been closely following the situation in Shu.

There is a big river in Songzi County, named Songzi River. This north leads to Jingjiang River and South Dajin City, and directly enters Dongting Lake. The goods in and out of Lizhou are connected to Jingzhou through this waterway, which is two or three hundred miles closer than the detour to Yueyang Dongting Lake, so the merchants from the south to the north in Songzi County are very dense and very well-informed.

In late October last year, his family's shop hosted a leather merchant from Chengdu. The merchant occasionally revealed in casual conversations that he had witnessed the prince of Shu leading hundreds of officials to the Duanli Gate in Huangchengba, Chengdu, and unveiled the portrait of Emperor Taizu Gao.

Li Zuocai's descendants are naturally sensitive to politics, and they immediately understood the many meanings behind this move.

Soon, the Shu clan gave the Yinhua Domain, and the king of Huayang, who sang and sang harmony with him, invited him to enter the palace to ask for advice, and Li Zuocai immediately took this opportunity to establish a relationship with the young lord of Shu. Last night, the envoy promised him in person that he would present his Jingxiang strategy of defense to the prince's imperial tour, and asked him to help him in local affairs.

After many years of hard work, once you have fulfilled your wishes, and your life's ambitions have a platform, isn't this worth celebrating?

……

In winter, the water is dry, and the Lishui River is not wide.

Zhu Zhihan stood on the bow of the ship, facing the wind by the river. Looking north, as far as the eye can see, thousands of miles are flat.

In such a fertile land, there are even homeless beggars! Zhu Zhihan couldn't help but sigh secretly, the bad state affairs are all bad on the traitors in the DPRK and China.

Shizi said it well, the people are a knife in their hearts, and the officials force the people to rebel, which has been the case since ancient times. If you don't clean up people's hearts, in order to operate for a long time, sooner or later, the women in the gold and silver houses will all fall into the pockets of thieves!

It's no wonder that his heart is heavy today.

Last night he flickered and succeeded, and he was overjoyed. A trip to the Six Nations can be a leopard's tail. He even guessed that when the scenery returned to Shu, the prince would summon him in the carrier hall handed down by his ancestors, and add him to the rank of knight, and from then on, he would soar.

But in the middle of the night, an urgent letter came from Changde. The person who sent the letter he knew was Chen Ying, the head of Qiu's official entourage and the former prince's guard.

Chen Ying came in person, there must be something important.

Sure enough, Qiu Daguan said in the letter that the disaster victims in Anhui were everywhere, like hell on earth. After careful consideration, Qiu Daguan decided to move all the victims to Sichuan, thinking that he would be the capital of the prince's business. The victims of the disaster will change trains in Yiling, and Nanzhili is already a land without food, so he gave Zhu Zhihan a glorious and arduous task: to raise food in Huguang at any cost.

How much food can you raise? At least 500,000 victims will be guaranteed for a year, that is, 1.5 million stone of grain!

At that time, Zhu Zhihan took advantage of the light of the lantern to read the letter in the cold courtyard of the small temple.

One and a half million stones!

Reading this, he was poured by the cold wind, and his body suddenly trembled. Nowadays, the grain price in Huguang is slightly lower than that in Sichuan, but in this season of grain shortage in the depths of winter, the price of two taels and one stone is also wanted.

One and a half million stone of grain is three million taels of silver, and how can he have so much silver? Do you want to deceive and open a stack of empty bills of exchange that cannot be cashed?

Even if a short bill of exchange is issued, it is not known whether there is enough food in the market. Otherwise, you can't buy it with silver!

Chen Ying saw that Zhu Gongzi was trembling and knew that he was frightened by Qiu Daguan's order, so he reminded him that he was also from a homeless background and knew the minimum food consumption of a person.

The government gives grain, how can the Qiu officials, who were born rich and noble, be so generous?

One person is half a liter, and one is released in two days, and he is an absolute good official. How can a person need three stones of grain a year?

If it is distributed according to the government's standard, one person only needs one stone a year, and the food demand can be reduced to 500,000 stone.

Besides, how can there be a year's worth of food relief? Half a year and six months would be good. In this way, the grain demand can be reduced to 250,000 stones.

However, the number of the 500,000 victims Qiu Daguan only estimated that if the victims in Shandong, Henan, Jiangxi, and even Huguang heard that there was grain in Sichuan, they would have to flee 501,000 million. If you want to be sure, you still have to prepare a million-stone grain insurance.

Zhu Zhihan sent an envoy to the Six Kingdoms, and the treasurer of the Qian Zhuang was just a cover for him by the prince, so that he could find a reason to meet with them on the territory of the vassal king, negotiate, and sow all kinds of seeds by the way.

Therefore, buying grain is not Zhu Zhihan's task at all. The real treasurer of the money bank also implemented the agreement reached between Zhu Zhihan and Jingwangfu in Qizhou City. In Huguang to buy grain, there is also a grain store in Shu Wangfu in charge.

Even if Zhu Zhihan took the 300,000 stone grain of the Jing Wangfu and the 100,000 stone of the Ji Wangfu on behalf of the Shu Wangfu, it was just an expedient measure to suck the silver of the king of Huguang into the money village.

Of course, Qiu Daguan was clear about these situations, but Qiu Daguan directly gave the order to Zhu Zhihan's head.

This is the trust in him, and it is also the biggest test for him. If this is done well, he may ascend to heaven in one step; If he does not do well, starve to death a large number of victims, or even provoke a popular uprising and disrupt Huguang, then his previous credit will be written off.

What to do?

Zhu Zhihan looked at the dilapidated Lizhou City in front of him, listened to the sound of the rushing water in his ears, and once again straightened out his thoughts.

Although Qiu Daguan's decision was difficult, it was undoubtedly correct.

These hundreds of thousands of victims cannot be left to the thieves, and it is impossible to count on the government to provide relief.

Recruiting displaced people as soldiers in troubled times is an old method handed down by Emperor Taizu Gao. Liu Xuande would rather lose his two wives and a dou than give up the people who fled with him, and the reason is the same.

It's just where to get food?

The 100,000 stone negotiated at the Jiwang Mansion in Changsha has not yet been paid, and of course it has not been loaded into the ship; The Liaowang line of Jingzhou can squeeze out 20,000 stones, and it will reach the sky; As for whether the two mansions of King Chu and King Rong are willing to sell grain, they don't know at all, and they hope to put all the pressure on King Jing's 300,000 stones.

Even if everything goes smoothly in the purchase and transportation of grain, there is still a shortage of 200,000 stone in the rations of the 500,000 victims.

200,000 stones!

It's not a number, it's 100,000 lives!

Waiting for Sichuan to arrive?

Zhu Zhihan immediately dismissed this unrealistic idea. Only 100,000 stone of grain consumed so many ships in Shudi. I don't know how many of those ships will be able to return to Sichuan, and by the time they carry grain from Chengdu to Yiling, most of them will have already starved to death.

So is it possible to let the victims walk to Sichuan to eat? Zhu Zhihan also denied this idea. The Three Gorges area is sparsely populated, there is nowhere to buy food, and the victims are weak, so if they are not fully prepared, they will be asked to walk thousands of miles, and they will lose food on the road, not to mention, I don't know how many people will die!

There is a food shortage, and one solution is to increase purchases. In the land of Huxiang, those who have more food are nothing more than the two kings of Ji and Rong. It's just that these two kings are not easy to fool, and if they don't see real money, they will definitely not get a grain of grain.

King Jing exchanged the acceptance bill for about 700,000 taels of silver. Most of the silver was originally planned to be shipped back to Sichuan, and a small part was left in Huguang as the capital of the bank. Without the will of the Son, do not move lightly until the time is absolutely necessary.

Another solution is to organize local production for the affected population. Between now and the autumn harvest, there are only eight months in total. If 500,000 acres of land can be cultivated with 150,000 people, and 150,000 stone of food rations can be consumed, one-third of the saved rations will be used as seed grain; The remaining 350,000 people returned to Sichuan for four months to eat, four buckets per person, and only 140,000 stone was consumed.

It is not possible to transport grain, nor can it be used to buy grain, the grain is only 300,000 stones, and Zhu Zhihan silently counted all the conditions.

Suddenly, he realized that he had only one choice to really solve the problem: that is, to cultivate the lake at his feet! And if you want to cultivate Huguang, you must first start from the city of Lizhou in front of you.

If Lizhou can accept 150,000 victims, and the rest of Huguang can accept another 100,000 victims, the remaining 250,000 victims will have time and food to walk back to Sichuan calmly!

The prerequisite for accepting disaster victims is to have land to cultivate, even if it is one person and one acre!

How do you get the fields?

He was thinking about his thoughts, and when he saw the joy floating on Li Zuocai's face, he couldn't help but feel irritable.

Li Zuocai saw that Zhu Zhihan was sometimes staring at the city, sometimes staring at the river and was stunned, thinking that he was observing the terrain of mountains and rivers, and his heart was full of admiration, so he took the initiative to step forward and introduce:

"Zhu Gongzi, this Lizhou city stands on a plain, and there is no danger to defend at all. Fortunately, there is a water in the south of the city to cover, and the southwest is related to the mountains as a barrier, and the other three sides have to dig soil as a moat.

It's just that this Lishui temperament is the most changeable. Autumn and winter are gentle like small jasper, and spring and summer are violent like village shrews. A torrential rain in the upper mountains brought mud and sand down, and a large field was silted up in a few years. This kind of field is called an EI field, which can grow rice, wheat, and cotton, and is the most fertile.

It's just that there are pros and cons to everything. Although the polders are fertile, flood control is quite laborious, and huge amounts of silver are required to build long causeways. Otherwise, the flood season will come, and the country will be everywhere. Last fall, a YUAN in the lower reaches of Anxiang County was hit by an overnight flood. In the morning, people on the embankment saw that it had become a vast ocean, and the people and animals in the embankment were all fish and turtles!

Alas, Li Zhou is named because of water, born because of water, and disaster because of water. Just this city wall was collapsed, the moat was silted, and the Ming Dynasty did not know how much it would be for three hundred years! ”

The human brain is the strongest city, and it is difficult for others to know what they think and think.

Li Zuocai told Zhu Zhihan about the geography of Lizhou, but Zhu Zhihan quickly turned his brain to the fields and grain that he urgently needed at present. Since Li Zuocai has taken the initiative to take refuge in the palace, Zhu Zhihan did not bend with him, and directly said his thoughts:

"If the prince wants to keep the land of the clan, this Lizhou city must be defended. The four cities of Lizhou, Anxiang, Shimen and Cili, the city is not strong, the road is not dangerous, and they are all easy to attack and difficult to defend. Hundreds of thousands of thieves come, how many people will it take to defend here? Three counties and four cities in one state, at least 5,000 elite soldiers, plus 10,000 strong people, can be sure. If the thieves cannot attack the city, they will use the siege instead, so that the food in the city will ......"

As soon as Zhu Zhihan said the thief, Li Zuocai became nervous. The gentry's belongings are in the city, and even if people run away, most of the real estate still can't run away. In the final analysis, these gentry were as afraid of thieves as Zhu Zhiyu, the king of Huayang.

"With the addition of the people, if calculated according to one stone of grain per person, the state city will store 50,000 grains, and the other three counties will each save 15,000, a total of 100,000. The Acropolis of Jiuxi is important, and it is necessary to prepare 20,000 grains. Li Zuocai replied, "With this amount of grain in storage, you can hold on for three months." ”

"The number of 120,000 is the bottom limit, and without this number, the city will not be guaranteed." Zhu Zhihan continued to guide Li Zuocai, "I don't know if Mr. Li has a way to raise it?" ”

"Could it be that the Shu Wangfu intends to entrust Lizhou to the contemptible people?" Li Zuocai felt a burst of ecstasy in his heart. He resisted his restless emotions, calculated carefully, and then replied: "The Huayang Royal Mansion may raise 70,000 yuan, and the gentry can also raise 50,000 yuan in order to protect their families." ”

"What if the gentry refuse to give their food?"

Li Zuocai heard Zhu Zhihan's question and sneered, "In the land of one state and three counties, even 50,000 stones are refused!" He doesn't want to keep his family, so why should he return home? When the thieves arrive, drive them out of the city! ”

It seems that Li Zuocai, as a prominent family in Lizhou, still has some influence in the government and the gentry. Otherwise, it would be impossible for him to speak of force against the other gentry.

"Good! Mr. Li has the means! Zhu Zhihan praised Li Zuocai, but the next sentence immediately changed tone:

"It's just the 70,000 stones in Huayang Palace, and my son has to be transferred to help the victims, and Mr. Li can't count it into the city to store grain!"

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